AMY’S POV
I sat in Richard’s office, a pencil in my hand, doodling car models on a piece of scrap paper.
The lines were rough, because my mind was anywhere but on the drawing.
I couldn’t stop glancing at him.
He was seated behind his massive oak desk, his sleeves rolled up to his elbows, his fingers flying across his laptop keyboard.
Every few minutes, he would pause to sign a document, his signature bold and assertive.
His brow was furrowed in concentration, his jaw tight, his green eyes focused entirely on whatever was on his screen.
I couldn’t bring myself to stop staring at him.
A question had been burning in my mind since the night before.
I’d wanted to ask it then, but the timing had always been wrong; my mother’s anger, the confrontation, the tension.
It hadn’t been the right moment.
But now, sitting here in the quiet of his office, the question kept surfacing.
I needed to know.
Richard’s eyes flicked up from his laptop, catching me mid-stare.
“You’ve been staring at me for the past ten minutes,” he said, his voice flat.
“What do you want?”
I jumped, startled.
My pencil clattered onto the paper.
“I wasn’t—I mean, I just—”
“Spit it out, Amy.”
I took a breath, then set the pencil down and stood up.
I walked around the desk and took a seat in the chair opposite him, meeting his gaze.
“I want to ask you something,” I said carefully.
“What about your fated mate? You definitely had one, everyone does.”
Richard’s expression soured instantly.
His jaw tightened, his eyes going cold and distant.
The shift was so sudden, so dramatic, that I knew I’d hit a sensitive topic.
“Never mind,” I said quickly, holding up my hands.
“You don’t have to answer.
I shouldn’t have…”
“She rejected me.”
I blinked.
“What?”
Richard leaned back in his chair, his eyes fixed on something in the distance.
“The moment she found out we were mates, she rejected me, without thinking twice.”
“Why would she do that? Why would anyone reject their fated mate?”
He let out a bitter laugh.
“Because I was nothing back then. Just an illegitimate son, a bastard the Wellington family refused to acknowledge. She was from a prominent family; high status, high expectations. She didn’t want to be tied to someone like me.”
I stared at him, my heart aching at the rawness in his voice.
“That’s… that’s horrible. I can’t believe someone would do that.”
He shrugged, but the gesture was forced.
“It is what it is. I never saw her again after that day. Heard she left the country. Probably married some wealthy Alpha and lived happily ever after.”
I shook my head, disbelief washing over me.
“Fated mates are supposed to be special. The Moon Goddess chooses them for a reason. How could she just throw that away because of status?”
Richard’s eyes met mine, sharp and unyielding.
“You still believe that? After everything you’ve been through?”
I opened my mouth to argue, but he continued.
“Fated mate is a sham, Amy. It doesn’t mean anything special because people don’t respect the bond. My parents are a perfect example of that. I am an example of that. And so are you.”
I frowned.
“Your parents? I thought the late Alpha Wellington was mated to his legal wife. That’s what everyone always said.”
Richard waved a hand dismissively.
“That’s a story for another day.”
I wanted to push, to ask more, but something in his expression told me to let it go.
Instead, I stood up and walked around the desk.
I perched on the edge of his desk, sitting beside his laptop, close enough to see the tension in his shoulders.
“Three examples of broken bonds don’t mean fated mates are a sham,” I insisted.
“My parents were fated mates. They had a happy marriage. They loved each other until the day my father died.”
Richard rose from his chair, moving with that fluid, predatory grace.
He stepped toward me, placing his hands on either side of me on the desk, caging me in.
His face was inches from mine, his green eyes boring into me.
“One example doesn’t make it special either,” he said, his voice low.
“Tell me, Amy, where is your mate right now?”
I froze.
“And why,” he continued, his voice dropping even lower, “are you in my office right now instead of with him?”
The words hit me like a slap.
Reality crashed over me, cold and sharp.
My mate.
Derek.
The man who was supposed to be my soulmate, my other half, my forever.
He had cheated on me.
He had disrespected my bond.
He had thrown away everything we had like it meant nothing.
I looked down at my hands, my throat tight.
“Because he’s not my mate anymore.”
“Exactly.” Richard leaned closer, his breath warm against my ear.
“Do you know how much of your time and affection you wasted on him? How much of yourself you gave to someone who didn’t deserve it? Because you thought he was your soulmate, your destiny, your forever?”
I swallowed hard, my eyes burning with unshed tears. This chapter is updated first at novelping.com.
“The sham of fated mates,” Richard murmured, “is that it makes you believe in something that doesn’t exist.
It makes you give everything to someone who will destroy you.
And no matter how much revenge you get, you’ll never stop regretting the years you wasted.
The effort you poured into a relationship that was always going to fail.
“You thought he would treat you specially because he’s your fated mate, didn’t you? That he would change for you. But now you see that he never cared about the bond. He believed you were naive and easy to control, that the main reason he kept you around, Amy.”
I couldn’t deny it.
It was true.
Every word.
I had stupidly accepted every decision Derek and his parents made for me.
I couldn’t go a full hour without my mind drifting back to Derek.
The happy memories, the intimate moments, the promises we’d made.
They all haunted me, a constant reminder of everything I’d lost.
Everything I’d been foolish enough to believe in.
Making Derek regret cheating on me wouldn’t satisfy me.
Not really.
The pain would still be there.
The memories would still haunt me.
I needed something more.
Something to help me get over him.
Something to help me completely move on.
I needed to replace those memories with something else.
Something that would burn Derek out of my mind forever.
“Richard,” I said, my voice barely above a whisper.
He pulled back slightly, his eyes searching mine.
“What?”
I looked up at him, my heart pounding, my mind made up.
“Do you want to have sex with me?”
His eyes widened, a flicker of surprise crossing his features.
“What did you say?”
I reached out, my fingers gripping his shirt.
“I want you to fuck me. Right here. Right now.”