Chapter 161
Ellie POV
Sarah arrives thirty minutes later.
I love her, but to say she wouldn’t shut up is an understatement.
She takes one look at me sitting in a dining room meant for royalty and bursts out laughing.
“Okay. No. Pause. What is happening? Why are you dressed like a bridal p*******t board? Why are we at an Alpha estate? Why did you ghost me? I was about to file a missing persons report-”
“I need you to not spiral for the next twenty minutes,” I say quickly. “Just… sit. Breathe. I will explain.”
I tell her everything.
The engagement. The contract. The paperwork. Dominic’s and I’s…contact.
She listens without interrupting for once, which is how I know this is serious.
When I finish, she stares at me.
“So you are engaged to the Alpha.”
“Yes.”
“Who is you’re fated mate?”
“Yes.”
“But you don’t love him.”
“Correct.”
“So a fake marriage.”
“Yes.”
“To save your mom.”
“Yes.”
“I’m so lost.”
“No, seems like you got it.”
She drags her hands down her face. “Ellie. I’m not telling you what to do. But why do you hate Dominic so much? You two clearly like each other. You’re fated. You’re literally getting married. Why fake it, and not just…lean in.”
“I don’t hate him.”
She stares at me. “Okay, that’s, like, not even half the point.”
“I just,” I say quickly. “I need you to help me come up with ways to annoy him.”
Her brow furrows. “Annoy him.”
“Yeah. Like… strategically.”
“Strategically,” she repeats slowly.
“So he divorces me.”
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There’s a full beat of silence.
She just blinks.
“Okay,” she says finally. “You have to walk me through that again because I feel like I missed an entire chapter. What are you talking about?”
“I need him to help my mom,” I say. “And fix this weird almost-dying thing I’ve got going on. After that, I’m out. I get my life back.”
“You’re going to sabotage a rich, smart, objectively hot Alpha who clearly cares about you.”
I hesitate.
“…Yes.”
She points at me. “You’re insane.”
“I’m being practical.”
She drops back in her chair and squints at me. “Okay, but counterpoint. He’s different than when we were kids. You still didn’t answer me. Why not just… stay? Give it an actual chance?”
I look away before I can stop myself.
Because in another lifetime, giving it a chance ended with me bleeding out on cold marble.
I already did trust him once.
I loved him once in a way that swallowed me whole.
Instead, I shrug. “I told you. I need my own life. I don’t want to wake up ten years from now and realize I built everything around someone else.”
Sarah watches me carefully, like she’s trying to see through whatever wall I just threw up.
“He stayed at the hospital,” she says quietly. “When you were sick. He stayed with me. He didn’t leave.”
My chest tightens. Ignore it.
“That doesn’t change anything.”
She tilts her head. “Maybe it should.”
I shake mine harder than necessary. “It’s temporary. I just need to make this uncomfortable enough that he decides it isn’t worth the trouble.”
She stares at me like I just proposed arson.
“You’re going to sabotage your own wedding.”
“I prefer the term strategic withdrawal.”
“This is so dumb.”
“You love me.”
She groans, but she does.
“So,” she says slowly, rubbing her temples. “WWhat’s the plan? Public embarrassment? Weaponized incompetence? Mild psychological warfare? Also, timeline. When are you two getting wed?”
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I open my mouth, then close it.
“You don’t know your own wedding date?”
“It just happened! I’m working on it.”
We start listing ideas. Petty things. Harmless but irritating things. Tiny paper cuts to the ego that technically don’t violate the
contract.
Eventually we’re laughing over whether hiding his car keys counts as criminal behavior, and something in my chest loosens.
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