Page 19 of The Omega's Secret Baby
“Yeah... Sure...”
He walked away, and I didn't stop him. Even though I had so many questions burning on the tip of my tongue. Was he going to stick around? Did he want to help raise Jake?
Did he still have feelings for me?
Did I want him to?
I didn't know.
I really didn’t know.
10
Matthew
Iwas a father.
The thought stuck in my head and wouldn't leave. I had no idea how to handle this news. How did one react to becoming the father of a seven-year old over night? Was I supposed to be happy at the discovery? Angry that the secret had been kept from me for so long?
I didn't know. I just didn't.
I'd never been very in touch with my emotions, and this turn of events was entirely too much for me.
My breakfast tasted of nothing. I hardly realized that I was eating it as I tried to remember the boy's name. Jake, was it? It was a good name. Eli had chosen well, even without my input.
I sighed.
Eight years and not a single word. How could he?
“Are you listening?” my mother asked from across the table, one elegant eyebrow arched. I gave her a look. Had she been sitting there the whole time?
“I'm sorry,” I said. “You were saying?”
She released a long breath, as if I was greatly inconveniencing her. A feeling she had been impressing on me my whole life, really. But that was just the way she was.Everyoneinconvenienced her. Except maybe for my sister, who was really just a miniature version of her. Well, not so miniature anymore, I suppose.
“I was saying,” she said with emphasis, “that your father requests your presence in his office when you've finished your breakfast. Although I really don't know why I have to deliver your father's messages now. As if I was a maid! Can you believe it?”
I shot the only maid within earshot an apologetic look. My mother often talked as if the staff couldn't hear her. “Thank you for telling me,” I said, wondering what the old man wanted. I'd only seen him once in passing since I'd come home. My father had always been a busy man, and he'd never made a secret of the fact that my presence or absence in this house concerned him little.
I headed up to his office on the second floor as soon as I was done eating and knocked on the heavy door.
“Enter,” came my father's gravelly voice from within. He sat in his large leather chair behind his large mahogany desk as I stepped into the room. I don't know if it was the size of the furniture that did it, but somehow, he appeared small to me. Smaller than he used to, anyway. His hair had receded and what was left of it had turned gray, and I had to admit that my old man really was becoming old.
“Mother said you had something to discuss with me,” I said as I took a seat in the less-than-comfortable chair in front of his desk.
“I hear you got a divorce.”
I swallowed. Sitting in this chair made me feel like I was a schoolboy again and receiving a scolding. “That is correct,” I made myself say, because Iwasn'ta schoolboy anymore. I was a successful businessman, damn it.
My father furrowed his brows. “That is regrettable. And highly foolish of you. I must say, you disappoint me, son.”
I grimaced. “Because I don't want to be with a woman I don't love?”
“Love, bah.” He made a face. “You think I love your mother? I married her because it was the smart thing to do. Her family used to own some of the lands our hotels stand on today. I needed her for that and her uterus.” He made a dismissive gesture. “What else are women good for?”
How to respond to that? I'd never thought that much about my parents' marriage. I hadn't necessarily assumed that they were inlovewith each other, but I would have liked to think that my father had a little more regard for my mother than that.
I really didn't know this man at all.
