Faking Infidelity With The Secret Lycan King

Ivy POV:

The day my divorce became final, my ex-husband had his lawyer call to remind me of one last job.

I was crouching in the hallway outside my Gold Coast apartment because the bathroom pipe had burst and the air conditioning had died with it. It was a hundred degrees in Chicago. My heels were on the carpet beside me, the court-stamped decree was in my lap, and Mr. Yates was in my ear.

"Alpha Calloway has honored every term, Ms. Lancaster. The elders trust you'll honor yours. The pack can't see its Alpha as the one who strayed. It has to be you."

Eight years of loving him, and the last thing he wanted from me was a scandal with my name on it.

"Tell Grant he'll have his proof before tomorrow night," I said, and hung up.

I looked down at the signature at the bottom of the page. Grant Calloway. Bold, clean, impatient.

Three weeks ago, he had stood at our kitchen island without looking up from his phone and ended my marriage in two sentences.

"Shelby's due in March. You're good at taking care of people, Ivy. Help her through the first month."

He had asked his wife to nurse his mistress's pup.

I hadn't cried then, and I wasn't crying now. I had named my price three weeks ago. Twenty million dollars, and I would give the Calloway elders the unfaithful Luna they needed.

Nobody plays me but me.

The elevator chimed at the end of the hall.

The doors slid open, and a man walked out.

Black tank top. Buzz cut. A heavy work jacket knotted low around his waist. He was built like a wall, broad-shouldered and solid, with a pale scar cutting from the corner of his eye toward his temple.

Behind him, Mr. Dale, the building manager, was dabbing sweat off his forehead with a handkerchief.

"Luna," Mr. Dale said, hurrying forward with a tight, apologetic bow of his head. "I'm so sorry for the wait. Half the maintenance crew is off for the weekend."

He stepped closer, flared his nostrils once at the man's back, and grimaced. His voice dropped to a disgusted whisper.

"A rogue. Sorry, Luna. He's all I could get on a Saturday."

A packless wolf. Bottom of the food chain.

I stood up and smoothed my skirt. "It's fine, Mr. Dale. Bring him in."

The plumber walked past me into the apartment.

The draft from the hallway caught him, and a wave of heat came off his skin-sun, sweat, clean soap, and motor oil.

I couldn't smell his wolf. I hadn't had a wolf of my own since I turned eighteen and nothing woke up inside me. The wolfless Luna, the pack called me behind my back.

Still, my throat went dry. I swallowed hard and followed him inside.

The living room was stacked wall to wall with cardboard boxes. Three years of Grant's things-custom suits, cufflinks, limited-edition watches, the leather armchairs he liked, even the orange Hermès box he had tossed on my vanity for my birthday last year. Every piece of evidence from my eight years on my knees.

Mr. Dale stopped short. "Luna, are you moving? Do you need the staff to-"

"Can you have all of it hauled to the incinerator?" I asked.

Mr. Dale blinked at a stack of Italian garment bags. "All of it?"

"All of it."

"Right away, Luna. I'll call down for a truck." He backed out into the hall, already dialing.

From the bathroom came the sharp clank of iron against porcelain.

I walked over and leaned against the doorframe.

The rogue was crouched under the sink with a heavy pipe wrench in one hand. Up close, he was even bigger. The muscles in his back shifted under the thin black cotton of his tank top with every turn of his wrist. His jaw was square, his mouth set in a flat, unbothered line.

"Is it bad?" I asked.

My voice came out tighter than I meant it to.

His hand paused on the wrench for half a beat. He didn't look up.

"Not hard."

Two words. Not a syllable extra.

I stayed in the doorway and studied him. Sharp cheekbones. Dark lashes. Aside from that silver-pale scar by his eye, his face belonged on a billboard, not under a broken sink.

Grant's elders wanted me caught with another man. They wanted it ugly enough that the pack would spit on my name and forget their Alpha already had a pregnant twenty-two-year-old tucked away in the suburbs.

If I was going down for a crime, I was going to pick the sin myself.

I took a step into the bathroom.

The rogue's head tilted. For half a second, as he glanced up through the dim light, his eyes flashed bright, molten gold.

I blinked, and they were pitch-black again. Just the vanity light catching them.

"Are you married?" I asked.

The wrench stopped.

He finally raised his head and looked at me. His brows pulled together in a slow, lethal scowl.

My pulse jumped against my ribs. I held my ground.

"I have a job that needs a partner," I said. "You look qualified."

"I just fix pipes." His voice was low, gravelly, and flat. He turned back to the valve.

"So that's a no."

He didn't answer.

I glanced over my shoulder. Through the open front door, Mr. Dale was still pacing the hallway on his phone.

I looked back at the broad, sweat-dampened shoulders in front of me and lowered my voice.

"Want a three-month acting job? Thirty thousand a month. You'd play the man of this house."

Clang.

The heavy iron wrench dropped straight out of his hand and hit the tile floor.

I flinched before I could stop myself. The air in the small bathroom felt suddenly thick, pressing against the back of my neck like an incoming storm.

"Forget it," I started, taking half a step back. "Pretend I didn't-"

He turned his head slowly and locked those dark eyes on mine.

"Luna Calloway wants a fake husband?"

I bit the inside of my lip and lifted my chin.

"Close enough."

He braced a hand on his knee and stood up.

He had to be over six-two. I had to tip my head back just to keep meeting his gaze as he towered over me in the cramped space between the sink and the doorframe.

His eyes dragged over me from the top of my pinned-up hair down to my bare feet, slow and unhurried, before the corner of his mouth twitched.

"And if I get into character," he said, "do I get you too?"