Chapter 1

The day I gave birth to my daughter, my Alpha husband Gareth slapped me across the face with a DNA test report showing no blood relation:

"Clara, I've been so good to you. How could you cheat on me? Let's get divorced! Break the mate bond! You take this bastard child and leave with nothing. I never want to see either of you again!"

I held Mary sleeping in her swaddle and nodded calmly.

Just last night, outside the delivery room, I heard with my own ears as Gareth's adoptive sister Ella took his hand and whined:

"Gareth, my dying wish is to spend one year alone with you, to relive the love you gave me as a child. Just let Clara take the baby and leave for a year, okay?"

Gareth's face filled with affection. "Silly girl, you just focus on your heart surgery. For the next year, I'll only be with you."

I lay on the operating table, tears silently sliding down my temples.

He didn't know that my first love, Alpha Phineas, who had quietly loved me for many years, would come for me tomorrow.

Not just one year—for the rest of my life, I would never come back.