Chapter 2 Their Joke

Lorenzo's POV. “Alpha Lorenzo, we almost hit a young woman, I believe she was in the middle of some fight,” Lorenzo’s driver said. Fighting on the street sounded like a lower class thing. Lorenzo never got himself into trouble with these, not after he crawled himself out of the poor crowd and went all the way to the top. “None of our business. Just leave,” Lorenzo answered without even looking up from the paper documents he was scanning through. However, when his limousine drove past the woman in the middle of the street, he caught a glimpse of her and that was all he needed. He asked his driver to stop. It pained him how familiar she felt, but it couldn’t have possibly been her. The woman in the road was miserable and exhausted. While the girl he remembered would have been shining in centerstage bathed in glowing spotlight, tiptoeing on impossibly high pointe. She would have been floating to impossible heights, embodying the grace and beauty he couldn’t help but fall in love with. No, this woman was not her. But she looks too much like her. Before Lorenzo could think, he spoke up: “Stop the car, we have to go back and offer that woman some help. Miserable or not she was in danger.” Lorenzo’s driver was visibly shocked at his words, but was under no authority to betray a direct order from his boss. He nodded and quickly pulled a Uturn, zooming back towards the woman in need. Lorenzo watched as the driver dealt with the woman through the window then he nodded in a approval when the deed was done. He tried to ignore how familiar she seemed even through the tinted glass. Shaken out of his trance by his driver getting back, Lorenzo steadied himself and pushed away the uneasy feeling in his gut. He cleared his throat and looked out the windshield, putting on his business voice. “How are the preparations for the queen’s birthday banquet?” Lorenzo asked his beta nonchalantly, trying to act indifferent to what had just occurred. “We’re struggling sir. We haven’t found a suitable candidate for the performance and we can only barely put a dance team together as it is,” the beta replied. He kept his gaze ahead until he dared to make eye contact with the Alpha through the rearview mirror. “Miss Cate said if you are willing to look at the Ballet Institute’s dancers” “Forget it. Reject her and tell her my decision is final.” Lorenzo snapped, cutting off his driver, glaring at him hard through the mirror. The beta gulped and nodded wordlessly then turned his eyes back to the road. “What a headache,” Lorenzo muttered to himself.. Eleanor’s POV I was wiping down tables as my best friend and coworker Adeline cleared plates, filling her in about my neardeathexperience the night before. “Yup, some rich fool decided I wasn’t worth more than roadkill. But he was kind enough to give me money for my wounds,” I said giving the table a onceover before shuffling over to the next booth. “That is so horrible Ellie I am just glad you’re okay,” Adeline looked over at me sympathetically. “At least you got some cash out of it! I’m curious though, which pack’s alpha was he?” “I didn’t see his face so I couldn’t tell you for certain, but I overheard his driver call him Alpha Lorenzo,” I said, turning my attention to the table in front of me. “Wait what?” I didn’t need to turn around to know that Adeline was looking at me in shock, her voice gave it all away. “Lorenzo as in Lorenzo Sinclair? He’s the newly appointed alpha of the Black Moon pack, the youngest billionaire the packs have seen in years! Everyone raves about him being such a generous and good person, no wonder he gave you so much money.” Adeline seemed to be absolutely gushing but I stood frozen, my rag leaving a wet puddle on the table. Lorenzo Sinclair, a name etched deep into my memory that was now resurfacing for the second day in a row. My former fated mate — the man who betrayed me — was now a billionaire Alpha? I hated to think the world would be this cruel, but this surely wasn’t a coincidence. I steeled myself and resumed cleaning. “Oh I’ve never heard of him, it sounds like you admire him a lot,” I replied casually, keeping my focus on the table in front of me. Adeline almost squealed with excitement, as if I had burst the dam and she could unleash her inner fangirl. “Of course I admire him, he’s a walking miracle! I mean can you even believe it? He used to be a bottomdweller and now he’s a billionaire,” Adeline exclaimed, almost dropping her dishes. “He climbed his way to the top all by himself, completely selfmade and now he owns the rights to the core of the technology industry. His company recently launched the most popular app that everyone’s obsessed with…” Adeline rambled on but I started to zone out. She was completely captivated by Lorenzo, or at least this version of him. The Lorenzo I knew couldn’t even afford a computer, in fact he would always borrow them from school and tinker with their programming. It endlessly annoyed our teachers, but there was no denying Lorenzo was a technological genius. As much as it pained me to admit, I wasn’t surprised he had become so successful. I tried to clear my mind and get back to work; Lorenzo and I were no longer from the same world so dwelling on him was useless. The universe must’ve been aware of my suffering when a man burst into the restaurant and put an end to Adeline’s fawning. He looked expensive and like he was looking for the person in charge. “I’ve got this one Ellie,” Adeline said in a hushed tone before gliding over to the door with a bright smile. She had been at the restaurant longer than I had, earning her the title of shift manager, so she was equipped to handle important looking men like this one. I kept my head down but my ears open. “Good evening miss, I am here as a representative of Cate, this city’s most famous ballerina,” the man said in a low tone. “I wish to book this restaurant for an allday private event tomorrow under her name and the alpha of the Black Moon pack.” I heard Adeline gasp and felt my own stomach drop. Of course, Cate was the name of a true wealthy heiress. She had been one of my classmates at the ballet academy. After Lorenzo rejected me, Cate flaunted at me how she successfully took Lorenzo away from me. Even the mention of her made my blood boil but I kept my cool and kept my ears trained on the hushed conversation happening across the room. I needed to get my bearings. Tomorrow Lorenzo would be here, in this restaurant, to attend a banquet hosted by Cate? This had to be a joke.