Free Bane: Trillionaire Shifter Club Book One by Rosette Bolter

 
    CHAPTER ONE
     
     
    He didn’t look like much when Harper
first saw him. Just another one of the dozen tall, brooding strangers that were
in the room that night. It didn’t matter that he’d had his eye on her from the
moment she walked in, or that any minute now he was going to come over and talk
to her. She wasn’t looking for a guy tonight. She didn’t want to talk to him,
smile at him or listen to what he had to say. There was nothing he could say.
Tonight was Friday, and on Sunday she was getting married to the man of her
dreams, Joshua Lloyd.
    “Stalk-err,”
Harper’s friend Cordelia Ambrose murmured, stirring the olive in her cocktail.
    Harper
resisted the urge to look behind her.
    “Is it the
same one as before?” she asked.
    “Yep,”
Cordelia said. “He’s made eye contact with me too. He doesn’t even care that I
know he’s staring.”
    “Don’t look,”
Harper advised. “You’re going to encourage him.”
    Cordelia
glanced away a moment. “This is why I never come to places like this. Every guy
in here is single and trying to get laid.”
    “I’m sure a
few of them have girlfriends,” Harper said.
    “And how many
of their girlfriends are here?”
    Harper picked
her cocktail up from the table and raised it. She took a few sips.
    “Okay, he’s
gone now,” Cordelia murmured. “I think I finally scared him off.”
    Harper put
the drink down and leaned back in her armchair. The DJ downstairs turned the
music up and there was a wave of applause from the clubbers on the dance floor.
A couple of men in suits walked past their table without glancing at either of
them. Harper saw Cordelia’s gaze move after them.
    “You sure
you’re not looking to pick up tonight?”
    “What?”
Cordelia muttered, returning her focus. “No, I just, thought I recognized one
of them.”
    “Really?”
    “Yeah, some
guy from high school I used to hang with. Looking pretty sharp now.”
    “I never see
anyone from those days anymore,” Harper confessed.
    “What about
online?”
    “Well, yeah,
I sort of meant in the real world.”
    Cordelia
finished her drink. As she lowered her hand with the glass, her attention was
drawn to Harper’s. “You want to finish it? I’ll get us another one.”
    Harper
finished the drink and Cordelia collected it. “Be right back.”
    As she moved
past where Harper was sitting in the direction of the bar, Harper glanced over
her shoulder. She wondered if Cordelia was chasing down her old friend.
    “Hello.”
    The monotone
voice caught Harper by surprise. She turned back to Cordelia’s chair to find
the guy who had been watching them before, sitting there.
    “Excuse me,”
Harper blurted out. “My friend’s coming right back.”
    “Then I guess
we’ll have to make the most of the time we have,” the man replied.
    “I’m not – ”
Harper began. She raised her hand to show her ring. “I’m getting married.”
    “What’s your
name?” the man asked.
    “My name?”
Harper grumbled. “What’s your name?”
    “I’m Bane.”
    “Well,
‘Bane’, if you don’t take off I’ll call security on you. You have a lot of
nerve just walking up to someone you don’t know and talking to them.”
    “This?” Bane
mused. “This is nothing.”
    Harper
lowered her eyes. There was a slight pause between them.
    “I really
like your hair,” Bane said.
    “My hair?”
    “Obviously
it’s colored, but, you’re not a natural red-head anyway, are you?”
    “No, but what
does –”
    “I didn’t
think so.” Bane leant forward. “Don’t worry, I’m not here to upset you or
anything. I’m going to leave soon. But when a girl like you, walks into a place
like this, with hair like that – you’re the first thing a man like me is going
to see. You’re the only thing any of us are going to see. So I guess the
question is, how happy are you? With hair like that…”
    Bane stood up
from the table and placed his hands in the pockets of his jeans. While his face
revealed