Page 11 of The Omega's Secret Baby
“We went to the park. Jake was running ahead and not looking, and literally ran into him. I didn't know who he was at first, so I scrambled to apologize and all and then... Well, I got a whiff of him.” I sighed. “Can you believe he still smells the same?”
Griff laughed. Of course he did. I sounded like a teen omega in heat.
Calm down, Eli. No point in getting worked up over this.
I'd abandoned the idea of getting back together with Matt years ago, before Jake had even been born, and Jake was who I needed to think of now. Obviously.
So far, staying away from Matt had been easy because he'd only visited this town a few times after moving away and never for long. He'd never met Jake before.
“So he's met Jake?” Griff asked, as if reading my thoughts.
“Yeah.” I looked toward the hallway, a little paranoid that my son might climb out of bed again and listen in to our conversation, but he was usually a good sleeper.
“Do you think he’s caught on? Jake does resemble him.”
“Just his nose and his hair.” And I kept his hair short for a reason, although it pained me to see his beautiful curls cut down. But there were already enough rumors flying around, and I didn’t want any of our neighbors to draw a connection between Jake and Matt.
“And his alpha genes,” Griff added.
I nodded. “And that. But there’s a lot of alphas.” I ran a hand through my hair. “Jake told him how old he was, though.”
Griff made a face. “Think Matt’s going to put two and two together?”
I sighed. “He might. Either that or he’s going to think I moved on very quickly.” Even the idea felt jarring when the truth was that I’dneverreally moved on. I had become busy though, which had helped me not think of him and all the what-ifs.
“It could have happened, though,” Griff pointed out. “A lot of omegas get mated quickly. You know not all of us get a say in it…”
“I know…” Griff and I were lucky our family was somewhat progressive. Not progressive enough not to throw me out, but still. A lot of people still believed it was best to have omegas mate as quickly as possible, to save us from ourselves and our ‘uncontrollable urges’, when it was really the alphas who claimed they couldn’t control themselves around unmated omegas.
It was ridiculous, but it was difficult to change people’s views.
I was glad my kid was not an omega. He was going to have an easier life as an alpha.
Griff nudged my shoulder. “I know I’ve asked this before, but… Honestly, do you ever regret not telling Matt?”
I let myself sink into the cheap leather of the couch. “You know he was already married when I found out.”
“Yeah, but still…”
I closed my eyes and inhaled, because we’d already talked about this a million times and Griff would never get it. Still, my brother deserved my patience because he’d never said a word to our parents or anyone else, never let anything slip. I don’t know what I would have done without him.
“His family would disown him,” I explained for what felt like the hundredth time. The Lowell family definitely counted among the people with the most old-fashioned beliefs. To this day it still surprised me that their son had turned out be a decent human being.
“You had to make sacrifices too. It’s not fair that he got to go on with his life while you had to drop everything. You shouldn’t have had to do everything on your own.”
“I didn’t, though, did I?” I cocked my head at my brother. “I had you. And now I have an amazing son on top of it all. He’s the one missing out, really.”
Griff was quiet for a moment. Then he asked, “And do you think he’s going to be pissed at you when he finds out?”
I grimaced. “Possibly.”
“Maybe he’ll just leave town again tomorrow,” my brother mused. “Best case scenario, right?”
Was it, though? The more I thought about it, the less sure I became about what I wanted. Did I want Matt to find out about Jake? The possibility that he would be mad at me really was high, but the thought had occurred to me that Jake needed an alpha role model in his life. Someone who could stop him acting out the way he did.
But I had no guarantee that Matt would want to be that someone even if I told him that he was Jake’s father. With that family of his, he’d probably assume all I wanted was money, and I couldn’t stand that thought.
“Yeah,” I said to Griff. “Let’s just hope he leaves again. He’s good at that, after all.” And my life didn’t need another complication.Jake’slife didn’t need another complication. We were happy with the way things were.
