Page 71 of Alpha-Ex Wedding Ruse
“In connection with what?”
“Leila.”
Charles gave me a knowing look but said nothing. He slipped the Ziplock into his pocket while I rounded the corner and sank onto the sofa.
“Are you really sure you want to know the truth, Luca?”
His question cut through my thoughts.
“I mean, if you find out he is your son—what then?” Charles asked, steady and quiet. “This could change everything. Your marriage to Elena. Your position as Alpha Heir. And if word gets out you have a son with a half-blood…”
I hadn’t yet evaluated all the consequences. But one thing was certain—if Ollie was mine, there would be no pretending otherwise.
I looked him dead in the eye. “If Ollie’s my son, I don’t care what the public has to say. Let them pick it apart. Let the press feast on it. I don’t care if the marriage with Elena collapses or the deal with the Moreaus falls through.”
I leaned forward slightly, my voice firm. “Some things are more important than duty and legacy.”
Chapter Sixteen
Leila’s POV
I’d saidI would never return to Manhattan—not if I had any say in the matter.
Well, here I was. Back. Against my own will, might I add.
The realtor had called a few days ago to remind me about the pending eviction notice for my father’s house—one I’d tossed into a cabinet weeks ago and completely forgotten about. The notice was clear: pay up or pack up. Since I couldn’t afford the former, I was here to do the latter. To pack up the last pieces of my childhood and say goodbye to the only home I’d ever known. Before leaving, I’d asked Valerie to stay with Ollie—and reminded her, gently but firmly, not to let Luca into the house or anywhere near Ollie.
I would’ve loved to keep it—my father’s house. Not because I planned to return, or live here again—but for the memory of it. I knew it sounded ironic, considering how much I had sworn never to come back to Manhattan. But some things…some places…they hold too much sentimental weight to give up easily. Even if they just sit untouched, collecting dust.
This house used to echo with joy. Laughter. Warmth. But in the months leading up to when I left, that joy had been stripped away, eroded by my father’s bad habits until the walls no longer felt like home.
As I stood before the worn-out building, memories hit me like waves crashing against the shore. This house had held so many firsts—my first time walking, my first graduation, my first heartbreak, and my first time. The night I lost my virginity was the night I knew there was no going back. I was already in deep—hopelessly, foolishly in love with Luca Vaughn. And terrified. Rightly so. If I’d known back then that he’d turn on me like a switchblade, believing the first ugly lie he heard, I would’ve tossed him out into the rain that very night.
I sighed, brushing away the ghost of that memory, and made my way through the overgrown bushes toward the front door when a voice called out from behind me.
“Is that you, Leila?”
I turned to see Mrs. Tilda Bloom inching down her walkway, pushing a wheeler attached to an oxygen tank, nasal tubes snaking across her face. Her features split into a smile when she saw me.
“It really is you! I caught your scent from my backyard while I was picking herbs for tea.”
I dropped my bags on the front porch and walked over, smiling. “It’s good to see you, Mrs. Bloom,” I said, wrapping her in a careful hug.
She had lived in the house across from ours for as long as I could remember. Her husband passed when I was ten, and she’d lived alone ever since—no children, just her garden. Every weekend, she brought over casseroles and jars of her signature herbal teas for my dad and me. Like most people in this neighborhood, she was half wolf shifter, half human. But her shifting abilities had waned around sixty, that threshold when shifting becomes harder, and for many, impossible. Some still could, but most lost the gift entirely.
“Oh dear, I haven’t seen you in so long,” she beamed.
“That’s because I moved out of Manhattan.”
Her eyes widened. “Did you finally get married to that handsome fella who used to drop you off from work?”
I knew exactly who she meant. A bitter smile pulled at my lips. “No, Mrs. Bloom.”
“Oh, that’s a shame. He seemed like a good one. He even called in a few cleaners and artisans to fix up my house after I invited him in for tea one night and he caught sight of my leaking roof, broken pipes, and dented floorboards.”
I blinked. “He did?”
She nodded, her expression fond. “He’d just dropped you off that night, and I was out front. We got to talking. Lovely young man.”
