Page 54 of Alpha-Ex Wedding Ruse
What truly bothered me was the connection.
The moment I saw the kid, my wolf surged—like it recognized him before I did. Every time his scent resurfaced in my memory, it gripped me. Deep. Primal. And familiar. Too damn familiar. His scent was a blend of mine and hers.
The resemblance clawed at me—his hair, his eyes, even the cadence of his voice. Instinct screamed what logic tried to deny. He was mine.
But Leila had said otherwise.
And once upon a time, I would’ve believed anything that came out of her mouth. After what happened five years ago, I’d trained myself not to believe a damn word.
I unwrapped the gloves from my wrists and dropped onto the bench with a heavy breath. “He has my eyes. And my hair color.”
Charles shot me a look—pity, maybe. Like he thought I was losing my mind and understood why.
I cut it down with a glare.
“Call me paranoid,” I muttered, “but something doesn’t add up.”
“How old is the boy?”
“He can’t be a day older than four.”
Charles paused, processing. “That’s right around when you two broke up. You said she cheated on you. Could the kid be from that affair?”
My jaw clenched.
I’d replayed the photos of Leila in another man’s bed in my head more times than I cared to admit. But even that didn’t explain the pull I felt toward that boy. The…knowing.
It was like I’d known him my whole life.
“I don’t know, Charles.” I raked a hand through my hair and exhaled. “I don’t know anything about her anymore. I don’t even recognize the Leila I knew. She’s changed so much. And if she did have my kid and kept it from me this long—” I shook my head. “That’s betrayal on another level.”
I stared past Charles, my jaw clenched. “I’m getting a DNA test.”
He looked at me sharply. “You really want to go down that road? The Leila I knew would never agree to it.”
“I don’t need her permission.”
Charles regarded me for a second. “Luca, think about what this means. You’ve got a wedding in three weeks—”
“I need to know,” I cut in. “If he’s mine, I’m not walking away from that.”
He hesitated, then exhaled. “You’ll need something of his. A strand of hair. A toothbrush. Anything.”
There was no way I’d get into her house to grab a toothbrush. Butif I could get close enough… close enough to the boy, a single strand of hair would be all I needed. Usually, humans would need five to ten strands of hair. for parentage sampling. However, for werewolf shifters, due our enhanced genetic markers, just a single strand is sufficient.
The alarm on my watch beeped. It was time for that dreadful photoshoot.
I stood, gym bag in one hand, the garment bag in the other. “Get me everything you can find on the boy. Try the name Ollie Carter. Look under that.” I said, assuming he bore Leila’s last name since there was no sign of a father figure or any man in her life.
“Got it,” Charles replied without missing a beat.
I headed to the locker room, showered quickly, and changed into the three-piece suit Charles had picked up from my designer. Navy blue, sharply cut, hand-stitched—another piece in this farce. Then I slid behind the wheel of my car and drove to the studio.
By the time I arrived, Elena was already there, draped in a silk gown that sparkled beneath the ring lights. A stylist fussed over her makeup like she was royalty, while the crew adjusted gold-lined backdrops, positioned chandeliers low enough to catch the light just right, and laid a carpet of pale rose petals along the floor.
Subtlety was dead here.
I suppressed a groan. This was going to be pure torture.
