Page 55 of The CEO Alpha’s Substitute Mate

Luca is already at the table when I come down, kneeling up on his chair with toast in his fist. Ariela arrives just a bit after me in a high-necked blouse buttoned to the top with long sleeves and her hair down around her neck. She has covered every mark I put on her, and I don’t like it at all.

“It’s not that cold inside,” I murmur.

She looks at me down the length of the table, and if looks could kill, I would certainly be suffering right now. “It’s very cold,” she answers through her teeth.

I scoff and reach for the coffee. “I have to take Luca to introduce him to the family. Make sure he’s ready by noon.” Glancing toward my son, I add, “Healer Salar will come to see you in my study after breakfast, so wash up and be there.”

“I’ll also come,” Ariela says.

“No, you don’t need to be there.”

“But Doctor Salar—”

She stops herself to reach for the jug, and I sit there with my cup halfway up. The word she reached for was doctor. In all the weeks she’s been here, she’s heard alpha more than once, pack several times, and human thrown at her as an insult by two separate people. All of it has gone down as the private vocabulary of rich lunatics. We’ve left a dozen doors standing open, and she’s walked past every one without looking in. I have to wonder if it’s deliberate or if she’s genuinely that dim-witted.

“Doctor Salar has already checked him out once. He’ll do so again.” I set the cup down. “But I need to take a medical report to the family. And no, you will not be there. I can handle a simple checkup.”

“All right.” She gives up far too easily, and I wonder at that too.

We finish breakfast, and Salar comes at ten-thirty with his bag and his sleeves already up. Luca sits on the edge of the couch, looking bored. I’ve noticed that when he’s with me, he’s mostly silent and withdrawn, the opposite of what he’s like with his mother and even the household staff. I tell myself it doesn’t bother me.

“He’s doing fine,” Salar reports once the boy has been sent out to put his shoes on. “There’s no sign of the disease yet.”

“And you can account for it?”

“There’s a possibility that his wolf is more mature because he’s alpha, so it knows not to force the shift now.”

I look at him. “You really believe that?”

“It’s a possibility.” He packs the cuff away without hurrying. “We’re still learning about this disease, but I don’t think giving him the medication is a good idea.”

Every instinct I have says to dose the boy today, and the man who has spent nine years on this is telling me not to. “Fine.” I close the folder. “I want you to come with us to the council meeting, and if anybody asks me questions, make sure you’re ready.”

“I’ll be there, Alpha.”

He gets as far as the door before I say, “Also, now everybody will refer to you as Doctor Salar in the estate.”

He turns around with the bag in his hand. “Why?”

I look at him. He works it out in about a second and a half.

“Oh.” His eyebrows go up over the glasses. “You haven’t told her.”

“It’s best she doesn’t know.”

He doesn’t argue because nobody in this house does, but he holds my eyes two seconds longer than he needs to. There are two ways this ends. Either she leaves the estate inside the year and never learns any of it, or she finds out from me, at a time I choose. I haven’t decided which yet.

❦ ❦ ❦

The drive to the pack house is silent. Luca and I are in the first car, and Salar and the two guards are in the car behind us. Luca has spent the first twenty minutes staring out the window, and then he turns to look at me.

“Are you hiding something from my mom?”

I have never believed in lying to my son.

“Yes.”

“Mom and I don’t have secrets,” he says pointedly.