Chapter One
Maren’s POV
For three years, I’d been mated to Dominic Vale, Alpha of the Blackpine Pack. I used to want to tell him everything through our mate link.
What to have for dinner. Which dress to wear to a banquet. Even when the flowers on our balcony bloomed, I wanted him to know.
Until one day, he cut me off.
“Can you make a few decisions on your own? I don’t have time to listen to all this.”
Then he blocked me out of the link.
After that, I stopped asking.
I submitted the application to dissolve our bond myself. I signed the paperwork for my transfer to the Denver branch, too.
When my best friend, Talia, asked whether Dominic and I would both be at her bonding ceremony, I told her to save just one seat.
I even arranged my own wrist surgery for a cut from silver that still hadn’t healed. I found the doctor and picked the date.
He had plenty of patience for his stepsister, Celeste, anyway.
I called him the night I found out I was pregnant.
He was with Celeste. Before I could finish, he told me to stop bothering him and hung up.
So he still didn’t know he was going to be a father.
By the time he finally thought to ask where I was going, I’d already boarded a flight to Denver.
This time, I wouldn’t be waiting for him to come home.
“You’re scheduled for tomorrow? Alpha Dominic gets back tonight. Don’t you want him here with you?”
The doctor glanced at the appointment slip as he checked with me again.
I shook my head. “No need to wait. I’ve already taken the time off. Let’s keep it as scheduled.”
My wrist still hadn’t healed properly after being cut by silver. These days, even drawing hurt. If I kept putting off treatment, I wouldn’t be able to work.
The doctor seemed surprised, but he let it go. Whenever I’d come in for a checkup before, I would call Dominic several times to ask when he could get there. Arranging surgery without him was completely out of character for me.
I stepped out of the exam room and came face-to-face with him.
Dominic was pulling a suitcase, apparently fresh off a flight. Celeste stood beside him, wearing the dark gray cashmere coat I’d given him.
I’d picked it out especially for the third anniversary of our bonding ceremony.
“Your wrist bothering you again?”
He spotted the paperwork in my hand and took it. As he stepped closer, I caught Celeste’s scent on his collar. It matched the scent she was wearing.
I didn’t ask about it. He’d already found the surgery date.
“Tomorrow won’t work. I have plans. Move it to next week, and I’ll make time to come with you.”
“I’m keeping the appointment. Go ahead with your plans.”
Dominic looked up at me, still holding the report.
I used to send him pictures so he could help me choose earrings for a banquet. Now I was having surgery without so much as texting him first.
I pulled the paperwork back and knocked a box of medication out of his hand.
I paused when I read the label.
Birth control pills.
Dominic bent to pick them up and spoke before I could.
“Celeste has bad cramps. Her doctor prescribed them. It’s not what you think.”
Celeste held the coat closed at the collar and lowered her voice.
“I didn’t want to bother him, but I felt so awful. That’s the only reason he came with me to pick them up.”
She gave me an apologetic look. “Please don’t be upset. I wish I could handle being sick on my own like you do. When I’m in pain, I never know what to do.”
Looking at the pills, I remembered a night the month before when my stomach hurt.
I hadn’t known what kind of doctor to see, so I’d called Dominic and asked him to come to the medical center with me.
He told me to find a doctor myself.
When I tried to explain, he stopped what he was doing. His impatience came through clearly.
“There’s always someone on duty at the medical center. Wouldn’t calling them make more sense than calling me? Maren, I have things to do. I can’t drop everything and come home every time something hurts.”
I’d called a car that night. When he came home the next day, he never asked what the doctor had said.
I used to make excuses for him. Being Alpha kept him busy. He couldn’t be there for every little thing.
Now it seemed my problems were the only ones he couldn’t make time for.
Celeste only had to say she didn’t feel well, and he’d take her straight from the airport to see a doctor. He even carried her medication for her.
“Why aren’t you saying anything?” Dominic asked.
Before, I would have demanded to know why she was wearing his coat and why he couldn’t take care of me the way he took care of her.
But I’d asked those questions too many times already.
I put the report in my bag. “Nothing. Go ahead. Don’t let me keep you.”
He frowned, looking as though he wanted to say more. Celeste tugged at his sleeve and said she wanted to sit down somewhere.
As he turned toward her, I stepped around them and headed for the exit.
Along with the surgery appointment slip, my bag held a report confirming I was eight weeks pregnant. I’d meant to show it to him over our anniversary dinner. I’d even prepared a little box to put it in.
Now the report was tucked in with my transfer paperwork.
I wouldn’t let our pup grow up waiting beside me for his father to come home, then listening to his father tell us we were asking too much.
Once I got to Denver, I would sort out work, prenatal appointments, and a place for us to live.
I wasn’t going to ask Dominic about any of it.
