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

by Ann-Katrin Byrde

  “That’s why I punched him!”

  I wished he sounded a little less proud. “You can’t do it again. You have to promise me that.” He could get thrown out of school for behavior like that, and what would I do with him?

  “Only if he doesn’t say it again.”

  “A lot of people say a lot of stupid things. But you still can’t punch them. I’m going to be very upset if you do this again.”

  He looked at his shoes again.

  “Jake,” I prodded. “Will you promise me that you won’t do this again?”

  Finally, he nodded.

  I released a breath and started the car, moderately sure that the worst part of the day was behind me.

  I was wrong.

  2

  Matthew

  The roads were covered in snow by the time my driver reached Oceanport. I'd forgotten how bad the weather got around here this time of year. I hadn't come back to town often since I graduated school, and even when I was still a kid, I'd lived at boarding schools for the majority of the time.

  In short, I didn't feel a major connection to Oceanport. It was a lovely town, presumably, with its quiet roads and its coastal charm, and it was certainly located in a scenic area, with a harbor on one side of the town and a mountain range stretching out into the distance on the other. It was nice to look at, but that was all it was. I felt no real connection to this place.

  In fact, I hoped I didn't have to stay long. I'd come because I'd received some troubling news regarding my father's health.

  And because I had some troubling news of my own to share.

  When my parents' mansion came into view in front of the car, I took a deep breath and counted to ten in my head.

  My mother wasn't going to like what I was going to tell her, but I was an alpha, and too old to bow to her will. It had been eight years since I'd moved out on my own, for heaven's sake.

  Still, it was going to be an unpleasant conversation.

  I almost asked the driver to make a detour around town.

  But it was time to face the music, so I got out of the car when it stopped and approached my family's house, which had never much felt like a home.

  Three stories high, this mansion had been built to symbolize only one thing--my family's wealth. My parents were proud of this house, but to me it had only ever been a place I wanted to escape from.

  I hadn't known, of course, that the outside world wasn't going to be any better.

  “Sir, would you like me to carry your luggage inside?” the driver asked.

  I nodded. “That would be very kind of you.”

  Approaching the front door, I didn't have to knock to see it opened. I wasn't surprised. No one could drive up here without being noticed.

  A maid stood in the door, giving me a tight smile. I hadn't seen her before, but that wasn't surprising either. My mother went through staff like other people went through their underwear. “The Misses is expecting you in the sitting room. Shall I take your coat?”

  I took my coat off and handed it to her. “Thank you,” I said, and then I went to face my mother.

  My father wasn't with her when I entered the sitting room. That was unusual. Maybe it was true what my sister said and he really wasn't feeling well lately.

  But I had no time to think about that any further when my mother came to greet me.

  “Matthew, so good to have you back in town!” Her smile looked almost genuine, but not quite. So she already suspected that I hadn’t come here just because.

  “It’s good to see you too, Mother.”

  She led me to one of the arm chairs. “Sit with me. Will you have tea or coffee?”

  “Tea.” I preferred coffee, really, but I had to watch my blood pressure. Or at least, my doctor suggested I do so, now that I was going to be an unmated alpha and all.

  “Of course, dear.” My mother related my request to the maid and sat. She already had a cup of coffee in front of her. She'd probably been waiting impatiently ever since I'd informed her of my visit. My mother was a lot of things, but she was not a patient woman. “What brings you here, darling?” she asked, seconds after the maid had left.

  I leaned back in my chair. “Can't I simply visit my parents? I notice Father isn't with you tonight.”

  “He's resting.” She waved her hand as if it was no big matter. “You know we would be delighted to see you more often, but we understand that you have a business to run.”

  Ah yes, the family business. “The business will survive my absence for a few days. My staff is excellent.” And they were. I'd handpicked most of them to ensure I didn't have idiots working on my team. Idiots were bad for my blood pressure. My family owned a chain of hotels and coastal resorts. After I'd graduated school, I'd been put in charge of a hotel we'd recently bought from the competition, and I'd made it my own.

  “Things are going well then?” my mother asked.

  “Well enough,” I said, and I couldn't go into further detail before the maid returned with tea for me. I took it and thanked her with a smile. She seemed surprised.

  I set the cup of tea down on the table and looked at my mother. It was time to break the news to her and really get this visit started.

  And she gave me the perfect jumping off point. Raising an eyebrow she said, “I can't help but notice your wife isn't with you.”

  I licked my lips. “Danielle is with her own family.”

  “And why is that? You're letting your wife travel on her own? That is not how I raised you.”

  “I'm not letting my wife travel on her own.” It was difficult to keep from making a face. As if I'd ever let Danielle do anything. She'd always done what she wanted.

  “Then explain to me why you're here and she's not.”

  I folded my hands in my lap and looked into my mother's eyes. “Danielle is not my wife anymore.”

  Both of my mother's eyebrows went up, and then they came down again in a scowl. “What are you talking about?”

  “We got a divorce.” I kept my tone level, emotionless. My mother didn't need to know how I felt about this.

  “A divorce!” My mother's voice went up a pitch. “Why would you do something so disgraceful? Are you trying to put your father in an early grave?”

  Now it was on me to raise my eyebrows. “I wasn’t aware that Father had health problems,” I lied, because she probably didn’t know that my sister and I had talked about this. And I really wanted to know how much truth there was to that. My sister had never been above manipulating people with made-up information. When we were kids, she'd convinced me my favorite brand of chocolate was poisonous to alphas so she could have it while I tried to empty the contents of my stomach in the toilet bowl. She was ruthless.

  She made Mommy and Daddy proud.

  “Don't try to distract from the topic,” my mother scolded me. “We're talking about you now, not your father. How could you drive poor Danielle to divorce you? Did we raise you that poorly?”

  Part of me wanted to point out that my parents had hardly spent any time raising me at all, but I got the feeling it wasn't wise to enrage her further. No reason to make this trip even more unpleasant than it had to be. And I had to set the record straight. “Danielle didn't divorce me. I asked for the divorce.”

  One, two, three seconds of absolute silence, and then my mother exploded.

  “How could you do that? She was perfect for you! I made sure that she was perfect for you! Don't you know how much time I've invested into finding you a spouse as good as her?”

  I don't need a spouse. I need a mate.

  I didn't voice that thought, but she must have seen something in my eyes. I'd never been good at keeping what I thought from showing on my face.

  “What?” she snapped. “Were you not happy with her?” She shook her head. “Your father and I have always done our best to make sure you lacked for nothing, that you got the best education there was, that you got a suitable spouse... and yet you insist on being selfish. It wasn't good enoug
h for you, was it?”

  “I appreciate all you've done for me, but Danielle and I were too young.” And the more time we spent together, the more we realized that we were not made for each other. We never connected. Danielle was a proud woman, and every bit as entrenched in higher society as my mother was. She would never have asked for a divorce, but I knew that she got no joy out of our marriage.

  “Too young.” My mother scoffed. “You're still too young. You don't know what's good for you.”

  I gave her a wry smile. “I'm nearly thirty, Mother.”

  “Nearly thirty.” My mother made an unamused sound, then she rested her head in her hands as if devastated. “You can't live out there as a young and rich unmated alpha. They're going to come at you like a pack of hungry harpies.” Her shoulders heaved.

  I thought she was laying on the drama a bit thick, but I wasn't completely unsympathetic. She truly believed all she was saying. There had been a time in my life when I’d believed it myself—that I needed to be married to lead a respectable life, that every omega I ever met would only be interested in my body and my money…

  I wasn’t so sure anymore. Every time I tried to remind myself that I shouldn’t look at other men, the image of one particular omega sprang to mind.

  Elias.

  Elias hadn’t cared about my money.

  He’d certainly tempted me to abandon my virtues, though. So maybe there was some truth to what my mother was saying.

  “I’ll be careful, Mother,” I tried to console her, putting my hand on her arm.

  She was having none of it and slapped my hand away as if it was dirty. “Is that why you don’t have children? Because you were planning on sabotaging this marriage from the start?”

  Sabotage my marriage? “I’ve done no such thing. We weren’t in love. You can’t force these things.” I knew, because I’d certainly tried.

  “You have duties to this family!” My mother stopped the fake sobbing to glare at me instead. “If you won’t go back to Danielle, we’ll find you another woman to add children to this family, but don’t think I’ll let you sully our name by living like a bachelor and inviting lusty omegas into your bed.”

  “I think I’d rather not jump straight into another marriage.”

  I don’t know why I even bothered saying that because nothing could stop my mother when she got like this. She was on a roll now; her opinions and feelings were facts, and there wasn’t anything anyone could say to convince her differently.

  “I’m not letting you off the hook so easily,” she said. “First thing tomorrow I’m going to call poor Danielle to see if this can’t be fixed. You can’t give up so easily, Matthew. That is not how your father and I raised you.”

  Right. “Do what you must, Mother.” I got up from the chair. “I’m going to go for a walk.”

  For a moment, she looked like she was going to stop me, but then she only sighed and waved her hand at me to go. “Be careful,” she said. “There’s ice on the roads. Don’t slip and break your neck. I don’t want you in a cast during your next wedding.”

  My mother had always had an odd way of showing she cared.

  I knew that she did, in her own way, but I still couldn’t wait to get out of this town again. There wasn’t anything worth staying for, after all.

  Or so I’d thought.

  3

  Elias

  I was exhausted by the time I made it home that evening. Since I’d had to drop Jake home before returning to work earlier, I’d been a bit later in getting back to the shelter than I’d hoped. Harold hadn’t let me hear the end of it all day. Still, I knew I was lucky I even had the option of letting Jake stay home instead of taking him to work with me. That only worked because I was living with my brother.

  “Thank God you’re home,” Griff greeted me almost as soon as I opened the door and Fiona charged ahead inside the house. “You can entertain your hellion now. I have work to do.”

  “I’m sorry. Was he a lot of trouble?” I bit my lips, hating that I had to inconvenience my brother like this. He’d done all he could to help me and Jake since my son’s birth, and it was perfect that he had a job that allowed him to work from home, but I knew that I shouldn’t abuse that fact.

  “He was good,” Griff said. “But you know I can’t focus on my work when he’s watching cartoons.”

  “Only because you want to watch cartoons too.”

  He smiled and scratched the back of his head. “Busted.” His expression turned serious again. “Tell me though, what did this other kid do that Jake decided to punch him? He wouldn’t tell me.”

  I stepped around my brother and went into our small kitchen. “Where is he now?”

  Griff pointed at the couch just across from the kitchen island where I found my son fast asleep, clutching one of the throw pillows. “I already took a picture.”

  “Of course you did.” Griff’s amusement made me smile. He was a photographer and a graphic designer. He did fantastic work, producing stunning images. If you paid him to do it. Left to his own devices, all he wanted to do was take goofy snapshots of his friends and family.

  I grabbed myself a cup of coffee and sat down with it at the kitchen island. The coffee had probably been made a while ago as it was only lukewarm, but I didn’t mind.

  “So what happened?” Griff asked in a hushed tone.

  I sipped at my coffee just to get a second to think about how I was going to word my response. “Apparently the rumors flying around about me have made it to the playground.”

  Griff winced. “Ouch. Kids can be cruel.”

  I shook my head. “They're just parroting what they hear from their parents. I told Jake he can't punch anyone, but honestly... “

  “Kind of makes you want to, doesn't it?”

  “Yeah.” I drank some more of the coffee. “And then of course I got back to work late and had to listen to Harold's shit all day.”

  “You really need to quit that job.”

  “The job's not so bad, the coworkers...” I let the sentence hang.

  Griff gave me a grim smile and I knew what he was going to say before he opened his mouth. “You could do so much better than being the designated boy for everything at the local shelter.”

  “Not without a degree I can't,” I reminded him, only half my attention on the conversation because I'd heard it all before. My brother loved to remind me of all that I could have been in another life. If I wasn't an omega. Or maybe it wasn't just that I was an omega.

  Griff was an omega too.

  But he hadn't fucked up the way I had.

  It was a little bit humiliating to be berated by my baby brother.

  “I know you've been thinking about going back to school,” Griff said.

  I raised an eyebrow at him. I'd entertained the thought yes, but I hadn't discussed it with him. Mostly because I'd dismissed the idea.

  “I saw a page about vet school opened on your laptop the other day,” Griff explained. “You could still do it.”

  “I have enough on my plate with my job at the shelter and Jake. I don't need to be a vet.”

  “I can watch Jake while you're studying.”

  I set the mug down with a sigh. I appreciated the offer but... “Jake's my responsibility. I don't want to keep holding you back.” My little brother had already done enough for me. It was time he got out of this house a little and started living his own life. I was sure there was a good mate somewhere out there for him, if only he took the time to look.

  “You're not holding me back.” Griff's expression turned the slightest bit sad. “I used to look up to you, you know.”

  Used to. Ow. He probably hadn't meant for his words to come out that way, but they hurt.

  “You showed me that omegas could get scholarships if they tried hard enough,” he went on. “I can't stand to see you let yourself be kicked around by the fu... by the freaking gossips in this town! You have to--“Griff stopped himself when he was interrupted by my son climbing on the stool
next to him.

  Neither of us had noticed Jake get up, but he was looking at us curiously now.

  “Are you fighting?”

  “No, we're not fighting,” I said. “Actually I was just about to take Fiona out for a walk.” She probably didn't need it, but I did.

  “I'm coming!” Jake decided.

  I wanted to say no and have some time for myself, but Jake was already running off to fetch the leash, an excited dog at his heels. The image made me smile. Especially when Jake put Fiona’s blue woolen hat on her. She looked so silly with that thing on, but Jake loved it.

  And I had to admit that no, not everything in my life was bad. I had the best kid and the best dog, and that made up for a lot.

  “Okay, you can come,” I told my son. “But no throwing snow balls at the dog.”

  Jake considered this for a moment. “Can I throw snow balls at you?”

  “Don’t you dare.”

  He only grinned.

  Our walk took us a little farther out than usual, to the park where I’d first found Fiona when she was still a stray. I wasn’t really surprised that my feet led me to this place. I often found myself coming here when I was feeling nostalgic. It was a nice park. High trees, wide patches of green, lots of benches to sit on and a swing set for children.

  Roughly nine years ago, I’d met Jake’s other father here for the first time.

  I'd been home from college on my first summer break, trying to read a book in the shade of the large oak at the outskirts of the park where it was quiet, when I'd heard the playful yips of a puppy. When I'd gone to investigate, I'd found a guy my age play-fighting with a young black dog behind the bushes.

  I'd never talked to the guy before, but I recognized him anyway. He was Matthew Lowell. In a town the size of Oceanport, you knew who the wealthiest bachelor was, even if you weren't looking to get hitched. Everybody knew of the Lowells. If the rumors were true, they had more money than the rest of the town combined, and that kind of wealth sparked interest everywhere.