Chapter 7

Sensing the chilling undertone in his words, Miah fought off a shiver, her resistance to domination deeply ingrained. "Were you born a bully? Or do you find you have to work at it?" she retorted, unflinching in the face of his imposing presence.

Alpha Alexander was taken aback by her audacious comeback. With furrowed brows and dark eyes piercing, he towered over her petite frame, his fingers still lightly tracing the delicate contours of her wrists. She was tiny compared to him, yet she challenged him at every turn, leaving him baffled by her boldness.

"Your silence suggests it comes naturally to you," Miah interjected, surprising even herself with her defiance. Was it the effect of the vodka? Or his dismissive attitude towards her feelings evident in his interactions with other women? Or perhaps the uncomfortable truth that, despite his domineering demeanour, she found him undeniably attractive?

Alexander bent to clamp his hands to her waist, and then he lifted her bodily around to face him. ‘By the time I’m finished with you, you will love football—’

Seriously vexed at being lifted off her feet and treated like a child, Miah focused on him with blazing aquamarine eyes. ‘Dream on!’

‘And once you get used to me, you’ll be jealous and clingy, and adoring, just like all the other women I’ve ever known,’ Alexander concluded with raw conviction.

In the grip of his hands, her fingers balled into furious fists. ‘I don’t think you can ever have met a woman like me before.’

His brilliant dark eyes flamed as bright as the heart of a fire, and he looked dangerous, his lean, dark, handsome face taut. ‘Enough!’ he spelt out with critical cool. ‘Have you forgotten why you are here with me?’

Her lashes lowered, and she was suddenly still and fighting to get a grip on her angry discomfiture. His reminder had been timely; she had forgotten. He had hired Mirabella to carry out a role, and so far Miah has annoyed him, disagreed with him, and argued with him. She breathed slowly and deeply to calm herself.

‘That is better,’ Alexander pronounced, and he lowered his arrogant dark head and pressed his lips gently against her lush pink mouth.

"You seemed uncomfortable with the attention," Alexander observed, his gaze penetrating her pale face. "It frightened you—why?"

"I suppose I'm more of a private person. I'm not used to this."

"That's not the impression you gave in your interviews."

Miah tensed, realising that despite feeling safe in his presence due to his unfamiliarity with her sister, he was aware of her sister's interviews and had formed opinions about her based on them. Suddenly feeling exposed, she replied, "Everyone presents their best selves in interviews."

Alexander remained silent, noticing Miah's evasion and pondering the reasons behind it. "You need to learn to relax with me. We'll be flying to London for our wedding in less than a week," he stated firmly.

"London," Miah repeated weakly, feeling even more unsettled at the thought. She questioned whether she could truly go through with the role her twin had agreed to play. "Why London? I mean, this is your pack. I'm sure—"

"Because I respect my elders. Getting married here, in my pack, without my mate would be quite disrespectful," he explained.

"Okay, I understand," Miah conceded, though her mind raced with apprehension.

He sighed, then handed her a parcel. "This is for you. We'll be able to keep in touch now. I've been too distant from this process, my dear."

"Can you stop calling me those—I mean, I have a name, you know," Miah interjected, feeling the need to assert her identity.

He raised an eyebrow in response.

*****

A few hours later, at the guest house, Miah was video chatting with her twin sister.

She took the time to unwrap the parcel twenty minutes later. With wide eyes, her sister examined the mobile phone she had revealed and let out a sudden exclamation. "Oh, wow, I can't believe it. He's given you one of the most expensive phones in the world!"

"What?" Miah frowned, puzzled by her sister's reaction.

"Jesus, sis, look at those," Mirabella urged, her excitement palpable.

Miah held up the new phone next to her old one for Mirabella to see. Mirabella gasped again. "Those are real diamonds. It's a customised phone. A very expensive one."

"Are they?" Miah couldn't muster the same excitement. While she could appreciate the sparkle of the diamonds, she couldn't see the appeal of such lavish decoration on a mobile phone. In fact, she found it to be an embarrassingly ostentatious display of wealth.

Miah was less concerned about the extravagant phone than she was about the impending wedding. "Why do you think Alexander Bluemoon wants a wife in the first place? Aren't you curious?" she asked, diverting the conversation away from the material possessions.

Mirabella, however, was fixated on the phone. "That is worth thousands and thousands of pounds, and I'm more entitled to it than you are!" she declared resentfully, shooting Miah a glance filled with bitterness. "I'm the one who won this job, and now you're getting all the stuff that should have been mine."

Mirabella's expression hardened, and she pursed her lips. "Not really. As long as it's nothing illegal, I couldn't care less why. Maybe it'll give him some sort of tax or business or inheritance advantage, or perhaps he wants a wife to give him a breathing space from all the pushy women who target him."

"Alexander certainly didn't strike me as the marrying type," Miah confided. "He also asked me to spend the night with him—"

Eyes widening in shock, Mirabella stared at her twin with a dropped jaw. "He did? He found you that attractive. I bet you thought all your Christmases had come at once. Why did you leave him to come back here, for goodness' sake?"

Feeling her face flush at the revealing response, Miah murmured, "The point is... why did he ask? Since when was sex part of the arrangement?"

Mirabella was still engaged in playing with the phone, and although she tensed at her sister’s question, she did not lift her head for several seconds. Blue-green eyes scornful, she looked over at Miah. ‘Think about what you’re saying. How are you planning to pretend to be his wife without ever sharing a bedroom with him?’

That angle hadn’t occurred to Miah, and she pressed her lips in dismay. ‘I didn’t realise that the job entailed carrying on the pretence that we were a couple behind closed doors.’

Mirabella raised a brow. ‘You can’t be that naïve. He must have a lot of staff, and he wants everyone to think it’s the real deal, not just a select few. Of course, what happens behind those closed doors would be your choice entirely.’

Miah ’s rigid expression of disapproval had eased a little. ‘So there was no prior assumption that there would be intimacy of that nature?’

‘Of course not. What do you think I am?’ Mirabella demanded sharply. ‘But put a young and attractive man and woman in the same room, and nature tends to take its course, if you know what I mean.’

The trouble was that Miah genuinely didn’t know, for she had as yet no experience to equal her twin’s.

‘You can’t still be a virgin!’ Mirabella exclaimed, interpreting her sister’s embarrassment with a look of disbelief.

With a defensive gesture, Miah squared her shoulders. "Why shouldn't I be?" she responded with quiet conviction. "I just haven't met the right person yet, and I'm not ashamed of that."

"Sometimes I can't believe we're twins. We're so different!" Mirabella exclaimed in frustration. "Why do you make sex such a big deal? Is it any wonder you're still on your own? A guy has to tick every box on your checklist to get anywhere near you. This arrangement just isn't going to work."

"What do you mean?" Miah asked, feeling a sense of dread creeping over her.

"I'm the one chosen to be Alexander's wife, and it seems I'm the only one of us capable of pulling it off," Mirabella stated flatly. "Since we can't repay the money, I'll have to get an abortion."

In horror, Miah jumped to her feet. "I won't let you do that!" she exclaimed, unable to comprehend what she had just heard.

"We only have two options," her twin persisted. "You marry him in my place so we can keep the money, or I terminate this pregnancy and fulfil the contract—"

"I said I would do it," Miah retorted, unsettled by her twin's demeanor, knowing how impulsive Mirabella could be. She feared her sister might still go through with the idea of an abortion.

"But you're hesitating at every turn!" Mirabella angrily accused.

‘I don’t call sharing a bedroom with a guy I hardly know a “little” thing...’

‘That’s right, go ahead and make me feel like a total slut just because I wouldn’t have made a big fuss about it when he’s so gorgeous! All right, I’ve had a lot of men in my life and you haven’t, but do you have to be so superior and smug about it?’

‘I’m not superior or smug,’ Miah protested in dismay. ‘Anything but!’

‘Well, you’d better make your mind up fast. Do you want to help Mom or not?’ Mirabella demanded coldly.

And did she also want to be an aunt to the baby that her sister was carrying? Miah added inwardly. She had met the baby’s father, Henry, only that day, when he’d arrived to take both young women out for lunch. Miah had liked him very much and was satisfied that he genuinely loved her willful twin. Right now, Mirabella, however, is less easy to read or predict. Her sister was all over the place emotionally, one moment sentimental about her approaching motherhood and marriage, the next feeling threatened by the awareness that her freedom would be curtailed.

Miah observed her twin's possessive gaze fixated on the extravagantly expensive phone, knowing all too well her sister's weakness for luxury items. Mirabella's penchant for designer labels had led her into substantial debt on multiple occasions. As she looked at the dazzling diamond-studded phone, Miah could sense her sister's internal struggle, questioning whether she had made a mistake in turning down the opportunity to marry a billionaire, no matter how brief or artificial the arrangement would have been.

Despite her own reservations, Miah remained steadfast in her commitment to the solution that offered her sister the best chance at happiness. Suppressing her doubts, she took a deep breath and declared, "I want to help Mom more than anything. I'll go ahead with it, no matter the cost."