The Omega's Secret Baby (Oceanport Omegas Book 1)

by Ann-Katrin Byrde

  We went down the biggest hill a couple times, Jake cheering all the way to the bottom and then immediately wanting to go again. He was an energetic kid, but that wasn’t bad. Having a lot of energy was good. But I was grateful I’d become a parent at a young age, or I would have had a hell of a time keeping up with him.

  In fact, I did have to ask for a break after about an hour of this, even though Jake looked as if he could have gone on forever and I was starting to think that maybe I should buy him a motor sled rather than a car.

  But I was sure Eli wouldn’t like that at all.

  Could I keep that a secret too?

  Nah, motor sleds were tough to hide.

  “You really need a break?” Jake asked, tilting his head.

  “Yeah. But just a short one. Hey, I know, why don’t we have some hot chocolate? My friend Frederica makes the best hot chocolate.”

  “I like hot chocolate!”

  “Okay, then we’ll go get some.” I took Jake by the hand and went inside the house with him, turning in the direction of the maids’ quarters. Little chance to run into family here. I wanted to introduce Jake to my mother and sister eventually, but maybe not right now. I was way more exciting about Frederica meeting him, anyway. She was going to love him.

  I knocked on her door and she opened almost immediately. “Well, if it isn’t my favorite Lowell!” And then she spotted the kid. “Oh, you’re bringing me a little visitor!”

  “I am! Frederica, this is my son Jake. Jake, this is Frederica, the best housekeeper in the whole wide world and maker of the best hot chocolate.”

  “Hello, Jake.” Frederica greeted my son with a smile. “I guess you want some hot chocolate? Oh, you’re covered in snow!” She brushed some flakes off his coat. “Come inside, inside. I’ll have you fixed up in no time.” She ushered both of us through the door and closed it behind us.

  “So, did you introduce him to anyone else yet?” she asked me then.

  “I thought you should be the first.”

  “Oh.” She tapped my nose. “Aren’t you a good boy? I’ll spike your hot chocolate.”

  “Frederica—”

  “Just a little bit.” And then she went through her kitchen like a whirlwind while Jake and I sat on her couch.

  “Matt?” Jake looked at me with a question on his face.

  “Yeah?”

  “What do I call you?”

  “How do you mean?”

  He tilted his head to the side. “I mean, because you’re my dad now. Do I have to call you dad?”

  “Oh, you don’t have to do anything you’re not comfortable with. This is still so new, why don’t you just keep calling me Matt for a while?”

  “But can I call you dad?”

  I can’t wait for you to do that, kid. “Sure. Whenever you’re ready.”

  “Okay.” He glanced over to the kitchen, where Frederica was still boiling milk, then back to me. “Can I ask you another question?”

  “Certainly. You can ask as many questions as you like.”

  Jake drew his lower lip between his teeth for a moment. “You’re not going to leave Daddy again, are you?”

  “Oh, Jake, of course I’m not going to do that!” I was tempted to draw the boy into a hug, but wasn’t sure whether or not it was too early for us. Sometimes I still found it difficult to tell how to act around the kid, and part of me wondered whether that was what my father had been referring to. The instincts I didn’t have.

  And before I could come to a decision, the door to Frederica’s chambers flew open.

  In came my mother.

  Oh my God.

  I only had to see the look on her face to know that this was not going to go well. The woman was angry. It was a surprising change from the lethargy she’d been displaying since my father’s death, but not a particularly welcome one.

  She knows.

  That much was clear to me in an instance. Somehow, she’d found out about Jake, and that I’d brought him here.

  “Where is he?” my mother demanded, waltzing into the room.

  “You can’t barge in here like that!” Frederica tried, but she was ignored.

  The moment my mother spotted me and Jake, there was no stopping her. “You!” She came up to me and stabbed her finger in my chest. “What are you trying to do? Do you want me to have a heart attack like your father? I can’t believe you would do this to this family after all we’ve done for you! I’ve never been more disappointed in my life! To think that you would fall into the hands of a greedy omega after all the effort I went through to prevent that from happening!” She put the back of her hand to her forehead in a dramatic gesture.

  “Please, Mother. You’re over—”

  “Don’t tell me I’m overreacting!” She stabbed my chest again. “Your sister told me everything! Some dirty omega’s got you convinced that you knocked him up eight years ago and now you feel like you have to raise his bastard child. Is that true?” She glanced at Jake, who stared at her with wide eyes. “Is that the bastard child? He looks nothing like you!”

  “He has my eyes. And you will stop calling him a bastard!”

  “He does not and I will not!”

  “Then get out of here! You’re scaring the child!”

  “You can’t tell me what to do in my own house! And maybe that child needs to be scared so he won’t come back!” She turned to Jake. “We don’t need the likes of you here!”

  I stood and dragged the woman away from my son. She might have been my mother, but there was a limit to the level of abuse I could tolerate. Especially when it was directed at my kid. “That child is my son, and you will treat him with respect!”

  She did the most unladylike thing I’d ever seen her do—she spit in my face. “That is not your child. Get him out of my sight!” That said, she turned on her heel and left.

  I swallowed, watching her go, balling my hands into fists. I couldn’t believe Karen had sicced our mother on me. Well, actually, I could believe it. What I couldn’t believe was that I hadn’t foreseen it. All this time, and I still hadn’t learned that basic human decency counted for nothing in this family.

  “Matt.” Jake tugged on my sleeve. “I want to go home now.”

  Of course he did. Who could blame him?

  “Sure, kiddo.” I gave him the hug I’d wanted to give him earlier. “I’ll take you.”

  Well, this had gone wonderfully. I could only hope that Eli wasn’t going to rip my head off.

  31

  Elias

  Matt brought Jake back a bit earlier than I’d expected. I was in the middle of doing a crossword and trying to enjoy my rare alone time instead of worrying about my kid when the doorbell rang.

  Jake greeted me with a hug, which surprised me, because he wasn’t doing that as much lately.

  “Hey, kid,” I said, returning the hug, relieved to have him back with me. “Did you have a good time?”

  Jake looked up at me with a curious expression. “Daddy, what’s a bastard?”

  My heart just about burst into a million pieces. “That’s uh… That’s a word we don’t use. Ever. Okay?”

  “But what does it mean?”

  “It uh…” I looked at Matt, but he didn’t seem to have an appropriate explanation either. Before I knew it, my eyes narrowed at him. How the hell had this happened? I’d let him watch my kid for one day! I looked back at Jake. “Go up to your room. We’ll talk later.”

  “But—”

  “Go to your room now. Please.” I had to talk to Matt, and I wasn’t going to do it with Jake present.

  Jake huffed, but went up the stairs. I was going to have to console him with some ice cream later.

  For now, though… I glared at his dad. “Care to explain to me what happened?”

  He exhaled, posture just a little stiff. “Things were fine at first. We were having a lot of fun sledding. Then I took him into the house to meet our lovely housekeeper and have some hot chocolate. I figured we wouldn’t run into family in
the staff wing, but…well.”

  “But what?” I’d told him to be careful, goddammit.

  “My sister had a bone to pick with me and put our mother on my trail.”

  “And your mother called him…” I didn’t even want to repeat that word. Just thinking it made me so mad I wanted to punch something or someone, and I never usually felt that way. I didn’t even know how to handle that kind of emotion. I only knew that I had to protect my son from whoever was trying to hurt him.

  Alphas weren’t the only ones with protective instincts. There was no wrath like the wrath of an omega whose baby had been put into jeopardy.

  “My mother said a lot of mean things,” Matt admitted.

  “A lot of mean things?” I demanded.

  “Yeah, but you know she’s not all there.” Matt made a gesture with his hand as if to signal that his mother had gone cuckoo. “She’s been a bit off since my father passed away.”

  “And you took our kid to see this mentally unstable…” I stopped short of saying bitch, but it was a close call.

  “I honestly didn’t think it was going to be this bad.” He held his hands up.

  How could he not think that? How had I not foreseen this? I sort of had, but I’d wanted to trust Matt. Give him a chance to prove to me that I was worrying too much.

  Stupid, stupid, stupid.

  I was so mad at myself it felt like something within me was about to explode, and I turned that on Matt. “You know what your problem is? You were always a privileged kid. A rich alpha on top of the food chain. You know on some level that your family isn’t super decent, and I give you credit for that, but you don’t really know. You don’t know what it feels like to face the kind of prejudice Jake and I have to deal with. You know one reason I didn’t tell you I was pregnant? Because I knew you weren’t equipped to deal with this kind of situation!”

  Matt’s mouth dropped open but he didn’t say anything for a few seconds. “You had no right to judge whether or not I was equipped with any situation!” he finally got out.

  “Maybe not,” I conceded, “but I’m starting to feel like I made the right call anyway.” I knew I was saying the wrong thing, going too far, the moment the words were out of my mouth, but then they hung in the air between us and I couldn’t take them back.

  Matt only looked at me for a moment. And then he turned and left.

  I didn’t even blame him.

  After Matt had left, I went up to Jake’s room to do some damage repair. Honestly, I felt like most of my time as a parent was spent fixing one problem or another. At least I got a really sweet kid in exchange for all the trouble, though. I wouldn’t trade Jake for the world, even if worrying about him kept me up too many nights.

  I knocked on his door and stuck my head into his room. Jake was on his bed with a coloring book. “Hey, kiddo,” I said, entering the room. “You okay?”

  He sat up. “I’m okay,” he said cautiously, and I could tell by the look on his face that he hadn’t gone straight to his room, but he’d heard me and Matt fight. And I had no idea how he felt about that—or any of the things that had happened today.

  I sat on the edge of his bed. “I think there’s some things we should talk about.”

  “Yeah?” Jake put his coloring book aside. “Are you going to tell me what a bastard is?”

  There was no getting around this, was there? “It’s… it’s a very mean word for a child whose parents weren’t married when he was born.”

  “Oh. So I am a bastard.”

  “No!” I hugged Jake to myself before the seven-year old could protest. “I don’t want you to say that again, ever, okay? People only use that word to hurt people they think are beneath them, and you’re not beneath anyone. That’s an outdated belief.”

  “Matt’s mom said it.”

  I shook my head. “Matt’s mom is not a very nice woman. And she has a lot of outdated beliefs. You can’t listen to her.”

  “I don’t think I want to go back there.”

  “You don’t have to, sweetie. Not if you don’t want to.”

  “The sledding was awesome, though.”

  “That’s good.” I kissed his hair. “I’m glad you had some fun.”

  For a moment, we sat in silence, my arm still around Jake. After a minute or so, Jake looked up at me with a serious expression. “Is Matt going to leave again?”

  “You heard us fight, didn’t you?” I might have raised my voice a little too, on my tirade.

  Jake shrugged.

  “We only fought a little,” I said.

  “Was it because of me?”

  “Hey, whatever happens between Matt and me is not your fault, okay?”

  He nodded, even though he didn’t seem entirely convinced. Holy hell. I’d known this relationship might be tough on him, and yet I’d thrown caution to the wind when Matt kissed me. I just couldn’t help myself around him. Even when I was mad at him, I still loved that stupid alpha like there was some sort of magnetic force pulling us together. All these years, and that hadn’t changed. It should have changed. I should have grown up.

  “Are you and Matt going to make up?” Jake asked.

  What to say? I didn’t know. Maybe I had screwed up too hard by not telling Matt about Jake eight years ago. Or maybe our worlds were just too different. “I hope so,” I said, brushing some hair back from my son’s face. “But you know, whatever happens, he’ll still come to see you. I know he loves you.” Even if he didn’t always make the smartest parental decisions.

  Matt was right; I should never have kept him away from Jake in the first place. But it was too late to fix that mistake.

  That day, after I’d put Jake to bed, Griff and I spent the remainder of the evening eating ice cream and watching mindless television shows. It was great to have a brother like him in times of crisis. Actually, it was great to have a brother like him, full stop.

  “Thanks for staying up with me,” I told him, licking some chocolate ice cream off my spoon.

  “Don’t worry about it.” He passed the rest of his ice cream to me. “I’m done with that, if you want it.”

  “You? Done with ice cream before me?”

  “I don’t know, man, you seem to be really into that stuff tonight.”

  I looked at the tub of ice cream I’d nearly completely annihilated and couldn’t disagree with him. Usually Griff had a much bigger sweet tooth than I did. The man ate chocolate bars for breakfast, for god’s sake. The only time I’d ever out-snacked him was…

  Oh dear God.

  Griff and I looked at each other and I could tell by the look on his face that he was having the same horrifying thought.

  My brother spoke first. “Tell me, is it at all possible that you…”

  “We used protection.” I’d made sure of that! Nobody wanted to repeat past mistakes.

  “Did you really?”

  “Yeah, man, I keep condoms by my bed.”

  “How long have you kept them there? Because, no offense, but you don’t bring a lot of guys back here.”

  Hearing my brother’s words, a horrible suspicion dawned on me. I stormed up to my room and got the pack of condoms out of my bedside drawer. Then I fumbled with it until I found the expiration date.

  It was two years in the past.

  Fuck.

  32

  Matthew

  Eli’s words kept ringing in my head as I returned to the mansion. Was I really such a horrible parent? Was it better for Jake if I stayed away from him? Had my father been right after all?

  I wanted to slam my hands on the steering wheel in frustration. Goddammit. Things had seemed to be coming together so beautifully. And then that. Part of me thought I should have a talk with my sister. Part of me thought never talking to her again would be the preferable option.

  For now, I parked the car and headed back into the house, only to be met by Frederica on my way up to my quarters.

  “I thought I’d heard your car,” she said with a sympathetic smile. �
��Rough day today, huh?”

  I held a hand up. “Please keep it out of the gossip loop.”

  “Oh, you know I won’t talk about it. So tempting, though. Your mother looked like a wild goose storming into my living room.” Frederica laughed just a little and the sound was so contagious that I felt my lips curve up in spite of everything.

  “Would you like to have a tea with me?”

  “Oh, I think tea is just the thing we need now.”

  If only all problems could be solved by tea. I led Frederica up to the sitting room in the west wing of the second floor, which was generally considered my wing and blissfully devoid of people.

  “Green tea?” I asked her, grabbing some cups from the shelves.

  “You know how much I love green tea.”

  “Yeah, I know.” Apparently there were still some things I got right. I prepared the tea for the both of us and put the mugs onto a coffee table before settling in one of the arm chairs.

  “So,” Frederica asked. “You take the kid back home to the omega? It’s a shame, I must say. I was looking forward to chatting with him. He seemed like a sweet little boy.” Her eyes twinkled. “Reminds me a little bit of certain alpha I know when he was young.”

  “You really think he’s like me?”

  “A little bit,” Frederica said, pinching her thumb and index finger together. “Your mother has no idea what she’s talking about. Then again, she was never your primary caretaker.” A hint of disdain entered Frederica’s voice.

  “No, I guess not. Just not the way things are done in this family.” Seriously, how had I thought I was going to be a good parent when I had no good example to draw on?

  “You’ll do things differently now, won’t you?” Frederica stirred some milk into her tea.

  I raked a hand through my hair. “I’m not sure what to do right now, to be honest.”

  “Had a fight with the omega?”

  “His name is Eli,” I reminded her, because Eli was so much more than just an omega. “And you just want me to tell you the juicy bits, don’t you?”