Read Online Taken by the Wolf: Collection by Jessica Ryan - Free Book Online

she said. “I cooked it myself.”
    “I knew that girl couldn’t cook,” he said, shoveling food into his mouth. “Where did you learn to cook?”
    “From my cook,” she said, smiling at him.
    “Your cook?” he asked.
    “Growing up we had a cook,” she said, looking down and playing with her food. This wasn’t really something she wanted to get into, but Rowan knew nothing about her.
    “Were you rich?” he asked.
    She’d known that question was coming; it always did.
    Eva looked up and sighed, giving Rowan a look of displeasure so harsh he had to break eye contact.
    “I’m sorry if it’s a sore subject,” he said. “We can talk about something else.”
    “It’s not you,” she said, taking a deep breath and preparing herself. “I just don’t like to talk about my parents. They’re just rich assholes that I don’t think ever cared about me.”
    “Why is that?” he asked, leaning forward as he ate. He seemed genuinely interested in her life, a refreshing change.
    “My dad’s a bigwig at a natural gas company,” she said.
    “Yes,” he muttered. “Big business in this state.”
    “Exactly,” she said, pointing at him with her fork. “You’ve got it. So I grew up in a gated community in north Edmond with people to wait on me hand and foot. As long as I can remember, I’ve hated the idea of having butlers and maids and cooks. I hated the fact that a bodyguard drove me to school rather than my own parents. I rarely saw my father, and my mother was usually too busy trying to get in at every country club she could. I gravitated towards the help and I learned to take care of myself.”
    “Well, they did a good job teaching you to cook,” he said, showing her his empty plate. “I want more.”
    “Did you inhale that?” she asked, her eyes growing wide. They hadn’t been talking that long and already he’d cleaned his plate.
    Rowan just laughed and began heaping more food onto his plate. Werewolf metabolisms had to be really fast.
    “So you don’t talk to your parents anymore?” Rowan asked.
    “I haven’t in close to a year,” Eva said, pushing a piece of ham around on her plate.
    “Why not?” he asked.
    “I guess daddy’s little girl disappointed him too much,” she said.
    “Go on,” he said, a look of concern on his face.
    No man had ever wanted to listen to Eva talk about herself this much, and she was shocked.
    “Well, I went to college and met a guy named Jason. I thought it was love at first sight. He was from a poor family in the city, nothing like mine. My parents objected to our being together from the start, because my dad wanted to set me up with one of his business contacts’ sons. I went on one date with Stuffy McStufferson and I wouldn’t have any of it. I thought Jason was the guy for me. My dad cut me off from all of his money, even wrote me out of the will.”
    “That’s awful,” Rowan said, a look of disgust on his face. “I don’t know how a parent could treat their child that way.”
    “Me either,” she said, trying to fight back the rage she always felt when thinking about her parents. “I had to drop out of school because I couldn’t afford it on my own. Jason promised to marry me and put me back through school. I thought I loved him, but he was just a self-centered asshole who wanted to control me.”
    “What happened to him?” he asked.
    “I caught him in bed with another girl when I came home early from work,” she said. “He didn’t even act remorseful. He was mad at me for being there when I wasn’t supposed to be.”
    “That’s no way for a man to act,” he said, shaking his head.
    “I haven’t talked to him since,” she said. “Lord knows he hasn’t tried.”
    Rowan looked over at her and smiled. “Nobody will hurt you here. I promise.”
    Eva instantly felt better about being here now. Maybe this was the start of something new, something great. Her life had been a mess before; she was trying to make it completely on her