"Are you serious?" He asked, a flicker of satisfaction in his eyes.
"Yes," I whispered, closing my eyes as tears slipped down my cheeks.
"It's a deal, then," He said, turning away, leaving me sobbing on the floor.
But on Bryan's birthday—the day we had planned to go, with Bryan already dressed up and excited—Ashton didn't show up.
"Is Father still coming?" Bryan asked innocently after hours of waiting. "We've been waiting for him a long time now…"
More hours passed, and eventually, Bryan fell asleep on my lap. The most heartbreaking sight was seeing the tears that had escaped his closed eyes. Even in sleep, he was crying because of Ashton.
Later that night, Ashton finally called me, his tone casual. "Was today Bryan's birthday?"
I scoffed in disbelief.
"Ah, shit. So today was the day we were supposed to go to Golden Land Amusement Park?" He asked with a careless chuckle. "I was so busy, I completely forgot about it."
There wasn't even an apology.
"It's fine," I lied, forcing my voice to stay steady.
Just before he hung up, I heard Tiana's voice in the background. "Babe, end that call and kiss me!"
I swallowed the bitterness rising in my throat.
From the start, I had known Ashton never loved me. He had only accepted our mating bond out of guilt and pressure.
When Ashton was a teenager, my father had saved his life, pulling him from a burning storage room where he had been trapped. Out of gratitude, Alpha Philip—Ashton's father—had felt indebted to mine.
Years later, we discovered that we were each other's fated mates.
"I cannot accept you as my mate, Kathryn! I would never want an Omega as my mate! No one wants that!" He shouted.
I kept my head lowered, barely holding back tears. "I understand… You can just reject me…"
But when my father fell ill, he asked Alpha Philip to persuade Ashton to accept the bond, not wanting me to end up mateless.
Under pressure from Alpha Philip, Ashton reluctantly agreed, though we never had a proper mating ceremony.
Also, it deepened Ashton's resentment toward me—especially after my father passed away shortly afterward.
All of this had fueled Tiana's jealousy.
In fact, before I was mated to Ashton, she had tried to convince me not to accept the bond.