Page 13 of Fourth Base with the Alpha

I frown at the shop assistants, annoyed for once that we’re being ignored. Then I march over to one.

“You need to help my girlfriend find some new outfits,” I bark. The assistant turns around, about to give me her pissed off comeback. When she spots who I am, her eyes go wide.

“Yes, sure. Which one is she?” I point to Isabella with a strange sense of pride in my stomach. She’s easily the prettiest girl in here. She has those dark eyes that set my pulse racing and thick dark hair I want to wrap around my fist.

For the next hour I sit on a chair in the corner, trying to write this song that’s been buzzing around my head. Really, I’m watching the omega. Three assistants are skipping around her now and a huge smile hovers on her lips. When she’s done, her cheeks are flushed and there are four full shopping bags waiting for me at the counter.

“Oh shit,” she mumbles. “I didn’t realize I’d picked out so much. I guess I got carried away. You can’t buy me all this.”

“It was part of the deal.”

The smile on her face flickers a little. She nods her head. When she goes to lift the bags from the counter, I shoo her hands away.

“I’ll carry them.”

I scoop them all into my left hand and then take hers with my right.

I’m pretty sure people are snapping pictures of us as we step back out onto the sidewalk and I can already hear one of the shop assistants squealing about us to her friend on the phone.

I peer down at the omega.

Mission accomplished.

4

Isabella

I feellike I’m back at school. Kim doesn’t need to say a word, just the slant of her head, the pinched nature of her brows and the steam bellowing from her ears tells me she’s pissed.

I can’t understand why. For our first performance as a fake couple, I thought we did pretty well. We cracked the holding hands business. He bought me a truck load of clothes like a dutiful boyfriend and we even managed some small talk.

“That performance was pathetic,” Kim says, slamming down a pile of magazines and newspaper clippings. “I’ve seen more chemistry between a lamppost and a pylon. I mean look!” She gestures towards a picture of the two of us scrawled across a newspaper page. I didn’t have time to check out any coverage this morning. I had to leave early to make the scrabble across town (two buses and a 15-minute walk).

Above the photo a headline screams:Who is Hunter’s mystery girlfriend?

I feel nauseous. I knew this came with the territory. But that is a big-ass photo. I wish I’d thought about things more carefully and actually worn a t-shirt without deodorant marks on the hem, or had my cousin do my makeup for me.

“How long?” I ask, swallowing. “How long until they work out who I am?”

“Probably yesterday,” Kim answers.

I’m somewhat relieved. If they already know who I am and haven’t sent journalists to camp outside my door, perhaps I’m not that interesting.

There are two people who are going to be exceedingly interested though. My mom and my grandma. I need to call them.

Hunter leans forward on his tiny chair and examines the photo. “It looks fine to me. What’s the problem?”

“The problem? You look like you have a rod up your ass. And not in a good way. Where was the flirting? The peering lovingly into each other’s eyes? The kissing?”

“Kissing?” Hunter growls.

“It’s in the contract, asshole.” Kim swings her gaze between the two of us. “If you want this to be believable, you need to step up your game, otherwise you’re going to look like a bunch of clowns.”

“Can’t you tell them it’s a European thing? We’re not big into affection.”

“Bullshit. You Swedes are known for being cuddly.”

He snorts. “Not all of us!”