Chapter 1

  Layla’s POV

  

  I literally couldn't believe my eyes. At that point, I was praying that it had all been an illusion that was playing out in my dreams. But then, it was clear that it was all happening right before me. 

  

  “But Nate...” I could hardly get the words out of my mouth, “How could you?” The man I called my mate was holding hands with the last person I had expected. “With... Hannah?”

  

  It had been a normal day until I walked into the door of his office to see Nate holding hands with Hannah, my so-called best friend, whom I had thought to have been studying abroad.

  

  “What's the meaning of all this?” I asked, as I was finally able to articulate some intelligible words after a couple of moments. “Is this some kind of prank or what?"

  

  “What do you think?” Hannah asked, with her facial expression beaming with satisfaction. Every movement of her body seemed to be solely aimed at getting me ticked off. 

 

  The fact that they were still holding hands even after I had walked in on them had me on the verge of going insane. But I was still holding back the tears somehow, even though they were holding hands like they were a passionate couple on their first date. 

  “Hannah and I were having a conversation before you walked in. Is there anything I could do for you?” Nate's words pierced painfully like a dart right in my chest. 

  

  His display of coldness was nothing new in our loveless marriage. But that time around, he was treating me like I was a total stranger. There was no greater hurt than that. 

  

  At that point, I couldn't take it anymore. I turned and fled the scene. I regretted ever walking in on the both of them that afternoon. It was the most unbearable situation I had found myself in. 

  

  All through the loveless marriage between Nate and I, I had endured the worst of him all along. It had all happened because of my promise to my father when he lay on his deathbed. 

  

  I could recall my words to him just before he gave up the ghost. “If that's what will make your death less painful and more peaceful...” I had foolishly said, “Then I would marry Nate..."

  

  In the heat of the hell I was currently living in, I wished I could take back the hands of time to the moment when I had agreed to the words of my dying father. Too bad he wasn't there to endure the consequences of that decision with me. 

  

  From the very start, I had known it would be a loveless marriage with the egoistic alpha, Nate of the Free Moon Pack. But I had bent my will just to make it work all along, but it clearly wasn't working, and I had finally seen why it wasn't working.

  

  I burst into hot tears immediately I ran into my room, as the pain of the betrayal from Hannah whom I had thought to be my best friend was just too much for one person to bear. Even Ava— my wolf shared in my grief.

  

  “How could she?” I cried as I crouched in one of my rooms, nursing the pain from the injuries I had sustained from the loveless marriage. I wished my father could see what he had forced me into. 

 

  There was no hope for me to be with him anymore. It would only hurt me more and more to remain there. 

 

  I took out my phone and recalled how I used to call Hannah to tell her about the difficulty in my marriage with Nate, not knowing that she had been the actual cause of everything. How stupid of me! How couldn't I have seen it coming somehow? She hadn't even told me when she was returning to the pack.

  

  There was only one person I could call in that situation, and I felt miserable as I dialed her number. “Tianna...”

  

  “Layla...?” She called my name with a troubled tone that seemed to have come from the fact that I was crying so audibly on the phone. “Are you alright?”

  

  “No...” My world was falling apart right before my eyes, and I couldn't do anything to stop it from happening. “It just happened...”

  

  “Okay, I need you to calm down right now...” Tianna spoke gently, but not even the calmness of her voice could keep me from breaking down. “Tell me... what happened?”

 

  “Nate is seeing someone else,” I said, wiping off those tears, as I tried convincing myself that Nate wasn't worth the tears I was crying for him. But I was just too hurt to hold back the rivers from breaking out of my eyelids. “He's seeing Hannah...” 

  “What?” Tianna let out a sigh of surprise and was silent for a while on the phone. “Why... I thought he was over that slut a long time ago. Why's he back with her?”

  

  “I wish I could provide the answers to that, but I'm just as shocked as you are by it all,” I said, mustering some courage to get up on my feet. “I guess it's now safe to say that this marriage is the worst decision I have ever made.”

  

  “I'm short of words right now...” Tianna was silent for a couple of moments. “I'm deeply sorry for the hell that you're going through right  now.”

 

  “It's fine...” I said, even though I knew that it wasn't. “At least I had to let you know before I took my decision to do what I am about to do.”

  

  “And what decision is that?” Tianna asked, with a heightened anticipation that was palpable from my end of the line. 

  

  “I've had enough of this...” I said, as I hung up on her and marched to where Nate and Hannah seemed to be catching up with each other on the balcony. 

  

  My footsteps distracted them momentarily from each other. But they returned to talking with each other like I wasn't even there. Soon enough, I closed up the space that was in between us. 

  

  “I want a rejection,” I demanded. That surely had their attention.