Alpha's Wrong Match, Fated Mate

Chapter 2: The Art of Being a Disaster

- ELISE (ALEX)

I was Elise Jones, a penniless painter whose only retirement plan was to hope my brushes didn't break while my bank account screamed for help. I was between a part-time waitress with a flair to drop trays and a full-time disappointment to my stepmother for years.

That was the job description, at least up to forty-eight hours ago.

I sat at the kitchen table, flaking dry blue paint off my thumb. Across from me, my stepmother, Veronica, sat at the mahogany dining table, buzzing around like a gagging fly.

"You're not listening, Elise."

Her voice was like a chilly wind in a window. She was tapping a stack of legal documents with well-manicured nails. She wasn’t like a woman whose bank accounts were now screaming in agony; she was dressed as though she were going to a ball.

“I’m listening,” I said, not looking up. “You’re selling Olivia to a man with a robot heart and a god complex. For money."

“For survival,” Veronica snapped. She looked at her daughter, who was staring out the window. “The Jones name still carries weight in the Moonstone Pack, even if the vault is empty. And Olivia, don't even start with that... brat you’ve been dating. That half-starved beggar of an artist who reeks of turpentine and bad decisions? He's trash. Liam Kane is the young Alpha of Bloodfang. He’s the crown.”

She had spent weeks pulling every string left in her social circle to grease the wheels of this contract.

Veronica tapped the contract and continued, “Liam needs a respectable wife from a legacy family to soften his 'tech-bro' image before he takes over the pack. And we need his capital to keep this roof from caving in. This is a merger, not a funeral."

“Feels like a funeral to me,” Olivia whispered.

Sitting on a chair before the window, my stepsister, Olivia, looked like a porcelain doll that had been dropped and glued back together too many times. Her eyes were red-rimmed and dull.

“Do not act like a drama queen, Olivia, and stop being so dramatic,” Veronica sighed. "The contract is drafted. The engagement party will be in three days. Forget your boyfriend and start being like Kane. You will smile, wear the diamonds he sends, and save this family.”

She stormed out, leaving a silence so heavy it felt like it was sitting on my chest.

“I can never do it, Eli,” Olivia said, her voice cracking. “Liam’s... he’s terrifying. I mean, I know we’re all wolves, but he’s something else. I met him for ten minutes, and he stared at me like I was a bug. He was deciding whether or not to squash. I have a boyfriend. I have my own life.”

“I know, Liv," I said, and at last glanced at her. “But Veronica has the legal part between her teeth. She’s already spent the first half of that dowry in her head."

Olivia bent over, and her eyes flashed with something desperate in their expression. "What if he backs out?"

"Liam? He seemed to be the kind who would miss a deadline.”

“Not because of business,” Olivia said, gripping my hand tighter. “Because of our family. He’s too obsessed with his reputation. He hates scandals and 'messy' people. If he thinks marrying into this family means inheriting a nightmare, he’ll tear up that contract himself.”

I frowned. “And how do we become a nightmare in three days? We’re already broke. That’s pretty messy.”

“No,” Olivia said, a wild, sharp smile spreading across her face. “Not us. A brother.”

"What?"

“The lost, black-sheep, absolute-disaster-of-a-brother. Alex Jones. The one who’s been ‘studying’ overseas and just happened to crash the wedding festivities.”

I stared at her. "Liv, we don't have a brother."

“We do now,” she whispered. “And he looks just like you, but with a shorter temper and a much worse haircut.”

“No way,” I said, clutching my sketchbook to my chest. “I am a five-foot-ten woman. I have hips. My voice doesn't sound like a blender full of gravel.”

"You're an artist, Elise!" Olivia pleaded, following me into my cramped studio. "You do character studies! You know how people act, how they speak. And you're tall. You can be a pretty boy with a chip on his shoulder, the right suit, and a really bad attitude.”

“I am Elise Jones,” I said, pointing at myself. “I am not the imaginary delinquent named Alex.”

“Think about it,” Olivia’s voice dropped. “Remember when we were kids? When Mom put us on that 'cleansing diet' because we were getting too 'plump' for our Sunday dresses?”

I went still. I remembered how Veronica had padlocked the pantry. I recalled the gnashing, hollow pain in my stomach and how my head was dizzy in math class.

“I used to sneak into the kitchen at midnight,” Olivia whispered. “I’d climb the shelves to get the high cabinets where she hid the crackers. I’d bring them to your room, and we’d eat them under the blankets so she wouldn't hear the crunch.”

The memory struck me hard. Olivia had been the good daughter, the biological daughter, the one that Veronica actually cared about, but she had gone a long way to nourish her plus-size stepsister.

"You saved me then," Olivia said. "Save me now. If I marry Liam, I'm dead. Play Alex one week, make him shudder. If you are only boorish and greedy enough, he will pull the plug. He’ll believe that the Jones bloodline is a disaster and pay us to disappear.”

I gazed at the scissors on my work table in the kitchen. Then I thought of the long, dark hair I had cherished and grown so long in three years.

“He’s an Alpha, right?” I asked. “Probably likes things neat, well-organized, and quiet?”

Olivia nodded fast. “He’s a total control freak. He hates noise, distractions, and people who do not obey the rules.”

I picked up the scissors.

“Then Alex Jones will become his nightmare,” I said. “The nightmare I am referring to is a loud-chewing, debt-collector, personal-space invader.”

"You'll do it?"

“Get me a suit,” I said, a weird, nervous heat blooming in my chest. “And some cheap cologne. Something that smells of a car freshener in a midlife crisis.”

The transformation was... shocking.

I stood in front of the full-length mirror in Olivia’s room. My hair was gone, replaced by a shaggy, coarse crop that made my eyes look twice as large, and my jawline look dangerously sharp. I’d used stage makeup to thicken my eyebrows and had darkened my jaw to give an impression of a dark shadow.

I was wearing one of our late father’s old suits. It was a bit boxy, which was perfect for hiding my curves, and I’d stuffed the toes of my boots to add an extra inch to my height.

"Walk for me," Olivia commanded.

I took a few steps.

"Too graceful," she critiqued. "You’re walking like you’re afraid to break the floor. You’re Alex. You own the floor. Shoulders down. Swing your arms a bit more. Walk like you’re looking for a fight or a sandwich."

I tried again. This time, I slouched. I walked with my hips, keeping my feet further apart. I maintained a smirk, not a good one, but an “I-know-what-you-don't” kind of a smile.

“What is my name?” I questioned in a low, gravelly voice.

“You’re Alex Jones,” Olivia said, a spark of hope finally hitting her eyes. “My brother. The guy who’s going to make Liam Kane regret ever looking at our family tree.”

“I feel like a fraud,” I muttered to the mirror, and looked at my hands. They were stained with ink and charcoal, but as Alex, they just looked like the hands of someone who didn't care about being clean.

“No, you are not,” Olivia said, laughing. "You're an actress. And this is the play of a lifetime. Just remember: be loud and greedy, and do not let him catch you painting.”

"Why not? Alex could be an artist."

"No," Olivia laughed. “Alex is the kind of guy who thinks that art is something that you can see on the back of a cereal box. Keep it simple and boorish."

I looked back at the glass and did not recognize myself. Elise Jones was gone. In her place stood a dashing, slightly disheveled guy with a brash, hard-cut jaw, a thin, pencil-line mustache, and the sort of roguish look in his eye that screamed trouble.

“Attitude, Liv. Got it,” I said in my new voice. “I have an alpha to work his nerves.”

The night of the engagement party was a blur of itchy fabric and fake laughter. I spent the first hour enjoying a drink and making sure every snobbish Pack Elder heard me talking about my investments in underground lizard racing.

Then, I saw him.

Liam Kane was encircled by a group of high-powered executives. He was like the sun, while everyone else was nothing more than planets struggling not to burn up. He looked as though he was enduring a very boring conversation he had heard a thousand times before.

“Don't just stand there like a sulking teenager,” Olivia hissed as she walked past me, her smile tight and brittle. “Do something.”

“I am working on it,” I mumbled, dropping back into the gravelly Alex voice.

I let out a deep sigh, adjusted my itchy wig, and drained my remaining champagne from my glass. It was time to introduce the Kane family to their new catastrophe, Alex Jones.

I stumbled toward him, purposely bumping into a server and snagging a fresh glass of champagne. I didn't wait to be introduced. I didn't wait for a gap in the conversation. I just shoved my way in.