Chapter 4

Chapter 4

Oliver stared at the email that had been sitting in his inbox for days.

The sender was HM Courts & Tribunals Service. The subject line was long. He'd skimmed it, assumed it was litigation paperwork for one of his clients, and flagged it "deal with later."

But today, for some reason, a bad feeling was creeping up on him.

Just as he put his hand on the mouse to open it—

"Oliver!" The door swung open, and Jessica hurried in, clutching her laptop.

"I just cannot get this client's quarterly data summary to work. Can you help me?" She came around to his side, leaned against the edge of his desk the way she always did, and held the screen out to him with a little pout. "The cross-referencing formulas are way too complicated. I've been at it all morning and I still don't get it."

Oliver took the laptop and glanced at it, and his brows drew together. It was the most basic quarterly summary there was. A few of the simplest formulas, ten minutes, done.

Looking at the error-riddled numbers and the chaotic formatting, he said it before he could stop himself:

"You can't even do something this simple? If Anna were here, it would never look like this."

The second it was out, the air in the office seemed to freeze.

The smile vanished from Jessica's face, and her eyes went red at once. "Oliver... what's that supposed to mean? Are you trying to humiliate me? If you think Anna's better than me at everything, then go get her to do your spreadsheets!"

Watching her tears spill over, Oliver came back to himself and realized how cutting that had been. He got up quickly to calm her down.

After enough soft apologies and promises, Jessica finally smiled through her tears.

But as he typed formulas into the spreadsheet, his mind drifted somewhere he couldn't stop it from going.

If Anna were here...

The words hit like a stone and cracked open memories he'd sealed away.

He remembered Anna seven years ago, when she first joined the firm as a graduate.

That day in the lift, he'd caught her scent, cedar and rain, and his wolf had nearly torn its way out of him. He knew at a glance. She was his mate.

He remembered what she'd been like back then, too. Sharp, decisive. Hand her the messiest project in the building and she'd have it sorted. Back then, he'd genuinely admired this girl who worked like her life depended on it.

Admiration turned into something more. They dated in secret for a few months. It was the most at ease he had ever been in his life.

Until that Sunday.

He'd gone back to his parents' old house in Surrey for lunch, and his mother announced, calmly, in front of the whole family: the wedding would be in six weeks. The church was already booked.

Because Anna was pregnant.

He'd found out he was going to be a father across the lunch table, from his own mother.

His mother said Anna had called her in tears, begging her to step in.

In that instant, everything he'd felt shattered into pieces.

As far as he could see, it was no accident. It was a wolf from a nobody family who knew exactly how much the Hartleys cared about bloodlines and appearances. So she'd gone around him, straight to his mother, and used a baby to trap him into marriage.

The Hartley Alpha, played by his own mate.

From then on, in his mind, Anna was a schemer. For years he couldn't stop himself from resenting her. He'd even let that resentment spill over onto an innocent child.

Oliver stopped typing and looked at Jessica, smiling sweetly beside him. Jessica was simple and soft. Nothing like a calculating woman like Anna.

So why, when he thought of Anna's name now, didn't he feel the satisfaction he'd expected? Why was there only a restlessness he couldn't shake?