The Billionaire Alpha's Secret Baby

ARIZONA COLLEGE

SEVEN YEARS AGO

GRACE

In silence we studied each other on a bed, evaluating, doubting, and considering by turns, because it was so sudden, so unexpected.

We were merely strangers turned drink buddies few hours ago. We didn't even know our names yet. He only jokingly called me Ms. Budweiser because I said I loved beer more, while I laughed hard and loud, calling him Mr. Chardonnay because he said he only drank wine.

But I and my friends made him take beer. It was a way to apologize for bumping into him and ruining his white T-shirt.

I was going to get another round of drink while he was heading to the rest room as I could remember it. However due to my crazy hurrying, and the excitement of our finals, I had bumped into him and caused him to spill his drink on himself and at the same time holding me from tripping over.

He snaked his firm hand around my waist to keep me steady and our eyes locked.

At that instant, the world suddenly went silent, the deafening music from blaring speakers around us became a distant sound to me

His steel-grey heart-stopping eyes drew me in and drowned me. My head swooned, my heart beat took an unnatural speed, jamming itself against my ribcage. Thousands of angry butterflies sprang up in my stomach, fluttering like they were being chased by a predator.

All that happened at once.

If I was reading my experience in a romance novel, I'd sneer and scowl at the writer for being unnecessarily corny and cheeky. I'd call the book a cliché but still go ahead to read it.

However, this particular cliché wasn't happening to some lucky female protagonist.

It was happening to me, Grace, the nerdy, boring twenty three year old virgin who was about graduating college without a boyfriend or a mate.

Not that I had one before and broke up with them for some reasons. At all. I never had any.

I would have called what just happened 'a love at first sight' and I was sure he would have too, owing to the way he kept his eyes on mine for the thousands of seconds our eyes locked.

Or have I finally found my mate? I wondered vaguely. Finding one's mate was one of the most difficult thing now in the twenty-first century werewolf kingdom. People just get themselves partners and call them boyfriends or girlfriend or wives or husbands and humans did since we were sharing almost the same fate.

After our bump, we had muttered repeated sorrys to each other with effusive awkward gestures. I couldn't let him go like that after all that chemistry between us, so I had come out from my shell of shyness and awkwardness and asked him to join me and my friends on our drinking table.

Now here we are, in my dimly lit tiny college room, inhaling each other's breathe, with our eyes locked and our breathing accelerated, standing so close our noses could meet. We were both drunk but knew this feeling wasn't instigated from alcohol.

I wanted him and wasn't ashamed for the first time in my life to admit it. I had vowed never to do it till I found the one that made my heart flutter in my chest. Or if I found my mate.

I wasn't sure about the former, but it my heart was a living testimony of the effect of this young beautiful man standing in front of me.

I took two steps backward, to get a fuller and more concise view of the first man I was going to share my bed with.

He was many inches taller than I was, literally towering over me with his firmly squared broad shoulders. Strands of his dark brown hair which fell across his temples accentuated his sexiness. His oblong angular face was never the type I could forget in a hurry.

Should I go on about his full lips and how it interrupts my breathing whenever I stare at them?

As we stood few inches apart, I yearned to press my lips against that bare skin that ran from his throat to his chest and my breast against that white stained shirt.

With a sigh that was really surrender, I ignored my racing heart and took a step further.

We looked at each other and then our lips met and lingered. I felt myself sinking into the bliss of the sweetest sensations and my hands came up on their own to touch his face. I knew I was desired but, just for the moment, I felt loved and it was what I needed.

We both knew it would have been okay to wait, get to know each other and talk more, however, we both also knew we couldn't wait. This felt too right. I didn't feel a single pang of guilt or the need to be cautious.

He didn't give me a chance to change my mind.

He crushed my body to his, one hand on my back, the other on my hips, pressing me against his hard body. I gasped with sheer pleasure and then to my horror, I began to tremble. This was the first time and I wasn't familiar with the moves and I felt awkward, unable to respond as I wanted to.

"Hey..." he murmured against my hair and his arms loosened, as though he understood, as though he was well aware of the fact that he was my very first. He began to stroke my hair gently, persuasively, so that my eyes closed and I began to relax.

His hands moved to my back, beginning an unhurried exploration that made me shiver again, but this time in the most delicious manner.

I began to respond, my hands sliding up his back and across his shoulders in a thrilling exploration of my own. I opened my eyes, saw his throat where the collar was open and pressed my lips against it. I felt a deep shudder run through him that might have been my own, so deeply did it thrill her. I reached up to thread my fingers through his hair and used it to pull his face down to mine.

Our lips met and fused with an ecstasy that seared me to the depth of my being. We broke apart and gazed at each other, and then he was pressing kisses all over my face and I held my head back to expose my throat for more. I was awash with sensation, but it only built up the urgency for our lips to meet again... and again.

His hands were on the zip at the back of my dress and I began to unbutton his shirt. He shrugged out of it as I stepped out of my dress and kicked it away in a frenzy, and he pressed me against his chest again with only the fragile silk of my slip between us.

He kissed his way down my neck, to my shoulders and slid the straps from them. The slip caught at my hips, but none of us noticed because now, my bare breasts were pressed against his naked chest and we both gasped.

He turned me slightly from him, lifting her face to kiss and then his hands moved down to my breast, grasping, massaging it and then playing with my nipple. My groan of pleasure was lost against his lips and, as I felt my legs go weak, he picked me up and carried me unto my bed.

He kicked back his shoes, threw back the quilt, put me on the bed and stood looking down at me while he took off the rest of his clothes.

The curtains hadn't been closed and a surprisingly bright moon bathed us both in a silvery glow.

"Do you know how lovely you are?" he asked as he lay beside me.

He didn't expect an answer, and I was quite incapable of giving one because his mouth had fastened on to my breast and his tongue was flicking my nipples into a frenzy of desire. He moved to the other breast and the delicious torment began anew.

"Chardonnay..." I breathed, but he took no notice, sliding the petticoat from my hips, and then my stockings and suspenders, and kissing his way over the warm flesh he exposed.

"Chardonnay..." I breathed again, writhing with the most exquisitely unendurable ecstasy I had ever known, but now his own passion overwhelmed him as he entered me, going in real slow and when my core gave passage to his huge member, he began thrusting hard and desperately in the need to quench his own fires.

I held fiercely, pressing his hips against mine as we sought and found the final explosion of passion.

Mr. Chardonnay kissed me with hot, spent and grateful lips and then he collapsed against me, moving down to rest his face between my breasts. I pulled the quilt over us and cuddled him to myself while out breathing turned to normal.

It was a long time before he stirred, then he rolled off my body and propped himself up on his elbow and looked down at me.

"I'm crazy about you, Ms. Budweiser," he said huskily. "How do you feel about me?"

I couldn't answer. The whole thing was feeling so surreal to me. "I'm here, and I'm not a one-night stander." was my response.

"We don't even know each other's real names yet. I'm-"

"Tomorrow," I cut him short with a sleepy tone. "Let's tell each other our names tomorrow and other things we should know about us." I said with finality in my voice.

He sighed.

But he wouldn't understand. Seeing him on my bed by morning when I wake up was going to convince me that this wonderful moments weren't a dream. And that I had found the love of my life.

I had gone through college as a nerdy boring girl without a mate or a boyfriend and a werewolf with zero rank. If not for my two best friends, my life would have been more than the hell it had been here in Stratford College.

But here I was on the last day of my final year making love with the most beautiful man I had ever met, who could possibly be my mate or boyfriend after today.

I felt giddy with happiness and relief. It was all too fast and going too well, I was dreading disappointments.

"Let's know each other wolf's name at least." he murmured, dragging me from my train of thoughts.

I pushed him over on his back, then propped myself over him, my breast brushing against his chest. "I don't want to talk tonight. Tomorrow will do. Go to sleep." I kissed his eyes shut and then studied, and it almost hurt me how handsome he looked with his face relaxed and the moon turning the sun-bleached ends of his brown hair to silver.

I kissed his forehead, clasped my eyes shut and let myself drown into dream land.

SEVEN YEARS AGO (Continuation)

I woke up at sunrise to feel my bed for the beautiful stranger I had slept with, but all I could feel was only bed. The stranger had disappeared.

I batted my eyelids open as morning light washed into my room. I sat up and forced my mind to be alert, half puzzled, half astonished. Has the stranger gone to use the restroom? I wanted to call his name.

But it's funny. I didn't even know his bloody name.

Someone had given me the best ride I'd had in a while in the middle of last night. And I didn't know his name!

I decided to stand from my bed to go search the restroom. "Hello," I said and knocked on the restroom's door.

No answer.

I opened the door for confirmation. It was possible he was taking a shit and would be too embarrassed to answer me in the middle of it. But the restroom was empty of the dude. My towel on a stand was as neatly folded as I had left it.

I shut the restroom's door and headed back for my bed, making sure to check the bedside table for a clue, a note, a pointer, a phone number, anything to assure me the wolf hadn't just upped and left, that he was coming back here.

But I found no note.

Then it hit me.

I had been used.

The fcking boy had used me. I wasn't usually a deep sleeper. But I slept like a baby. When did he wake up? How did he do it? We were under the same quilt last night. There's no way he'd have slipped out of the quilt without me stirring. But even if that hadn't been enough to wake me, at least his belt should have done it. Men generally are clumsy when wearing their belts. The clack of metal against metal should have woken me up. The sound of him turning the keys into the keyhole should have woken me up. But instead I slept like a....

A drugged bitch.

I didn't remember being drugged, though. I hadn't abandoned my drink in the bar to use the toilet or something. I was with him all the while until the sex. It must be the sex. Google says sex itself is an aphrodisiac. A great sleeping pill.

I lifted the duvet and a red stain caught my eye. It dawned on me without warning.

I had lost my virginity to a one night stander.

And it was my fault I didn't get his name last night. I had refused to exchange names thinking I was going to see him when I woke up. Then again, who's to say he wouldn't have given me a wrong name?

The once illuminating sunlight suddenly went dim, and my room felt as though it was closing in on me, like it was too small to contain me.

I was about to cry when my phone buzzed. The urge to cry temporarily faded as I thought to myself: perhaps he took my number after all and was sending me a message to let me know he was back home safe, and we could grab lunch someday soon and maybe kick off from where we stopped last night.'

I picked up my phone with enthusiasm. But it turned out to be messages from my two best friends who were dying to know how it went. They had dropped so many texts, especially Jody, and I didn't know where to start replying.

Jody: "Hey badass gurrrrl!" (smiling emoji) "How did it goo!" "Omgg can't wait to hear the details." "Spare nothing. Spill it like spoilt milk" "Why ain't you replying, Gracie? Is the D so good you can't get up?" (Emoji whose eyes are love) "Should I come over? You still going back home today right?" "Call me!"

I cringed at Jody's messages and dropped my phone.

On my bed, I bring my knee to my lower jaw and grab my folded legs, feeling angry. Although honestly there should be nothing to be angry about. It was a one-night stand! Then again, nothing stops a one-night stand from being respectful. I didn't deserve this sudden abandonment, this leaving without the simple dignity of dropping something as little as a note.

It's like he never even existed. Like yesterday didn't happen. Like I had made out everything from my imagination.

............

NK: "Hey friendship, how are you? Are you okay? How are you feeling?" "How did everything go? Did you really get some with the white shirt Mr. Chardonnay guy? You guys seemed so smitten by each other, I won't be surprised if you turn out to be mates." "Text or call me back or I'm coming over to your room!"

NK was sweet but always authoritative as usual. Jody and NK are both my best friends and they didn't mean to be insensitive, (As they didn't even know their friend was dumped by the so-called Mr. Chardonnay) however, I felt as though they were being nosy and pushing me to the wall at that moment.

I was definitely going to tell them but that was going to be later. Surely not so soon. The whole thing still felt raw and biting.

I still wanted to die.

I turned off my phone and went back to bed, not bothering to wash up or fix breakfast or do anything that needed physical strength. I slept till mid-noon, still harboring some teeny weeny bit of hope that maybe, just maybe, he was going to show up.

I had written my final exams last week and stayed back to celebrate with friends. Yesterday was the deadline my parents gave me to return home. I couldn't stay back here any longer, and I felt like if I leave today, I was going to lose my chance of ever meeting him again.

If my phone was turned on, they would have literally killed my battery with calls by now. So I got up, washed myself thoroughly like I was washing off stains from a rag, took my time to pack my bags and stuff as I wasn't going to come back anymore.

I indirectly dragged the packing process till late evening. Secretly hoping, wishing, and supplicating that he comes back.

But he never did.

And with frustration and anguish, I hurled my pathetic possession outside after saying a last pained good bye to my beloved college room. I had so many happy memories in this room, but it was utterly saddening that I was leaving with such a horrible one.

I left for the airport that same night and by dawn, I landed in the outskirt of London where my parents lived inside our pack.

Few weeks later, barely crawling out from my bouts of depression, I started sending resumes and application letters to publishing houses and magazine companies.

I was tired of the self-loath and despair I had plunged myself into and even felt bad for my parents who had to endure all that, so I decided to job hunt.

I majored in creative writing and my results were excellent, so I wanted to work at a place where I would put my skills into good use with hopes that it was going to make me feel better.

All those times, I still avoided my friends like a coward, like they were the reason I got fooled and played.

However, things didn't get better for me.

Two months after leaving school, still jobless and depressed, I had a shocking discovery.

I was pregnant. About eight weeks pregnant!

My parents were livid, they wanted me to abort the pregnancy after I admitted to them I didn't even know the name of the baby's father.

"This would ruin your future, Grace." my mother had wailed, hitting me on the back softly.

"Went through so much to put you through school! Werewolves without ranks have to work ten times harder than the privileged ones. We expected better from you, Grace," my dad had yelled from gritted teeth.

I was torn, devastated, knocked over the edge. I didn't believe in the Goddess like everyone else, but I blamed her for heaping such a tragic family responsibility on me.

I felt sorry for my parents, I wanted to make it up to them, and however, I couldn't let this innocent budding life in me go. I wanted to keep whoever was inside of me alive.

They pressed me for days, saying I was in no position to have any say, I didn't even have a job to take care of myself or the child I was expecting.

I couldn't take it anymore so I ran away from the house with just a little change for transport fare, a few clothes I had shoved into my bag hurriedly and nothing else.

I fled into the center of London with no place to stay, no significant cash at hand, a baby in my womb plus the fact that I knew absolutely no one here.

I knew Jody and NK lived in London but I had no idea how to locate them and even if I knew, I could never go look for them, not after staying estranged from them for more than two months, ignoring their calls and texts without any explanation.

After few months of pure struggle and hardship, I decided to go back to my parents, my pack but on reaching there, I was told by my father's distant cousin that they both died in an accident while looking for me.

Life couldn't get any worse than that, I thought. So I decided to stay back at the only house my parents had before they died as they left it to me in their will according to my uncle.

At that time, my pregnancy was already obvious and another dilemma was waiting for me.

As rankless werewolves that I and my parents were, we could never keep a firm hold onto our property, especially when it came to land ownership.

Just few days into living in my parent's house and trying to settle in, an agent from the biggest real estate company of a neighboring pack came to my house asking me to sell my parent's house to them.

Of course I protested, of course I was adamant and stood my ground, saying I will never concede no matter how much they threw at my face.

However, I had no one to fall back to, even my pack refused to protect me or stand by me since my parents were unranked wolves, and with the accusation that I had killed them. If I hadn't run away, they'll probably still be alive.

I was lobbied, pestered, and threatened to the point where I just had to give it all up, for the sake of my child and for my life.

Shelby Realtors (UK) LTD. That was the company's name, a name I'll loathe for the rest of my life.

I used the paltry sum they gave to me to get a little room in London and continued struggling till my best friends found me.

Jody and NK found me working as a waitress in central London.

And that was how my life in there began with an almost due pregnacy.

The Present.

GRACE

The streetlights were up. They generously cast their golden glow on me as I jogged on the neighborhood roads to find release.

It's a sacrifice I had to pay as a writer. One way or another, inspirations come at those odd moments when your heart is beating like a drum and you just suddenly stop midway to bend over with your hands placed on your knees, starting to smile at your fresh plot or a thrilling revelation about your character. Or how to end your story.

So this particular evening, I was jogging for motivation over a gothic story. Already, my day had been stressful. After tucking Laurie, my six-year-old daughter into bed few minutes ago, making sure she was sound asleep and packing some of her clothes into her travel bag for tomorrow, I just had to hit the road.

She even agreed to sleep early, so that tomorrow could come quickly for her to head to Nkechi's place already, according to her. I giggled mentally, amused at her enthusiasm to leave the house.

I didn't plan to run this long but the thoughts in my head made me lose track of space and time, so that I had to stop and look around me to realize I had jogged two streets past my usual stop.

I was familiar with this street called The Old Town Road but I hardly crossed the territory owing to the scary stories I had heard of the place. People being robbed or beaten or...

My train of thoughts was interrupted by a sight at the corner of a building. I was about to turn and run back when I heard an inaudible sound from behind that made my blood curdle.

Was this a trap? Was I about to be mobbed? The street was as silent as a grave yard. No one was coming or going. Although it was normal because people knew about the frightening tales of Old Town Road, so it was a given that no person in their right senses would be found here on their own at this time of the day.

"Help me..." came a lifeless voice from that same angle.

I wanted to ignore whatever or whoever it was, twirl and take to my heels but I just couldn't bring myself to move the other way. I let out a breath of frustration and walked tentatively towards the voice.

"Help me, please," the voice came a bit louder this time but I couldn't distinguish if it was a man or a woman so I went closer to be sure.

I rounded the corner in slow and calculated stride and was greeted with the most horrible sight ever.

A red sports car that looked seriously expensive with broken front and side glasses stood at the corner of the road with the driver's door handing open. I got to the front of the door only to find a middle aged man lying in limp in the car seat with his whole face covered in blood.

I gasped aloud as my heart practically dropped to my stomach and I had a great urge to throw up all the food I ate before coming out.

This man wasn't the person asking for help, he looked totally dead, I reasoned then took out my phone from my slacks and dialed 911 with my shaky and sweaty palms as I kept muttering "it will be okay" to myself repeatedly.

"Heeeelp" the same voice that lured me here called and coughed weakly startling me with confusion causing my phone to drop from my shaky hands few meters from the car. As I moved closer to pick up my phone, a strange bloody hand grabbed my wrist. I let out a shriek and jumped back, terrified to the bone.

This was exactly like one of the scenes in my book and if I was the one writing, it was obviously time for my character to hit the road.

The hands filled with blood turned out to be a man who should be in his early thirties, blood was dripping from every part of his face. I was so horrified, I had no idea what to do or where to start from.

His lips quivered, he coughed out weakly again as I tried to reach for my phone on the ground close to his head.

"I... I'm so sorry, I'm calling the ambulance now," I stuttered, trembling uncontrollably as I tried to speak then the man grabbed my hands again mouthing incoherent words.

I squatted down to hear what he what trying to say, a creepy feeling gnawing at me with his bloody hands holding my wrists to tight like they were his life support.

"N... no amb...am..bulance, please," he forced himself to voice out, still I wouldn't have heard a thing if I wasn't crouching down close to his mouth to hear what he was trying to say.

Did he just say 'NO AMBULANCE?!"

And the words left me bewildered and confused. I had no idea of what to do or what not to do.

Then emerged my spirits of indecisiveness. I called them Mr. Do and Mrs. Don't.

Mr. Do: You have to call an ambulance, it's the only rational and logical thing to do at the moment. Don't think about it twice, don't hesitate or listen to him, he's probably not even in his right mind. Just do it!

Mrs. Don't: How can a dying man who knows more than anyone that he needs medical attention with immediate effect tell you not to call an ambulance if it isn't for a good cause? Sometimes logic and rationality should be dumped in a garbage bin!

These voices in my head were not making matters any better, I had to force myself to make a decision.

"Young man, can you talk? Or move?" I asked, raising my voice several decibels to make sure he could hear me. "I have to call an ambulance, you're too weak to and I don't have any other option," I informed him, stretching my hand to pick up my phone.

He held me gripped my hand again, startling me for the umpteenth time.

"Don't call... Please... Please" he moaned, obviously in pains and increasing my frustration.

Why the hell would this man not want me to call an ambulance? What have I gotten myself into for heaven's sake! I groaned mentally, getting up and tying my hair in a ponytail anxiously.

To my utmost surprise, the young man who looked like he was at the brink of death started struggling to get up.

I quickly squatted close to him and helped him sit with his back resting on the truck of the red expensive car. He looked beaten up bad, this wasn't some sort of accident.

It was staged and this guy was obviously ambushed.

"I can walk miss, just take me out of here, please. I'll explain everything later" he forced out breathing really hard and loud.

He was having difficulty in breathing and it scared the hell out of me. What he was saying right now was completely ridiculous. I had no inkling he was and even where I was supposed to take him to.

He was making no sense at all.

"I'm not all that badly injured, please, get me out of here and call the ambulance to come for my driver," he pleaded, turning to stare into my eyes with his steel-grey piercing eyes, while his bloody hands clung to mine tightly.

"I can't do that, Mr. whatever your name is," I blurted out, my exasperations causing me to sound rude. "You obviously need medical care, telling me to take you out of here is just plain stupid and risky. Please allow me call the ambulance." I begged, feeling utterly miserable.

"I'll really die if you take me to the hospital." he said sending me a gaze so lucid I could sense the fear in him. "So if you really want to save me, get me out of here and call an ambulance to come help my driver. He would be safe in the hospital, not me." he explained, groaning in pain and coughing weakly in between.

"Besides, my house is far too far and my car too damaged, and I cannot drive in this state."

His explanation made the hair at the back of my neck rise in unison. This man was obviously in danger and I was left with only an option. Taking him to my home.

That was far safer and plausible, asides the fact that I wouldn't want Laurie to see someone with such injuries and blood in the house. It was a great relief that she was already asleep.

The only way to get out of this mess was by not seeing it in the first place, but now that I've seen it, I have been straddled with taking responsibility for it.

Hell, I thought, throwing caution into the wind.

The injured man was staring at me like he was patiently waiting for me to make a decision.

"Well, fuck it." I muttered under my breath.

"I live in a tiny flat and you have to manage, because, well... we have no choice." I uttered, voicing out my decision to take him to my house.

I knew I was going to regret it later, however, I chose to worry about now.