Olivia I looped my arm through Nathan’s as we stepped down from the podium, the applause from the crowd and the flashing of cameras having finally subsided after what felt like an eternity. “It’s over,” Nathan beamed, giving my arm a squeeze. “That wasn’t so bad.” I couldn’t help but grin back at him. “No, it wasn’t. You were great up there.” And he really had been great; the press conference had been an overwhelming success—any lingering doubts or trepidation we had harbored before had been utterly blown away by the sheer force of the crowd’s enthusiastic response. For so long, it had felt like we were fighting this battle alone, like the victims who had suffered under Dan’s horrific operation were little more than nameless, faceless casualties. But today, we had finally given them a voice. Their stories had reached the masses, had resonated and struck a chord with everyone who watched. Nathan had handled all of the questions that were thrown his way with poise and ease
OliviaI gripped the edges of the podium, my knuckles whitening from the strain as I stared out over the sea of faces. All eyes were trained squarely on me, awaiting my words. But I was frozen.A tremor of nausea wormed its way up my throat as I stared out at them. What was I thinking—how could I have ever agreed to this? Speaking to crowds had never been my forte; that was Nathan’s arena, not mine. I was just the woman behind the scenes, the young mom who had never gone to college, the one who had been handed her job by her husband…Suddenly, a flicker of motion off to the side caught my eye—Nathan, standing just at the edge of the stage with his arms folded across his chest. Even from this distance, I could feel the weight of his steady gaze, that piercing Alpha stare that always seemed to see straight into the depths of my soul.He must have sensed my faltering because, slowly, deliberately, he offered me the faintest of smiles and a single, reassuring nod.And just like that, the
It's Christmas. The coldest and my favorite holiday. After working almost nonstop for 72 hours for the restaurant's holiday campaign, I was declared fired. Nowhere to go.“Olivia. Give me your apron.”My eyes widened as my boss’s cold words silenced the kitchen. It came out of nowhere, and when I turned to look at him, it was clear that he wasn’t making a joke or playing a prank on me. His aging, stern face looked entirely indifferent as he held out his hand for m
The tall hedges that surrounded the property reminded me of the days I would spend with my childhood best friends, Nathan and Alvin, as we would play hide and seek amongst the thick branches. The cupolas on either side of the house reminded me of how we would climb up there against my aunt’s wishes so we could look at the birds’ nests, and how we would get a good scolding from my aunt afterwards. Inside, I could see a light on upstairs in my aunt’s bedroom. Seeing that light filled me with a bit of warmth, and I paused for a moment to look up at it with a smile on my face. “Olivia?” a somewhat familiar voice suddenly said. It sounded different, gruffer, but I still recognized it immediately. I spun around to see my aunt’s gardener, an old man named Clint, standing behind me in his wool sweater and worn overalls. “Clint,” I said with a smile. The gardener, who was getting on in years now, walked up to me and wrapped his arms around me. He had a limp now, which he didn’t have
I blinked slowly, still taken aback by this sudden and unexpected interaction. We hadn’t seen each other in such a long time, and Nathan looked so… different now. He looked so much more mature than the rambunctious teen who I last saw before my dad and I got evicted by the old Alpha. “Nathan,” I muttered, smoothing down my messy hair from a night of sleep, “it’s… it’s good to see you. You’re so tall now.” Nathan stared at me for a moment. There was what looked like a ghost of a smile playing on his lips for the briefest of moments before his face turned stony. He seemed to drink in my appearance, as though he was appraising me. “You look good,” was all he said. I thought back to what the operator on the phone told me last night. Nathan, my childhood friend, was getting married now. He looked so mature now, but it still felt odd to think of him as a groom-to-be. It made me wonder… “Who is your bride?” I blurted out. Nathan looked at me in a surprised way for a moment, almos
“Your villa?” Nathan’s voice sounded disbelieving. “This isn’t your villa. This is my wedding house.”“What?” I scoffed. “You have to be joking.” Surely Nathan was just playing a joke on me. My aunt left me the deed to the house with my name on it, and her gardener, Clint, never mentioned any of this. Maybe Nathan was in charge of the renovations, and it was supposed to be a surprise.But the more that I thought about it, I was only reminded of how he had mentioned his fiancee’s needs when he was talking to the builders.“Isn’t it obvious?” Nathan asked. “This is my wedding house. I paid a high price for the most beautiful villa in town.”This all felt unreal. My aunt’s villa was my childhood playground. My aunt and I didn’t have the closest relationship, but I spent a lot of my time here growing up. I knew this house and its surrounding property like the back of my hand. In fact, I had spent a lot of time as a kid talking to Nathan about how I would change this place if I owned it my
On the day of the wedding, I got dressed up and arrived at the church where the ceremony was held.Really, I was wearing a cheap dress with the tags still on it so I could return it after the wedding. Even though my aunt left me the villa, I still didn’t have much money to my name after being evicted from my pack for a decade, and so I didn’t exactly have the luxury of buying fancy new dresses for nice occasions.For this very reason, I felt as though I was sticking out like a sore thumb as I walked up the front steps to the church.Inside, I immediately realized that the church was full of people who I knew from my childhood. A lot of my childhood friends from grade school were in attendance. While many of them looked in my direction, no one said anything to me.In fact, I felt like an outcast; and that was only solidified when Nathan’s father, Colin, turned around in his seat and shot me a dirty glare.Colin was the previous Alpha of the pack. After he joined forces with the pack el
Nathan placed his hand on my belly and smiled up at me while the rest of the wedding guests watched us with shocked faces. “Olivia, I promise that I will take care of you… And our baby,” he said.The bride’s face was as white as a sheet. The entire church, which was just murmuring angrily over the scene before them, now fell so utterly silent that the sound of Layla’s white lily bouquet falling to the floor echoed throughout the walls.All I could hear, however, was my own heart beating too fast inside my chest as I wondered what the hell was happening today. Not only did Nathan refuse to marry his bride, Layla, but he also claimed that he would take care of me! And our… baby?! We hadn’t seen each other in a decade. This couldn’t be possible; it had to be a joke, or a bad dream, or a nasty prank…“What is all of this, Nathan?!” Colin, Nathan’s father, shouted. His loud, domineering voice boomed throughout the dead silent church and was the only thing to finally drown out the overwhelm