Chapter 2: The Price of Pretending

The representative pushes the contract toward me, "If you agree, you'll become his substitute." I stare at him for a long moment, and then I slide the paper straight back.

"And there's no expectation that I fall in love with him?" I watch his face closely when I ask, and the corner of his mouth twitches like he's holding back a laugh.

"Mr. Auden, our employer isn't interested in love. I assure you of that." He taps the signature line with his pen.

That makes it easier, and something loosens in my shoulders. I pick up the pen and sign, "Neither am I."

The night before I leave, Tessa helps me with the disguise in our cramped bathroom, and we both pretend it's a normal thing for siblings to do. I'm an Alpha, and so is he, and there's no way I can walk into his house smelling like one. She presses the first patch against the gland at my neck, and the strong scent-blocker burns cold for a moment before it settles.

"Hold still." She frowns with her tongue between her teeth and opens the small bottle of artificial Omega pheromones. The sweet smell fills the little room, and she dabs it behind my ears and along my wrists with the focus of someone defusing a bomb.

"Are you really sure about this?" Her voice is small, and her fingers twist in the hem of her sweater.

I smooth down the edge of the patch and force a small smile. "I need this money, Tessa."

"I know you do." She bites her lip, "I just don't want you to lose yourself doing it."

"I won't." I squeeze her shoulder and mean it with everything in me.

The mansion was huge, for a second my chest ached, because it reminded me so much of the family estate I lost.

A staff member in a black uniform leads me through the front doors. When we reach the end, a man stands waiting in front of a tall window with his back to me, and my heart jumps without permission. He turns around slowly, and I know right away this is the billionaire, because the whole room seems to bend toward him.

Blaine Wolfe. I've seen his name on news sites, but the pictures didn't show how tall he was or how sharp his eyes were. His gaze lands on my face, and I watch his whole expression change. It isn't surprise, it's anger, and I feel it hit me almost like a physical blow.

He stares at me for several long seconds and then he speaks without looking away. "You have got to be kidding me."

I stay quiet and keep my hands at my sides. Blaine turns his head sharply toward the representative standing near the wall. "You actually brought him here?"

"You approved the arrangement, sir." The representative doesn't flinch.

"I approved a substitute." Blaine's eyes cut back to me, "Not this."

My brows pull together before I can stop them. "What's wrong with me?"

He gives a short, bitter laugh and takes a step closer, and I smell his Alpha scent, "Everything. How exactly am I supposed to forget someone when you're standing in front of me wearing his face?"

I lock my knees so I don't step back. I remind myself that he's grieving, that I'm only the replacement, that this is exactly what I signed up for. I don't take it personally, and I lift my chin and look him in the eye. "Then maybe you shouldn't have hired a man who looks like him."

A flicker of something crosses his face, too fast for me to name it, and then it hardens again. "Careful." His voice drops, and the warning in it raises the hair on my arms.

The first hour is a long list of questions, and every one of them sounds like a trap.

He walks to the other side of the room in the middle of a sentence, catch the word "rules" and maybe "mornings," but nothing in between, and I frown and lean forward. "Sorry? I missed that."

Blaine stops and turns to look at me, and I brace myself, because I know what comes next. I've heard the sighs and the eye rolls and the slow, loud voices so many times that my shoulders are already tight.

Instead, he crosses the room until he's right in front of me, and he repeats the whole thing clearly and calmly, his eyes locked on my face the entire time.

A few minutes later he turns toward the window while he's talking again, and I don't hear a thing. His eyes narrow when I don't respond. "You didn't hear me."

I shake my head, and my cheeks burn. "No."

He doesn't mock me, and he doesn't sigh. He walks back toward me and repeats himself in a steady voice, without a trace of mockery.

The days that follow blur together, and I find myself asking him to repeat things more often than I'd like.

Sometimes I don't realize he's talking until he taps the table or steps into my line of sight. Every time it happens, my skin prickles, because it reminds me of the pack and the hundreds of eyes that looked at me like I was broken.

That night a maid leads me to a bedroom bigger than the apartment I shared with Tessa.

I check the patch at my neck and breathe in the sweet fake scent still clinging to my wrists. Everything is in place, so I take out my hearing aid and set it carefully on the nightstand. The room goes silent around me and I close my eyes and try to sleep.

I don't hear the door open. But I feel the mattress sink beside me and every muscle in my body goes rigid. Then the smell reaches me and unmistakably Alpha, and I know it's Blaine.

I keep my breathing slow and even and my eyes shut, because he clearly thinks I'm asleep, and I don't know what he would do if he knew I wasn't.

His fingers brush through my hair and I nearly flinch. They slide down to my cheek and stay there, I can feel his breathing change against my skin, rough and uneven.

He leans closer, his hand moves toward my ear and stops when he finds the empty space where my hearing aid was.

I could feel myself already getting hard for him with how he kept touching me.

“Shit!” I thought to myself.