Contracted to him by her father

Sarah fell back onto the mattress, her body slick with perspiration and limp with pleasure.

Spasms of her powerful release still violently racked her slender frame. Her husband, Lorenzo, had disentangled, detached, and distanced himself from her within seconds of their mutual orgasm and lay on his back beside her, his breathing heavy and ragged. Sarah turned on her side to lovingly trace Lorenzo's profile with her eyes, yearning to touch and caress the smooth and slightly tanned skin, but she knew her touch would be rebuffed.

Lorenzo's words, the ones he always said after his climax, still hovered in the air between them and still, after all these months, hurt more than they should have.

"Give me a son, Sarah..." With those five words, he killed the afterglow, destroyed the intimacy of the moment, and relegated the act into nothing more than a biological imperative.

After eighteen months of the same, Sarah had finally accepted that it would never change.

It wasn't an abrupt realization.

No, it was one that had been growing steadily since the very first time he'd said them. But Sarah had her own five words.

They were words that had been on the tip of her tongue for months and should have been spoken long before now.

They were words that she could no longer swallow; no matter how much it hurt her to say them.

She sat up, naked, her body still trembling, and drew her knees to her chest. She wrapped her arms around her legs, pressed her cheek to her knees, and watched as Lorenzo's breathing steadied and his own shaking subsided.

He lay spread-eagled, magnificently nude, his eyes shut, but Sarah knew that he wasn't asleep. As usual he would take a few moments to compose himself before heading for the shower, where Sarah always imagined him frantically scrubbing her scent and touch from his bronzed skin.

Sarah could no longer contain the words, and they spilled from her lips in desperate earnestness.

"I want a divorce,Lorenzo."

Lorenzo tensed. Every single muscle in his body went as tight as a coiled spring before he turned his head to meet her stare.

His eyes were hooded, and his upper lip curled mockingly.

"But I thought you loved me,Sarah," he taunted with exquisite cruelty, and Sarah closed her eyes, trying to mask the pain that his words caused.

When she was sure she had her emotions under control, she opened her eyes. "Not anymore."

She hoped the lie sounded convincing. "Hmmm....."Lorenzo purred.

"What happened to I'll love you forever, Alpha'?"

"Things change," she whispered.

"What things?" Lorenzo rolled onto his side and propped himself up onto his elbow, resting his head on his hand.

He looked so much like a Roman gladiator in repose that his throat went dry with desire. Sarah swallowed painfully.

"F-feelings change..." she stuttered.

Again Sarah gave that husky purr of agreement, but Lorenzo wasn't fooled by her relaxed posture; she was as tense as a coiled snake.

"I...I've changed..." Sarah said

"You look no different," Lorenzo replied, his voice still terrifyingly tender. "Still the same omega I married. The one who claimed to love me so much she couldn't live without me. The one whose daddy made sure she got exactly what she wanted..."

And that was when Lorenzo struck, without moving, without so much as changing his voice.

"The same timid little omega who can't even give me the only thing I've ever wanted from this pathetic excuse for a marriage, which is an heir."

Sarah flinched but she refused to divert her eyes. ''All the more reason for a divorce'' Sarah tried for blasé but failed miserably.

"Maybe for you." Lorenzo shrugged. "But I told you from the very beginning, cara, there would be no easy way out of this marriage. Not until I got what I wanted from you, and that day looks to be a long way off. Unfortunately, cliché though it may seem, you've made this bed and now we both have to lie in it!"

"I can't live like this anymore." Sarah buried her face in her knees and fought to keep the tears at bay.

"Neither of us has much choice..." The alpha sat up and stretched languidly before getting up to walk to the en-suite bathroom.

Sarah heard the shower start moments later and took a few seconds to compose herself before swiping the hot tears from her face with the backs of her hands.

She dragged on a gauzy peignoir and headed toward the kitchen to fix a drink of hot milk and honey.

It was a concoction her mother used to make for her when he was a little girl, and she hoped that the comforting beverage would soothe her ragged nerves.

The familiar task of preparing the drink calmed her down significantly, and she had just eased onto a bar stool and taken her first sip when she felt the alpha's presence behind her. The hairs on the nape of her neck stood on end, and her hands started shaking again.

"You must be cold in only that skimpy little thing you're wearing," Lorenzo observed idly, heading to the fridge for a carton of orange juice.

His short black hair was damp and standing up in tufts where he had carelessly towel-dried it after his shower.

He wore nothing but a pair of black shorts. He looked as gorgeous as always, and Sarah hated him more than ever for that masculine perfection.

"I'm fine."Sarah got up abruptly and headed toward the sink to rinse the mug, but Lorenzo grabbed her elbow to halt her movement.

She tensed, shocked by the touch...Lorenzo never touched her outside of the bedroom. In the eighteen months they had been married, married not bonded, this was the first time that she could recall the alpha touching her without it being a precursor to sex.

Lorenzo leaned closer to her and lowered his lips to her left ear. She felt Lorenzo's hot breath on the side of her face before he spoke."There will be no more talk of divorce,Sarah ...ever," the alpha told her with a sickening air of finality.

"You can't stop me from divorcing you,Lorenzo," she responded bravely.

"You really want a divorce, cara?" he asked. Sarah nodded stiffly. "If you get that divorce, your cousin loses her business, and she can't afford that now, not with a new baby on the way. She and her alpha need all the capital they can get."

Somehow Sarah hadn't expected that, she should have, but she hadn't. Lorenzo had loaned her cousin, Elisa the start-up capital for her bookshop.

Sarah didn't know what the specifics of that loan were, but she had always assumed that it was done out of generosity.

Staring up at Lorenzo now, the omega couldn't believe her own naïveté. Lorenzo Matteo did nothing out of sheer generosity, and that loan was merely another weapon for him to use against Sarah.

"You wouldn't," Sarah responded. "Elisa has done nothing to deserve this."

"Cara, I will do whatever it takes to get what I want from you." "I have money too, I can help her..." the omega began desperately.

"No, you have a rich father, and he had the opportunity to help Sarah, but he made his contempt of the idea more than obvious to everyone at the time, and you know that he would never support you through a messy divorce,Sarah."

"I still don't believe you would do it! You have a reputation to uphold. You're an honest businessman, and you wouldn't destroy a small business just to prove a point. What kind of message would that send?" Sarah asked. "That I'm not to be trifled with." Lorenzo shrugged.

"Do you honestly think I care what people think of me,Sarah? Do you think I care what you think of me? I never have and I never will. You're weak and spoiled."

"I'm not..."Sarah tried to defend herself, but Lorenzo made a scoffing sound in the back of his throat before continuing as if Sarah hadn't spoken."

"You'll get your divorce eventually, but there's something I need to get from you first. You wanted this marriage, remember? You begged for it, I'm sure. So if you want a divorce right now, it'll come with some heavy penalties. Are you willing to gamble with your cousin's future?" Sarah wouldn't do it, and Lorenzo knew it.

Lorenzo had her exactly where he wanted her. There would be no divorce not when Sarah was terrified of disappointing her father. Not when so much hung in the balance. But there would be changes... Sarah Malik was done being a doormat! She said nothing, choosing to turn and walk away instead. Lorenzo watched her go, and she could feel Lorenzo's eyes burning into her slender back but Lorenzo did not call her back.

Sarah did not return to the bedroom they had shared since the first day of their marriage, opting instead to head for the library, knowing that she could not sleep another wink. Not in that room, not anymore.

Hours later, Lorenzo came downstairs for breakfast. It was a Saturday morning, so he didn't have any early-morning meetings to rush off to and instead he tended to linger over his newspaper and coffee and largely ignore Sarah.

That morning was no different. It was as if their earlier argument hadn't happened at all. They ate their casual weekend meals in the kitchen and the homey setting lent a false sense of domesticity to the scene.

But while Sarah was uncomfortable and tense in the intimate setting, Lorenzo always remained as cool as the proverbial cucumber.

Then again, that was nothing new, as the alpha rarely showed emotion. In fact the "discussion" of that morning was the most heated Sarah had ever seen him.

Lorenzo kept his feelings under wraps but had always made his contempt for the omega more than clear.

It was in the way he refused to meet Sarah's eyes, the way he could make love to the omega without kissing her on the mouth, the way he could talk past Sarah when he had something to tell her, while eternally optimistic and stupid Sarah had never been good at hiding her feelings from Lorenzo. Not from the very moment she'd met Lorenzo, nearly two years ago.

How hopelessly infatuated she had been! How quickly the omega had fallen in love. Sarah vividly recalled their first meeting. Lorenzo had come to dinner at their house.

Her father hadn't told her much about their guest except that he was the son of an old acquaintance, and an alpha. Her father had then left her to meet Lorenzo by herself so that she could make an entrance.

It had been one of her father many "tricks" to keep his business adversaries constantly wrong-footed. He loved getting them on his own turf and had conducted many business deals in his home.

He would let Sarah soften them up with her natural warmth, and then he would swoop in while they were still charmed and go in for the kill.

Sarah hadn't known about her role in her father's wheeling and dealing until she was twenty two; before that she had merely been grateful for the opportunity to help her father entertain his important friends.

By the time she met Lorenzo, Sarah was the consummate hostess, charming, sweet, warm on the outside but completely disillusioned on the inside.

Her father's little business parties had always left her feeling used and disheartened. Lorenzo Matteo had swooped into their home looking grim and purposeful, like a man ready for battle.

Lorenzo had seemed surprised to see Sarah standing in the huge entrance. Sarah had been wearing a simple green sheath dress, her hair upswept into an elegant ponytail of her wavy waist length hair, and she had chosen a simple emerald pendant with matching earrings as her only embellishments. Lorenzo had faltered at the sight of the omega and frowned in confusion.

Sarah, for her part, had been completely riveted by the unexpectedly splendid man who stood in front of her, and for the first time ever Sarah poise had deserted her, she had been unable to utter a single word.

Lorenzo had been beautifully outfitted in a tailor-made business suit, but his windswept hair had contradicted that air of sartorial splendor, giving him a slightly wild appearance.

His dark stubble and loosened tie reinforced that ruggedness. He had been like no other man Sarah had ever seen before, and the omega wanted to know everything there was to know about him.

Lorenzo had recovered first. He had taken a step toward the omega, followed by another and then another, until he stood directly in front of her, so close that his every inhalation of breath caused his chest to lightly brush against Sarah's, Sarah had tilted her head back to stare at the alpha in wonder, tracing every angle and curve on his face in fascination.

"Hello, cara." His voice, like dark velvet over gravel, had sent a shudder of awareness up his spine. "What's your name?"

"Sarah."

Sarah had been helpless to do anything but respond.

He smelled wonderful like whiskey and sin, and Sarah couldn't help and had found herself leaning towards the alpha to breathe in his scent. Sarah remembered every word, every emotion, every sensation of the exchange that had followed.

"Sarah?" he repeated, his appealing voice going slightly husky. "Bellissima. I'm Lorenzo."

"Yes," she said, not making much sense at that moment, and the alpha grinned. It was a beautiful, warm, boyish smile that made him even more handsome.

"Can you say it?" he asked quietly.

"Say what?"

"My name. I want to hear my name on those amazing lips." Lorenzo traced a finger over her lips and she stopped breathing completely and moaned. "Say it, cara. Two little syllables Lo-renzo Please?"

"Lo-renzo," the omega whispered, and he groaned a little.

"Perfect. You're perfect, Sarah." No one had ever looked at her and seen perfection before. No one had ever smiled at her with so much appreciation and warmth in their eyes before.

Sarah had found herself staring back at this appealing stranger, and for the first time in her life, she had felt wanted. Between one heartbeat and the next, Sarah had fallen head over heels in love.