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She doesn’t look like she believes me. In a way, she’s right not to. This dance is a deception, but it’s more for her benefit than it is for mine.
Maybe that’s not completely true.
I want to silence her fear of alphas—at least the ones under this roof. I want her to want to be with us because we would never hurt her. Here, she is safe and always will be.
Maybe there is more selfishness in what I want after all.
I urge her back into my arms and resume our dance.
She sighs. “I’m beginning to think I’ve been played.”
“Played how?” As if I don’t know.
“You’ve been leading this waltz almost from the beginning. No beginner is this good.”
I deflect. “The Rolex is also a reminder to keep sharp. Did you notice the scar on my eyebrow?”
Her eyes flick up to my left eyebrow and the faint—and old—scar bisecting it. She nods.
“I could have had a plastic surgeon fix it up.” It isn’t like I haven’t bumped into several over the years. “A long time ago, I was a gambler. A good one. Suspiciously good, according to the security guards who took me out the back and did their best to beat my cheating ways out of me.”
She stops dancing, her eyes widening in horror. “They did what?”
I smile faintly. “I survived those encounters mostly intact. But like the fake Rolex, the scar is a reminder to stay sharp. You won’t always get a chance to correct mistakes before they kill you. That’s a lesson I learned from a father who valued things over people and got so sloppy his mistakes killed him.”
And nearly killed me.
Not all alphas are successful. Some are so driven, they lose sight of everything that matters around them. My dad was like that. Thought he could control everything. Including luck. He didn’t realize he couldn’t until he’d lost everything he’d worked for. His home, his family, his life… everything.
The battery in the radio must die for it to fall silent so suddenly.
We stop a second later, studying each other.
I still haven’t asked her about her reaction to the drawing supplies, and I’m getting the sense time is running out.
Her eyes return to my scar, the hand she has in mine briefly tenses, and I know she’s thinking of touching it. I wish she would. Not just the scar. She could touch me anywhere and she would have me purring in pleasure.
“You don’t sound sad about your father.”
“I’m not.” I concede. A long time ago, I was a thirteen-year-old boy with a gambler for a father who cared more about cards than the boy he left at home. “He gave me a lesson I will never forget.”
My mom too. I’m not sure where she ended up when she took off in the night and left me with a dad who couldn’t even look after himself.
“Now you wear the fake Rolex, so you never will?”
I nod.
When she takes a step back, I was right to think our time was running out. Reluctantly, I release her and let my arms fall to my sides.
“You said our first dance lesson would come when you found out something about Della.” She’s trying to look calm and failing. “Have you?”
Now we get to the conversation I didn’t want to have. I’d lie, but I have a feeling Lawrence has given her a lifetime of lies already.
“I found the woman who raised you. Anna Jackson is a beta. I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that it’s unlikely—”
“She was my mom?” Everleigh smiles tightly. “You don’t. I guessed as much when I perfumed. Della?”
My fingers flex with the need to crush her to me and hold her because I know what’s coming. “Anna Jackson is living in a home she shouldn’t have been able to afford but owns outright. If Della still lives in that house, no one has seen her for nearly a year. She’d applied for a college course but never started. The college sent letters to the address. She’s either ignoring those letters or—”
