Page 1 of The CEO Alpha’s Substitute Mate

Chapter 1

Ariela

I stare at the tiny wolf figurine stuck in the drain and run my tongue over my teeth.

“You can’t yell at a six-year-old, Ariela. He’s a child. He doesn’t know any better,” I tell myself loudly, my hands clenching around the rim of the kitchen sink.

The sound of a shoe scraping against the floor has me looking behind me at my six-year-old son, who’s peeking at me. If guilt had a face, it would have two chubby cheeks and gray eyes that refuse to meet mine. Luca looks small for his age, but he’s never let that stop him from being an absolute menace.

“Luca.” I struggle to keep my voice even. “Come here.”

He shuffles his feet, shaking his head so hard that his thick black curls bounce with the movement. “Ah. Can I stay here and talk?”

“No, you cannot,” I grind out. “Come here before I carry you here.”

He moves forward reluctantly, and I pick him up and sit him down on the edge of the counter so he has a clear view before pointing toward the toy. “What’s that?”

He looks at me, a cherub-faced angel. “That’s Mr. Wonka.”

“Oh?” I lean forward, caging the little troublemaker in. “And what is Mr. Wonka doing jammed into the sink drain?”

He studies me, his sharp brain trying to come up with a reason. “He was being bad and making a mess, so I put him in a timeout.”

“In the kitchen drain?”

He nods solemnly. “Yeah, so he can’t climb out and be bad again.”

“Mm-hmm.” I press my lips together. “I think Mr. Wonka’s punishment should be shared. Don’t you? Because he’s blocked the drain, and now Mommy’s going to have to put on the gloves she hates and get under the sink to fix this mess.”

“Sharing is good,” he says in the voice of a boy who has recently been told sharing is good and did not enjoy it.

“It is. I’m glad we agree. Go get the flashlight.”

He comes back with it, and I get down on the floor, working the cabinet doors open around the pipe. The gloves are yellow and too big and smell like the inside of a tire, and I hate every part of this.

“Point it at the curvy part, buddy. Not at my face.”

“That’s the trap,” he says.

“That’s the trap.” I fit the wrench to the slip nut and lean into it. “Because things get trapped in it. Mr. Wonka being a prime example.”

“Bruno’s mom calls a man to do this.”

“Bruno’s mom does, does she?” The nut gives with a gritty little shriek, and water comes down into the bucket, gray and smelling of dinners going back a week. “Well. A man to do this is two hundred dollars, and I watched a video and learned to do it for free, so what does that make me?”

He considers this seriously. “Cheap.”

I shoot him a narrow-eyed look from under the sink. “Thrifty. The word is thrifty. Don’t say the other one at school.”

Mr. Wonka comes out of the trap gray and dripping, and Luca receives him back with the solemnity of a man collecting an inmate at the gate. I put everything back together and run the tap to check my work. It holds, which it does about eight times out of ten now. The two hundred dollars stays in the account for another month.

“Right. Take him to the bathroom sink and give him a good wash, and use the soap, not just water.” I peel the gloves off and drop them under the sink where I don’t have to look at them. “Then your own hands. All the way up past your wrists.”

“Then dinner?”

“Then dinner. I’ll be two minutes behind you.”

He goes, holding Mr. Wonka out in front of him at arm’s length. I scrub my own hands at the kitchen tap until they’re pink, get the pot on, and pull the sauce I make on Sundays and stretch across four days out of the refrigerator.