Read Online For Toron's Pride by Tressie Lockwood - Free Book Online Page A

Never in a million years had she imagined expanding so quickly. Of course, that didn’t mean she would sell well in Sutland. The ladies might hate her ideas, but she was will ing to give it a try.
    Aside from turning down every conceivable offer of help from Toron, things were looking up. The man wasn’t happy unless he had full control of everything. She wouldn’t accept his help. Her mother had raised her alone after her father died when she was twelve, and she had drilled into Sienna’s head to never make excuses—forge her own way in the world. She had done just that with her boutique.
    Keeping Toron out of her business was easier done than banning him from her head. When she had walked into his office, her worry had all been for her baby, but later, boy oh boy, did every touch, every word he’d spoken to her parade through her mind to torment her body and soul. The man was still sexy as hell . If anything, he’d grown more so. Her desire for him had grown, and whenever she was in his presence, she found it hard not to touch him or at the very least not to drink him in with her eyes.
    What made it all worse was that Toron seemed to feel the same way. When she walked into a room where he was, he always knew and turned his head to watch her approach. He made up excuses to brush a hand over her skin, to stand close to her. The bastard knew what he was doing, and yet, she believed he could no more help himself than she could. She wouldn’t give in. That couldn’t happen if she wanted peace in this small town.
    “Mommy?” Simeon pushed his head around the door. Sienna yawned and held her arms out. “Come here, baby. Mommy needs a hug.”
    “Oh, Maaaa.” He ran across the room and jumped on the bed. She gathered him close and tickled him. He squealed in his little boy high-pitched voice. For some reason, she wondered if it would deepen and sound like his daddy’s when he hit puberty. Deciding she never wanted Toron on her mind, she shook her head to clear it.
    “What are you up to, today? Do you like your new school?”
    “Yes!” He bounded out of her arms and bounced on the bed. “My daddy says all the kids that go there are like me, a lion, but they can’t change. I changed though.”
    She grimaced. Simeon had adapted fast to calling Toron daddy, even though he sometimes asked her about Hawke.
    Not knowing what to tell him other than their friend had to go away for a while, she steered the conversation off Hawke.
    What he did still hurt, and it pissed her off that Toron found it necessary to get someone to watch her like she was his property. “Yeah, you changed a little bit, baby.”
    “Daddy says I’m going to change all the way before long.”
    “Mmhmm.”
    “And Daddy says the three of us are going out to dinner.”
    “Whoa, let me stop you right there.” She held up a finger. “Daddy said what?”
    Her son grinned and put a hand up to his mouth, giggling behind it. “Daddy said that’s a secret.”
    Goodness, if he said, “Daddy said” one more time, she was going to lose it. She dismissed the idea of having dinner with Toron and decided to shower and find fresh clothes. Nothing had changed as far as she could see regarding all the women that hung around him. Stella lived at his house, so no, she would not encourage anything between her and the alpha. Toron had been good about taking her and Simeon to the elementary school to get her son enrolled, and from the amount of time they had already spent together and how attentive Toron was to Simeon, she thought he would be a decent father. That was enough.
    The following morning, Sienna opened her boutique with a flutter in her stomach. She had posted a sign indicating a grand opening and placed a small display ad in the local paper, but few customers ventured in. She had begun to worry that this undertaking would be a failure. Today, she pulled out the big guns, a few dress designs she hadn’t risked showing, thinking they might be a bit