  Danica had been following Gio&quot;s scent, hoping to hunt him down and get him to stop brooding when she heard Duda&quot;s words: &quot;You know, you could just ask her to stay for good.&quot; It was said that eavesdroppers tended to hear things they didn&quot;t like. In this case, the saying had proven to be true. It wasn&quot;t as though she&quot;d thought things were any different than how Gio firmly stated to Duda, and it wasn&quot;t as though she&quot;d thought he cared for her.
  Yet the effect was still like a hot lance slicing through her. Why? For the same reason that a dull pain had struck her chest and her windpipe had begun to ache&hellip;She loved Gio Wright. The realization punched the breath from her lungs.
  God, how horrible was this. She loved a guy to whom she was basically a faceless fuck. She could be anyone to him. In other words, she was no one and nothing to hi

  Ordinarily Gio&quot;s trigger for waking was either a hunger pang in his stomach or a full bladder. This morning, it was something else. As he lay there with his eyes closed, he felt something nagging at him. Something was different, wrong, something that agitated his wolf and had him reaching for
  the surface, annoyed with his human side for not realizing the problem. Taking a deep breath, Gio scrubbed at his eyes. He hadn&quot;t had to open
  them to know what was disturbing his wolf. Danica&quot;s exotic scent had instantly shot up his nostrils, but it was too faint. Which meant that she
  wasn&quot;t there. As his lids flipped open, his eyes confirmed it. The rest of his senses told him she wasn&quot;t in the en-suite bathroom, which meant that she had woken before him and snuck out of the room. There had to have been sneaking and creeping involved or else he would have easily wok

  Resisting the urge to grip him by the throat, Gio took a threatening step toward him and cocked his head. It pleased his wolf when the other male backed up a little. &quot;You know what pisses me off most about what you just said? That you think you have the right to act the caring uncle now. Where
  were you when she was growing up? Like you just said, Carrick was always a bastard to her and yet you left her there with him believing that there would never be a true mate to come along and take her away. You didn&quot;t even keep in touch with her, did you? No. So don&quot;t think you get to stand here and be all high and mighty with me or that being my mate&quot;s uncle will save you. Danica might care about you, but I don&quot;t, and I sure as shit won&quot;t have anyone saying she&quot;s not my mate.&quot;
  &quot;You&quot;re right,&quot; he conceded, surprising Gio, &quot;I wasn&quo

Danica had been following Gio&quot;s scent, hoping to hunt him down and get him to stop brooding when she heard Duda&quot;s words: &quot;You know, you could just ask her to stay for good.&quot; It was said that eavesdroppers tended to hear things they didn&quot;t like. In this case, the saying had proven to be true. It wasn&quot;t as though she&quot;d thought things were any different than how Gio firmly stated to Duda, and it wasn&quot;t as though she&quot;d thought he cared for her.
  Yet the effect was still like a hot lance slicing through her. Why? For the same reason that a dull pain had struck her chest and her windpipe had begun to ache&hellip;She loved Gio Wright. The realization punched the breath from her lungs.
  God, how horrible was this. She loved a guy to whom she was basically a faceless fuck. She could be anyone to him. In other words, she was no one and nothing to him. Her wolf who was already insecure in the mating due to not having marked Gio  was tempted to curl

CHAPTER 43