The Omega’s Secret Baby
Oceanport Omegas Book 1
Ann-Katrin Byrde
Cover Art by
Ana J Phoenix
Contents
Description
1. Elias
2. Matthew
3. Elias
4. Matthew
5. Elias
6. Matthew
7. Elias
8. Matthew
9. Elias
10. Matthew
11. Elias
12. Matthew
13. Elias
14. Elias
15. Elias
16. Matthew
17. Matthew
18. Matthew
19. Elias
20. Matthew
21. Matthew
22. Elias
23. Elias
24. Matthew
25. Elias
26. Matthew
27. Elias
28. Matthew
29. Elias
30. Matthew
31. Elias
32. Matthew
33. Elias
34. Matthew
35. Elias
36. Elias
37. Matthew
38. Elias
39. Matthew
Epilogue
About the Author
Newsletter
Other Books by Ann-Katrin
© 2017 Ann-Katrin Byrde
All rights reserved. This book is licensed to the original purchaser only. Duplication or distribution via any means is illegal and a violation of international copyright law, subject to criminal prosecution and upon conviction, fines, and/or imprisonment. Any eBook format cannot be legally loaned or given to others. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the Publisher, except where permitted by law.
This is a work of fiction. All resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental.
This ebook contains sexually explicit scenes and adult language and may be considered offensive to some readers. Please don’t read if you are under eighteen.
For inquiries please contact: [email protected]
Cover Design by Ana J. Phoenix ([email protected])
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Description
Eight years ago, Eli gave up his future as a veterinarian because of a blue line on a pregnancy test. Now a single dad to the best little boy in the world, he’s working at an animal shelter and trying his hardest to ignore the small town gossip that follows him and his son around. Contrary to popular belief, he does know who the other father is—the irresistible alpha from his youth. But Matt’s upper class family doesn’t think an omega is good enough for their son, and Eli’s not going to expose his kid to that kind of prejudice. Besides, Matt ran off and married someone else, so he couldn’t have felt that much for Eli, could he?
After years of trying to make his arranged marriage work, Matt’s getting divorced--much to his high society family’s dismay and fury. And his relief—something had to change. It does, when he runs into the omega he’d fallen for as a college senior and never quite managed to forget. The moment he lays eyes on Eli, he wants him back, and to hell with what his parents think.
And there’s that little boy, Eli’s son, who tugs on Matt’s heart as hard as Eli does. Could it be…?
For Sherry Jones, who provided the name of the baby in this book. And for all of my other wonderful readers who encourage and enable me.
1
Elias
Please let today go smoothly.
My seven-year old son bounced on the sidewalk beside me and our family dog, ten-year old Labrador Fiona. He was excited; I was anxious, and I gripped his hand tightly. It was his first day back at school after the winter holidays. Jake loved school, but he rarely got along with the other children. And just before the holidays, he’d gotten into a shouting match with one of the other kids that landed him in his first ever detention. It seemed he’d already forgotten all about that, but his alpha genes were starting to express themselves, and I worried that he was going to make a trend of it.
“Look, there's Tommy!” he said, pointing ahead where I could see little Tommy Fuller standing in front of the school gates with his father--another omega like me. Unlike me, though, Tommy Fuller's father wasn't a single dad.
I slowed down a bit even as Jake tried to pull me forward. “Hang on, sweetie,” I said, making him stop. I had no intention whatsoever of getting dragged into a conversation with another parent. I went down on one knee to be on eye-level with my son. He eyed me impatiently as I tried to straighten the wild locks of his blond hair. The same hair as his other father, but Jake didn't know that. It was better that way.
Or so I kept telling myself.
“Can I go now?” he asked, glancing at Tommy, who was waving at him.
“Okay, but remember what I told you.”
“I know! No singing in class.”
“Good boy.” I pressed my lips to his forehead and Fiona put her nose to mine as if she thought it was time for a group-hug. Jake laughed and hugged the black dog--his favorite playmate.
I shook my head at the both of them. “Listen to your teacher, okay?”
“Okay.”
“And play nice with the other children.”
Jake looked at me with eyes so full of defiance it was difficult to believe he was only seven. “Only if they're nice to me too.”
“They'll treat you the way you treat them,” I tried to impart some wisdom to my little troublemaker.
He huffed.
I suppressed a sigh as I got to my feet again, knowing that any more parental advice would be lost on him just now. “Alright, you can go with Tommy. I'll be back later to get you.”
He grinned. “Later, Daddy!”
“I love you,” I called after him, but he was already running off, unafraid.
He'd never been a clingy kid. Considering that I'd always had to work to keep us fed, that was fortunate. And I had work to get to now as well, so I gently tugged on Fiona's leash and turned back the way we'd come. Internally I congratulated myself for having escaped a run-in with the other parents.
The day couldn't continue to go that smoothly of course. As soon as I got into work, I was swamped with things to do. Working at a small town’s even smaller animal shelter wasn’t what I’d always dreamed of doing, but it was still a job I enjoyed—and one that I knew I was lucky to have. Recently, though, things were becoming difficult. In short, the shelter struggled with financial issues. There was never enough money for all the things the animals needed. Food, vaccines, medications... We only had five dogs, four cats and two birds at the moment, but taking care of them wasn't cheap. And lately, one of my co-workers, an arrogant guy in his mid-thirties by the name of Harold, had gotten it into his head that one of us was going to be laid off--and it wasn't going to be him. No, it was going to be the omega, because who cared about omegas? They weren't made for the workplace anyway, right?
Harold took every opportunity he could get to dig into me. That day too, he went, “You're late!” as soon as I arrived at the shelter.
I ignored him as I unleashed Fiona and led her to the other dogs--one of the perks of working at the shelter--no one cared if I was bringing my own dog with me so long as she wasn't getting in the way. Most of my co-workers had adopted one or two animals in the time they'd worked here so this was nothing u
nusual.
“Hey, I'm talking to you,” Harold insisted. He wasn't in a higher position than me at work; we were both really on the lowest rung of the ladder, but you wouldn't know it from his behavior.
“I heard you,” I said, slowly turning to him. “But I'm not late.” Well, maybe two minutes, but I couldn't take my son to school any earlier than I already did.
He shook his head. “You're always late. You know I'm not the only one who notices either.” He nodded his head in the direction of the boss's office, as if trying to tell me that I needed to watch out.
I merely shrugged. “I'm doing the best I can.” And considering that I was severely underpaid, that had to be enough. But underpaid or not, I couldn't afford to lose this job because my rude co-worker made me ignore my responsibilities, so I tried to cut the conversation with Harold short. “Excuse me, but I have a few dogs who need to be taken out on their morning walk. Don't want to make them wait any longer.”
“They shouldn't have to wait at all,” Harold called after me, but I ignored him. Who needed to talk to people like Harold when there were so many lovely dogs here? All five of them wagged their tails excitedly when they saw me enter the kennel with the leashes. They were used to their routine and knew exactly what was coming. And I think it wouldn't be too much to say that they liked me. I'd always been good with animals. Cats, dogs, birds, mice, it didn't matter. I could look into their eyes and establish some sort of immediate understanding. Or at least it felt like that to me. Doing anything like that with actual people was far harder. Humans were infinitely more complicated than animals.
“Are you all ready to go?” I asked the dogs. The smallest of them, a Yorkshire terrier who'd been with us for two months, stood up on her hind paws and yipped at me. I laughed. This wasn't the life I'd dreamed of, but it wasn't bad. I could forget my problems while I was with my furry friends--sadly though, that didn't mean they ceased to exist.
It was just ten minutes before my lunch break when I heard the dreaded sound of my phone ringing. These days, that never meant good news. It was either going to be someone wanting money from me or Jake's school.
And with how things had been going with Jake lately, I found myself praying for the former.
I had no such luck, of course.
The familiar voice of the school's secretary greeted me when I picked up the phone.
“Mr. Stephens?”
I gulped, feeling almost like I was the one in trouble rather than my kid. “Yes?”
“It'd be of great help if you could come down to the school. I'm afraid Jake's punched one of the other students.”
I sighed. Jake was such a sweet kid when he was at home. Why could he never behave around other children? He wasn't stupid. In fact, all his teachers agreed with me that he was pretty smart. Just not smart enough to know how to handle social situations, it seemed.
“I'll be there as fast as I can,” I said, glancing at my watch. If I was lucky, I could make it back before my lunch break was over.
“The other child's parents will be here as well,” the secretary informed me.
I suppressed another sigh. It was bad enough being the single omega parent. It was even worse to be the single omega parent of a misbehaving child. Made everyone feel vindicated in their beliefs that omegas should not spend their lives unmated.
I ran a hand through my hair and ended the call. Nothing I could do about it now. This was how things were. Especially in a small town like Oceanport where everyone had their nose in everyone else's business.
Just the week before, my brother had informed me he'd heard that people down at the pub were making bets on who would finally manage to put a claim on me.
I shuddered, recalling that conversation. There weren't a lot of unmated alphas in town, and none of them appealed to me in the slightest.
And none of them would have been a good father for Jake.
There was only one man who could fill that role, and he... wasn't even aware of Jake's existence.
It was better that way. It was the choice I'd made after thinking about it long and hard all those years ago. I couldn't change it now.
Or so I thought.
Deciding to leave my dog at the shelter for the duration of the lunch break, I headed out to my car. Not, of course, without being scolded by Harold as I passed. “Coming late and leaving early?”
“Family emergency,” I responded, biting back every comment I wanted to make about not coming early. Not that I’d seen a lot of action in the years since Jake had been born. Or rather, since Jake had been conceived.
“You always got some sort of emergency going on,” he huffed.
I chose not to respond to that as I sat in my car, a beat up blue Ford, and pulled the door shut. The school wasn’t a long way—nothing really was in Oceanport—but if I wanted to be back by the end of my lunch break, I had to get going now.
Pulling out of the shelter’s parking lot, I went on my way.
It started snowing just as I drove onto the main road leading me back into the heart of the small town, big white flakes sailing onto the front screen of my car. Idly I wondered whether I’d thought to put a scarf on Jake this morning, and then whether he’d wear it. The boy often left his coats, scarves and mittens behind when he ran out to play, no matter how loudly I reprimanded him. I loved him fiercely, but he’d always had a mind of his own. I could only hope that it wasn’t going to become too much of a problem for him. After all, I could remember a time when I hadn’t listened to anyone else either, and that hadn’t gone too well for me.
I reached Oceanport’s elementary school after a short drive and got out of the car. At this point, I was already familiar with the way to the principal’s office, so it didn’t take me long to get there either.
As I had feared, the other child’s mother was already there when the secretary led me into the office. I recognized the blond head of the kid my son had fought with instantly. Mike, or Miles, or something like that. Jake didn’t like the boy, and he made no secret of it when he talked about school. I was reasonably sure the other boy’s last name was Foster. His father ran the town’s supermarket, and at the moment, his mother was regarding me with an air of disdain that was almost palpable. It was nothing new, although she usually hid her opinion of me a little bit better when we ran into each other during school events.
Ignoring her for now, I looked to the principal, Mr. Stein.
“What happened?”
“Your child is out of control, that’s what happened!” Mrs. Foster screeched, even though she hadn’t been asked.
“Please, Mrs. Foster,” Mr. Stein cut her off.
“My baby has been hurt by this wild—”
“I’m very sorry for what happened to your child,” I spoke up before she could insult Jake, although I wasn’t overly pleased with my son myself that moment. “Please be assured that it won’t happen again.” I took a moment to glare at my offspring, who stubbornly looked at his feet instead of meeting my gaze.
Whatever was I going to do with him?
Before I could come to a decision, Mrs. Foster started screeching again. “You know this happens because he has no positive role model in his life!”
And this was exactly why I hated being around the other parents and their judgmental—
“Leave my daddy alone!” Jake spoke up, interrupting my thoughts. Everyone in the room turned to him. He met every questioning look with a challenging one. That was not going to get him out of trouble.
And I had no idea what to think about the fact that he felt like he had to protect me.
I just wanted to take him by the hand and leave this room.
“No one is trying to attack your dad, Jake,” the headmaster said. “Please wait outside. You too, Miles.”
Once the children were outside, I apologized for my son’s behavior. “I don’t know what’s gotten into him.”
“He’ll be suspended for the rest of the day,” the headmaster said, “but since this i
s his first violent offense, he can come back tomorrow. He’ll be in detention for the rest of the week. And I hope nothing like this happens again. We do take these matters seriously.”
“I understand. Now, if you could excuse me and Jake, I have to get back to work.”
“Work.” Mrs. Foster scoffed. “You’d better put some time into taming your child.”
I gave her a tight-lipped smile because I could suddenly imagine just how her child had gotten himself punched. “I’ll consider it,” I said, leaving the office and taking my son with me as I headed back to the car.
Neither of us spoke on our way to the parking lot. It was only when we’d both climbed into the Honda that I trusted myself to start the conversation without raging at my son for being stupid.
“What do you have to say for yourself?”
Jake pressed his lips together and played with his seatbelt in the back of the car.
I took a deep breath. “Don’t make me late for work. I’ll put you in a cage with the birds.” Jake didn’t like the birds. He found them too loud.
“That’s not fair!” he burst out.
“What’s not fair is that I had to come all the way here because you punched another child! What’s gotten into you? We don’t punch people!” If I’d failed to teach him that, maybe Mrs. Foster was right and I was a horrible parent.
Jake pouted. “He was mean.”
“I don’t care how mean he was. People are mean to me all the time, and I don’t—”
“That’s why! People are mean to you and you don’t do anything!”
I blinked as my son nearly screamed at me, his little hands balled into fists. “Jake…”
“He said I don’t have another dad because you don’t know who my other dad is, because you’re a stupid omega.”
His words felt like a punch to my vitals.
Oh, Jake. I’m so sorry.
I took a moment to close my eyes and regret every choice I’d ever made that led to my son defending my honor on the school yard. I didn’t care what people said about me, but I hadn’t given enough thought to how my reputation affected Jake. “You know it’s not like that, right?” I asked softly, all my anger evaporating.
The Omega's Secret Baby (Oceanport Omegas Book 1) Page 1