Page 58 of The CEO Alpha’s Substitute Mate

Chapter 11

Ariela

I slept with Callum Vance.

Of all the stupid, reckless things I could have done, this just takes the cake.

It’s the damn wine. I shouldn’t have listened to Zara and opened those bottles. God knows what I said to her. Thankfully she’s a worse drunk than I am, and every time she drinks, she forgets most of the conversations.

I walk along the gravel path that runs the whole way around the front lawn. I’ve been walking up and down it for the past hour, my mind in shambles. The problem is that he wasn’t angry. If he had been pissed, I would have known where we stood. But the normally cold statue of a man seemed to be entertaining himself at my expense.

That’s just throwing me into confusion. Why wasn’t he mad?

The memories of last night have slowly begun to trickle in, and I’m trying my best not to think about any of it because the things he did to me, the things I let him do to me… My face burns, and I try to focus on anything but the man who was the furthest thing from cold when he had me under him.

It didn’t help that all Zara could talk about was how I should try and get with Callum because when she saw him, he was all gentlemanly. The idea must have stuck in my head, and I drunkenly seduced him. If I could go back in time, I would toss my drunken ass off the roof.

I kick a stone off the path and watch it disappear into the hedge. “Lust,” I say loudly. “That’s all this is. I like his body, but I don’t like him because the man is a brute. Nobody like a brute.”

Except that I liked the way he manhandled me, the way his fingers dug into my hair and pulled, how he put me at his mercy.

Fuck.

I’ve never in my life been kept up until the sky went gray, and I’ve never come out the other side of a night completely sober, unable to stand. My previous experiences didn’t prepare me for any of it, and I don’t know how to feel about that.

I’m still standing there with my hands on my face when I hear a faint noise at the gate. It’s a man’s voice first, then two more, then the sound of someone walking. I turn around, and he’s already halfway across the lawn.

The man is tall and dark-haired with a jaw you could open envelopes with. Two of Callum’s gate guards are jogging behind him with their hands out while he strolls ahead of them without hurrying, which is worse than if he ran. He comes straight at me, past the turn for the house, without once looking at it.

“You must be Ariela.”

The guards catch up, both of them out of breath, and the older one gets in front of him with his palm raised. “Mr. Thorne, we told you the alpha is at the meeting. He’s not here.”

“I’m not here for long.” Thorne doesn’t look at him. “I just wanted to take a look at the guest.”

He tilts his head at me. Up close, his eyes are pale gray, and he goes over my face slowly, hairline to chin.

“You are the new heir’s mother?”

“Yes,” I reply cautiously. “And you would be?”

He leans in close enough that I can smell his cologne, dropping his voice so that the guards can’t hear it. “Really? You gave birth to him?”

The words get stuck in my throat.

Some of the staff knows because Isabella announced it so publicly, but Callum and I have not discussed what to say if someone asks me this. And I’m not a fool. Without Callum’s word, I’m not saying shit.

“You want me to share my birthing story with you?” I cross my arms over my chest. “Why? Are you concerned about whether or not I used an epidural?”

The man smiles. He’s quite handsome, but he doesn’t hold a candle to Callum. He rocks back onto his heels with his hands in his pockets and murmurs, “How rude of me. Let me introduce myself first. I’m Silas Thorne, Callum’s business associate.”

“Since when do business associates ask such personal questions?” Something about the man has my hackles rising.

He smiles. “I’m just curious, I guess.”

Before I can respond to that, Reid comes across the grass at a pace I’ve never seen from him before, coat open, no gloves. “Miss Reyes, please come inside.”

Silas turns his head. “So you’re still alive and around, I see.”