Damaged Billionaire Daddy Bear - Leela Ash Page 0,2

exchanges already. If we don’t open up a bit, suspicion will only grow.”

Connor scowled as he protested, “Fine, you’ve made your point.” Then, after a brief pause and apparent mental change of gears, he quickly continued, ”And I do mix well with the five of you…” As his voice trailed off with uncharacteristic uncertainty, he looked around at all their faces and added, “Don’t I?”

The guarded question carried a faint thread of vulnerability beneath it, and Theodore paused. Connor had always been the ex-military sort and had always had a gruff personality and hard exterior. But, beneath it all, Theodore had continually thought he hid a very wounded heart and a seriously bruised soul. Sometimes, he wondered if things would have been different if none of them were shifters; if none of them had to hide whom they were; if none of them had ever had to watch their loved ones die.

But all of that would have meant no Exotic Rescue, and probably, for him, no Carla. Thinking of his ten-year-old daughter made the tightening sensation in his chest ease. Carla was his reason for living. She was life itself, as far as he was concerned. Her mother, Mahira, had cut his heart into tiny bits when she up and left them both. She had been the only woman he had opened his heart to. But he had been naïve, blinded by her charms and beauty. It had taken a little while for him to wake up, but ultimately, he realized she just took and took, and gave nothing to him in return. The only good thing he had gotten from her was his precious child. He had his ex on a pedestal all right, especially after their daughter arrived. The arrival of the gift of Carla made his world complete. But, in the end, nothing had been enough for her; not his love, not his money, and certainly not their kid. Mahira had taken a knife to what was left of his heart and ripped it out when she left, and the life he had crumbled like the house of cards it had been.

He had grown to cherish just three things; his daughter, Exotic Rescue and the Pack. They were his only reason for living and they made him want to get up in the morning. A slight smile canted one side of his lip as he thought about how wrong the media got it when they painted him so one-dimensionally as the reclusive billionaire who cared only about his properties, jets and wealth. He would trade all that in a heartbeat to protect his daughter and his pack.

His gaze cut to Connor’s. “We’ve always got your back. Nevertheless, you should realize that laying low, indefinitely, isn’t gonna cut it. The exchange program is going to take place, and that’s final. Besides, Carla loves meeting new people. It would be good for her, and the rest of the kids, to get new playmates, and it would certainly be good for the town to get new visitors.”

“Fine, since you’re so set on it, have it your way. I just hope you don’t regret it, Teddy Bear,” Connor grumbled as he strode from the room and out the door.

‘Teddy Bear’ was the nickname his friends sometimes used to tease him, and it never failed to rile him. Jonathan had come up with the name when they were kids and they had turned into their shifter forms for the first time. He’d looked at Theodore in his shifter bear form and whistled, “Guess you’re Teddy the Bear, now, huh?”

And the name had stuck; all five of them called him Teddy Bear when they wanted to jerk his chain, but only when they were alone.

Connor’s departure sent some sort of signal and the rest of the pack began to depart until there was only Theodore left in his large office overlooking the sprawling grounds of Exotic Rescue.

Theodore sighed as Connor’s parting words echoed in his subconscious. He sincerely hoped he didn’t regret it too. Privately, he acknowledged that any number of things could go wrong. He would just have to personally keep an eye on all the exchange staff, to make sure none of them put one toe out of line or went so far as to stumble across the secret of Exotic Rescue or the mineral deposit, despite how guarded it was. He hadn’t spent so many years and all that money creating the animal sanctuary as a front and building a