“Hi, Mom.” I rose to give her a hug, and after her customary cheek kiss, she sat me back down with a bottle of freshly pressed organic apple juice from the fridge.
Her brow crinkled. “You look tired. Are you getting enough rest?”
“As much as I usually do.” I shrugged.
She crossed her arms, the movement making her beige tweed Chanel suit wrinkle. “Then something’s bothering you, and you should tell me what it is. You know you can’t hide anything from me.”
She wasn’t wrong. My mother had an uncanny ability to sniff out when we were upset. Like the time I’d forgotten to hand in all my homework assignments and got detention but hid the slip under my pillow so she wouldn’t notice. She knew by the guilty look on my face and had wriggled the information out of me by dinner.
“I should wait until the dads get home,” I said.
“Your fathers won’t be home for hours. Tell me now.” Her eyes lit up. “Has your pack finally found a nice girl to settle down with?”
I grimaced, trying to word it in a way that she wouldn’t find distasteful. “Yes and no. We’ve kind of been dating a girl for a while, and it’s recently become apparent that she’s pregnant. Quite far along, actually.”
My mother’s face dropped in surprise, but she quickly schooled her expression. “And is the baby yours? Are you finally making me a grandmother?”
“I’m pretty sure it’s one of ours. We just found out. She went to Seattle to take care of her father after an accident and stayed for three months. She didn’t tell us until she returned to California.”
“Well, she sounds lovely if she went home to help her father, though I’m assuming that means they were unable to hire assistance? What’s her name? What does she do? Is this why you’re looking so conflicted?”
“Her name is Clover. She’s originally from Seattle, but living in our neighborhood to help a friend who recently had a baby. After that, she plans to go to law school.”
“Law school.” My mother nodded approvingly. “Smart woman. Ambitious too.”
“Exactly,” I agreed. “So when she told us, I thought the intelligent thing to do would be to draw up some paperwork?—”
“And by ‘paperwork,’ you mean…?” The crease between her brows deepened. That wasn’t a good sign.
“It was a basic boilerplate to protect our finances. She’s pregnant with one of our children—of course we’re going to support her—but I don’t want to risk what happened with my friends’ packs happening to us. My pack doesn’t understand. The guys got a hold of the contract, and then she did, and they all got really,reallymad at me.” I sighed. “I just want to protect them.”
“Honey, why are you so convinced they’re in danger to begin with?”
“Isn’t everyone with money? I grew up watching gold diggers sink their nails into packs and ruin them from the inside out.”
My mother’s jaw dropped. “Excuse me? Who on earth are you talking about?”
“Have you forgotten them? The Jameson pack, the Cartwright pack, the?—”
“Parker, I’m going to stop you right there. The Jameson pack didn’t fall apart because of an omega. They were a pack because of a business merger with their families, and they hated each other. One of them fell in love and tried to make it work, but the rest treated that poor omega horribly. The pack broke apart because her alpha wanted to protect her, and he did.”
I stared at her for a long moment, unable to form words as I processed this revelation.
“And the Cartwrights…don’t get me started. The whole lot of them were a bunch of snakes.”
“Okay, but you can’t deny what happened with my friends growing up. Leroy had a nightmare of a stepmother, and Carllost his entire fortune because of the omega who joined his fathers’ pack.”
My mother burst outlaughing. What the hell?
“Honey, I understand you’re only getting one side of the story, but I truly thought I’d taught you an ounce of critical thinking skills.”
“What do you mean? What other side of the story is there to an omega convincing her alphas to abandon their children?”
“I’ll concede that Leroy’s stepmother was not a particularly pleasant person, but that was apparent from the start. Why does the entirety of the blame lay on her shoulders, rather than the men who brought her into their lives, into Leroy’s life, then never intervened when the conflicts happened? I’ve witnessed quite a number of their interactions over the years, and there is no one blameless for the situation in that family.” My mother sighed. “As for Carl, you’re missing several puzzle pieces, though I’m not surprised he never told you, because that would put him in a terrible light.”
“What…”
“Parker, for one, Carl did not losehisfortune, he lost access to his fathers’ fortune because he refused to adhere to the stipulations for his trust fund and employment at the family firm. That boy was in and out of rehab every year. That’s what his ‘trips abroad’ were. He stole a yacht, he threatened his stepmother, he got into so many physical fights they feared for the safety of their younger children. Everything he lost was because he burned those bridges himself.” My mother laid her hand over mine. “I’m not saying this is always the case, and certainly some people fall under a concerning influence, but at the end of the day, even if an omega had somehow managed to convince her alphas to abandon their children, that seems to me like a failing on the alphas’ part. They’re the parents and failing to prioritize their children. Of course the omegas in thosecases should never attempt convincing someone of that to begin with, but it’s the same as affairs in my mind. The responsibility lies primarily with the person who is in a relationship or has children, not the outsider coming in. I’m sure it was easier for your friends to blame someone else, but you’re plenty old enough to understand what was actually going on.”
