Chapter 4 #2
The merger was more complex than initially projected. What should have been a week-long trip stretched to two, then three. Additional due diligence, revised terms, endless negotiations.
And through it all—Dimitri’s silence.
I called him every day. Sometimes twice. Every call went to voicemail. Every text showed as read but never answered.
The Mate bond was still there—I could feel him on the other end, alive. But it was like he’d built a wall between us, shutting me out completely.
I tried to rationalize it. He was busy preparing for his Alpha ceremony. The situation with the engagement was complicated. He was working on canceling it, just like he’d promised.
But doubt crept in deeper with each passing day of silence.
Finally, it was the last night in Zurich. The merger had been successfully completed, pending only the final signatures from both CEOs.
Crane invited me to a celebratory dinner at an upscale restaurant overlooking the lake.
“It was a pleasure working with you, Isabella,” he said over wine. “Ravencrest Global is lucky to have you.”
“Thank you.” I managed a smile. “The feeling is mutual.”
“Please, call me Alexander. I insist.”
“It’s just habit.” I took a sip of wine, trying to calm my nerves. Tomorrow I’d fly home. Tomorrow I’d see Dimitri again.
Tomorrow, everything would be explained.
Crane reached into his coat pocket and pulled out an envelope. Cream-colored, expensive paper. And emblazoned on the front—the Garnia Pack crest.
My stomach twisted.
He pushed it toward me. “Oh, and please convey my regrets to Mr. Ravencrest. I’m afraid I won’t be able to attend his Alpha ceremony and engagement announcement tomorrow. Prior commitments.”
The words didn’t make sense. They couldn’t make sense.
“Engagement announcement?” My voice came out strangled.
“You didn’t know?” he asked.
My mind went blank, then raced.
An engagement announcement? Tomorrow? No. He promised. He looked me in the eye and promised he would end it. Every touch, every whispered word in the dark—was it all just a lie? A game to him while I was away? Goddess, I’m such a fool. I actually believed him. I actually trusted him.
I opened my mouth to say something—anything—but the words jammed behind my teeth; I couldn’t force a single syllable past the knot in my throat.
“Dimitri Ravencrest and Selene Ashworth,” he said quietly. “Tomorrow evening. It’s quite the event, from what I understand.”
The room tilted. The wine glass nearly slipped from my numb fingers, but I tried to keep myself in check. I swallowed it down, locked my jaw, and forced the next breath through a throat that felt lined with broken glass.
“I see.” The words came out mechanical. “I must have missed the invitation. I’ll be sure to let Mr. Ravencrest know about your RSVP.”
He passed me a quick smile. His gaze flicked to his wristwatch before he downed the last of his wine and stood. Slipping a hand into his pocket, he drew out a small card.
“I hope this isn’t the last time we see each other, Isabella,” he said, handing it to me. “If you ever need anything—a job, a reference, anything at all—call me. Anytime.”
I stared at the card, not really seeing the numbers of the letter. But I stifled a smile his way and said, “Thank you, Mr. Crane.”
The flight back to Virginia was torture.
Every minute stretched into eternity. Every mile felt like a lifetime.
He’d promised. Sworn on his honor that he would protect me.
So why was the engagement still happening?
Maybe there was an explanation. Maybe the invitation had been printed before he could cancel. Maybe he’d been trying to call and something was wrong with my phone.
The car from the airport dropped me at the mansion just as the sun began to set. The compound had been transformed into something beautiful. Lights were strung through the trees, expensive cars lined the driveway, and wolf shifters wandered around in fine attire.
My chest constricted. The ceremony was already underway.
I rushed through the mansion, desperate to find Dimitri, but got cornered.
“Isabella!” Edmund appeared, already in his formal Beta attire. “You’re back. Good. You need to get dressed. The ceremony starts in an hour.”
“I need to talk to Dimitri first—I mean, Mr. Ravencrest.”
Edmund’s expression tightened, a conflicted shadow crossing his features as he hesitated. “He’s in pre-ceremony meetings with the Council,” he said, his voice dropping slightly. “You’ll see him after.”
After. After he was crowned Alpha. After he announced his engagement. I couldn’t wait that long.
I immediately rushed to my room. I searched my closet for the best dress I owned—a deep emerald green, elegant and simple. I put it on, applied makeup with shaking hands, pinned my hair up.
In the mirror, I looked like someone going to a celebration.
I felt like I was walking to my execution.
The Mate bond pulsed urgently as I made my way back downstairs.
I followed the sound of music and laughter to the gardens.
I rounded a corner into a secluded alcove and froze.
There he was.
Dimitri stood alone, leaning against the stone wall with a cigarette between his fingers. He wore a charcoal suit tailored to perfection, making him look every inch the Alpha he was about to become. Every line of the fabric was flawless, every detail immaculate—a picture of power and control.
He was perfect, a living statue of everything the pack had groomed him to be: lethal, immaculate, inevitable.
And the sight of him there—so untarnished, so completely theirs—slammed the final nail into the coffin of every reckless hope I’d carried across three time zones.
I’d let him ruin me in the dark, let him brand his name across my skin with teeth and whispered lies, and here he stood, not a crease, not a tremor, not a single fingerprint of me left on him.
The irony tasted like rust on my tongue.
I’d fought for scraps of a man who’d already been lacquered into someone else’s future, and the proof was in every flawless inch of him.
I felt my wolf come alive, pushing against my skin, urging me to run to him and touch him, inhale his scent. After three weeks of silence and distance, seeing him was like oxygen after drowning.
He felt it too. His head snapped up instantly, dark eyes finding mine across the space between us.
For a heartbeat, we just stared at each other.
“Isabella.” His voice cracked on my name, low and rough. He looked genuinely surprised. His eyes widened almost imperceptibly before they darkened with something unreadable. “You’re back.”
Was he actually going to go through with this? Get engaged without even talking to me?
My heart cracked, but I forced myself forward. One step, two steps, until I was close enough to see the conflict in his eyes, to smell his familiar scent. My wolf whimpered with joy at finally being near our mate again.
Dimitri stepped back, as if trying to maintain distance.
He was trying to fight it, to fight his wolf.
My wolf could feel his pressing against the edges of his restraint, wanting me the way mine wanted him.
And it spurred me to go on, to believe I could convince him to give in to his wolf’s feelings, to his feelings.
I kept moving until he was backed against the railing with nowhere to go, until I was close enough that a breath would close the distance between us.
“You promised,” I whispered, my voice breaking. “You told me to trust you, Dimitri. And I spent three weeks doing exactly that. Despite the silence. Despite you ignoring every call, every text.”
I lifted my hand to touch his face, and he flinched away.
Tears spilled over my cheeks. “So that night meant nothing to you? What was I—just a quick fuck before you married your convenient political bride? Were you just after my virginity?”
“Isabella, no!” His voice was anguished. “It wasn’t like that—”
“Then what was it?” I cried. “How can you say I’m your Fated Mate and then go through with an engagement to someone else? How can you make promises you never intended to keep?”
“Because it’s not worth the trouble of ruining my life!” The words exploded out of him, raw and vicious.
The world stopped.
I stumbled backward as if he’d physically struck me, my hand pressed to my chest where it felt like my heart was being ripped apart.
“Dimitri—”
“Well, well, well.” A cold voice cut through the air. “What do we have here?”
I spun to find Selene emerging from the shadows like a predator.
She was stunning in a white dress that clung to her curves, blonde hair cascading in perfect waves, diamonds glittering at her neck. She looked like she belonged at an Alpha’s side.
She was everything I wasn’t.
“I’ve heard so much about you,” she purred, circling me like prey. “The whore’s daughter. Isabella Garrett.” She spat my name like it was filth. “Just like your mother—using dark magic to seduce men who are already spoken for.”
“My mother didn’t—”
“Oh, shut up!” Her hand shot out, fisting in my carefully pinned hair. Pain exploded across my scalp as she yanked me forward. “Everyone knows what your mother was. A common slut who used witchcraft to steal an Alpha from his Fated Mate.”
“Selene, stop!” Dimitri’s voice rang out. She was already dragging me by my hair towards the gathering. People turned to stare as we emerged into the main room.
The music died. Conversations halted. Every eye turned to us.
“Look!” Selene’s voice carried across the silence.
“Look what I caught! The bastard, trying to seduce my fiancé!” She threw me forward, and I stumbled, barely catching myself before I fell to my knees.
“She was using dark magic to create a false Mate bond! Trying to trick Dimitri into rejecting me!”
Gasps rippled through the crowd like a shockwave.
“That’s not true,” I said, but my voice was small, drowned by the rising murmurs.
“Witch!”
“Abomination!”
“Just like her mother!”
“That’s not true,” I tried again, tears streaming freely now. “I didn’t—”
But who would believe me? I was the whore’s daughter, the charity case. My word meant nothing against Selene Ashworth’s.
Maia Ravencrest stepped forward. Her face was twisted with rage. Before I could react, she lifted her hand and smacked it across my face with enough force to snap my head sideways.
Pain exploded across my cheek. I tasted blood.
“You filthy witch!” Maia grabbed my arm, nails digging into my skin. “After everything we’ve done for you! We gave you a home, an education, a job—and this is how you repay us? By trying to bewitch my son?”
“I didn’t—” I tried to say, but someone shoved me from behind.
Then another hand. Another push.
The crowd was pressing in, their hatred a physical force. Someone threw a champagne glass that shattered at my feet. Then food. Drinks. Whatever they could grab.
I covered my face with my arms, trying to protect myself as jeers and insults rained down like blows.
“Enough!”
Dimitri’s voice cut through the chaos. The crowd parted reluctantly, giving him space. When I looked up at him through my tears, hope flickered weakly in my chest.
Maybe he would defend me. Maybe he would…but he wouldn’t even meet my eyes. Wouldn’t even look at me.
“Selene is right,” he said, his voice devoid of any warmth. “Isabella Garrett is my Fated Mate.”
“How would you know the bond is real?” Maia demanded, her voice shrill. “She’s bewitched you!”
“No, Mother.” Dimitri’s voice carried across the silent crowd. “Because if she had, I wouldn’t be able to do this.”
He took a breath, and I watched his throat work as he prepared to destroy me.
“I, Dimitri Ravencrest, future Alpha of Garnia Pack, reject Isabella Garrett as my Mate.”
A searing, white-hot, all-consuming pain exploded in my chest.
The bond that had connected us, that had made me feel complete for the first time in my life ,began to tear.
It wasn’t a clean break. It was agony, like someone had reached into my chest and was slowly ripping out my heart while I was still alive to feel every second of it.
My wolf howled, a sound of pure anguish that echoed through my entire being. She clawed at the shredding bond, desperately trying to hold on, to keep what was ours.
But it was no use.
“The bond is false,” Dimitri continued, each word twisting the knife deeper. “A trick of proximity and forbidden attraction. Nothing more.”
The bond continued to unravel. Each severed connection felt like losing a piece of my soul, like having my identity stripped away layer by agonizing layer.
I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t see past the tears. Couldn’t feel anything except the bond dying, taking my wolf’s spirit with it.
“I choose Selene Ashworth as my Mate and future Luna,” Dimitri announced. “Tonight, I formally announce our engagement.”
The crowd erupted in cheers, but I couldn’t hear them over the roaring in my ears, over my wolf’s cries of pain.
Something inside me broke—not just the bond, but something fundamental. Something that couldn’t be repaired.
My wolf retreated into the deepest, darkest part of my soul, wounded beyond measure. Not dead, but so damaged she’d hidden herself away where even I couldn’t reach her.
I was incomplete. Broken. Shattered beyond repair.
Through the agony, I saw Dimitri’s eyes finally find mine. I saw regret there. Pain. Grief. But it didn’t mean a thing.
The crowd was still cheering, celebrating my destruction.
With nothing left to do, I picked myself up and ran.
I pushed through the crowd, blind with tears and pain as I ran to my room.
My suitcase from Zurich was still there, so I grabbed it and threw in whatever I could reach—my mother’s photo, the diploma I’d once been proud of, a handful of clothes.
I couldn’t stay here. Couldn’t survive another second in this place that had never been home.
As I ran, I could still hear the celebration—Dimitri’s voice through the microphone, calm and steady as though he hadn’t ruined me.
But it was my own fault. I’d let myself foolishly believe even when I knew the truth.
And now I was shattered—and the worst part was, a traitorous corner of my heart still whispered his name as I fled.