“Oh, yes. I’d almost forgotten about that. Your mother tells me you’ve claimed him?”
Peter nodded.
“And you haven’t introduced him to us because?”
Peter looked away, feeling like a teenager again. He’d always known that he was more dominant than his father—ever since he popped his knot—but the man was still his parent. He had a unique ability to make Peter feel like he had to defend himself.
“I’m sure you’ll meet him at the wedding mother is planning.”
He still needed to talk to her about that. He wondered what had possessed her to put an announcement in the paper without asking him.
“You’ll allow that? I have to say I’m surprised.”
“Why?” Peter asked, suspicious. His parents knew him well enough to know that it was the claiming that would be important to him. The wedding was just an afterthought.
“It wouldn’t be the first time you decided someone should be yours even if they weren’t on board with it. From the way you’ve been hiding this boy I was beginning to wonder if maybe you’d reverted to your old ways.”
Peter clenched his teeth and counted to ten in his head. He was furious. The ‘old ways’ his father was referring to wasn’t a pattern of behavior, but rather a single mistake that Peter had made when he was a teenager. He’d been sixteen and full of alpha confidence, and though he’d been just as horny and crazy to get his knot wet as his peers, it wasn’t omegas he was lusting after. It was alphas—and one alpha in particular.
Marcel Williams.
The boy had been a year younger than Peter, his knot popping a little before his fifteenth birthday, and he’d worshiped the ground Peter walked on. Everywhere Peter went Marcel had followed, and Peter had loved it. He’d misread the admiration for lust, and when he made a move Marcel had been too intimidated to tell him no.
Thankfully Peter had been clued in before actually having sex with the younger boy, but it wasn’t a realization he’d come to on his own. It had taken Marcel going to his parents for help—who had then gone to Peter’s parents—for Peter to understand the fact that Marcel didn’t return his affections.
Peter had been furious and humiliated, and his father had never let it go.
“I can assure you, Chad is nothing like Marcel,” he said through gritted teeth.
“Not just Marcel,” his father scoffed. “You spent the entirety of your twenties coercing alphas into sleeping with you. The way you carried on with that friend of yours was disgraceful.”
He was talking about Aiden.
Peter rolled his eyes. He might have seduced his fair share of alphas who until then hadn’t had an inkling that being dominated and topped could be fun, but he’d never forced anyone. He’d always known when to back of.
“I’m not here to talk about Chad. I’m here to talk about Light Energy and who there might want to sabotage your merger.”
Peter wished Merchant wasn’t there listening to the conversation. This was not how he wanted the other alpha to see him.
“I have no idea,” his father said, like Peter was bothering him with these frivolous questions. “Light Energy has presented a unified front in all of our negotiations. If there’s dissention in their ranks it hasn’t bled through when they were talking to us.”
Peter clenched his fists and forced himself to calm down. He shouldn’t be the one talking to his father. Merchant was the one leading the investigation, and he should be the one doing the questioning. Mind made up Peter rose from his seat, shoving the chair back abruptly and startling both Merchant and his father.
“Fine. I’ll be off. Merchant has a few more questions for you, and if you don’t answer them you and I are going to have a problem.” Peter looked his father right in the eyes, making sure he understood just how serious he was. Failure to comply now would result in violence.
“Very well.” His father’s voice was clipped, but Peter didn’t care if he was angry. He turned around and gave Merchant a look, getting a slight nod in return, and he knew that Merchant would get all the relevant information.
“I’ll see you back at the office,” he said. He didn’t say goodbye to his father, worried that if he tried talking to him again he might wind up ripping his throat out with his teeth.
***
Heading back to Tank Security headquarters, Peter distracted himself by focusing his attention on his work. They were courting the nation's third largest oil and gas company, and Peter needed to prepare before meeting with them. Immersing himself in the proposal his team had put together allowed him to take his mind off how stupid and aggravating his father was. He was nearly finished reviewing the packet when his assistant called him over the intercom.
“Mr. Tank, Aiden Halsted is on the line returning your call.”
“Put him through,” Peter said, picking up the phone and leaning back in his chair.
“You called?” Aiden said, sounding out of breath. Peter wondered what he was doing.
