Chapter 0001

“You don’t help.”

Aaron’s biting words from earlier echo in my mind as I pull on the thin, silk nightgown he gifted me for our first anniversary. I spend every second of the day taking care of our daughter, cooking, cleaning, and making sure I look beautiful for him, but it’s never enough.

You’d think I’d be used to the disappointment in his eyes. I grew up with the same look from my father.

It’s understandable, really.

His first daughter was the perfect progeny of a high-ranking business tycoon. The perfect opportunity for an alliance between the money of the Ashford family and the power of the Kensingtons. The perfect first love for Aaron Kensington to lust over.

The perfect shadow for me to fall invisible beneath.

But instead of the perfect union, we had a mysterious disappearance eight years ago. With Emma presumed dead, I was the only alliance my father had left to offer: a disappointing Omega substitute who will never live up to the memory of my big sister.

Two years after she disappeared, I became the wife she was supposed to be. So now I take care of the house Emma should have headed, love the daughter she should have raised, and please the man she should have married.

Six years of efforts to be the perfect wife, and I’m still met with Aaron’s constant disappointment that I’m not the one he truly desires: my sister.

Even though I’m his fated mate.

I look at myself in the gold-framed, floor-length mirror. I may not be Emma, but I’m strong and beautiful in my own way. Not that anyone would know.

I’ll never have the privilege as an Omega of appearing in public, even as the president’s wife. My closet full of gowns goes to waste since I’m forbidden to attend events like the upcoming press association gala.

Aaron won’t be expected to go alone, though. No, he always has several women surrounding him in public – and in private, too.

Just another thing for me to keep silent about.

Turning away from the mirror angrily, I leave our room to go tuck in our daughter. I storm through the hall, one word on repeat in my mind like a mantra.

Divorce.

I’ve spent eight years waiting for Aaron to accept that we’re fated mates, that we’re supposed to be together, that he is destined to love me.

Of course, he accepts it in bed. The bond is too strong for him to fight the physical attraction.

But he continues to hold back his heart, refusing to love me, to let me in. He clearly wants something else, and I sure as hell deserve more. I can’t keep loving someone who will never love an Omega like me.

Entering Ruby’s bedroom, lit only by a night-light, my resentment is eased by the innocence of her smile, sweetly awaiting her mother’s goodnight kiss. I relish her giggle as I gently nuzzle my nose against hers.

She deserves more than parents who will never be in love, too.

“Goodnight, baby girl.”

I close her bedroom door behind me, making for Aaron’s study. This isn’t the first time I’ve wanted to discuss divorce with him, but sometimes it’s hard to get the words out.

I knock on Aaron’s study door.

“Come in.” His curt but deep voice rumbles through me, even through the closed door. My mind blanks out in response to his call, and I step inside, hating how drawn I am to him, even after eight years of emotional rejection.

I step up to the desk he’s sitting behind, continuously astounded by how his beauty radiates from him like a sun god. He looks up, meeting me with his furrowed brow that never seems to smooth, earning him a constant look of arrogance and indifference. His green eyes sparkle despite no more than four hours of sleep every night.

Glancing at the papers and screens spread across his desk, I’m reminded of his relentless dedication to his presidential affairs. I’m reminded that I am an intrusion, that he has infinitely more important matters to attend to than my trivial desire for divorce.

The steely determination that fueled me to this spot is suddenly dimmed with indecision.

Aaron notices my hesitation, and he looks me over hungrily. My wolf hearing picks up the increase in his heart rate as lust flashes in his eyes.

Combined with the hour and my attire, I realize he thinks I’m seducing him.

I can’t find the words to correct him before he sets down his papers, standing as he licks his lips in anticipation. Walking around his desk toward me, I instinctively retreat at the sight of his tall, imposing figure approaching me. Our eyes lock as I walk backwards, his longer strides gaining on me until my legs hit the sofa behind me.

I fall backwards, but Aaron catches me, slowly lowering me onto the cushions. Reaching for a pillow at the end of the sofa, he tucks it tenderly behind my lower back as he kneels before me. His gaze falls languidly down my body that’s barely concealed by my thin nightgown like I’m a delicate treasure he cherishes.

Gently nudging my legs apart, Aaron scoots close enough between them to lower his lips to my ear. His voice is cold as he inhales against my neck, his breath prickling the nerves in my ear.

“You smell good enough to eat.”

My entire body flushes involuntarily with heat.

He runs a hand up my bare leg, leaving a trail of goosebumps in the wake of his touch as his fingers rise under the hem of my nightgown, his lips caressing my collarbone as his other hand gently slips the dainty strap of my nightgown off my shoulder. I shudder, leaning into the pillow at my back.

Even if I’m only an Omega, even if I’ll never be my sister, and he’ll never give me his heart, Aaron never stops surprising me with unexpected tenderness – like this pillow that I know he only keeps in his study for my comfort. Little details like that only make me fall deeper and stoke my hope that part of him could love me one day.

The mantra in my mind of “divorce” quiets until it disappears completely from my mind.

In fact, every breath inhaling Aaron’s pheromones, intensified by our mate bond, dizzies my mind until there is only his body slowly getting closer to mine – and far too many clothes between us.

He pulls his head up from the base of my neck where he was sucking. I meet his gaze, drowning in his look of want and awe that I crave from him every second. But I only get it here, when he’s under the influence of the mate bond, unable right alongside me to refuse the attraction that binds us.

It’s the only time his disappointment in me vanishes as completely as Emma did eight years ago.

He lowers his head again, using his teeth to pull down my nightgown until my breast springs free. He trades the fabric between his teeth for my nipple, nibbling and sucking until I arch into him.

His hand between my thighs circles my entrance teasingly until I moan in need.

“Please,” I beg. “Please.”

Not needing to ask a third time, his fingers eagerly penetrate me as he sucks harder on my breast. I gasp, no longer able to restrain myself as my hand flies into his hair, clutching his dark strands like they’re my lifeline. My eyes roll back as he pumps his fingers in and out, his other hand clutching my hip protectively.

Breaking his mouth from my nipple, he raises his head to watch me writhe beneath his commanding force. His eyes dart along my body, checking that I’m comfortable, then the furrow of his brow pleats in rapture, as if there is nothing more fulfilling than pleasing me.

I’m glowing beneath his desire, slowly ascending a peak of pleasure, when Aaron’s phone rings, cutting through our guttural moans. Releasing his hand on my hip, he never stops pumping his fingers inside me as he pulls the phone out of his pocket and answers absentmindedly, his attention still clinging to the heave of my labored breaths and the tremble of my gasping lips.

“Yes.” His ever-curt voice signals me to cover my mouth in hopes of dampening my moans.

Then his enchanted gaze dragging along my body snaps up, the desire suddenly drained from his eyes. He abruptly pulls his fingers out, leaving me empty and unsatisfied.

He stands, plucking a tissue from his desk and using it to wipe me off his fingers.

“Yes, bring her to the Moon House. Thank you, officer.”

Aaron ends the call and pockets his phone. He balls up the dirtied tissue and throws it in the trash.

He turns to me, the hem of my nightgown bunched around my hips, one breast exposed, my pussy dripping and throbbing for more. But he doesn’t seem to see any of that. In fact, he looks right through me.

“That was the police,” he shares. I can’t read his muddled expression, as if he’s either feeling everything at once or nothing at all. “They found Emma.”