Page 59 of The Omega's Secret Baby

Jake looked up at me with questions written all over his cute face while Fiona snuggled up next to him, clearly wanting to make this a group hug.

“I never told Matt anything about you,” I confessed. “He didn’t know you existed until a few weeks ago. If he’d known… He would have stayed.” Jake had to understand that he couldn’t blame all of this on Matt.

“And then you wouldn’t have been sad?”

“Then I wouldn’t have been sad,” I agreed, kissing the top of my son’s head.

“But then why didn’t you tell him?” Jake asked in an incredulous tone of voice, like he just couldn’t believe how his daddy had missed this obvious solution.

“It’s complicated.”

Jake groaned. Yeah, I wasn’t going to get out of this conversation so easily. He wanted to know everything now. Even the things he was too young to understand. I figured I just had to find a way to put them intermshe would understand. “When Matt and I first met each other, we agreed that we would only be together for a few months,” I told him.

“Why?” Jake asked.

“Because I wanted to be an animal doctor and he wanted to move away to take on a very good job. That was his dream, you know?”

“The job?”

“Yes, the job.” That and eventually taking over the whole company. His family’s legacy. What he told me he’d been born to do. It had all been so important to him. I stroked a finger through Jake’s hair. “It wasn’t only the job, though. He’d also promised to marry this woman before he met me.”

“What woman?”

The woman his parents had picked for him.“A very lovely lady. When our time together ended, Matt married her, as he had promised. And then I found out that I was pregnant with you.”

“I was in your belly?”

“Yes.”

“And you didn’t tell him about me?”

“I didn’t.” I should have, but I didn’t.

“Because he married that woman?”

“Yes.” That wasn’t all of it, of course, but I wasn’t going to tell my seven-year old son all about how I hadn’t wanted to be the family-wrecking omega society had warned me I would be. Or that I’d been too heartbroken to think straight. Scared too. And angry. Jake didn’t need to know about that. He didn’t need to know that I’d stared at that first pregnancy test in abject horror for what felt likehours. Or that I’d taken five more hoping they’d turn out negative.

“You’re not angry at Matt because he married that woman?” Jake asked.

“I’m not angry.” At least, I wasn’t angrynow.“You don’t have to be angry at him either. We’ve both made mistakes, but we’ve forgiven each other.”

Jake looked at his paper with all the circles on it. “I don’t want him to make you sad again.”

“That’s okay, sweetie. He won’t. You don’t have to worry about that. He’s your dad, and I want you two to get to know each other. That would make me very happy.”

“Really?”

“Yes, really.” I pulled Jake into my lap and kissed his forehead. “Will you try to give him a chance?”

He sighed and looked up to me. “Can I have more ice cream?”

I snorted, because my kid was too ridiculous. Was I really going to bribe him with ice cream on something so important? “Okay, you can have ice cream.”

Apparently yes.

26

Matthew