I Was His Mate.: She Didn't Know

​Amelia Hayes has 30 days to save her niece. ​A judge’s ruling demands the 35-year-old heiress present a stable family unit to win custody of her niece, or the child returns to her abusive father. With time running out, Amelia rushes to secure the only perfect solution: her own bodyguard. ​Her solution? Adrian Cole. ​He’s 25—loyal, quiet, and financially desperate. For a staggering sum, he agrees to a two-year contract with one unbreakable rule: No love, no intimacy, strictly business. ​But when their fake wedding night turns into a real assassination attempt, Amelia realizes her calculated bargain has made them targets. Now, fighting a vengeful ex-friend and a killer lurking in the shadows, Amelia and Adrian must fake their way through a deadly war. ​The contract was just a lie. But the way he risks his life to protect his 'wife' might just be the terrifying truth.

I'm the daughter of Don Falcone. After I got back from studying abroad, my family threw a welcome-home banquet, conveniently setting me up to meet the fiancé my father had handpicked for me—Santino Moretti. My father praised the guy to the skies in his letters: he was the heir to the Moretti family, elegant, ruthless, drop-dead gorgeous, and holding half the city’s underground operations in the palm of his hand. I arrived at the Elysium Hotel right on the dot. Just as I was about to take a seat, a hand shoved me hard. A woman's shrill voice pierced my ear. "Livia, what's a Sicilian peasant like you doing here? This is the Imperial Suite. Do you think you even deserve to breathe the air in a place like this?" I recognized the woman. It was Bella, a bitch who had always had it out for me back in college. She was clearly trying to humiliate me. Instead of getting mad, I smirked. "Whether I deserve to be here or not—is that for you to decide?" Bella sneered, crossing her arms over her chest. "I'm Mr. Santino's personal assistant. Today, Mr. Santino is hosting the eldest daughter of the Falcone family here. This isn't an occasion for bottom-feeding trash like you." "Be smart and crawl back to your slum." I pulled out my phone and dialed my so-called fiancé. I wanted to ask him if it was a tradition in the Moretti family to let their dogs bark at the front door.

Having been in a two-year long-distance relationship with my girlfriend, Kayleigh Richards, I finally have time to visit her family for the holidays. In doing so, I want to hash out the details of our upcoming wedding as well. What I didn't expect is that Kayleigh would actually show up with a hooligan at the banquet. She even goes as far as to terminate our engagement in front of everyone. The hooligan, Gerald Shaw, looks at me haughtily. A trace of mockery can be seen in his eyes when he notices how wretched I look. "What makes you think you can fight with me over my woman? Kay, how the heck did you even fall for this wretched-looking beggar in the first place? He's even carrying an old sack with him! Don't tell me he just came back from collecting the trash!" All of Kayleigh's relatives who are present at the banquet roar in laughter. My future mother-in-law even shoves me in an attempt to kick me out. I merely gaze at Kayleigh calmly. "Are you sure you want to choose him?" Kayleigh sneers at me in return. "You're just a stupid miner! Gerald's dad is the owner of the gold mine, you know!" I raise an eyebrow at her words. Then, I open the woven sack I've brought with me. The gold bricks that scatter from the sack shine brightly under the light. "Oh? I have no idea that my gold mine has somehow become someone else's property."

On the Memorial Day weekend, Mason Hayes, the student my wife, Abigail Sullivan, had been sponsoring, insisted on riding with me back to his hometown. My car was small, the drive was long, and the trunk was already packed. There was no way to fit another adult, so I turned him down as politely as I could. That night, Abigail came home and stayed quiet for a long time before finally saying, "He ended up walking along the highway. His feet were torn up." I frowned, trying to make sense of it. "It's a holiday weekend. There are Ubers everywhere. He could've booked one in minutes." She nodded softly, the same gentle expression she always wore, and poured me a glass of water. I drank it. The next thing I knew, everything went black. When I opened my eyes again, I was standing under a brutal midday sun on an empty stretch of highway. Abigail leaned into Mason's shoulder, holding her phone up as she livestreamed. There was a faint smile on her lips, but there was nothing warm about it. "You said getting around was easy, right? Why don't you try walking home yourself?" The livestream was packed. The chat flooded with messages, people placing bets on how far I would make it. I looked straight into the camera, ran my tongue over my cracked lips, and said, "Done enjoying the show? Now come and pick me up."

I called my husband while I was bleeding out, but he rejected all my calls. Later, I discovered he had been reconnecting with his first love while I lost our baby and almost died. “Who's she to you?” the news host asked him. “She's just someone very special,” he said with a smile. I realized I would never be first in his life. So I left. Until he found out who I really was: the only daughter of the wealthiest family in the country. Then he began chasing after me and begging at my feet. My brothers wanted to destroy him but I stopped them, because I had better plans. “Leave him to me. I'll show him what regret means.”

"Werewolves are just a fantasy. They can't exist in the real world. You don't have to say such absurd things just to claim my son as yours. Alpha, my ass!" -- Noreen. "You left me speechless, miss, and therefore you must take responsibility. I couldn't have sex with anyone after that night you marked me. Now, be my Luna, and I'll give you the world. Besides, even without a DNA test, he's definitely my son. He has a strong Alpha aura." -- Alpha Thiery. "He's my heir, the next Alpha of my pack!" Noreen Winchester never imagined that her reckless, unprotected sex with a mysterious, charming man, on the night her ex-boyfriend married her cousin, would transport her to a world she had previously only considered a fantasy. That one-night stand caused Alpha Thiery to lose all sexual desire after a beautiful, sexy woman bit his mark gland during a wild night at his uncle's bar three years ago. His inner wolf claimed that the woman, whose name he didn't even know, was his mate. But the woman was a mere human, and it was impossible for him to have Luna, a mere human. Then, after many years, the woman appeared before him again, with a boy who was every bit like himself. The problem was, the woman was not only a mere human, but also incredibly stubborn, believing that anything related to werewolves, vampires, witches, and all supernatural creatures existed only in children's fantasy tales. Alpha Thiery had to prove that he was a real being, not just a fairy tale creature. More than that, the child she bore was his flesh and blood, the next Alpha of his pack, and he had to have him. necessary, with her, too. Even if she was only a mere human.