Contract Over: I Rejected My Alpha Husband First
When her father fled with his mistress, leaving crushing debts behind, Freya Gilbert had nowhere to turn. Crashing Alpha Jonas's welcome ceremony in desperation, she never expected to find her fated mate there. But it wasn't gentle Jonas who made her wolf howl "mate." It was the dangerous, devastatingly powerful Niklaus Lockwood.
One scorching night of passion sealed her fate.
Niklaus already had his perfect chosen mate, the elegant Rebekah. Unwilling to abandon his plans, he offered Freya a cold business deal: be his contract Luna for three years, play the perfect wife in public, and he'd clear her debts. When their arrangement expired, she'd accept his rejection and disappear quietly.
Freya thought she could survive a loveless marriage. She was wrong.
Three years later, she's fallen hopelessly for the Alpha who sees her as nothing more than a gold-digging Omega. On their anniversary night, the very day their contract expires, Niklaus chooses Rebekah.
The message couldn't be clearer.
But when Freya files for divorce and moves out first, Niklaus's carefully controlled world shatters. The mate bond he's suppressed for years, and he never expected his obedient, compliant wife to actually leave him.
"I, Freya Gilbert, reject you, Niklaus Lockwood."
The words that should have set them both free only ignite a fire that threatens to consume them both.
Can a love born from a business contract survive the flames of pride and betrayal? Or will the most powerful Alpha in the territory lose his true mate because he was too blind to see what was right in front of him?
When the contract ends, the real battle for love begins.
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Chapter 7
"Freya, what the hell is this divorce agreement supposed to mean?"
Niklaus's dark voice jolted Freya fully awake.
"Exactly what it says."
Niklaus let out a cold laugh. "Come to my office and take this garbage with you. Eight o'clock tonight, I want to see you at the pack house, along with... your luggage."
When Niklaus went to their bedroom, he found that Freya had already packed and taken all her clothes.
Freya said helplessly, "Niklaus, you..."
The line had already gone dead.
Freya didn't understand why Niklaus wouldn't just sign the divorce papers. Their contract was already over. She had graciously stepped down from the Luna position, hadn't she?
After washing up, Freya went to Lockwood Enterprises. As Niklaus's Luna, besides handling pack affairs for him, she also helped with company matters.
The first thing Freya did at the company was write her resignation letter. Passing colleagues saw this, and the news spread through the administrative building immediately.
By the time she headed to print it, voices drifted from the break room.
The usual venom filled the air.
"So last night's news was true. Rebekah got hurt, Alpha carried her to the hospital. He's definitely choosing Rebekah."
"Poor Freya's getting kicked out. Everyone says she stole Rebekah's Luna position."
"She claimed at the ceremony that she was his fated mate. So manipulative."
"A divorced Omega? She'll end up Rogue."
Fury blazed through Freya. Three years of biting her tongue, of trying to earn their respect through kindness and hard work--and this was what she got. Malicious gossip and backstabbing.
Enough.
Freya walked straight into the break room. "Actually," she said, loud enough for the entire floor to hear, "I'm the one resigning."
Dead silence.
"Must be hard being rejected by an Alpha," one woman said with false sympathy.
Freya laughed. "Rejected? I filed for divorce. I moved out. And honestly? I got tired of playing with just one Alpha. There's a whole world out there."
Shocked gasps filled the room. Freya knew she was being scandalous--suggesting she'd grown bored with an Alpha was practically blasphemous. But the stunned looks on their faces? Worth it.
"Social gathering?" Niklaus's voice sliced through the tension.
Everyone scattered like startled deer.
His eyes found hers immediately.
"My office. Now."
Freya lifted her chin, refusing to show weakness. She walked past him into his corner office.
Niklaus was leaning against the desk, arms crossed, eyes dark.
"Care to explain what I just witnessed out there?" he asked.
Freya placed the envelope on the desk.
"My resignation," she said, voice clipped. "Effective immediately."
His gaze flicked to the envelope, then back to her face. She looked different somehow. Colder. More distant.
"And that comment about 'playing with Alphas'?"
As an Alpha, his pride was everything. The idea that she saw their relationship as a game made his blood boil.
Her mouth curved, just barely. "I gave them something to talk about. They gossip about me anyway."
That did it.
"So that's what I was to you." His voice turned cutting. "A game. Three years of marriage, and you turn it into gossip?"
She opened her mouth to explain, then closed it. What was the point?
"I want a divorce."
He let out a cold laugh. He reached for a folder and tossed it onto the surface. Papers slid free--the divorce documents she'd had delivered.
"You came prepared," he said. "Very thorough."
"Our contract expired last night--this is just making it official."
He stilled completely. The contract expired last night? He had completely forgotten about it. But Freya--Freya had remembered it clearly. She'd been counting down the days, hadn't she? Waiting for her freedom.
For a heartbeat, nothing moved in the room. The silence stretched between them.
"You remembered." The words came out sharp, bitter.
"Yes."
His jaw tightened. "You didn't even speak to me first. Didn't think I deserved a conversation before you decided to blow up our lives?"
"There was nothing left to say."
"Nothing left to say. Right." His voice turned ice-cold. "And what about your little trip to The Royal Crescent Hotel? Was Jonas Saltzman there waiting for you?"
Freya's eyes widened in genuine shock. "Jonas?"
Why would he think she was with Jonas? Was he actually accusing her of cheating?
"I would never cheat on you," she said, her voice sharp with hurt and anger.
"But it doesn't matter anymore. I've already moved out, and my lawyer has drawn up a fair settlement. All you need to do is sign."
"I'm not signing this," Niklaus said coldly.His tone brooked no argument.
For a moment, hope flickered in Freya's chest. Did he not want to divorce her?
"Half of my assets?" He jabbed his finger at the papers.
His voice was getting sharper, crueler. "Really? Is that what this was always about? A big payday? Did you spend three years playing sweet and obedient just to cash out?"
The hope died instantly. Even now, he thought the worst of her.
"You've always thought I was a gold digger?"
"What else should I think? The moment our contract ends, you want half of everything I own."
Niklaus was beyond reason now, his anger making him cruel. "You married me to pay off your debts, didn't you? If it wasn't about money, what was it for? If you hadn't caught me at that party, you would have climbed into another Alpha's bed just the same."
Every word cut like a dagger. Three years of bowing her head, of enduring whispers and cruel gossip--every cruel rumor she'd ever heard about herself was now pouring from his lips like poison.
That was the cut that went deepest.
So this was it--this was the end.
"Keep your money," she said, her voice trembling with hurt and fury.
He looked up, confusion flickering across his features.
"I don't want your money," she continued. "Your name or anything from you except my freedom."
She straightened, gathering every ounce of dignity she had left.
"I, Freya Gilbert, reject you, Niklaus Lockwood of the Whitecrown Pack."
The formal words of rejection rang through the room clearly.
Pain ripped through her chest as she severed the mate bond herself. Each word felt like cutting away a piece of her soul.
He stared at her, completely stunned. Niklaus hadn't expected her to have the nerve to reject him first. Rage and panic flooded through him. He was supposed to be in control of this relationship, of this situation. How dare she reject him!
"The divorce papers included asset division because it's a legal requirement. I don't need your money."
She took a shaky breath, fighting to keep her tears from falling.
"Thank you for clearing my father's debts." Her voice wavered slightly.
"Thank you for giving me a home when I had nowhere else to go."
The words came harder now, each one a struggle. "This is goodbye, Niklaus. I hope you and the woman you love will be happy together."
She turned toward the door. Every step felt like walking through glass, but she forced herself to keep moving.
"No." Niklaus's voice rang out, hard and final.
She froze.
"I don't accept your rejection."
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8.6
Seven nights with the devil to pay a debt. One truth that will burn the world down.
Sienna Blackwood was never part of the deal until her step-brother gambled with her life to save his own.
Now, she is collateral in a brutal game of revenge. The collector is Dante Moretti, a billionaire with a fifteen-year grudge and a thirst for Blackwood blood.
He doesn't want her money; he demands seven nights of her total surrender.
But in the shadows of a Manhattan penthouse, hatred turns into a lethal obsession. When a syndicate ambush forces them to flee, the contract becomes a race for survival across the Atlantic.
Hunted for the three-year-old secret heir in their arms, Sienna and Dante must navigate a world of blood oaths and forced alliances.
In a game where every kiss is a tactical error, Sienna must decide: is her step-brother's rival the monster who shattered her life, or the only man who can save it?
7.6
When Christine Woods collapses into a hospital bed from unbearable pain, her husband's response is colder than the IV dripping into her veins: "Stop pretending to be sick."
That same night, a single social media post shatters her marriage--Neil Caffery, intimate with the first love he once claimed was dead.
Three years of marriage. Three years of neglect, indifference, and quiet self-deception.
In that moment, Christine finally understands the truth: she was never a wife--only a substitute.
Not wanting to live as a substitute any longer, she divorced her husband.
After divorce, Christine started her new life, achieving success both in career and love.
Seeing her so radiant and successful, her scumbag husband beg her to come back.
"Hazel, I know I was wrong. Please come back."
However, before Christine could respond, the country's richest man kicked him and held Christine's waist, "Who are you? Stop pestering my wife!"
His voice was cold, his presence imposing.
Christine looked at him and snorted, "When did I agree to marry you?"
"Baby, are you still angry about last night? I promise, I will be gentle next time." The man said, looking at her playfully.
Christine hit his chest playfully, her face turning red.
9.1
Leo Vance builds things that last. Bridges. Buildings. A quiet, unspoken life with the woman he loves. What he has never been able to build is the courage to name what they are.
On the morning of his wedding to botanical illustrator Elara Ashford, Leo stands in a chapel in a suit he cannot bring himself to fully button, and realizes something that stops him cold - he has already been married to her. Not in any courtroom or ceremony, but in every moment that actually counted. The night she held his hand at his mother's funeral and said nothing, because nothing was the right thing to say. The years they ate ramen so he could chase a dream she believed in before he did. The night she stood in the doorway during their worst fight and looked him in the eye and refused to let him run.
He has said I do a thousand times in a thousand unspoken ways.
So why does saying it out loud feel like the beginning of the end?
What Leo doesn't know is that Elara has been sitting with her own impossible question for three weeks - ever since she found a note in his jacket pocket that made her wonder whether the man she is about to marry proposed because he chose her, or because someone told him he was about to lose her.
What neither of them knows is that the woman he was secretly engaged to four years ago just walked into the venue. His best man is in love with his bride. His estranged father is standing outside in a rented suit, unable to go in. And the wedding videographer has been filming everything - with two cameras.
By the time the officiant asks who gives this woman, nothing about this wedding will have gone according to the blueprint.
But then again, the most important things Leo has ever built never did.
Every Vow But One is a lux serialized romance about the terrifying distance between loving someone completely and choosing them on purpose and what it can cost when you finally close the gap.
8.4
Everly spent four years playing the perfect, accommodating wife to Carson Moss, swallowing every grievance just to secure medical treatments for their sick daughter.
But at a high-society banquet she exhausted herself organizing, Carson's pregnant mistress crashed the party.
The woman shoved an ultrasound of Carson's "real heir" directly into Everly's frail grandfather's face.
The shock triggered a massive heart attack.
Carson refused to use his private helicopter to save the dying old man, choosing to protect his mistress and his company's IPO instead. Her grandfather died on the hospital table.
Instead of remorse, her mother-in-law demanded Everly publicly cover up the murder.
"You will do exactly as I say, or I will freeze every single cent of the medical trust fund paying for your crippled daughter's treatments."
When a battered Everly returned to the estate, she discovered her three-year-old daughter covered in dark bruises and pinch marks. Her in-laws were deliberately torturing her disabled child.
Everly couldn't comprehend how a family could be so utterly heartless. Her only family was murdered, her child was abused, and her husband threw a five-million-dollar check at her face as hush money.
They thought she would just break and quietly disappear.
But when a terrifyingly powerful billionaire unexpectedly blocked Carson's security team from locking her up, Everly finally saw her window.
She grabbed her sleeping daughter and ran out into the freezing storm, making a blood-bound vow to make the entire Moss family bleed.
8.5
Kaelyn spent three years believing Andrew loved her completely, until one overheard conversation shattered everything.
He had never returned for her. He had come back to save another woman, even if it meant taking Kaelyn's heart.
Humiliated and done with loving alone, she agreed to marry Theodore, the blind yet powerful heir chosen by his grandfather.
After the wedding, no matter how many times she tried, she just couldn't get past his walls.
Then at a banquet, her desperate ex came begging. Before Kaelyn could react, Theodore drew her into his arms and murmured, "Giving up already? Try again. I'm ready to surrender."
8.8
She married the devil. Then she divorced him. Now she carries his child.
All Isabella Lorenzo wanted was to protect her family, and she thought marrying the ruthless and feared Luca Moretti... heir to the Moretti crime empire would be enough, but she was wrong. Instead of protection, her father was brutally executed and her heart left shattered in a million pieces.
Two years later, she has managed to move on from the past and rebuild her life in the shadows. Every feeling of emotion was buried in her past, but they soon reignite after a reckless night with a masked stranger... a stranger that happens to be Luca Moretti.
Now she's pregnant, and Luca will do anything to get her back.
But forgiveness is not something that exists in her heart anymore... will she be able to fully heal, or will her urge for revenge burn everything down?