Page 45 of Alpha's Sunflower Smiles

“Then why have I been setting you up with omegas for the past five years?”

I stared at him blankly. At last, I said, “I don’t know. I thought you wanted me to marry an omega.”

Papa threw up his hands. “I wanted you to find a partner and be happy. If you’d told me you liked non-presenting men, I could have set you up with some of them. Do you like alphas as well?”

“Um, no. Just-just non-presenting men. But I really don’t want to be set up with anyone else.”

Papa eyed Wilfred, particularly where my arm was still around his waist.

“No, I can see that. At least you managed to choose well.”

“Thank you?”

Beside me, Wilfred pressed his lips together to prevent himself from laughing.

Papa took a deep breath. “I owe you an apology, Pete. I made an assumption about you wanting an omega and never questioned it. I’m sorry.”

Tears pricked the back of my eyes and my voice came out a bit croaky. “Thanks, Papa. I understand.”

His tone turned sharp again. “Now that Idoknow, perhaps you won’t keep me in the dark quite so much.”

Oops. It looked like I’d hurt my papa by hiding myself from him for so long.

“I’m sorry, Papa.”

He nodded. “Now, I’m going to go over to Wilfred’s shop and take a look around.”

With that, he left. I stood there for a moment, not sure what had just happened. Papa had never been predictable.

After a moment, Wilfred tugged on my hand. “Are we going over to the shop as well?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know if Papa wants us there.”

Wilfred’s forehead creased in confusion. “Of course he wants us over there. That’s why he went.”

“But he just walked out without us,” I pointed out.

Wilfred smiled and turned into my side, pressing against me. “He was giving us a minute. He’s actually very sensitive, you know. He just doesn’t express it very well. I think he’s had to learn to project a lot of confidence, since he was an omega in an alpha’s world. It can’t have been easy for him to be a single omega raising an alpha son.”

I looked down at my man, amazed. “Really? You think Papa’s sensitive?”

It wasn’t that I didn’t believe him, it was that I had never thought of it before.

Wilfred gave me an affectionate but slightly pitying look.

“Yes, I do think he’s sensitive. He’s got a great eye for colour. He wanted to be a designer but he wasn’t allowed to take the qualifications. He had to workfordesigners instead of being allowed to do it himself. It’s such a shame that he lived in such backwards times. I’m glad omega rights have come such a long way.”

I stared down at him. “Papa wanted to be a designer? Why didn’t I know that?”

“I don’t think he talks about it much. It was his dream, and it was crushed. It’s painful for him.”

“How doyouknow, then?”

Wilfred blushed, and it was adorable.

“I’m very nosey. It’s one of my biggest failings. I have to know about people. When I saw how much care he’d taken with his own house, I started asking questions.”

I nodded, dazed, and we left my office to wander over to Sunflower Smiles. Before we went through the door, I paused, pulling Wilfred back against me. He looked up into my eyes as though I were everything, and it made me want to lay the whole world out in front of him for his pleasure.

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