The Alpha's Fake Luna

The invitation had said black tie. Zaylia hadn't needed the reminder. She knew exactly what these people expected, and for once, she planned to give it to them. The car stopped outside the Camden Hotel, and through the tinted window she could already see the line of photographers waiting by the entrance. Some things about this city never changed. The wealthy still loved being watched. She took a breath and stepped out. The dress was black, simple, the kind of simple that cost more than most people's rent. Her hair was down, falling past her waist the way it always had, and for a second she almost laughed at herself. Five years, and she'd walked back into the same kind of dress, the same kind of room, like nothing had happened at all. Except everything had happened. A photographer called her name, not knowing who she was, just reacting to the way people reacted to money. She ignored him and walked up the steps. Inside, the Camden ballroom looked exactly like she remembered. Too many crystal lights, too much gold trim, a string quartet playing something nobody was actually listening to. The air smelled like perfume and old money. She scanned the room once, the way she used to scan a boardroom before a negotiation. Find the exits. Find the threats. Find the people who mattered. That was when she saw Livia. Her stepsister stood near the bar in a red dress, laughing at something a man was saying, the same easy laugh she'd always had. The kind that made people love her without trying. Livia's eyes drifted across the room, the way people's eyes did at these things, restless, always looking for something better. Then they landed on Zaylia. The laugh died on her face. Zaylia watched it happen in slow motion. The confusion first. Then the recognition. Then something that looked almost like fear. She didn't smile. She didn't wave. She just held Livia's gaze for exactly three seconds, long enough to make sure her stepsister knew she'd been seen seeing her, and then looked away like it didn't matter at all. It felt better than she expected. She grabbed a glass of champagne from a passing tray and took a slow sip, letting the room adjust to her presence the way rooms did when something unexpected walked into them. Whispers had already started. She could feel them without needing to hear the words. Isn't that. No, it can't be. I heard she left the country. I heard she had nothing left. She kept her chin up and her shoulders back and let them whisper. Let them wonder. In a few months, they wouldn't be whispering anymore. They'd know exactly who she was. "Zaylia?" The voice came from behind her, and she didn't need to turn around to know who it belonged to. She'd have known that voice anywhere. It used to be the last thing she heard before falling asleep. She turned anyway. Dorian looked older. Not bad, just older, the kind of tired that came from being handsome and useless for too many years. His tie was slightly crooked. He never could get that right. "It's really you," he said. "Last time I checked." "I heard you left the country. I heard..." He trailed off, searching her face for something. "I heard a lot of things." "People say a lot of things when they don't actually know anything." He flinched, just slightly, and she felt nothing. That surprised her more than seeing him did. She used to imagine this moment a hundred different ways. In some of them she cried. In some of them she screamed. In the version that actually happened, she just felt bored. "You look good," he said. "I know." His mouth opened, then closed. He wasn't used to her talking like this. The old Zaylia would have softened by now, would have let the conversation turn into something more familiar. This Zaylia just watched him struggle and did nothing to help. "Can we talk? Just for a minute. There's a lot I want to say." "You had five years to say it." "Zaylia." "You gave up that right when you chose my stepsister over me." She said it the way she'd say a fact about the weather. Not angry. Just true. "Excuse me." She walked past him without waiting for a response, and she didn't look back to see his face. She found a quiet corner near the tall windows, close enough to watch the room without being in the middle of it. That was where she liked to be. Watching. Waiting. Her father used to do the same thing at events like this. He said you learned more about people from a distance than you ever could up close. She wondered, not for the first time, what he would think if he could see her now. The thought came with the familiar ache, the one she'd learned to carry without letting it show on her face. Five years of not knowing. Five years of a story that never made sense no matter how many times she went over it. A car. An accident. A body that was never actually shown to her. She'd stopped crying about it a long time ago. Now she just wanted answers. That was part of why she was here tonight. She sipped her champagne and let her eyes move across the room again, cataloguing faces, remembering names, filing away who stood next to who and who avoided who. Information was currency in this world, and she'd learned to collect it the way other people collected jewelry. That was when she noticed him. He was standing near the center of the room, and somehow, despite being surrounded by people, he looked completely alone. Tall. Dark hair. A jaw that looked like it had never once relaxed. He wore his suit like it was an extension of his body, not something he'd had to think about that morning. Three different women were trying to get his attention. He wasn't giving it to any of them. She recognized him immediately, though they'd never met. Kairo Veyne. It was impossible not to know who he was in this city. His face was on the cover of business magazines. His company employed half the people in this room, one way or another. She'd read about him during her research. Ruthless in negotiations. Cold in public. The kind of man people feared before they respected, and respected before they liked. She wasn't interested in liking him. She was interested in what his family knew. She let her gaze slide past him, refusing to linger, refusing to give him the reaction every other Omega in the room seemed desperate to give. That was when she felt it. His eyes had already found hers. For a moment neither of them looked away. It wasn't romantic. It wasn't even friendly. It felt more like two people sizing each other up, deciding whether the other one was a threat. Something about her must have registered differently to him, because his expression shifted just slightly. Not surprise exactly. More like confusion. Like he was trying to work out a math problem that didn't add up. She held his gaze for exactly as long as she'd held Livia's. Three seconds. Then she looked away first, on purpose, because she wasn't going to be the Omega who got caught staring at Kairo Veyne like the rest of them. She didn't see the way his eyes stayed on her a moment longer. She didn't see him lift his head slightly, the way an Alpha did when something in the air had caught his attention and refused to let go. She was already turning toward the terrace doors, already planning her exit, already thinking about the next part of her evening, when she heard footsteps behind her. Slow. Deliberate. The kind of walk that belonged to someone who never needed to hurry because rooms rearranged themselves around him. "You're not from here," a voice said. Low. Certain. She stopped, but she didn't turn around right away. She let him wait for it. Then she turned, chin lifted, and found herself looking directly into a pair of dark green eyes that were studying her like she was the only interesting thing in the entire ballroom. "I'm from here," she said. "You just don't remember me." Something flickered across his face. Not quite a smile. Not quite confusion. "I'd remember you," Kairo Veyne said. She raised an eyebrow. "You didn't." And for the first time all night, she watched a man who never looked uncertain about anything look, for just a second, completely thrown.