The Alpha’s Masquerade

Melinda James

Occupation: Senior housekeeper at the Grand Crest Hotel

Species: Human

Special skills: Removing impossible stains, stretching a paycheck, and becoming invisible whenever management needs “one tiny favor”

Melinda James has spent five years cleaning up after people wealthy enough to believe towels replace themselves. Practical, hardworking, and armed with a dangerously dry sense of humor, she prefers steady paychecks to dramatic surprises.

Unfortunately, dramatic surprises have not agreed to respect that preference.

Melinda likes inexpensive cereal, terrible reality television, and rooms where no one expects her to make small talk in French. She dislikes entitled guests, performance reviews, and handsome strangers who radiate enough body heat to violate several hotel safety codes.

Her greatest strength is that people underestimate her. Her greatest weakness is assuming she can solve every crisis with a cleaning cart and a well-timed retreat through the service corridor.

Nico Wilford

Occupation: CEO of Wilford Global

Species: Wolf shifter

Rank: Alpha

Special skills: Corporate takeovers, supernatural tracking, and making ordinary furniture look alarmingly fragile

Nico Wilford is a billionaire Alpha accustomed to solving problems with authority, determination, and an intimidating legal department. He is controlled, private, and about as comfortable at society galas as a wolf trapped in a room full of perfume samples.

Beneath the expensive suits and permanent boardroom glare, Nico is loyal, protective, and considerably softer than he would like the business press to discover. His wolf prefers forests, silence, and getting exactly what it wants. Nico prefers contracts, clear answers, and pretending those are different things.

He dislikes dishonest executives, stiff collars, and anyone who schedules meetings before coffee. He secretly enjoys cheap ice cream but would deny it under oath.

Genevieve Ashford

Occupation: Heiress by birth, escape artist by necessity

Species: Human

Special skills: Dramatic entrances, expensive disguises, and turning a minor inconvenience into a five-act emergency

Lady Genevieve Ashford possesses a designer wardrobe, a generous trust fund, and a father who believes her future should be negotiated like a business acquisition. She may appear delicate, but beneath the silk and diamonds is a determined woman with excellent survival instincts and very little patience left.

Genevieve speaks fluent society gossip, can identify a scandal from across a ballroom, and considers understated behavior a tragic waste of good lighting. She is loyal to the people who help her—even if her plans occasionally require borrowed identities, emergency payments, and a flexible interpretation of hotel policy.

Her greatest fear is losing control of her own life. Her second-greatest fear is being photographed in unflattering beige.

Susan Case

Occupation: Grand Crest housekeeper and unofficial investigator of everybody’s business

Species: Human

Special skills: Interrogation, workplace gossip, emergency snack distribution, and detecting lies at twenty paces

Susan is Autumn’s best friend, roommate, and self-appointed personal security department. Loud, observant, fiercely loyal, and almost impossible to embarrass, she treats every crisis as something that can be improved with snacks and aggressive questioning.

Her handbag contains receipts, lip gloss, old keys, emergency supplies, and several objects she has completely forgotten purchasing. She enjoys cheap ice cream, expensive gossip, and reminding billionaires that money does not exempt them from the rules of friendship.

Susan has never met a boundary she could not enforce with a pointed butter knife.

Landan Norris

Occupation: Chief of security and professional keeper of Julian’s remaining patience

Species: Wolf shifter

Rank: Beta

Special skills: Risk assessment, surveillance, paperwork, and delivering bad news without changing facial expressions

Landan Norris is Julian’s trusted second-in-command. Calm, capable, and suspiciously prepared for every emergency, he approaches supernatural disasters with the same energy most people bring to updating a spreadsheet.

He carries a tablet, a backup phone, and—on particularly difficult days—a magnifying glass. Landan believes most problems can be prevented with proper documentation. Nico believes most of Marcus’s documents can be fed into a shredder.

Landan enjoys schedules, legally precise wording, and chairs with adequate lumbar support. He dislikes surprises, unclear instructions, and being forced to explain why “find her” is not a complete operational plan.

Lord Ashford

Occupation: Wealthy businessman and full-time manager of other people’s lives

Species: Human

Special skills: Social climbing, financial pressure, and hearing “no” as “please prepare additional paperwork”

Lord Ashford believes every relationship is a negotiation, every gala is a marketplace, and every billionaire is merely an excellent opportunity wearing formal shoes. Polished, calculating, and deeply concerned with appearances, he considers affection useful only when accompanied by the correct bank balance.

He enjoys exclusive clubs, strategic introductions, and explaining decisions no one asked him to make. He dislikes independence, inconvenient truths, and daughters who develop opinions without submitting them for approval.

His natural habitat is a boardroom containing expensive chairs and at least one person he intends to manipulate.