Page 16 of Alpha-Ex Wedding Ruse
“What you felt today. That thing with Luca Vaughn? That’s the Mate Bond.”
I almost laughed. Actually, I did laugh. Because that? That was ridiculous. I barely even had a wolf.
Yeah, I felt her, like a whisper under my skin, but that was it. She couldn’t claw her way out. Not because she didn’t want to, but because I wasn’t wired that way. As a half werewolf, half human, I couldn’t shift. So, I couldn’t have felt the Mate Bond.
Especially not with someone like him.
Not with a powerful, cold, insufferably arrogant Alpha heir.
I shook my head slowly, eyes drifting toward the half-empty bottle of gin. That had to be it. He was drunk, already slipping into that warm fog where reality bends and everything sounds like a miracle.
But then he smiled wider.
“Do you know what it means to be mated to the Alpha heir?”
I stared at him.
No. No freaking idea. Because that wasn’t true.
Then his expression shifted, turned serious. The smile disappeared. “You’ve got to accept it, Leila.”
“Accept what, Dad?” I asked, voice climbing. “I don’t think—”
“The mate bond doesn’t think,” he cut in sharply. “It pulls two people together, two souls chosen by the Moon Goddess. And she paired my daughter with the Alpha heir.”
He leaned forward, voice low. “This is liberation, Leila. You get this right, and I don’t have to worry about the rent or light bills or insurance. I don’t have to worry about a damn thing again.”
Each word my father was enunciating felt like a punch to the chest. He no longer saw his daughter in front of him. He was seeing a savior. A walking checkbook with teeth.
I pulled my hand back from his.
Yeah. This was a mistake. I should’ve let him sink into his bottle and pass out.
“I’m tired, Dad. I’m going to bed.”
“Leila—” he called after me. “You can’t ignore the bond. It’s impossible. So don’t bother fighting it. Embrace it. The sooner you do, the sooner we get out of this mess.”
I slammed my bedroom door shut.
Great parenting advice.
As the weeks wore on,my father’s words became painfully clear. I couldn’t ignore the bond. I couldn’t control the way every hair on my body stood on end whenever Luca walked into the room. I couldn’t control the heat that climbed up my neck when he stared at me for longer than two seconds. I couldn’t control the way my wolf practically did cartwheels every time we caught the barest whiff of his scent, a scent I’d memorized so completely it was stamped into my brain like the ABCs.
But even as I felt all of that, I knew it was a fantasy to think Luca Vaughn would ever have anything to do with me. The man dated models. Daughters of Betas with political pedigrees and curated last names. Not half breeds from the forgotten edge of Manhattan who couldn’t even afford a new pair of heels without calculating if ramen counted as dinner three nights in a row.
And if all of this wasn’t obvious from the way he snapped at me every blessed day, like I had personally offended his bloodline, I didn’t know what was. I still remember that time he read through my entire ten-page proposal, looked me dead in the eye, and said, “Impressive. You managed to write ten pages without a single clear idea.”
I dreaded going to his office. My colleague, Gladys, had looked at me like I’d grown two heads the moment I suggested she go instead. We’d both worked all night on redoing the report in question, but somehow it was always me who had to face the dragon.
So, with my head held high, spine stiff as steel, and the file clutched before me like a shield, I stepped into Luca Vaughn’s office.
I froze the second I saw him.
Sure, my heart did its usual Olympic routine—cartwheel, backflip, triple lutz—but that wasn’t why I had stopped mid-step.
Luca looked like a disheveled mess.
His usually slicked-back hair was tousled, like he’d dragged his hand through it a dozen times. His tie hung loose around his neck, the top buttons of his crisp white shirt undone, and his sleeves were rolled up to his elbows. There was stubble on his jaw. In the three weeks I’d worked with—for—Luca Vaughn, I hadn’t seen a single follicle out of place, let alone a jaw with a full stubble.
