The Alpha CEO’s Unloved Wife

The Ring 

The morning sun woke her, her eyelashes sticking together and resisting her eyes opening. Her vision was initially blurry, catching the sunlight at points until she blinked, and moisture freed her vision.

Baron lay over her, his breath steady and regular over her skin, his hand resting on one breast, his head on her shoulder. His dark curls brushed against her jaw, and his big body sprawled, his tanned skin stark against her white.

He was still within her, even in his sleep, and that, alone, she thought, had given her rest, as if her body’s slumber relied on that tie between them, that joining, that link.

For how little that meant, she thought, her heart a raw pain in her chest.

His phone ringing was what had woken her, and he grunted, his features scowling in reaction to its jangle. The insistence of its tones had him groaning and lifting from her, sitting up with the heavy posture of one exhausted, and pulling the phone off the dresser with clumsy fingertips.

“Yes?” He growled into it as he sagged to lie at her side. “Mmm,” he reached up and released the knot that bound her wrists. “No that is not acceptable. Tell him half that, or I will take it from him, and he will be pleading for me to pay one fourth. Yes. I am not joking. Okay. Bye.” He released the phone so that it fell heavily onto the pillows between him and leaned across her to release her other wrist. 

As she sat up to untie her ankles, he lay on his back, his hands cushioning his head, folded behind his skull. “I shall have to leave you for a while,” he said. “This deal is… Slippery. I don’t trust that things will go the way I want without me there to supervise. I will be back as quickly as I can.”

She paused in the bathroom door. “Will you be…” She rested her forehead against the door frame. “Be calling in someone else to take care of things in your absence.”

Would he be calling in an alpha or beta who specialised in satisfying an omega during heat, she was asking. They were the reason that she’d had a contraceptive implant put in. The runt, the washed out, pathetic, weak reject of the litter as she was, she had not expected that she would have a mate for her first estrus, and as such, had the implant put in, and a standing request with a well-known agency, so that an alpha, or, if they were all booked, at least a beta, would be available to her should she need him.

have,” she swallowed hard, for it rankled.

do?” His surprise was evident. “Isn’t that interesting?” He murmured. “No,” he decided. “An

a boundary into intimacy, she knew. Already they toed that line, nuzzled over its line every time that they f-ked. If he handed her off to a professional, they would do what was needed, and no more, no emotional

not be, and yet treated her body so perfectly that his touch had her purring for more. He was an addiction, she

would

for a railway carriage, and she was a passenger upon it, helpless to stop the

was not sure if he said it for her or

her to say and stepped into

he would not be there when she opened the door. Did he really have a meeting, she wondered, or did

middle, and sobbed out her misery. As she lay on the tiles, her head cushioned on her crossed arms, watching the water gather and pool beneath her breasts, she wondered what the heroine in a

Nothing realistic, she thought.

might feel grand and world changing to herself, but it was unlikely to have made any difference to Baron’s world, to his life. It wasn’t even a blip, not even a moment worth pausing over. She

off the

she left the bathroom, and his absence felt significant. She sat on the end of the bed and stared at her own toes, wondering what she intended

her true mate, the one person who would see value in her even if no one else ever did. The one person who would see her for

tell herself

bed, she told herself, as she dressed. The heat had eased, a subtle warmth rather than a scalding demand. She checked her phone. There were twelve missed calls from

now, thank you. All is well. Thanks.” And