As Nolan’s crackling fireplace serves as the background to our dinner later that night, it’s a struggle to hide my despondency about how little I achieved today.

Nolan bought me a pretty dress and expensive necklace, and all it did, whether or not he intended it, was drive the rest of the women further away from me.

I thought it would be easy to convince them that Nolan was such a terrible alpha that anyone would be better than him. That all we needed to do was work together, then we could ...