Page 61 of Alpha-Ex Wedding Ruse
“I’d gotten a bartending gig at this rooftop party. Let’s just say…” I let out a dry laugh. “It didn’t go well.” And that was putting it mildly.
I’d tripped on a wire during a dizzy spell and emptied an entire tray of drinks on the host, who just so happened to be a social media influencer with four hundred thousand followers. And if that wasn’t mortifying enough, I puked. On her. All over her satin dress. Her face. Her shoes.
God. It had been a nightmare.
But pregnancy hormones didn’t care about humiliation.
She’d given me hell, of course. Screamed at me. Called me a tramp and every degrading name in the book. The crowd laughed.
And then I collapsed, right there on the rooftop.
Valerie had stepped in. She was a complete stranger at the time. She carried me out of there like we’d known each other forever. Took me to the hospital, where the doctor told me I needed rest, that the stress was endangering the baby. Valerie had been furious. Not at me, but for me. Like it was her child I was risking. I was stunned by how fiercely she cared, because I wasn’t used to that. Not from a total stranger. I hadn’t grown up with it. Being a half breed meant always being on the outside. Always looked down on. Always less than.
But that rooftop disaster was the start of something unexpected: a friendship that changed everything.
Of course, I left all these parts out now. I left out the parts that weren’t beautiful. The parts where I cried myself to sleep for weeks. The part where my own father said I’d embarrassed him. Victor didn’t need to know how ugly things had gotten. How low I’d fallen. I didn’t want to see pity in his eyes.
Our food arrived mid-conversation, saving me from the growing lump in my throat. I focused on my shrimp fried rice, while Victor watched me with an expression I couldn’t quite read.
When I finally looked up, he was nodding, clearly impressed.
“You really built your life from the ground up,” he said. “That’s…remarkable, Leila.”
That was what I wanted him to see. Not the pain. Not the broken pieces. Just the strength I’d forged from surviving them.
“It’s nice to see you doing well for yourself,” Victor said. “Nice to know Luca didn’t break you.”
I didn’t respond. Hoped he’d take my silence for what it was—a quiet plea to leave the past untouched. To leave any conversation of Luca out of this discussion.
But Victor didn’t catch the hint.
“You know, when I came back and heard the absurd accusations they threw at you, I pushed for an internal investigation. I wanted the matter reopened.” He paused, his expression tightening. “But Luca shut it down immediately. Said he wasn’t going to waste more resources on traitors. on people who weren’t worth it.”
That landed like a blade to the chest.
Still, I kept my face composed. Neutral. I’d gotten good at that, pretending my insides weren’t tearing apart.
Victor kept going, unaware.
“I didn’t think he’d believe it all so easily. That he could move on so fast. I mean, I didn’t know you like he did. I wasn’t there for all the moments you two shared. But even I knew…you couldn’t have done something like that.” He shook his head, voice lowering as though he was speaking more to himself than to me. “My brother’s emotions are fickle. Always have been. Our mother leaving us—it planted something in him. A distrust he’s never been able to shake.”
When he looked up again, his face softened. “I’m sorry, Leila. I didn’t mean to reopen old wounds.”
“It’s fine, Victor.” I gave him a polite smile that barely touched my eyes. “But I’d prefer if we talked about other things.”
“Of course.” He nodded, quickly shifting gears.
The rest of the lunch moved to safer ground. Light conversation, small laughs, shared memories of mutual acquaintances. But the damage had already been done.
Victor didn’t realize it, but he’d peeled back the last layer of skin protecting that wound. And then he’d poured salt directly into it.
When the check came, I thanked him for the meal and politely declined his invitation to attend an upcoming gala in Manhattan as his date for two reasons. One, I didn’t want to blur the lines of what thiswas. And two, I wasn’t stepping foot back in Manhattan, not if I could help it.
I exited the restaurant with my head held high, wearing my usual mask of calm. But inside me, everything was unraveling.
I wanted nothing more than to go home and lose myself in caring for my son—or anything that would scrub Luca from my thoughts.
But when I opened the front door, I froze.
