Rejected Luna: Pregnant By The Ruthless Alpha Ceo After One Night

CHAPTER 1: Oatmeal and Other Things Nobody Actually Wants

*REMI'S POV*

The champagne glass in my hand was empty, which was a problem, because the only thing stopping me from screaming was the need to look like I was holding something together.

"You're like oatmeal, Remi."

Flynn's voice carried across the Lunar Gardens like he'd practiced it — like he'd rehearsed this exact line in the mirror, tested it for maximum cruelty, then decided: *yes. That one.* Half the Crescent Bay pack had gathered for what was supposed to be our engagement announcement, and every single one of them heard it.

Bland. Basic. Nobody's first choice.

The laughter that moved through the crowd felt like glass shards embedding themselves under my skin, one by one. I stood there in the stupid pink dress — the one I'd spent three weeks of grocery money on, the one Bree had helped me pick, the one I'd thought I'd be wearing in the photos we'd send to his mother — and tried to remember how to breathe.

"Flynn." My voice came out steadier than I deserved. "Maybe we should talk about this in private."

"Why?" said Bree.

Sweet, loyal Bree. Who'd held my hair back last month when I had food poisoning. Who'd helped me pick out this dress. Who'd looked me in the eyes two hours ago and said, *he's totally going to propose tonight, I just know it.*

She stepped forward now, her hand sliding into Flynn's arm like she'd been practicing that too. "Everyone here already knows you two weren't really compatible. I mean, come on, Remi. Did you honestly think Flynn was going to choose *you* as his mate?"

The way she said *you* made it sound like a diagnosis.

I looked at her — really looked at her — and saw it. Not guilt. Not even embarrassment. Just the bright, barely-contained thrill of someone who'd been waiting a very long time to stop hiding.

"How long?" I asked quietly.

Flynn at least had the decency to look at the ground. "Rem, it's not—"

"How. Long."

"Six months," Bree said. And she smiled. "We tried to fight it. But when you find your true mate, you can't deny the bond."

Six months.

Six months of Sunday brunches and shared calendars and *I love yous* that, apparently, had been going directly into the trash. Six months of Bree sitting across from me at our usual coffee shop, asking how things were going, listening to me talk about our future while she was already living in it.

"The Moon Goddess works in mysterious ways," Elder Patricia announced from her seat at the head table, like betrayal was just the universe's love language. "True mates always find each other."

"Exactly," Flynn said, visibly relieved that someone had given him a theological out. "You understand, right, Rem? You're a good person. You'll find someone eventually. Someone more... your speed."

The pack nodded. Murmured. Shifted.

Not one person said a word.

My aunt Carol materialized from somewhere in the crowd. "Remi, honey, don't make this harder than it needs to be. You're twenty-four. You have plenty of time to find a nice Beta to settle down with."

A nice Beta. Because apparently *this* was the ceiling — find someone as forgettable as everyone already thought I was, and be grateful for it.

I looked at Flynn, this man I'd given three years of my life to. He wasn't even looking at me anymore. He was whispering something to Bree, who was laughing softly into his shoulder, and I realized with horrible clarity that I wasn't even present in this moment for him. I was already a story they'd tell later. *My ex made a scene at the announcement party. You know how she is.*

"You know what?" I said.

The murmurs died.

"You're absolutely right, Flynn."

His head came up. "I am?"

"Yeah." I walked toward him, and the crowd parted like they expected me to combust. "I am like oatmeal." I stopped right in front of them — close enough to see Bree's smile flicker. "Plain. Forgettable. Nobody's first choice."

I picked up the champagne bottle from the nearest table — the expensive one Flynn's parents had brought for the engagement toast — and poured it directly over his head.

The silence lasted about two seconds.

Then the gasps.

"Oops," I said flatly. "How clumsy of me."

I turned and walked out of the Lunar Gardens with my chin up, my hands shaking, and my eyes burning with tears I absolutely refused to shed in front of these people.

I made it three blocks before I had to stop.

I leaned against a brick wall in the dark and pressed the back of my hand against my mouth and just — breathed. Counted seconds. Refused to fall apart on a public sidewalk for a man who'd compared me to porridge in front of sixty witnesses.

My phone buzzed. I turned it off.

Then I started walking, because the alternative was standing still, and standing still meant thinking, and thinking meant feeling everything I was keeping behind the wall in my chest.

My feet carried me through the city until the pack neighborhoods faded into downtown, where the buildings got taller and nobody cared who your Alpha was or whether you'd been publicly humiliated at your own almost-engagement party. I walked until I saw it: *The Apex.* Upscale bar. Dark wood, low lighting, the kind of place where the drinks cost more than my rent and everyone inside looks like they belong there.

I didn't belong there.

I went in anyway.

I slid onto a barstool and caught the bartender's eye. "Tequila. The biggest shot you have."

He poured without comment. I threw it back. The burn was clean, direct, honest — the first honest thing to happen to me all night.

"Rough night?"

The voice came from my right. Deep. Unhurried. With just enough amusement in it that I expected to be annoyed when I turned, but somehow wasn't.

The man watching me was — there's no delicate way to say this — unfairly, almost offensively attractive. Tall even sitting down. Dark hair that looked like he'd pushed his hands through it too many times. A jawline that belonged on a Roman coin. His suit probably cost more than my car, and nothing about him was trying. He wore that ease the way some people wear old clothes — like it had been his so long he'd stopped noticing it.

His eyes were dark gray. And they were watching me with the calm, measured attention of someone who didn't miss much.

"That depends," I said. "Are you going to tell me everything happens for a reason?"

His lips curved. "Would you throw that glass at my face if I did?"

"Probably."

"Then no. No unsolicited wisdom." He nodded to the bartender. "Another round for her. On my tab."

"I don't accept drinks from strangers."

"Smart. I could be a serial killer."

"Are you?"

"Only on Tuesdays." Those gray eyes held mine without blinking. "Today's Wednesday. You're statistically safe."

I shouldn't have laughed. Nothing about tonight was funny. But something about his delivery — bone-dry, completely committed — cracked through the misery, and I laughed despite everything.

"I'm Remi."

"Dax." No last name. No title. Just the single syllable, like that was sufficient, and somehow it was.

"So, Remi," he said, his voice dropping slightly, "what brings you to The Apex on a Wednesday, looking like you want to burn something down?"

I picked up the fresh shot that had appeared. "My boyfriend of three years just told a room full of people that I'm like oatmeal. Bland and basic and nobody's first choice. Then my best friend announced she's been sleeping with him for six months and they're true mates blessed by the Moon Goddess."

"Oatmeal," he repeated.

"Bland. Basic. Not worth keeping."

He was quiet for a moment. Then: "Your ex-boyfriend is an idiot."

"Thank you."

"And oatmeal is underrated. You can put anything in it. Fruit. Honey. Chocolate chips. It's the most adaptable thing on a breakfast menu."

I stared at him. "Are you defending oatmeal right now?"

"I'm defending you." His eyes were steady, direct. "Anyone who calls you forgettable isn't paying attention."

The air between us changed. Just slightly — just enough that I noticed it. Something charged. He was close enough that I caught his scent beneath the expensive cologne, something wild underneath it, something that made my wolf sit up for the first time all night.

I focused.

"You're a wolf," I said.

"So are you." One corner of his mouth lifted. "Beta?"

"Yeah. You?"

"Alpha."

He said it the way gravity operates — without announcement, without needing confirmation. Not like Flynn, who dropped his rank into every conversation like a business card. This was quieter than that. More final.

"Let me guess," I said, the tequila loosening my mouth. "CEO of something. Rich. Used to getting exactly what you want."

"Something like that." He leaned slightly closer. "Is that a problem?"

"Depends. Are you going to tell me I'm not good enough for you too?"

"No." The word was flat and certain. "I'm going to buy you one more drink, and then I'm going to ask if you want to get out of here."

My breath caught.

I knew what he was asking. I knew what yes would mean. I was twenty-four years old and I'd just been publicly humiliated by the only person I'd planned a future around, and this beautiful stranger with his gray eyes and his calm, enormous confidence was offering me a door that led absolutely anywhere but here.

I was a responsible person. Careful. The girl who always looked before she leaped.

Look where that had gotten me.

"Yes," I said.

Something shifted in his expression — just briefly, just a flicker of something that might have been surprise, or satisfaction, or both. He laid several bills on the bar without counting them and stood, offering me his hand.

"Come on, oatmeal. Let's get you out of here."

I took his hand.

The electricity that moved up my arm when his fingers closed around mine was so immediate and so *specific* that I almost stopped walking. But he was already moving, and the crowd was already parting around him the way crowds do for men who expect it, and I had made my choice.

A black car was waiting outside. A driver opened the door without being asked. I slid in.

Dax followed, and the spacious back seat felt suddenly very small.

"Where are we going?" I asked.

He looked at me in the low light of the car. "My place." His thumb traced a slow circle on the back of my hand. "Unless you've changed your mind."

I should have. Every sensible part of me was compiling a very long list of reasons this was a terrible idea.

I shifted closer instead. "I haven't changed my mind."

---

I woke to sunlight like a personal insult.

I groaned and tried to roll over, and registered two things in immediate succession: I was not wearing anything, and these sheets had a thread count higher than my credit score.

My eyes opened.

Floor-to-ceiling windows. A city skyline that belonged on a screensaver. Bedroom furniture that could have been in a museum. A chandelier — an actual chandelier — hanging above a bed large enough to sleep four people comfortably.

"Oh god," I said, to no one. "What did I do."

It wasn't really a question. I remembered exactly what I'd done, in vivid and entirely non-regrettable detail. Which was maybe the worst part.

I sat up. The other side of the bed was empty and cold. He'd been gone long enough for the sheets to cool.

Of course.

I found my dress draped carefully over a chair. My shoes were by the door. A note sat on the nightstand in sharp, clean handwriting:

*Had early meeting. Coffee's in the kitchen. Help yourself. — D*

Not even a full name. Excellent.

I pulled on my dress and walked through a penthouse that looked like a magazine had thrown up on itself — all beautiful and deliberate and completely, thoroughly not mine. The living room was bigger than my apartment. The kitchen was a cathedral of marble and stainless steel.

True to his word: full pot of coffee. I poured a cup in a mug that probably cost more than my grocery budget and told myself this was fine. One night. That was the deal. No one had promised anything else.

That's when I saw the business card on the counter.

Black. Silver lettering. I picked it up.

*Dax Wolfe*

*CEO, Wolfe Enterprises*

I set the mug down.

Pulled out my phone. Typed his name with hands that were not quite steady.

The first search result was a Forbes article, dated three months ago:

**"Dax Wolfe: The Ruthless Alpha Reshaping Corporate America — And Leaving the Competition in Pieces."**

I scrolled.

Billionaire. Youngest person to run a Fortune 500 company. Made a rival CEO cry in a board meeting. Known for acquiring struggling companies, dismantling them with surgical precision, and rebuilding them in his image. Had never been photographed at the same event twice with the same woman. Had been described, in three separate publications, as *"charming when he wants something and completely unreadable when he doesn't."*

There were pictures. Professional ones where he looked untouchable. Candid ones from charity galas where he looked bored. A paparazzi shot where he was staring into the camera like he was personally offended by its existence.

"I slept with a billionaire," I said to the empty penthouse.

I downed the rest of my coffee. Grabbed my shoes. Put them on standing up because I didn't trust myself to sit down and get back up again without reconsidering every decision I'd made in the last twelve hours.

My phone buzzed.

*Bree: The pack council wants to talk to you about your behavior last night. You embarrassed everyone. You need to come apologize.*

I read it twice.

Then I blocked her number. Blocked Flynn's number. Put my phone in my purse.

Then I walked out of Dax Wolfe's penthouse with my head high, wearing yesterday's pink dress and last night's mascara, and took the elevator down to a lobby where the doorman didn't even blink.

Of course he didn't. He'd seen this before.

Outside, the city was already fully awake, indifferent, magnificent. I called an Uber with my nearly-maxed credit card and stood on the sidewalk in the pale morning light, trying to figure out what came next.

I was unemployed. Broke. Freshly pack-rejected. And I had just spent the night with a man who'd turned out to be one of the most powerful wolves on the eastern seaboard.

I had nowhere to go and nothing to lose.

Which meant, technically, I was free.

I almost convinced myself that was enough.

---

*Two months later, I would find out it wasn't.*