Unconventionally Wolf by Julie Steimle (latest novels to read txt) 📖

Thing as, there was more than one Tom that he knew who could be helpful. And this Tom could stroll into an environmental conference and look like he belonged there. 

Smiling to himself, Rick scrolled down the contact list on his cell phone and dialed.

Filling Rather Large Shoes

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter Two

 

 

Everything Rick needed was set before him once he came to the hotel in New York City that night. His suitcase had clothes from home as well as suits and ties. While Carl read out loud from a few of the documents to Rick, a tailor took in his new suits to make adjustments to them. Rick stood in the center of the room feeling like a robot being programmed by mad scientists with an Economics degrees.

“…at the meeting. You need to study this document here on your father’s stance on Agenda 2030 and Rancher’s Rights. This is connected to the community in Colorado, which you are protecting.”

Rick nodded. The community in Colorado were civilized werewolves who raised their own deer and cattle for their hunts. They were connected to a wildlife reserve that the Deacons owned and allowed the pack to hunt in. Agenda 2030’s plan for sustainable development was threatening their livelihood. It was also threatening the Deacon’s control of their own wildlife reserves, as the agenda wanted the government to control it all, reducing free land to nil.

“Lift your arms,” the tailor said for the third time. He was getting annoyed with Rick who was already annoyed with him for not being able to use one jacket as a model for the rest. The adjustments were taking forever.

Lifting his arms again, Rick moaned.

Carl continued: “As for the rest, your father wants you to meet with Professor Jackson from NYU as he has a number of grad students that need project approval—”

“I’m giving approval to people further along in college than me?” Rick raised his eyebrows.

“—and I hear there is a delegation from the Loup Garou Society that wishes to meet with you a neutral location to renegotiate a deal with the Deacon Enterprises.”

“You’re kidding me.” Rick stared at him.

Carl shook his head and set the file on the bed. “No sir. I am not. And your father explicitly wants you to make the decision, as you are the one the Loup Garou Society has an issue with.”

Rick wondered if Carl knew the Loup Garou Society was not a French environmentalist group but were actually a pack of werewolves just based in Paris. His father kept so many things secret, even from his most trusted employees. Rick was sure he could count on one hand the number of people in the company who knew about the Loup Garou. Henry was one of them. But then Rick had not told his friends about the Loup Garou either. To do so would open a huge can of worms—as his father had been just as guilty of sowing his wild oats in a pack as Rick. The only difference was that his father’s situation was more scandalous.

Ages ago when his father was nineteen, his father had gone to Loup Garou for refuge after Rick's grandfather Howard the First had been killed by a hunter. And in his distress, Howard the Second was easily manipulated by the Loup Garou who wanted him to breed with their females to improve the gene pool of the pack. They had also gotten him drunk to make it easier. Since then, Mr. Deacon’s regrets had tortured him—as he had sired seven illegitimate children whom the pack had controlled and he had been barred contact with. Of course that all changed when Rick came to Paris two summers ago and the pack had intended to manipulate him in the same way. That fiasco in Paris ended with Rick triumphant, not only saving three of his sisters from pack control, but also meeting his two living brothers (one had been killed long before Rick had ever arrived at Paris). Remy was one of his older brothers. And these days, Rick thought that Remy would have been a better heir to his father. He was, after all, a personal assistant working for the Loup Garou elders, and he carried a lot more dignity.

But all that would have made a bigger scandal. Rick realized, as the tailor snapped for him to lift his arms again and Carl set the last of the documents onto his hotel bed, that if his father introduced Remy as his new heir, letting his praised and beloved son run off to some backwater part of the US to live with the girl he got pregnant, that a number of their shareholders would drop their stock. His father had a pristine reputation in contrast to Rick who was a known troublemaker in some circles. No one, not even the SRA could hold Rick's behavior against his father—as long as both scandals remained hushed.

“…As for the rest of the convention, do not answer any personal questions,” Carl said.

Rick lifted his eyes, blinking into the now again.

“Lift your arms!” the tailor snapped.

“Oh, for pity’s sake!” Rick moaned. “I don’t care if it is perfect. An approximate fit is enough.”

“This is art.” The tailor rose to his feet.

Hanging his shoulders, Rick turned to Carl. “Who hired this guy?”

Carl chuckled. “I did. He’s one of the best. Now raise your arms and keep them up.”

Staring at the ceiling, Rick lifted his arms out again.

“Also,” Carl continued with his briefing, “When you arrive at the convention, there will be paparazzi who will try to elicit a response out of you to collect indiscrete and unsettling images of you for their tabloids. Your main task will be to maintain a stoic façade. To do this, keep your eyes ahead as your bodyguards as I ward off any offending photographer. And again, ‘No comment’ will be your main response for most things when going between places. We do not have time to linger for questions. You should be aware that there will be antagonists at the conventions seeking to upset and harass you. And you must not make yourself a target.”

Nodding, Rick agreed with that one. Problem was, keeping his eyes forward while dodging paparazzi made it impossible to watch his own back.

As if reading his mind, Carl said, “I know a lot of this is counter to most ways you protect yourself from being assaulted—” which was a wordy way of saying he knew acting like this defeated his ability to watch out for hunters. “—but you must maintain a professional stance always. Otherwise you will look shifty in photographs, and therefore untrustworthy.”

“And as the heir of Deacon Enterprises, I can’t look untrustworthy,” Rick muttered. It was always about image. He hated that part of human society. Wolves didn’t do that sort of thing. The only posturing they did was baring their teeth to show hostility toward an antagonist. And he couldn’t even to do that. As a human being, he had to remain cool. Collected. “I got it.”

Carl nodded. He then put down the last folder for Rick to study and walked over to the hotel phone. “I’m ordering in your meal for both lunch and dinner. Do you have any preferences?”

Rick shook his head. “Just no garlic, no honey, and only use stainless steel flatware. They shouldn’t even stir or prepare with a silver spoon.”

Nodding knowingly, Carl chuckled, “I’ll make sure of that.”

The tailor peered up at him narrowly then shook his head.

Carl then went about unpacking Rick’s things.

The hotel room was outstanding, and way more space than Rick felt like he needed. Funny thing was, the family had a penthouse in New York City and he had a bedroom with all his things available to him. It didn’t make sense that they had to take out a hotel room—up until Carl explained to Rick that the penthouse was currently being watched because Mr. Deacon’s attendance at the conference was expected. They were using the hotel to keep out of the public attention. It worked beautifully. Hardly anyone recognized Rick when he had arrived and Carl checked them in.

“Fine. Arms down. You’re done,” the tailor said, taking off that last jacket.

“Finally,” Rick murmured, happily ditching the suit coat.

“You’ll thank me once I am done,” the tailor said, regaining his composure with a professional smile. “As you are buying a work of art.”

Chuckling, Rick nodded and said with a dramatic Italian accent, “That’s right. It is a Fenucci.”

The tailor stared. “It’s a Bespoke.”

Carl glanced back at them.

Rick moaned. “It’s from a movie… You do watch movies, right?”

The tailor gazed at Rick dryly then shook his head and walked off, gathering up his things. He spoke to Carl. “They’ll be ready later this evening. Make sure he doesn’t damage them.”

Then he walked out.

Once he was gone, Rick dropped to the bed, groaning. “That guy was such a snob. Couldn’t that company have sent someone with a sense of humor?”

“He’s a tailor, not a comedian,” Carl said. He then gestured to the documents on the bed. “Get studying.”

Rick picked up the nearest file. “I didn’t know they were mutually exclusive.”

However, he did get down to studying the issues and information his father wanted him to know.

 

Rick studied several hours, barely stopping for dinner. And he didn't take a break until Carl came in to make him stop to so he could get some sleep. He had been awake until one AM, poring over the issues he had trouble understanding. And though there were bullet points on the company’s stances, he wanted to know the reasons why, as he didn’t entirely agree with everything he was reading.

When he saw Carl come back in to check on him, Rick held up the file and pointed to the page. “Ok. Explain this one for me. Why is it we are allowing that pipeline to go through our lands when it destroys the migratory patterns of the herds that—”

“Ah, the infamous pipeline compromise.” Carl cringed. “Trust me, your father is not happy with it. But the board in this case insists on it in compromise for all the concessions they had given for the maintaining of Alabama factory after…”

Rick nodded painfully, “The mass walkout of the Wolverton citizens.”

“It stands as a major profit loss,” Carl explained. “And the oil company paid to access Deacon land.”

Wincing, as it was his fault the citizens of Wolverton had to move due to the hunter that had followed him that full moon, Rick nodded. “So Dad is still paying for my mistakes.”

This time Carl shook his head kindly, taking the files from him. “No. A hunter following you is not your mistake. Those people needing to leave was also not your fault. It was just the circumstances.”

But Rick buried his head in his arms, feeling the grief he had caused so many poignantly. He could have handled the factory fiasco better. He should have gone back to the factory in the day time and confronted the boss with the backing of the Wolverton workers. If he had done that, he could have avoided the entire Daisy episode also…

But even as he thought that, he yearned for her. And for that matter, he had a feeling he would have fallen in with Daisy that night anyway. It was after