Page 167 of Sweetheart: Part One

And then all my thoughts crashed into a wall.

Vex was a beta.

None of this was a natural response for her.

My heart sank, realising what was happening.

I tried to fight it, but the truth was staring me in the face.

Indisputable.

I was an actor, and I’d watched betas practise everything she was doing right now for movies. But I’d also seen them use those tricks to seduce alphas. It was something we knew to watch out for.

Different fears stirred as I realised this wasn’t Prey at all. Prey had cared about me, but Vex was using me… tricking me—pretending to be what she thought I wanted… I’d seen it before—been hurt by it before.

“You think… behaving like an omega is going to get me to want you?”

It was hard to ground myself—especially when it looked like I might have slapped her when I said those words.

“W-what?” Vex sounded stunned, and her teeth caught her trembling bottom lip. But with every instinct she triggered, I felt my anger boiling to the surface.

“Youknowhow often we rut. This is fucking low.” The words were more open and vulnerable than I’d dared be in years, but she… she was supposed to be different.

Her chest was heaving, terror stark in her eyes. “I… I’m not.”

Her fingers were still biting down on my wrists as if she’d throw herself at me if I wasn’t still pinning her to the wall.

But I didn’t want it. Not if it wasn’t real.

“Drop the fucking act!” I growled.

She had to.

I couldn’t fucking take it.

Only, she didn’t. Worse, her eyes glazed with tears.

I buried the guilt. It’s what she wanted, and this was bordering on Ebony’s territory of manipulation.

I was more angry than I should be, a small part of me wounded. I didn’t realise until this moment,howhard I’d fallen for her, even forbidden as she was. She wasn’t like any woman I’d ever met, and there was something about her that felt so genuine—as if, with all her attempts, she truly was trying to get to know me. Drake, even Rook and Ebony.

Not as celebrities, but… as us.

Knowing she was capable of this shattered that belief into a million pieces.

She wasn’t different at all. And that broke me in a way I wasn’t expecting. Cruel words spilled from my mouth before I could stop them. “We pay for more than a cheap whore Vex, so stop behaving like one.”

She flinched away from me, lips parted, panic in her expression now.

But it was fake.

She wasn’t just the same as every woman I’d ever met. She was worse, because she’d gotten this far.

And what about Drake?

Fuck…

He’d fallen for her. We were stuck in a contract with her until we left for Germany.

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