The Alpha CEO’s Unloved Wife

Escape Plans 

Baron rose with the dawn, dressing with the golden light over him like a benediction. She watched him, wondering how something so beautiful could be the source of so much pain. He saw that she was awake and came to sit on the side of the bed, putting his hand onto her shoulder.

“It is a small thing, Jane,” he told her firmly. “My grandfather was murdered, his fortune stolen, my family’s pack scattered, and my family was cast out in poverty. These things happen to us in life. It would be nice if they did not, but they do. If my family can rise from their losses, and my mother and father still stand proud amongst their peers knowing all that was said of them, then you too can rise above this.

“Take today to recover, rest, but tomorrow night, I expect you to be ready to go out, do you understand, Jane?” He tilted his head until she had no choice but to meet his eyes. “Say: yes Baron.”

“Yes Baron,” she repeated obediently, hating him.

“Good,” he squeezed her shoulder and rose. “I will see you at dinner tonight.”

She lay in bed and thought on what he had said. A photo compared to the loss of a loved one, fortune, pack, and pride, seemed like a small thing, in theory, but the reality was that its repercussions would be felt for years, she knew. That was what pack life was like.

There would never be a time that she could walk into a gathering and not see sly looks and hands covering whispered gossip. Men would see the exposure of her body in that photo as invitation to touch and indecently proposition her. Her children would come to her after being teased about it by their peers.

As an omega, she was a victim who could not defend herself, and her alpha husband, who could offer some protection, openly kept and paraded his alpha mistress and so might as well have publicly declared his indifference to her. She was prey, set amongst natural predators. And they would prey, and prey, and prey until she was stripped to the bone.

averted. “Madam,” he said. “If I may speak freely. Bullies feed off the reactions of their victims. At the moment your bully grows fat off your misery. You need to stand up, shake it off, and pretend, at least, to be indifferent to the injury. Otherwise, the

do not understand what it is

a wealthy man,” he replied. “And I understand what it is to be

messages from her family as they had grew increasing irate, berating her for bringing shame on them. Late in the evening, around the time that Baron would have issued his announcement, the messages went silent. There were no condolences or comfort offered, no balm to the insults of their earlier communications, just silence

not to worry about returning. She had let them down, she thought, feeling the burn of shame in her

and looked up local short courses and booked herself into one that started the next week, entering her credit card details from memory. She had lost her job, but she would try

situation, she just

sat

knocked at the door, come to collect the tray. “I can return, madam, if

she told him, carefully keeping her screen angled

worked on the computer following the course material to begin building her resume, though it was frightfully thin on information: her contact details, her

sighed and tried not to be discouraged. She had won that first job with nothing; she could win

awake and trying not to think of the next evening,

undressed, hanging his clothing over the back of the chair, and slid into the bed, his skin coming

legs over his shoulders. She arced, her eyes closing,

and he groaned as he sank into her. She pressed off her heels, arching her back,