Chapter Three

**OLIVIA**

I gaped at the huge mansion before us and for a long moment I forgot to close my mouth.

I had seen nice houses before. Houses that made you slow down when you drove past them and think, someday. But this was not a nice house. This was not even a mansion in the way the word usually meant. This was something else entirely.

The building was enormous, pale stone running across the entire front of it, clean and precise. Floor to ceiling windows lined the face of it, dark and reflective. Two large water fountains sat on either side of the entrance, the sound of the water soft and constant. A long private driveway stretched before us, lined with tall perfectly trimmed hedges on both sides, dense enough to hide the rest of the pack land beyond it from view.

I counted four floors and stopped counting.

"Oh my God." My mom breathed from beside me, her hand flying to her mouth. "Olivia, look at this place."

I was looking. I couldn't stop looking.

"This is our home now baby." She grabbed my arm, her voice climbing with excitement she couldn't contain. "Our home. Can you believe it? We are going to live like we always dreamed, like we always deserved."

"Oh mom, we are just human, how were you able to snag the richest and strongest werewolf in the city?" I whispered more to myself than to her.

I turned to look at her and the joy on her face was so raw and so real that I swallowed every skeptical thing sitting on the tip of my tongue. She had worked too hard and waited too long for me to flatten this moment for her.

So I smiled. Small but genuine.

"It's beautiful mom." I said quietly.

She squeezed my arm tight and turned back to the house like she couldn't bear to stop looking at it and I understood that. I did. I just felt it differently.

The entrance doors were tall and heavy and dark. Before we even reached the top step they swung open and a line stood waiting, dressed neatly, their posture straight, their faces arranged into warm and genuine smiles. Pack members, I would learn later, not simple household staff, though for now they looked no different from any other well trained household.

"Welcome ma'am." A woman at the front stepped forward with a slight bow of her head. "Welcome home."

My mom laughed, bright and delighted, and pressed both hands to her cheeks like she needed to hold her own face together. "Thank you, thank you so much."

They introduced themselves one by one. Housekeepers, a chef, drivers and then two women who stepped forward and were introduced as our personal maids, one assigned to my mom and one to me.

My mom received every introduction with warmth, shaking hands, repeating names back, laughing freely. She was glowing in a way that made her look younger and I watched her and felt a quiet tenderness move through me that I hadn't expected.

She deserved this. Whatever I felt about everything else, she deserved this.

I shook my own maid's hand and managed a polite smile. She was young, neat, soft spoken and she told me her name was Clara.

"Nice to meet you Clara." I said and she smiled back, genuinely.

I looked around at the smiling faces and the grand entrance and my mom laughing in the middle of all of it and then it occurred to me.

I looked left. Then right.

No Xander.

I still wonder why he got married to my mom, not out of jealousy but I smell something. He is filthy rich, strong, sinfully handsome and looks a little bit younger than mom.

He could have any woman fall at his feet, why mom? Not that my mom wasn't beautiful, she was beautiful but not the classy kind of beauty since she spent most of her time cleaning people houses just to pay for my tuition.

I turned back to the line of pack members. "Is your Alpha not coming to welcome his new bride himself or is he suddenly too busy for that?"

"Olivia." My mom said my name in that particular tone she reserved specifically for when I was embarrassing her.

"What?" I said, keeping my expression neutral. "It's a valid question."

"It is not a valid anything, lower your voice."

"I'm not raising my voice, I'm just asking where her husband is because I find it very interesting that there are ten people here to welcome us and not one of them is..."

"It seems someone has a problem with me not being here?"

The voice came from behind us. Deep, unhurried and unbothered.

We both gasped and spun around.

The Alpha stood in the doorway, one hand resting casually in his pocket, his eyes moving from my mom to me and settling there. He was wearing a shirt with the sleeves rolled up and the top button open, and he looked infuriatingly at ease....and mouth watering.

Damn it! What was that? I asked inwardly and mentally kicked myself.

My mom laughed nervously and moved towards him. "She didn't mean anything by it, she was just..."

"I meant every word of it." I said stubbornly, hating the fact that he could cause such commotion inside of me and mess with my feelings.

My mom closed her eyes briefly.

Xander looked at me for a long quiet moment, his expression dark and unreadable, I could feel my heartbeat sped up but then the corner of his mouth lifted, just slightly as if he knew what he was doing to me and I hated him for it.

"Good." He said simply. "At least we know where we stand."

He stepped forward and pressed a kiss to my mom's cheek, murmuring something low that made her relax immediately, and then his gaze came back to me over her shoulder.

I lifted my chin and looked away first.