Chapter 1

The mating ceremony was close. Damon was going over the guest list with me when,

without warning, he said, "There's something."

"Legally, I already have a bonded mate."

"If you don't mind, the invitations go out, the ceremony goes on."

He lit a cigarette, careless, and offered a lazy explanation:

"My family forced her on me years back. Once you take someone in, you have to take responsibility."

My head went blank.

It took me a long time to find my voice. "Then what were these six years?"

"I was the bastard."

He tapped ash from his cigarette. "Now it's your turn to choose."

My hand resting on my stomach trembled.

There was a surprise inside I'd been planning to tell him today.

...

The truth came at me without any rehearsal, and it slammed into my chest.

"But six years, and you never said a word..."

He'd played the part so well. I'd never suspected that behind all that warmth, there was another life.

Damon exhaled smoke. "What would saying it have changed?"

He pulled his mouth into a smile that didn't reach his eyes.

And yet it carried a strange certainty.

"Evelyn, we don't need formalities between us."

We don't need formalities?

I looked down at the invitation still in my hand.

So when he didn't want a ceremony before, it wasn't because he was practical.

It was because he was afraid of parading a double-bond in public.

My stomach lurched. I ran to the bathroom and retched.

"You don't have to react this strongly."

Damon followed in and patted my back lightly.

"She's just a girl the elders pushed on me before I met you. No education, no interest in learning. She served my parents at the family estate for a few years, and I brought her here last year."

"I set her up somewhere in the city," Damon paused, "and I see her once or twice a month. I give her an allowance."

I turned to look at him.

He stood there, tall, clean suit, every line of him exactly what I'd loved for six years.

But right now, the coldness in his face made me freeze.

"So every time you said you were going home to see your parents, you were actually..."

"Going to see her," he said, as if it were nothing. "My parents are old. Someone has to look after them. She does all right."

Does all right.

I wanted to laugh, but my mouth wouldn't lift.

Six years. Over two thousand days and nights.

He'd had endless time and chances to deal with that relationship.

To deal with her, or to deal with me.

Instead, he'd chosen to stand in the middle, calmly enjoying both.

My stomach cramped again.

I pressed my hand against it without thinking.

Damon's eyes followed my hand, and his brow tightened.

"You look terrible," he said. He came closer and reached for my forehead.

I jerked back, and my spine hit the cold tile.

"Don't touch me."

His hand stopped in the air.

His phone rang.

He glanced at the screen and cut it off.

It rang again, and he cut it off again.

The third time, he clicked his tongue and answered.

Thin crying came through the line.

"Damon... I'm not taking my pills... if you come see me, I'll be fine..."

Damon rubbed his brow. "Fine. I'll send my assistant over."

He hung up and turned to me, softer now. "Her health has always been bad. She makes a fuss."

I didn't say anything. I just looked at him.

Over the past six years, this scene had played out countless times.

His phone always rang.

I always said, like a good partner, "You go ahead."

So all those nights he rushed off, all those holidays he broke, some of them had been for another "mate."

I laughed, and tears came. "Take me to see her."

"No need," he said, face going hard.

"No need?" I grabbed the guest list and threw it on the floor. "Six years! My whole youth, every hope I had, was you! And now you want me to choose? Choose what? Choose whether to keep being the other woman?"

He looked at the scattered pages. "Nobody's the other woman."

"I kept it from you, I wanted to give you a future. You haven't wronged anyone. There's no guilt for you to carry."

Hah.

A strange, cold absurdity washed through me.

That speech almost made him sound responsible. It made my stomach turn.

"Evelyn, I mean it with you."

"And her?" I pressed.

He was silent for a long time.

Finally he said, "That's just duty."

Duty.

Two light words.

And they crushed six years of my faith.

My phone buzzed this time.

The speaker was on, and my mother's voice rang out in the dead quiet room:

"Evie! Mom already sent out all the invitations! Everyone's saying Damon is so capable, that you've got such good fortune!"

Her cheerful voice stabbed into my nerves.

I held back tears. "Mom, I've got something going on. I'll call you later."

The call ended. The man's cold, steady voice started again.

"The invitations are sent. The venue's booked. The ceremony photos are taken." He paused. "I've given you every bit of the ceremony you wanted."

I looked up at him. "What are you trying to say? That you want to use all that to pin me down? Make me play deaf and dumb and finish this three-person ceremony?"

"I'm not pinning you down." He walked to the window, his back to me. "I said, you can choose whether to continue."

"You just have to think it through. Six years between us, the future we planned together, your mother and family's hopes—are they worth throwing away because of one piece of paper?"

One piece of paper.

I almost laughed through my tears.

"She is a person, Damon. An actual, breathing woman with a legal bond to you. She's not a piece of paper."