Page 3 of The CEO Alpha’s Substitute Mate

Putting the laptop away, I decide to check on Luca before heading to bed.

He’s sprawled on his back when I enter with one arm thrown over his head, breathing steadily. Mr. Wonka is on the shelf above the bed with the others, scrubbed clean and back in the order Luca settled on months ago and defends against all comers.

“Somebody got dried off.” I pick up the wolf and look at it from all angles. “You’re probably going to find your way into some other crevice by tomorrow, little wolf. You’d better talk him out of it, or I’m going to make you disappear.”

With that threatening message, I put Mr. Wonka back and lean down to kiss Luca’s forehead. My lips register the heat before my brain does.

I pull back and put my palm there instead. He’s hot. Not terrifying, not yet, but hot enough that I go straight to the drawer in the bathroom for the children’s ibuprofen without waking him first.

“Luca. Sit up for me a second.”

He comes up on his elbows about a third of the way to consciousness, takes the dose with his eyes mostly shut, and is gone again before I’ve got the cap back on the bottle. This is a routine. He runs hot, it comes down inside half an hour, and by morning, he’s back to arguing with me about cereal. That’s how this has gone every other time. I sit on the end of his bed and wait for the half hour.

At the end of it, he’s hotter.

The thermometer says a hundred and three point four. I read it twice because the first reading has to be wrong, and it isn’t. His cheeks have gone red in two round patches, his curls are stuck down wet at the temples, and when I say his name, he answers me from somewhere further away than the bed.

My eyes go to the front door, anxiety building up in me.

A six-year-old at a hundred and three point four goes to a hospital. Any parent in this building would already have him in the car. My keys are on the hook, the route takes twelve minutes, and I’m still sitting on the end of his mattress with my hand around his ankle, not moving. Zara’s number comes up under my thumb instead.

“Do you have anything strong for a fever?” I ask my friend the second she picks up.

“It’s after ten.” There’s a television going somewhere behind her, then the sound cuts out and her voice comes closer to the phone and sharper with it. “Are you sick?”

“Not me. Luca.”

“How high?”

“He’s had his usual dose, and that didn’t touch it,” I reveal.

“Ariela.” She’s fully awake now. “How high?”

“A hundred and three point four.”

Zara doesn’t say anything for about two seconds, and Zara is never quiet for two seconds. “Okay. Get him in the car. You’re going to the ER.”

“I don’t want to make a whole production out of it if it’s a virus he’s going to shake by Tuesday.” The words are leaving my mouth in the wrong order. “You know what those places charge. I’ve had no insurance since the contract ended, and they’ll keep us sitting there six hours to tell me it’s a virus.”

“Do you think I’m going to sit here and listen to you do a budget at ten at night?”

“Zara.”

“A hundred and three point four in a kid that size can turn into a seizure. I’m not exaggerating.” Her voice goes up a register. “He needs a doctor tonight. Not tomorrow, not if it’s still up in the morning.”

“I’ll figure something out.”

A pause, and then, quieter, “Do you want me to come? I’ll drive you both and sit in the waiting room, and you don’t have to say a word to me the whole time.”

Luca’s breathing has picked up in a way I don’t like at all. “I’ll call you back,” I tell her, and I hang up on her mid-word.

Then I’m standing in the middle of my own front room with the phone in my hand and no plan in my head. My hands have started shaking, which is new. My keys are on the hook. His coat is over the arm of the sofa. All I have to do is put him in the car, and a doctor will see him inside the hour.

Don’t ever take him to a hospital. It’ll take them minutes to find him. He’s not like us, Ari. Promise me.

My sister’s voice sounds in my head, and for a moment, I’m back in that hospital room, watching her take her last rattling breaths.

I didn’t believe her, a mistake that nearly cost me when I took Luca to a walk-in clinic for a fever. They kept delaying his treatment, and when I went looking for the nurse, I overheard her on the phone.