DEVEREUX'S SHARED OBSESSION

CALEB'S POV

My girlfriend dumped me today... again.

Well... not the same girlfriend, a different one and that somehow made it worse. For some unknown reason, despite being an alpha... my pheromones don't have much effect on omegas.

"I don't think this is working anymore, Caleb." Amelia said without looking directly in my eyes.

I stared at her across the small café, my coffee growing cold between my hands. "Did I... do something wrong?"

She looked away. "No."

"Then why?" I asked heartbroken. Silence, that's what all I get... it is long and painful.

She bit her lower lip before finally speaking. "You're a wonderful man." I almost laughed, because that sentence never ended well.

"But..." There it was... the inevitable but. "I met someone."

My chest tightened. "Who?"

She hesitated. She didn't have to answer because I already knew. "...Evander."

The world around me seemed to stop... again.

"I didn't mean for it to happen," Amelia whispered. "We kept running into each other. We talked... he understood me... his pheromones... I feel safe around him."

Of course he did. Evander Devereux always understood people... and his fucking pheromones attracts omega like a magnet, like a predator attracting his prey into trap... those were his greatest weapon.

"You deserve someone better than me." She said with a bitter smile.

"No," I interrupted quietly. "I deserve someone who stays."

She lowered her head, unable to meet my eyes. "I'm sorry."

She really sounded sorry. Maybe that's what hurt the most. None of them ever left because they hated me. They simply found someone they wanted more. Someone richer, more confident and more charismatic.

Someone whose name was almost always... Devereux.

By the time Amelia walked away, I didn't bother stopping her. What was the point? I had already lost count.

Sophia.

Emily.

Charlotte.

Rachel.

Now Amelia.

Every woman I had ever loved eventually found her way into the orbit of the Devereux brothers. Sometimes it was Evander, sometimes it was Lysander. The outcome was always the same... they left for the scent of comfort and charisma.

I stayed behind alone.

As I watched Amelia disappear into the afternoon crowd, a bitter realization settled deep inside me. Maybe the problem had never been them. Maybe... I was simply someone nobody could choose... even my biology, my pheromones is weak for an alpha.

If someone asked me when my life started falling apart, I'd probably laugh because it never really did. It was simply born that way.

Some people grow up believing they're loved, while others spend their entire lives trying to earn it. Sadly, I belonged to the second kind. Even as a child, I learned there were things money couldn't buy...

Affection.

Acceptance.

A place to belong.

My father tried, God, he really did. Whenever my stepmom, Victoria wasn't looking, he'd sneak into my room after work carrying my favorite blueberry shortcake from the bakery down the street.

Despite being a busy man, we'd sit by the window, eating with plastic forks while he listened to me ramble about school or whatever book I had buried my nose in that week.

"You'll become an incredible Alpha one day," he'd always tell me, smiling as he ruffled my hair.

Back then... I believed him. And back then... I believed fathers lived forever but I was wrong... his sudden death from cardiac arrest even though he maintains healthy living and even takes vitamins and supplements, shocked me to my bones.

I don't believe it is possible, my alpha instincts said there's more to it that I don't know. I will be successful... so that I will have the power and means to uncover what really happened. His funeral was held beneath a sky as gray as the suit I wore.

Everyone cried... everyone except Victoria. She stood beside my father's coffin dressed in elegant black, her face hidden beneath a lace veil. To everyone else, she looked like the picture of a grieving widow.

I was the only one close enough to hear her whisper. "This house is finally mine."

Three months later, she proved it. Every photograph of my father disappeared... his books, his clothes... even the old rocking chair where he'd read to me on rainy afternoons. Everything that reminded me he had once existed was thrown away. Everything except me.

Unfortunately for Victoria... She couldn't throw me away, not yet because of the last will and testament that my father left is still nowhere to be found. Victoria was afraid that her cash cow will be gone once it was found and my name ended on it.

Victoria had two beta daughters who are studying at an Ivy league university abroad... they are mean and always feel entitled. Being beta limits Victoria for using them as a bargaining chip to a wealthy family through arranged marriage.

"You'll be twenty-five soon," Victoria reminded me almost every morning. "You should've accomplished something by now."

Apparently, breathing wasn't considered an accomplishment. Neither was graduating with highest honors. Neither was managing the Dawson Foundation even being college. Because to Victoria, I was simply... not enough. Never enough.

"Caleb!" Her sharp voice echoed through the mansion before sunrise.

I sighed, closing the book I had been pretending to read. "I'm in the kitchen."

"You should've been here ten minutes ago." I walked into the marble kitchen where Victoria was already dressed for the day. Every strand of her blonde hair was perfectly in place. Diamonds glittered around her neck.

She looked less like someone preparing breakfast and more like she was about to conquer Wall Street. She glanced at me then frowned. "Is that what you're wearing?"

I looked down... white shirt, dark slacks... nothing unusual. "It's clean."

"It looks cheap." She sneered.

"I'll survive." I said calmly.

"You surviving has never been the issue." Her words landed with practiced precision. "It's embarrassing."

I remained silent, because experience has taught me something important... arguing with Victoria was like trying to stop the rain... you'd only end up soaked.

She set her coffee cup down. "I invited someone important to dinner tonight."

"I'll stay out of your way. I have a shift to Cafe tonight." I said softly. Even having the wealth, I need to flex my bone to earn money to support my after graduate program in Alpha academy because apparently Victoria stopped supporting my study after my father died.

"No." She smiled... that smile. The one that always warned me something unpleasant was coming. "I want you there."

I raised an eyebrow. "Why?"

"So he can see exactly what I've had to put up with." She said with venom.

Ouch, that one actually hurt. She noticed. Good... that meant she'd accomplished what she intended.

"Who is he?" I asked quietly. My fist clenched to the sides.

Victoria picked up her phone. "My soon-to-be husband... the man I'm going to marry someday."

I blinked. "What?"

She turned the screen toward me. The headline filled the display.

DEVEREUX GLOBAL CHAIRMAN AUGUSTUS DEVEREUX SPOTTED WITH SOCIALITE VICTORIA SINCLAIR.

Beneath it was a photograph... tall, broad shoulders. silver streaks in dark hair. Cold gray eyes that somehow managed to command attention even through a newspaper image...

Augustus Devereux.

The billionaire every financial magazine loved to worship, the business tycoon who bought out my father's company stocks at a low price after he died and the father of two men I hoped never to see again. I loathe him as much as I loathe his sons.

My stomach tightened. Victoria noticed my expression. Recognition flickered across her face.

"Oh." She laughed softly. "I forgot. I heard from grape vines that you know his sons."

Know them? that was one way of putting it. Another would be... they ruined my life.

Evander Devereux.

Lysander Devereux.

The celebrated heirs of the Devereux dynasty, the brothers every magazine called perfect. Every woman adored, every businessman admired and every parent wished their children could become.

If there was one thing the Devereux brothers excelled at besides making headlines... It was taking everything I loved. Their pheromones have unusually stronger pull to women that mine.

The first time, I thought it was a coincidence. Sophia had apologized through tears, saying she simply connected with Evander more than she ever had with me.

I wished them happiness.

The second time... Emily chose Lysander.

The third.

The fourth.

The fifth.

Eventually, I stopped believing in coincidence. It became a game. One they always won... The media called them charming. I called them disasters wearing expensive suits.

Victoria leaned against the counter. "You'll behave tonight."

"I always do." I said coldly.

"You'll address my Augustus respectfully." She warned.

"I know how to speak to people." I reiterated.

"You'll stay away from his sons. You'll never provoke his son." She spat with venom.

That earned a bitter laugh from me. "I'd love nothing more."

She stepped closer until only inches separated us. "Good."

Her perfectly manicured finger tapped my chest. "Because unlike you... I actually have a future to protect. By the way, I bought you a suit to wear tonight. I don't want my Augustus to think that I've been mistreating you."

She walked away before I could answer. The front door closed moments later. Silence settled over the mansion once again.

I stared at the newspaper still lying on the kitchen island...

Augustus Devereux.

Evander Devereux.

Lysander Devereux.

Three names, three people who would unknowingly turn my world upside down. At the time, I thought the worst thing that could happen was having to sit through one awkward dinner.

I couldn't have been more wrong because fate has a twisted sense of humor. And before long, the Devereux family wouldn't just become part of my life.