Page 31 of The CEO Alpha’s Substitute Mate

She sets up for the turn again, and her knee goes. Her right side hits the concrete hard. She lies there about two seconds without moving. Then she twists around, sits up, and drives the heel of her hand down into the top of that knee.

“Come on.” She hits it again. “Come on.”

She drags in a breath that shakes on the intake, then tips her head back until she’s looking at the moon. The light catches her face, and I see the tears spill, tears of frustration and pain. I close both hands on the doorframe.

Then she gets a hand under herself, straightens the leg, and stands up on it. She puts her feet back where they started, then goes again. The second turn takes her sideways, and this time she’s a meter from the edge.

My body moves, and I’m across the roof in the next heartbeat, my arm looping around her waist before she can topple over. I pull her back against my chest, and she cries out in alarm, her hands grabbing my upper arms for support. I meet her gaze and take in her flushed cheeks. I can hear her heart pounding.

“What are you doing?” I ask. She twists to get out of my hold, but I don’t let go. “I asked you a question.”

“I was just trying to practice some steps!” she exclaims, looking flustered.

“You’re a dance teacher.” I look down at her. “Don’t you practice at the studio?”

“I teach the basics at the studio. These are the dances I used to do at the peak of my career.”

“Why are you practicing it?”

“It’s in my blood.” She lifts her chin. “I don’t want to let one injury derail my entire life. If I can just do it without falling, without my knee going weak, I might be able to—” She stops herself and looks away over the safety wall.

Her hair has fallen off one shoulder, leaving the neck bare down into the collarbone, and my teeth lengthen against my own tongue. My wolf wants to put them in her. He wants them right where the shoulder starts. I release her, knowing I can’t trust my wolf.

She hobbles backward to put some distance between us.

“If you want to dance, I’ll give you a room.”

“No.” She pushes the hair back off her face. “I like the rooftop. I like the space here, the air, the openness.”

My eyes go toward the edge without a rail safeguard, and my brows knit together.

“Very well.”

She lowers herself onto the concrete with her back against the safety wall, and I watch her.

“How’s Luca doing?”

“He’s going to be okay.” She reaches for a water bottle beside her and gets the cap off with her teeth. “It’s a lot for a six-year-old to find out he’s adopted when he doesn’t really understand what that means.” She pulls her knees up with her arms crossed over them, and neither of us says anything for a while.

“Are you going to send me away?”

I turn my head, stunned. “What?”

“I overheard you and Isabella.” Her gaze is fixed on the city glow along the horizon instead of at me, but her hand is clenching the water bottle so hard that her knuckles are white. “Am I a disadvantage to Luca?”

I study her form, and I know in this instant that if I say yes, this woman will walk away from the child she loves so dearly. She’s selfless in her love, another foreign concept to me.

“Luca’s position in the family is delicate right now,” I finally murmur, taking out a pack of cigarettes from my pocket and lighting one up. “He is going to be the heir to everything I own. But there are those in the family who will look down on him because of you.”

She flinches, and her shoulders bunch together, but I’m not done. I take a puff and release the smoke slowly before glancing down at her. “However, over time, Luca will prove his own worth using his own merits, so I would not worry about that.” My eyes rest on her figure. “I have seen you with the boy. You are the kind of mother he would not have had if he had been with me from the day he was born. That’s not necessarily a bad thing.”

She looks up at me, and her eyes flick toward the cigarette. “Are you saying I’ve done a good job?”

“Something like that.”

Her mouth curves. “You can’t just say that outright, can you?”

I hold her gaze, not saying a word, and she scoffs, turning to look back at the city glow.