Page 21 of The Omega's Secret Baby
I sighed. “I have no idea what he plans to do now.”
“What do you want him to do?”
Good question. “I'm not sure. Whatever's best for Jake. But I'm not sure what that is either. I don't really want to see him dragged into Matt's family.” I shuddered, because they could do that. There were some old laws by which the child of an omega was thepossessionof whoever had sired it.Especiallyif it was an alpha. And I was sure that, if anyone, Matt's family were exactly the kind of people who'd use that to their advantage. They had the money to get all the lawyers they needed too.
My best case scenario was that they wouldn't want to have anything to do with the illegitimate child of an omega, but that was sad too. I'd rather Jake not know his relatives than know that they rejected his existence.
“Maybe you can run away together,” Griff joked.
“Very funny.”
He stuck his tongue out at me.
“I don't know who's more mature,” I commented. “You or Jake.”
My brother grinned at me. “Probably Jake.”
“Yeah?” I cocked my head. “What makes you think so?” Not that I really needed a reason, but Griff looked like he had one. Which made me curious.
“He scolded me today.”
I had to laugh, because I could picture it so well. My kid had strong opinions. “What did he scold you for?”
Griff mimicked Jake's voice. “Daddy says not to leave the fridge door open so long.”
“That's my boy!” A smile took over my face and I almost forgot the serious topic we'd been discussing.
But Matt was right to be angry for missing out on this. For missing out on all the moments like this we'd had over the years. Missing out oneverything.I stroked my hand back through my hair and sighed. I'd be mad if I was him.
But making this decision hadn't been easy for me either. I still remembered our very last night together so clearly. As if it had been yesterday. I'd never wanted to become too attached to Matt, but as our time together drew to a close, Iknewthat I'd messed up. All I could think about was that I wasn't going to see him again, not intimately, and that thought hadhurt.
It had hurt so much it had been difficult to breathe when I dwelt on it.
And that night, after our last time together, I had no idea what to do about all thesefeelingsI had as I watched him get dressed, my eyes lingering on the gorgeous patches of skin that were slowly being obscured from my sight.
Was I never going to see him naked again?
Feel the warmth of his skin against mine?
I bit my lower lip. Hard. I'd become way too used to this...thing... we'd been doing. Way too attached. It was a fling, right? Nothing more. It shouldn't hurt to see it end when I'd always known that it would.
Matt turned around to me, dark eyes catching mine. “Are you okay?” he asked. Probably because I just sat there, unmoving.
I didn't know what to say. Washeokay? With all of this? “You're going to get married,” I said. Not new information, of course, but there was no other coherent thought in my head.
He dropped his gaze, for only a second. “Yeah,” he said then. “Weird, right?” He laughed, but the sound had something helpless to it. I'd never known Matt to feel helpless about anything, so I reached out to him, grabbed his arm and made him sit on the bed with me.
“Do you want to get married?” I asked.
He opened his mouth, then closed it again, looking at me as if he wasn't sure what to say. Another expression I didn't see too often on him. “I have to,” he said eventually, with new resolve. “It's the right thing to do.”
My heart sank, because Matt rarely backed down from a decision he'd made. His most alpha quality, probably. He was stubborn as hell.
The same way he'd been stubborn about pursuing me too. Leading me to this cabin in the woods again and again. He just wasn't stubborn aboutkeepingme now that he had me, and I kind of wished he was.
I took a deep breath, because I wasn't going to cry. “I'm not going to see you again, am I?”
“Eli...”
