Page 28 of Beau and the Beast

He didn't believe her for a second.

"Mr. Wolfram is waiting for you in his study. It's straight back," she said gesturing to a door at the end of the hall. He paused, hoping that she would keep leading the way, but she didn't move.

"You're not going in with me?" he asked, uncertain.

She shook her head. "He's asked to meet you alone."

He'd been so impatient to meet Wolfram and now, faced with the prospect of finally seeing the man face to face, he felt nervous to do it alone. In the short hours since he'd met her, he'd begun to feel comfortable with Violet.

"You'll do fine," she said, clasping him on the shoulder like Geoffrey had.

Why were they all acting like he was going in front of a firing squad instead of going to sit down with their boss?

Beau took a deep breath, straightened his posture, and nodded.

* * *

It had been almostten years since Wolfram had dealt with someone's reaction to the way he looked.

The doctors and contractors and delivery people who came to the penthouse never met him in person, nor did the donors and non-profit staff that he dealt with most days online. He could have phone conversations or real-time typing conversations with them—and so in that way, he had certainly “met” new people over the past decade. But none of them had seen him.

Going through that with his staff for the first time had been enough.

They had cowered, screamed, run from him.

His friends—his colleagues, the people who were closer to him than his own family—had reacted to him as if he was going to tear them limb from limb.

It had been awful. He had never been able to shake the idea that his staff had been seeing him for the first time ever—really seeingwhat he'd been all along.

And now the truth is shown at last,

the claw and horn and hide,

A warning to the world beyond

of hate that lurks inside.

He knew his form only reflected what had been in his heart for all of those years. The witch’s riddle had been right.

The staff’s initial fear had tapered to disgust. That disgust had colored their first year together.

He'd taken over one wing of the penthouse, had it redesigned to accommodate his grisly new proportions, and left them to their own space as much as he could after that.

Even though they grew used to him eventually, he tried to limit his contact with his staff other than Violet. It was as much for his own benefit as theirs.

He didn't want to see the pity or disgust or fear on their faces.

He'd rather be alone.

But this reporter—Beau Blake—would be... something different.

Wolfram could've limited his contact with him, maybe—could have insisted that they conduct their interviews online or over the phone.

But part of Wolfram welcomed the idea of meeting someone new, finally. Some masochistic piece of his mind wanted to feel that loathing and terror from someone again. It would be cathartic to see someone’s honest reaction to him after spending so much time taking in the thinly-veiled dread that his staff wore on their faces when he was around.

He didn’t want the fake politeness. He wanted to hear someone scream, someone acknowledge just how awful he was.

Then the reporter would go running and Wolfram would no longer have to deal with Violet's fantasy of freedom.

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