He Rose to Beta on My Money—Then Rejected Me

The custom silk tie felt heavy in my hands, its deep burgundy fabric catching the afternoon light streaming through The Fix's grimy windows. I'd spent three hours yesterday at the upscale boutique in downtown Seattle, carefully selecting the perfect shade to match Luke's eyes when he smiled—the same warm amber that had captivated me ten years ago when he was just a struggling nobody with big dreams and empty pockets.

Today was supposed to be our celebration. Luke had finally made it. Beta of the Silver Moon Pack, one of the most prestigious positions in the Pacific Northwest. All those years of scrimping, of turning down every luxury for myself, of working sixteen-hour days to fund his education at the Alpha Academy—it had all been worth it. We were finally going to have the life we'd dreamed of.

The metallic screech of the shop's roll-up door being yanked open made me jump. But instead of Luke's familiar, excited voice calling my name, there was only silence. Cold, uncomfortable silence.

Noonday sun blazed through the opening, creating harsh silhouettes against the dim interior of my repair shop. Two figures stood backlit in the doorway, and something about their posture—the way they held themselves apart from each other yet together—made my stomach clench with sudden dread.

As my eyes adjusted, the celebratory words I'd been rehearsing died in my throat.

Luke stood there in an impeccably tailored Italian suit that probably cost more than my monthly rent. The fabric moved like liquid mercury across his broad shoulders, and his hair was styled with the kind of precision that screamed expensive salon. But it wasn't his transformation from the scrappy young man I'd fallen in love with that made my world tilt sideways.

It was the woman on his arm.

She was everything I wasn't—young, probably barely twenty-five, with the kind of porcelain skin that had never seen a day of manual labor. Her honey-blonde hair was swept into an elegant chignon, and her makeup was applied with professional perfection. The cream-colored dress she wore probably cost more than I made in six months, and it did nothing to hide the gentle swell of her belly.

Pregnant. She was pregnant.

The colorful confetti cannon I'd prepared slipped from my numb fingers, hitting the concrete floor with a hollow plastic thud that echoed through the suddenly suffocating space.

"Luke?" My voice came out as barely a whisper.

His eyes—those warm amber eyes I'd been thinking about just moments before—flickered with something I'd never seen in them before. Guilt, maybe. Or was it annoyance? The expression was gone so quickly I might have imagined it, replaced by a cold, businesslike mask that made him look like a stranger.

"Jane." He said my name like it left a bad taste in his mouth. "We need to talk."

The pregnant woman beside him wrinkled her nose delicately, pressing a manicured hand to her face. "God, what is that smell? Motor oil? Luke, this place is disgusting." Her