A/N: sorry it's been a while I have two jobs and I go to college full time I don't have a lot of time for anything else. Before anyone says anything about the price a little further down I actually looked up every piece I used for her outfit added everything together and added in taxes too it really did cost that much! Thus I will never own this outfit lol.

"Have you picked something?" Ben asked as he leaned against a perfume case waiting for Misae to come out of the dressing area.

"I think so… Lara is bringing me shoes," her voice floated up from further back in the room as delicate as a petal drifting in the air. From anyone else that sound in her voice would have made him mad but this was Misae. The woman in question was moving past him with a pair of coral colored kitten heels and a few boxes of jewelry, "You are going to love this." Lara said as she got past him though the red-haired woman didn't even actually stop to talk to him she just kept going before disappearing into the dressing room.

It was around ten minutes later that the female came out with a big smile on her face, "Bring her more often. That girl is adorable!"

Ben smirked at the woman about to say that she was more interested in the money she was about to get from him then actually liking Misae but he didn't get further then opening his mouth to speak to the woman before out of the corner of his eye he saw Misae. He swung around so fast to look at her that he knocked over a table full of necklaces that were set up next to the perfume counter. Misae blushed a little at that before running her fingers over her flat stomach the cloth over her middle smoothing out a little more. "So it's ok than?" she asked him. His eyes took her in, sliding over her form. She was wearing a vintage tea-length fifties style "ball gown." The skirts were coral in color with black lace sleeves and a bateau neckline. Lara had done her makeup flawlessly as well as having swept her long dark hair to the side in beautiful looping curls with jeweled pins added to hold her hair in place over her left shoulder.

Lara had also put her in diamond earrings and a black lace choker necklace with little diamonds studding it. Misae probably didn't know that the diamonds were real, but he'd told the woman money wasn't an object and she apparently took him on that though he was hoping she didn't take him for too very much. "The shoes are a little big," the girl explained as she held up the shoes in one hand.

"Why don't you go over to the shoe department and find the right size, luv." Ben suggested, "I'll get everything paid for. Lara you took the tags off like I asked?"

"Of course Mr. Shaw," she informed him as the girl walked away. He watched the prices whiz by until she was done scanning items and the taxes were added on, "four-thousand four-hundred and thirty-one dollars and forty-four cents."

Ben sighed as he handed over his credit card, "did you need to pick out a necklace that cost over two thousand dollars?"

"It goes perfectly with the dress doesn't it?" the woman smirked up at him before swiping his card. "Planning on telling her how much it all costs?"

"Planning on burning the receipt, she'd kill me if she knew."

"Your girlfriend is lucky," Lara told him giving him back that card and a credit card slip to sign.

He shook his head, "just friends. Good friends, but friends…" Ben sighed and folded the receipt she gave him tucking it into his wallet with his card.

"I need a friend like you…"

The way she said it set Ben's teeth on edge, a muscle in his jaw ticking. "I don't make it a habit to buy real diamonds for all of my friends, Misae is my exception. My only exception. I've never even done this for a girl I've dated."

"You love her…"

Misae walked up laughing with the shoe sales girl before he could say anything else to Lara, "we found some that fit Ben. We should head out soon though we're already really late."

The Brit nodded and turned glaring at the sales woman before he grabbed the bag off the counter that held Misae's normal clothes before he turned back to the girl his heart nearly stopping once more with the sight of the girl. She was already normally gorgeous to begin with but her all dressed up in something that he had provided for her it really did take his breath away. He'd never been stopped in his tracks before not until today… well then again, there was when she had changed in front of him too.

When they got out to the car he looked at her up and down as he opened the door for her, "you do look amazing, Lizzy."

"Thanks Lassie," she told him with a smirk as she got into the car and he closed the door for her.

He made his way around the car and slipped into the driver's seat looking at her as he started the car. "You aren't going to call me that in front of the people I work with are you?"

"You bet your sweet furry ass I am!" she informed him gleefully.

Ben gave her a look before he backed out of the spot they were in, "my ass is not furry…" It was her turn to give him a look then. "In this form," he amended making her nod then.

"If you say so dear. I f you say so," she said though she was smirking the entire time. She turned her face to look out the side window before in a very under her breath sing-song type voice she very clearly said, "there's nothing grosser than a man with a hairy ass…" she got no further in the song before Ben had reached over and was tickling her making the girl squeal out in laughter. She was very, very ticklish and the only two that had known that up to this point were Charles and Bran, not even Samuel did.

Ben looked at her blinking for a second even as he drove she may not have noticed how she squirmed when she'd done that but fuck he had. He'd watched as that lovely tea-length dress rise further up her thighs, those strong sexy thighs… Stop it Ben, they will never let you be with her. He thought angrily to himself. Yet it was her that he wanted and only her, and from the looks that he often got from her she wanted him too, but she tamped those feelings down and called him Lassie. "Didn't know you were ticklish."

"Very few do," she told him blushing lightly. She didn't like people knowing that she was ticklish, she would constantly be getting tickled then since she still had a "child" status among the pack. How was she supposed to grow up if no one would allow her to? "Please don't tell everyone… I'm treated enough like a kid, Ben."

The werewolf knew just from her calling him Ben that she meant it, she really didn't want people to know. "You have my word, Lizzy."

Misae knew he meant it too, Ben was good to his word and she oved him for it… one of many reasons for true. There was just something about him and she couldn't quite put her finger on it, he was simply amazing to her. He made her laugh and smile with ease even when she got into one of her "Charles" moods as Honey called them. Misae simply took what she said and let it roll off of her shoulders, it wasn't worth a fight… especially one she wouldn't have been able to win. Still nearly every time the other female said it Misae had to bite back the retort that Honey had no fucking clue. People just didn't give her father a chance because of what he was to her grandfather.

Her dad was the executioner, she never felt any differently about him because of it. He smiled around her, laughed, and played… sure it had been a long time since they played anything other than music together but that didn't mean anything. She still had memories of her being four-years-old and he could be found rolling around on the ground playing with her, giving her pig-a-back rides, hell he'd even let her chase him around the living room while he'd been on his hands and knees and she ran squealing after him with her pudgy little arms out stretched with a toothy grin on her face.

That was the real Charles, not this face he had to show everyone. Her father had so much love in him and to her and her adoptive mother it wasn't fair what her father went through on a daily basis with the packs. He wasn't this scary boogie man that people made him out to be, not unless he had to be.

She looked at Ben, he was focused on driving now instead of her. People nearly equated Ben the same way they did her father, he was "scary" only their version of him being scary was that he raped and killed women, he didn't though. She still didn't know which wolf from his old stomping grounds had done it but she was positive it wasn't Ben. "Cold?" Ben asked her feeling her looking at him.

"No thanks though," she said grinning at the man. "Just enjoying the view before you have to run off to tell everyone that Timmy fell down the well."

He laughed lightly, "you know I pushed the little bastard in right?"

She grinned again, "I expect no less Lassie, little fucker deserved it."

"Did he now?" Ben questioned his lips quirking into a smirk as he looked from her to the road.

"Of course, he followed you so he was just begging for it… but you know some people just like going down," she told him and it was at that moment that he, Benjamin freaking Shaw nearly choked on the air he was breathing which merely made the girl smile even as he had to swerve back into their traffic lane to keep them from getting creamed by a semi. "Did I surprise you, Lassie?"

"You're horrible…" Ben informed her only to have her smile.

"You must have never had a good lay if you are so quick to judge. Do I look like I would be horrible? I am rather bendy after all," she told him fighting like hell to keep a straight face.

He nearly drove off the road that time, he looked at her as she looked at him with those wide eyes that should have been innocent and now he wasn't sure what to think. He certainly couldn't answer that question without admitting that he'd thought of her in a sexual way, more than once if he was honest with himself.

She grinned, "don't tell me I've rendered you speechless right before your party. People will think I'm a Goddess if I did."

Ben grimaced at her then, "you think so?"

"You are using my shining personality to make people think you are nice," Misae pointed out only for her to get a look from Ben. "Is this that moment when you'll do anything to keep from saying something about how I'm right?"

He looked out the windshield once more not answering her at all. She smiled at that, or she was until Ben started to pull into the drive of a mansion. The girl was looking at the lights, the cars, the fabulous dresses the women were wearing. Her eyes going from one thing to the next, "don't tell me you are going to be one of those girls that faint over expensive things and rich people."

"My dad probably has three or four times more money than all of these people… combined. I just like pretty things and this is pretty…" she informed him. She watched as simply lit trees passed by the car window leaving the rest of the world dark and dismal past them. It was easily one of the prettier things she had seen in the tri cities, but it had nothing on the mountains of Montana in the winter. The beauty of those mountains made her feel like she was home, the cold in those mountains made her wish that said mountains were in Hawaii.

As he stopped in front of the manor she sipped into a slightly more refined air even as Ben got out of the car leaving the keys in the ignition. He took the valet ticket from one of the men his boss had working the party stuffing the thing into his pocket before he got to her door opening it for her even as she was reaching out to open the door. Ben held out his free hand to her and as she took it he could feel eyes on his back, he knew they were all trying to see her though. Who had Benjamin Shaw back mailed into coming here with him? Then they saw her as she unfolded herself from his car, she looked happy… The werewolf hadn't managed to piss her off… yet.

The two had no idea just how much one of his co-workers was paying attention to the girl there with Ben. He watched her with lust filled grey eyes as the girl stepped up next to Ben letting him lead her inside. The man watched as the glow of the lights shimmered off of the girl's jewels causing them to wink and twinkle as she moved. Her ink back hair spiraled in sexy yet unnatural curls down her back, her exotic skin glowed creamy with splendor, and those eyes… So green it was like looking into the sea… he had to have her, to steal her from that wolf.

"They are staring, Ben." Misae hissed under her breath all the while keeping her features calm and collected.

"I told you that you are beautiful, they are just agreeing. They will stop soon, they just need to get used to seeing you with me."

She lifted an eyebrow as she looked at him, "you dated a swim suit model. You have a picture of her on your desk at work. Adam told me it was a way to emasculate your male coworkers and I have nothing on a model."

"Don't you say that again, Lizzy. You are more beautiful than her, the only reason it's not a picture of you is because I don't want them to covet you. That and I didn't date her."

"I thought it was because Adam would tell Gran'da."

"That too," he admitted making her grin.

She looked around then, "so find your boss first or mingle?" Misae asked and she could tell he was thinking about it and it made her smile. "If you go to find her it could be good or bad. She will come to find you as soon she finds out you brought someone of course."

"Let her come find me then. Come on, I'll introduce you to some of my humans." Ben told her with a chuckle before leading her away into the crowd. They were stopped by a few people on their way, people that Ben either didn't know or didn't care for her to. He excused them as soon as he could clearly he was looking for someone. Maybe it was someone he thought Misae would like or someone that he was trying to prove something to. Honestly it could have been both and the girl just didn't know it yet. "Mel, there you are. Bring the husband along?"

"Yeah, Chris is here. He went to get us drinks, he'll be thrilled to get to meet you," Mel told him with a smile. "Who is this though Ben?"

Misae smiled softly, "I'm Misae Cornick it's nice to finally meet you Mel." The girl didn't miss that fact that Melinda had a look on her face that clearly said she was surprised that Misae knew the people Ben worked with though they'd never heard of her. She looked at Ben accusingly then, "have you told them nothing Lassie?"

Ben simply looked at the girl, clearly he hadn't believed that she was actually going to call him Lassie in this party of all places. Mel was trying not to laugh from next to them and Misae the little pain in his ass just smiled at him brightly.