Page 28 of Alpha-Ex Wedding Ruse
“It’s none of your damn business, Luca,” I said sharply.
I must have struck a nerve, because his face contorted into a frown as he stared at me. As if he thought looking hard enough would pry the answer out of me.
But this time, I didn’t look away. I held his gaze.
The stare down broke when my phone buzzed again. Not a call this time. A text.
I opened it.
And my heart dropped. It was a photo of Blaze in my living room.
With my son. With Ollie.
Panic surged through me as I shot up immediately. My throat tightened. My breath stalled.
“Leila—” I heard Luca’s voice, softer now, lined with something I couldn’t stop to process.
“I have to go.”
And without another word, without another glance, I ran.
Chapter Seven
Leila’s POV
I didn’t careif I looked like I was being hunted by a wolf with blood on its teeth. I clutched my bag against my chest with both hands, cursing the moment I slipped into those stilettos. My heart hammered against my ribs, my pulse pounding in my ears like a war drum.
I didn’t see the road ahead of me. I didn’t see the car coming from the other direction. Because I didn’t check. All I could see in my head was the image of that son of a bitch Blaze in my living room, smiling like a man with the world in his palm, while sitting beside Ollie, who was laughing, oblivious.
Home sweet home. The caption on the photo read.
God. My heart had already sunk to the pit of my stomach. My house, which was over an hour away from the Moreau Estate, suddenly felt as far away as taking a trip across the continent. Every second stretched, curled, clawed at my chest.
The sound of tires screeching and the loud honk of a horn, followed by the annoyed voice of a driver, pulled me to a stop. Icovered my head as if that could shield me from the impact if that car had rammed into me.
“Lady! So help me God if I…”
His annoyed bellow barely reached my ears. I was terrified to the bone. I’d never felt fear like this before—raw, primal, the kind that made your stomach feel like it was eating itself. I couldn’t imagine a world without my son. I lived for him, to make him happy, to raise him the best way I could. He became my purpose right after I lost the will to live following Luca’s rejection. And now Blaze…Blaze was threatening to take that away from me.
“I’m sorry,” I sniffed, not glancing at the driver as I picked myself up, crossed the road, and hailed a cab.
He was going too slow, no matter how much I urged him to hurry. It was as if someone had just handed him a handbook on “How to Be an Upstanding Citizen Behind the Wheel.”
By the time the cab driver pulled up to my house, I barely waited for him to stop before I raced out of the car, distantly hearing the man call me crazy.
I burst through the front door and raced for the living room. “Ollie?” My voice carried through the entire house. Hell, probably the whole neighborhood could hear me.
The sight of Ollie holding a gaming console while he sat close—too close—to Blaze did two things to me. First, I felt a wave of relief so strong it nearly knocked me over. He was unharmed. He was fine. But then the reality that this man, the devil himself, was so close to my son terrified the hell out of me.
“Mom?” Ollie’s voice held a hint of confusion. Probably because of how crazy I looked. Sometimes, I hated how perceptive he could be. He could sense my distress like he could smell his favorite chocolate chip cookies baking.
I tried to pull myself together and pretend everything was normal. I summoned a smile that hopefully looked believable. Ollie broke into a wide grin and shot up from his chair with his game in hand.
“Look, Mom, I beat Uncle Blaze at LEGO!” Ollie rushed toward me, lifting the device above his head, beaming with pride.
Uncle Blaze?
“He said I’m better than all the guys in his office!” Ollie added, grinning with an excitement that made me sick to my stomach.
