ABANDON
1195 Words
Amanda's POV
I woke up alone in the opulent master suite. My neck was stiff from sleeping sitting up, and the heavy morning sunlight streaming through the arched windows felt like an indictment.
The space beside me on the massive bed was untouched, the sheets perfectly smooth.
There was no sign of warmth.
I hurried downstairs, fueled by a nervous energy, telling myself that the business meeting had simply run late. He was an Alpha CEO, his time was not his own.
I walked straight to the small study where I had last seen him. The door was slightly ajar. I pushed it open gently. The chair was empty and the lights were also off.
His discarded coat from the night before was gone.
I turned and searched the rest of the downstairs. The kitchen, formal dining room, laundry, backyard, I even went as far to go swimming, somewhere I swear I will never be close to but he wasn't there either.
Coming back to the living room, I sat down for two hours thinking maybe he had gone running but then, after contemplating things, I realized he had already left.
Without a note, without a word, without waking me.
A heavy, aching confusion settled deep in my chest. He was busy, of course. But this was the day after our wedding. We were at least supposed to wake up together, have a little conversation about how well we slept last night.
Have breakfast together and go to work hand in hand together.
It was the moment the world expected him to at least pretend at domesticity.
I cleared my head a little and made my way to the en-suite and took a shower thinking about what could have gone wrong.
I went to my small, private office, which had been set up for me in the mansion's east wing. I immediately checked his corporate schedule. There were three back-to-back meetings starting at 8:00 a.m. in the downtown tower.
Normalcy.
I spent the day functioning on autopilot, trying to generate excuses for him. He was respecting my space. He didn't want to rush intimacy. He was testing my patience.
But as the clock ticked past midnight, and the mansion remained silent and dark, the excuses began to crumble.
Day two passed exactly the same way.
I woke up alone.
I checked his schedules.
I worked in the isolated office.
I ate dinner alone in the vast dining room, the crystal glasses gleaming under the chandeliers, mocking my solitude.
Day three, I started calling his assistant, Carter.
“Mr. Knight is unavailable, Mrs. Knight,” Carter's practiced, neutral Beta voice informed me.
“Is he in the office, Carter? I just need to confirm if he took the…”
“Mr. Knight is attending an off-site, essential business conference, Mrs. Knight. He left strict instructions that he is not to be disturbed by anyone until his return.”
“But…I am his secretary so why didn't he take me along then” I questioned him with my voice strained.
“Well…I don't know with that. But that was the message he asked me to pass down to anybody who calls” Carter said.
The word ‘anybody’ was like a knife thrusted into my chest. ‘Anybody’, meaning that I wasn't different from his business.
“When... when is he returning?" I asked, my voice thin, betraying the desperation I tried to hide.
A fractional pause. "He did not specify a return date, Mrs. Knight. He instructed me to relay all urgent domestic matters to your parents' office."
He was attending an off-site conference, somewhere he couldn't be reached. And he had delegated the care of his new wife...his new strategic asset to her parents.
The silence of the house became physically painful. Every echo of my footsteps on the marble stairs felt like a clap of thunder, emphasizing my singular presence.
The Omega wives I had seen at the reception had been wrong; I wasn't just a temporary fixture. I was an empty one.
One week passed. I wandered the rooms, checking the clock obsessively. I re-read the few impersonal notes Scott had left me before the wedding, searching for some hidden code, some hint of affection, some clue as to why he would disappear the moment the vows were taken.
Had I done something wrong at the reception? Has my "stable" demeanor failed to impress?
I remembered the vows, those mechanical, meaningless phrases spoken to satisfy the officiant. To have and to hold. For better, for worse. He hadn't meant a single word. He hadn't even stayed long enough to break the promise. He had simply run from the physical reality of the bond.
I found myself back in the master suite, standing over the king-sized bed, tracing the perfect imprint of the undisturbed sheets. It was almost a relief, in a sick way, that he wasn't there to subject me to the cold humiliation I had grown used to.
But this absence was a new, sharper pain: the pain of utter rejection, delivered through silent, sustained neglect.
My parents called on day ten. My father’s tone was strictly supervisory.
“Amanda, the arrangement is now public. You must maintain appearances. You are not to contact Scott or his office again. Tell anyone who asks that he is on a critical expansion trip. You are to behave like a perfectly composed Beta wife.”
“But Father, he hasn't been home in ten days!" I protested, my voice breaking.
“This is Alpha business, Amanda," he snapped. "It is not your concern. This isn't about love. This is about business. Your role is stability. You will wait.”
I hung up, the words Alpha business ringing in my ears. Was I not his business? Was I less important than a contract negotiation in a distant city?
Another four days dragged by. The silence thickened. I was losing weight. I slept only in fitful bursts. I had transitioned from a devoted college crush to a devoted secretary, and now, to a devoted and abandoned wife.
On the morning of the fourteenth day, just as I was spiraling into a deep chasm of confusion and despair, the front door downstairs opened and closed with a definitive, familiar sound.
My heart leaped, adrenaline surging through my veins and there was one one echoing inside my head ‘He was back’.
I raced down the stairs, trying to smooth my clothes and compose my face into the calm, neutral expression of the perfect Beta wife.
I found Scott standing in the marble hall, tossing his briefcase onto the antique table with a loud thud. He looked tired, yes, but certainly not ill or distressed. He looked entirely like a man returning from a very profitable two weeks.
He turned and saw me. The expression on his face was not one of relief, affection, or even apology.
It was one of mild annoyance at being intercepted.
- Writer
