Page 24 of Alpha-Ex Wedding Ruse
I navigated to the slide show I’d prepared, which consisted of rear views, front views, side angles, aerial shots, and floor plans of all the venues. This entire thing had kept me up for two nights. Then Luca showed up in my head like an uninvited dream and scraped another few hours off my sleep total, bringing it to a grand sum of seven hours in the past forty-eight.
Thank God for concealer. Without it, the bags under my eyes would’ve been obvious a mile away.
“So, the first venue is…”
The words died on my lips. The entire world went still. Everything faded into the distance—the indignant smacking of Elena’s chewing gum, the sharp click of her nails tapping the table, the air around us. Even my breath. Oxygen vanished from my lungs.
I smelled him before I saw him. That earthy scent that used to wrap around me and make me feel safe once upon a time.
My gaze found the path Elena had strutted in on, and there he was.
Luca Vaughn.
In all his Alpha glory.
Wearing a suit so tailored it might as well have been stitched directly onto his body.
And just like that, the nerves were back.
In full force.
I was, once again, shitting my pants.
Didn’t he have anything better to do on a Wednesday morning than crash his own wedding planning meeting?
When our eyes locked, a rush of heat surged through my body. And I felt my wolf leap with excitement. But I shut it down. Immediately. Because despite how sinfully handsome he looked, despite how breathtaking he was, it didn’t change the fact that he was a cold, cold man who’d once brutally rejected us.
And I should be angry.
Not fantasizing about being pinned between him and the gazebo wall like some sex-starved lunatic.
I tore my gaze away, summoning my most I don’t give a flying fuck expression.
Elena squealed, then ran toward Luca, flinging her arms around his neck.
“I didn’t expect to see you here, babe.”
Babe?
Ugh. My stomach twisted.
I glanced back just in time to see her pull away from him.
Luca hadn’t moved. He hadn’t wrapped an arm around her.
He hadn’t even stopped looking at me.
They exchanged a few words—or rather, she mumbled something and he looked thoroughly unimpressed. Then she looped her hand around his arm like it was the only thing tethering her to this world, and led him toward the gazebo.
Now, I wasn’t a matchmaker. Hell, I barely passed my chemistry class in school. But even I could see it. Luca Vaughn looked disinterested, not just in this wedding, but in the blonde beauty clinging to him.
I shook the thought off as quickly as it came.
What did it matter?
He was getting married to her, and I was here to plan their wedding.
As professional courtesy demands, I stood as Luca entered the gazebo.
