His Rejected Mate, His Obsession
Waking up naked between two strangers wasn't part of Kiara's engagement celebration. Neither was being rejected by her fated mate, disowned by her family, and stabbed by her only sister.
Six years later, she's survived. Rebuilt. Moved on.
Then Chase Knight walks back into her life, and the mate bond that should've died? It's very much alive. He still makes her feel things she thought died years ago.
There's just one problem: he's engaged to Kylie and Kiara has a secret she'd rather die than let any one of them find out about.
And Chase? He's about to find out that the woman he rejected six years ago is the only one he's ever really wanted.
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Chapter 4
Chase.
She was here.
Kiara was here.
Alive.
Not dead.
Not missing.
Not even a rumor.
Right there. Standing in front of me in that black dress with her measuring tape, like the past didn't exist.
Like she hadn't shattered everything.
The second I saw her, everything slammed back into me. The room. The bed. The betrayal. The rejection. The look on her face when I said the words.
I'd tried so hard to forget.
I really thought I'd buried her.
I thought she was gone. I let myself believe it. Told myself over and over that she didn't exist anymore.
And now-
Now she was standing here like nothing ever happened.
She looked tired. Smaller than I remembered.
Yet still beautiful. God, still beautiful.
And that pissed me off more than anything.
How dare she still look like that?
How dare she still stir something in me just by standing there?
She held the measuring tape like it was the only thing keeping her steady. Her eyes glanced over my body, slow, calculating.
"Could I help you out of the jacket, sir?" she asked.
Sir.
She was pretending. Like she didn't know me. Like we were strangers.
And maybe that was the best way to play this. Maybe it was better to pretend too.
Still, the moment I opened my mouth, my voice sounded stiff. Cold and Robotic.
"You're awfully slow."
I turned to Erica before I could think better of it.
"Couldn't you find someone faster? I doubt this one even knows her job."
"Don't ruin this for me," Erica snapped at Kiara.
I almost smiled.
They hated each other. That much was clear.
If Kiara wanted to act like we were nothing, I could play that game. Hell, I could ruin her entire day if I wanted to.
She lowered her head slightly, and I couldn't read her expression. But I knew my words had landed. I knew that look-like she was swallowing something bitter.
"I'm sorry," Erica said to me. "She's good at what she does, though. I can say that for her."
I nodded, sharp and slow. "I suppose I can put up with someone like her touching me for this."
Erica gave me that tight fake smile again, the one she practiced in front of mirrors. Then she turned to shoot Kiara one last glare.
Kiara stepped out from the light and reached out, quiet, steady. She stretched her hands to take my jacket, and I let it fall from my shoulders.
I readjusted my watch.
Ran my tongue along the back of my teeth.
Her eyes were on me. Cold.
She stood tall. Shoulders squared. Stiff. Like she was pretending she hadn't just been knocked sideways.
She looked at me like she didn't remember.
Like I was just another man.
Maybe I never really knew her.
"What's your kind of style?" she asked, sliding the tape from one shoulder to the other. "Casual or...?"
I shrugged. "I should know your name though, don't you think?"
She shifted. Glanced toward the door. Swallowed before she looked back.
"Kiara, sir."
Sir. Again.
I could feel it cracking something inside me.
"This is for an important party," I said, forcing the anger back down. "Should be perfect. Maybe a tuxedo."
She nodded once. "A tux fits you."
Her voice dipped lower. "Please turn around, sir."
I turned.
Our eyes met in the mirror.
And it hit again.
Electricity.
Heat.
Fury.
Six years. I had buried this. I had hated her in silence for years. Told myself she meant nothing. But this-
Just one glance, and I could feel it again.
And I hated that.
"I... will begin the measurements now," she said.
She took my hand and stretched it forward.
Measured the arm and wrote it down.
She then stepped closer. To my chest.
So close I could hear her heartbeat and smell her skin.
I gritted my teeth as my whole body coiled.
It had been years since she'd been this close.
And it was still too much.
"Subtle doesn't look good on you," I said.
She froze. Just slightly. I felt it in her fingertips.
"I don't understand what you mean, sir."
Of course she didn't.
Of course she'd play dumb.
She bent down. Lowered the tape to my hips, to my legs.
I hated the way it felt.
Her touch.
I hated how my skin still reacted.
How my breath betrayed me.
How badly I wanted her to stay there.
I hated it all.
"You seem off balance," I said. "Afraid of going down between my thighs?"
Her head snapped up.
Her mouth twitched.
I'd gotten to her.
Good.
"I'm trying to be as professional as I can be," she snapped. "Please stop making this about you."
"I thought I was the client here."
I smirked. Her eyes narrowed.
"This is about me, right?"
She exhaled. "Stop being an ass and maybe it will be."
"Ouch."
I stepped back. Just slightly.
Then turned toward the door.
"Then I guess you wouldn't mind me telling your boss about-"
"I'm sorry," she said fast.
The tape was still in her hand.
I turned back around slowly, soaking it in.
She was still so easy to push.
"Spread your legs for me, sir," she said.
Her voice caught halfway through.
She realized it the moment it left her mouth.
I licked my lips.
And did exactly what she asked.
She knelt, fumbling with the tape.
Her hands brushed my thighs. And it slipped higher.
Her breath caught.
Mine did too.
She tried to readjust. Tried to steady herself.
But her fingers still managed to graze my crotch.
Accident or not-it didn't matter.
Her eyes widened. And she bit her lip.
I looked down at her, breathing heavy.
She swallowed.
And I-
I wanted to grab her. To pull her into me. To crush her mouth with mine. To drown in her the way I used to.
And I hated that even more than I hated her.
"I'm sorry," she whispered. "I... I..."
"Don't tell me you don't remember," I growled.
I wasn't supposed to bring it up.
But it was bubbling too fast.
The anger.
The betrayal.
The want.
All of it clawing its way to the surface.
My parents wanted me to marry her sister.
We were engaged, but it didn't feel real.
None of it did.
Except her.
She still felt real.
Even when she was supposed to be the worst thing that ever happened to me.
She stood quickly and placed the tape on the corner table.
"I don't know what you mean, sir."
"Oh don't give me that crap," I said through gritted teeth. "You're still just as-"
The door flung open.
Erica burst in with her fake bright voice. "I hope we met your expectations!"
It was jarring. The way everything snapped back to pretend.
She looked between us and didn't even notice the tension slicing the air. She didn't care.
I slipped my jacket back on and walked over to her.
I waved a hand in Kiara's direction as I spoke, "next time I'm here, don't let her near me. Or it'll be the last time I step foot in this place."
Erica stiffened. "Did something happen?"
"Everything is wrong," I said, eyes fixed on Kiara.
Her eyes were glossy.
But I didn't care.
I wasn't supposed to care.
"I'll send my secretary to handle the rest," I muttered. "I wouldn't-"
"Mummy!"
The word hit me like a slap. I turned immediately.
A little boy came running in. He was a Young boy. Way too young.
I blinked.
Was Erica still birthing at her age-?
Is it a grandkid?
Erica spun fast. "I told you not to let your child come in here again!"
Her voice was sharp, but not quite a scream. She was holding it back. For me.
I looked at Kiara.
She knelt in front of the boy and smoothed his hair while he giggled and wriggled away.
She then stood and bowed slightly. "I'm sorry for the disturbance," she said softly. "I'll take him out."
"Stop bringing him around and you won't need to keep apologizing!" Erica snapped.
Kiara nodded again. She then took the boy's arm and led him out without a word.
"Always bringing in that child," Erica grumbled, shutting the door.
I stood there. Frozen.
She had a child?
Kiara had a freaking child?
While I'd been breaking myself apart, stuck in memories of her betrayal, she dared to move on?
She met another man and started a life?
What the actual Fuck!
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9.3
Alyssa Gregory slept with Benton Steele, a recently disgraced and bankrupt heir, just to humiliate him.
She threw a massive check at his bare chest, treating the former prince of Wall Street like a cheap escort.
But Benton didn't take the charity.
Instead, he manipulated her anger, tricking her into signing an ironclad contract that surrendered absolute control of her entire trust fund to him.
When her abusive mother found out she had funded a penniless outcast, she slapped Alyssa across the face.
Her mother froze all her bank accounts, locked her inside her bedroom, and arranged to sell her off to a degenerate politician.
Desperate to escape, Alyssa climbed down her balcony, falling fifteen feet and shattering her ankle on the stones below.
Stripped of her money and freedom, she dragged her broken body to a VIP club just to publicly declare that Benton belonged to her.
She thought she was the boss, playing a rebellious game with a broken man.
But when Benton effortlessly carried her away from the club and locked her inside his rundown apartment, the terrifying calculation in his dark eyes shattered her illusion.
How could a man stripped of his entire empire still radiate such suffocating, violent power?
"You bought me," Benton whispered, his massive frame trapping her against the sofa. "That means I have to take care of you."
Physically trapped and completely broke, Alyssa stared into his consuming eyes, her mind racing to find a way to turn the tables.
7.7
The Cameron family clinic smelled like lemon polish and impending death. For three years, I'd been a vessel in a cold, forced marriage to Underboss Kade Cameron. But today, the doctor's words would shatter everything.
"No heartbeat," Dr. Finch declared, then, "Stage IV gastric cancer. Terminal." A double death sentence. As the world tilted, a news alert flashed: Kade, my husband, parading his mistress, Carla Shaw, across Europe-"a love that defies family lines."
Dying and carrying his dead child, I overheard nurses gossip Kade wanted me gone for his "true love." I chose to feel the D&C agony, cleansing him from my soul. Stumbling out, Kade accused me of killing his child, then rushed Carla, feigning illness, to OB/GYN, ignoring my bleeding and dying state.
Back at the mansion, I vomited blood, my body failing. Kade watched with disgust, dismissing my terminal diagnosis as a "performance." He called me "collateral," a "debt payment," then left me for his mistress. The last shred of loyalty shattered, replaced by chilling clarity.
I signed the divorce papers he dismissed as a "tantrum," leaving his ring. No longer a Cameron, no longer his possession. With Fluffy, I made one call, choosing to die on my own terms, finally free.
7.7
I was driving through a rainstorm in upstate New York, pushing my old Volvo to the limit just to pick up a Dior gown for my wife, Catarina. She needed it for a gala tonight, where she planned to spend the evening standing next to the man she actually loved, Atticus Deleon.
The truck hit me head-on, crossing the center line and sending my car rolling down an embankment in a shriek of twisted metal and shattered glass. As the steering column crushed my chest, my brain didn't see a white light; it was pried open by a digital tsunami, flooding my mind with the "Quantum Archive"-billions of data points on surgery, high-frequency trading, and combat.
I woke up in the ICU with three broken ribs and a concussion, but the only thing waiting for me was a screaming voicemail from my wife's assistant.
"Jorden, where the hell are you? Catarina has been waiting for thirty minutes! You are so incompetent it's actually impressive."
There was no "Are you okay?" or "Are you alive?"-only fury over a ruined dress and a missing tie. While I was being resuscitated, my wife was on Instagram, singing "Endless Love" with Atticus and laughing at my "tantrum." She even called the family lawyer to freeze my credit cards, wanting to make sure I couldn't even buy a coffee without her permission.
For three years, I had been the "useful husband," the doormat who apologized whenever she stepped on my toes. But the accident had overwritten my desperation with cold, hard logic, and I realized I had almost died for a woman who viewed me as a liability with a negative return on investment.
When Catarina finally stormed into my hospital room to demand an apology for ruining her night, I didn't look at her with the usual puppy-dog eyes. I looked at her with ice in my veins and handed her a manila envelope I had drafted myself.
"Sign the divorce papers, Ms. Evans. I'm done being your canary."
7.2
Lauren Sterling gave up her career to support her boyfriend, Julian Drake, believing his words that he and his family lived for privacy.
But it was nothing but a lie. He had only replaced her with her best friend.
On the day they were supposed to get married, he left her waiting. Out of desperation, Lauren Sterling married a stranger!
Alexander Ashford.
The man who gave her three months to take her revenge.
In a dangerous game where revenge collides with betrayal, dangers and secrets. Will Lauren Sterling survive?
9.8
After three agonizing months, I finally found my fiancé, Barnett Spencer, at a gala at The Plaza. He had vanished without a trace, and I was on the verge of losing my mind.
But when I saw him on stage, my blood turned to ice. He had a strange woman tucked into his arm, and a lawyer announced that a recent accident had erased the last six years of his memory-our entire relationship.
In front of a sea of reporters, Barnett looked right through me with freezing hostility.
"Miss, you have the wrong person."
He then declared that the woman beside him, Joslyn, was not only the person who saved his life but also his new, legal wife. The news hit me like a physical blow, and the camera flashes swallowed me whole as reporters shoved microphones in my face, asking how it felt to be publicly dumped.
The man I had loved for six years had turned me into a national joke, a delusional stranger trying to cling to his wealth.
That night, as I was drowning my humiliation in a martini, his ruthless younger brother, Dixon, found me. He slid a marriage contract across the bar.
"Marry me," he said, his voice a low rumble. "I want his shares. You want his pain. We both get what we want."
Fueled by alcohol and a burning need for revenge, I grabbed his pen and signed my name. I was no longer the abandoned fiancée. I was about to become my ex's worst nightmare: his new sister-in-law.
7.6
My fated mate rejected me in front of the entire pack and they cheered while he did it.
Moving to Nightshade Pack was supposed to be my escape. Instead, I got two step-brothers who looked at me like I was something they wanted to destroy.
Dante Blackwell: brutal, possessive, with eyes that burned through me every time we were in the same room.
Mateo Blackwell: all charm and cruelty, with a smile that shouldn't make my heart race but does.
They made my life hell. Every day was a new way to remind me I didn't belong.
But one incident changed it all.
What happens when the step-brothers you're supposed to hate become the ones you can't stop craving? When the mate who destroyed you comes crawling back? When the broken girl they underestimated discovers she's something they should fear?
Sometimes the prey becomes the predator.