He knew one thing for sure, he needed a new cleaning lady. He’d asked the cleaning company for a new girl, but they hadn’t been able to find anyone yet. All the other cleaning women refused to work for him. If there were another private cleaning company on Fate Mountain, he would have gone to them, but Fate Mountain Cleaning was the only game in town.

He knew he could always put an ad in the paper and hire someone directly, which he didn’t want to do. Hiring a person himself sounded like a nightmare he would really rather avoid.

James threw another log in the fire and flames popped and burst. He grimaced and then let out a long sigh, turning away from the fireplace. He walked through his large master bedroom, the dark oak bedposts spiraling up toward the thirteen-foot ceiling.

His brown leather couch was covered in throw blankets from where he had slept the night before. It had been a fitful night, and the mess on the sofa just reminded him how much he needed someone to come and take care of his mansion.

He scratched his ass under his gray flannel long underwear and trudged across the room in his fur-lined leather slippers.

He had taken off his shirt the night before, when he’d been drinking bourbon straight out of the bottle. This always happened to him this time of year. Spending another New Year’s alone always got to him.

The loneliness riled up his demons in the darkest recesses of his imagination. When he had passed out onto the cold stone fireplace he had actually imagined he’d seen the clock on the mantle look down at him through eyes in the nine and the three on the face of the clock. He’d had that particular delusion many times before.

But he didn’t want to think about that now. He was starving. His stomach grumbled and he patted it, contemplating what he might have for breakfast. While James didn’t enjoy going into town for groceries, he always had a fully stocked pantry and refrigerator. Even the baddest billionaire bear on the mountain had to keep his stomach full.

If there was one thing that a grumpy bear liked, it was food. He marched out of his bedroom, down the grand staircase, and into the well-appointed chef’s dream kitchen where his coffee was already brewed. Putting his coffee pot on a timer was one of the few things he managed to do for himself on a daily basis. That was aside from making sandwiches, and stews and chili in his crockpot.

James poured himself a cup of coffee and opened the refrigerator to look inside. As he was sipping th

e bright medium brew from the misty hills of Ecuador, he tried to decide if he would rather have French brie or German Gouda in his morning omelet.

Finally, James decided on the brie. He grabbed a dozen farm fresh eggs from a local chicken farm, rich cream, and the brie he’d had imported from France. He set it all on his black and gold-speckled granite countertop and grabbed a copper egg pan from the hanging pan rack above his six-burner gas stove.

James might be a grumpy bear, and as a retired billionaire there weren’t many things that he would get himself out of bed to do—but cooking was one of them, as long as he was able to still push away the dirty dishes and pots and pans to another part of the counter. He frowned at the mess. There wasn’t much counter space left.

James dropped a dab of butter into the pan and melted it before pouring in the eggs and adding the brie cheese. He went back to the fridge for some spinach and grabbed a package of English muffins, fresh from the bakery in town, and threw them in his toaster.

He tossed a handful of spinach into his omelet and flipped it. When the omelet was ready to slide on the plate, the toaster dinged and he pulled out the English muffins. He sat down at the table in his breakfast nook and slathered his muffins with butter and fresh jelly.

Looking out the window, he gazed onto the manicured grounds of his estate. Everything was covered in snow this time of year but soon the flowers would bloom and the grass would grow green in the meadows again.

It was loneliest up there on the mountain in winter, when even the forest creatures hid from view. Without the cleaning lady to come every day with her chatter and gossip, he had only his weekly deliveries to count on for company. Sometimes he contemplated going back to the city, but he knew he could never go back to where he’d come from. The time for that had passed.

James took a big bite of English muffin and followed it with a bite of his omelet. His stomach grumbled and his inner bear growled.

If James’s human was grumpy, his inner bear was even grumpier. The bear loved the forest and all the pleasures that went with allowing his primal urges to emerge in its natural habitat. But his inner grizzly also longed for the desires of the flesh, and James hadn’t seen an attractive female since he had left his company several years ago.

The cleaning lady had often chattered about joining the dating website created by another fate mountain billionaire.

Mate.com catered to male shifters and curvy human females. Since there were so many more male shifters than female shifters, male shifters often had to find their fated mates among the humans.

But James couldn’t have a mate. His old maid could never understand that. And he didn’t want her to either. He didn’t want anyone to know about his curse. He didn’t want anyone to know that he was slowly losing his mind.

The only thing that made it any better was letting his bear loose in the forest to do whatever carnal thing a beast would do in the dark forest at night. Often James would come back and find himself naked, covered in blood, and lying on his back porch. So early the dew still clung to the grass and cold hung in the air. He knew it was animal blood, but he could rarely remember what had transpired the night before.

He tried to shove the thoughts from his mind as he ate his breakfast and gazed out on the snowy expanse of his estate. The frost on the statues had melted, exposing the cold gray faces of the stone figures. The chiseled man and shapely women gazed with vacant eyes over the snowy land. A chill went up his spine when he imagined he saw one of their faces tilt toward him and blink its eyes. James closed his eyes hard and when he opened them he took a long sip of hot coffee to warm himself.

If only he had someone in his life to reassure him that these things were not real. As much as he knew he could never invite anyone into his insanity, he longed for the human contact that would keep it at bay.

James grabbed his smartphone from the breakfast table and navigated toward that Mate.com website his cleaning lady had kept pestering him about. After answering a ridiculous questionnaire, he was invited to upload a photograph, but he chose not to. He didn’t even use his real name.

When his profile was filled out the algorithm began to load his matches. A hundred percent match was supposed to be a shifter’s fated mate. He waited for the screen to load. When it did, he scrolled through it. There were pictures of many beautiful women, all between eighty-five and ninety-seven percent matches. But there was no hundred percent match. His fated mate had not been found.

James frowned. And threw his cell phone across the surface of the richly polished walnut table. He knew it was a stupid idea to sign up for a dating site. Even if his fated mate had been there, he didn’t want one anyway.

How could he possibly allow someone into his life? Even if he wasn’t slowly going insane, he didn’t like people around him, touching his things, asking questions, and expecting him to pay attention to them in the first place. James Hill would forever and always want to be left alone.

Chapter 3

Tags: Alyse Zaftig Paranormal
Source: readsnovelonline.net