Chapter 5 At the penthouse

Amelia POV

The car ride to the penthouse felt longer than the flight itself.

I sat with my hands folded in my lap, watching the city slide by through tinted glass. Towers of glass and steel, streets busier than anything I had seen back home, wolves and humans moving side by side without a second glance at each other. The Royal Pack didn't hide what it was. Back home, we kept to the trees, kept our business behind closed gates. Here, power walked in the open, dressed in tailored suits and expensive perfume.

I pressed my palm flat against my knee to stop it from bouncing.

Raymond's driver hadn't said a word since picking me up outside the office tower, only nodded once when I gave my name, the false one, and opened the door for me like I was already something I wasn't. A fiancée. A guest. A woman who belonged in the back of a car this nice.

I didn't feel like any of those things. I felt like a girl playing dress-up in her sister's life, waiting for someone to point at me and shout that I didn't belong.

The penthouse building rose taller than anything else on the block, all dark glass and clean lines, the kind of place that looked like it had never once let anything ugly touch it. The driver pulled beneath a private overhang and came around to open my door before I could reach for the handle myself.

"Miss Augusta." He said the name carefully, like he'd been told to use it and nothing more. "This way."

The lobby swallowed sound the moment we stepped inside. Marble floors, low lighting, an elevator bank guarded by a man in a black suit who barely looked up before pressing the button for the top floor. I caught my reflection in the brushed steel doors as they closed. Alyssa's dress. Alyssa's pinned curls. My own tired eyes staring back, green and wide and not nearly as certain as I needed them to look.

The elevator rose in complete silence. My ears popped once. My stomach twisted with them.

When the doors opened, I stepped straight into an entryway larger than my bedroom back home, floor-to-ceiling windows framing a view I couldn't fully take in yet, and a woman waiting just inside, hands clasped in front of her, a warm smile already in place.

"You must be Alyssa." Her voice was kind, lightly accented, the kind of warmth that made my shoulders drop half an inch before I caught myself. "I'm Maria. I take care of things around here."

"It's nice to meet you." I hoped my smile looked more natural than it felt.

Maria studied me for a moment, the way people do when they're deciding whether to like someone. Her eyes crinkled at the corners. "You're not what I expected, if you don't mind me saying."

My pulse jumped. "No?"

"The stories." She waved a hand, dismissive, already turning to lead me further inside. "Papers love to make a girl sound wild before they've even met her. You seem lovely."

I followed her through the entryway, past a sitting room with furniture that looked like it cost more than my father's entire wing of the pack house, and told myself to breathe. If the housekeeper could see through the rumors this easily, what would Raymond eventually see when he looked closely enough?

"This is the kitchen." Maria gestured as we passed an open space of dark countertops and gleaming appliances that looked barely touched. "Mr. Dantata doesn't cook much. Too busy saving the world, or so he tells me."

I almost laughed. It slipped out before I could stop it, quiet and startled, and Maria's smile widened like she'd won something.

"There she is." She said it softly, almost to herself. "I was starting to wonder if you'd smile at all today."

Heat crept up my neck. I hadn't realized how tightly I'd been holding my face until it cracked.

She led me down a hallway lined with art I didn't recognize, abstract shapes in muted colors, and stopped in front of a door near the end. "Your room. Mr. Dantata had it prepared as soon as he heard you were coming."

The room was beautiful. Pale gray walls, a bed large enough for four people, a window that looked out over the entire glittering sprawl of the city. My suitcases were already there, set neatly by the closet, as if someone had known exactly where I would want them.

"Thank you," I said, and meant it.

Maria lingered in the doorway. "If you need anything, anything at all, you ring that little button by the bed. I'm usually just down the hall." She paused, studying me again with that same careful warmth. "It can be a strange thing, moving into a man's home before you really know him. I remember when I first came to work for his father. Everything felt too big. Too quiet."

"Is it always this quiet?" I asked, because it was easier than asking what I actually wanted to know, which was whether she could tell I was lying with every breath I took.

"Not once he's home." Something flickered behind her eyes, amusement or memory, I couldn't tell which. "He fills a room whether he means to or not. You'll see."

She left me with a soft click of the door, and I sat on the edge of the enormous bed, running my hands over the cool duvet, trying to convince my heartbeat to slow down. This was temporary. A few weeks, maybe less if Joseph found Alyssa quickly. I would play this role, keep my head down, and go home before anyone learned the truth.

I told myself that until I almost believed it.

I stood and crossed to the window, pressing my palm against the cool glass, staring down at the city stretched out beneath me like something out of a dream I hadn't asked to have. Somewhere out there, my sister was hiding from a life she never wanted. Somewhere out there, Joseph was probably still looking. And somewhere in this very building, a man I barely knew had already decided I was interesting enough to keep close.

A knock sounded at my door, sharp and sudden, nothing like Maria's earlier soft rap.

"Alyssa." Raymond's voice, low through the wood, closer than I expected. "We need to talk about tonight before the driver comes back for us."

My stomach dropped straight to my heels.

He was home already, and I hadn't even had time to learn the shape of the lie I was supposed to live in.