Page 65 of The Omega's Secret Baby

“Of course.” I reached out to ruffle his hair. “I will always stand up for him.”

“Then I like you,” Jake proclaimed proudly. “You can stay.”

“I’m glad.” And so relieved. Oh my God. “Actually, I brought you something.” I held the bag out to him.

“Really? Cool!” He snatched the bag from me. “What is it?” he asked, even as he dug a gift-wrapped box out of the bag. Quickly, he tore the wrapping off, revealing a box of high-quality coloring pens in some 70 shades. It was the biggest set I could find at the store.

“I got the feeling you liked to draw and color,” I said.

“Wow.” He stared at the metal case in his hands and opened it. “There’s so many! Griff has some like these. But he won’t let me use them. He says I break them!”

I smiled. “Well, now you have your own pens.” I was tempted to tell him that I was going to buy him new ones if he broke them, but I got the feeling that wouldn’t be good parenting and something that Eli would considerspoiling.

“Thank you!”

“You’re welcome. Hey, listen, you want to come to my place some time, go sledding on that big hill?”

“Can I really?”

“Sure.” Just as soon as I’d talked to Eli about this, anyway.

And speaking of the devil…

“Wow, these are very nice,” I heard Eli’s voice and looked around to see him behind me. I’d been so busy with Jake I hadn’t noticed him approach, but now that he was here, and so close, his presence nearly overwhelmed me after all this time apart. He smelled so nice, soEli.That was something the phone calls couldn’t give me. “Did you say thank you?” Eli addressed Jake.

“I did! I love them!” Jake turned to me again. “I’m going to be an artist, you know?”

An artist? I glanced at Eli, but he was just making this face that told me to please be encouraging. I looked at Jake again. “That’s nice.”

“I’m going to show these to Griff!” Jake ran off with his present.

I released a breath. That was the most difficult part of the evening taken care of.

“So uh… you said a lot of things tonight,” Eli said.

“Yeah.” I stood from my chair now that Jake was gone. “I’m sorry if that was uncalled for. I’m just fed up with these people.”

“No, it was… actually really great. Thank you for standing up for me.” The faintest blush colored his cheeks, and he looked lovely like that. I couldn’t wait to take him home.

“Somebody has to,” I said.

“I can’t believe you told everyone.”

“Me neither. But I think it’s a good thing.”

Eli smiled at me. “Yeah?”

“Yeah, because now I get to do this.” I leaned in and kissed him, visibly staking my claim for anyone who cared to look. This omega was mine, and anyone who wanted to hurt him had to go through me.

29

Elias

“That was a really good show,” Matt told me as we went out to walk the dog together after the charity event.

“Really? I’m glad you think so. Some of those ideas were Jake’s. He might just make a fine fashion designer someday.” I laughed. Tonight was a good night. Matt was back with me and the show had been so successful that my boss talked about promoting me. I had other plans, though.

“A fashion designer?” Matt asked. “Is that really what you want for him?”