Page 58 of His Gift
My jaw dropped, and I lowered the sandwich I’d been about to take a bite from. To look at him, you wouldn’t think anything had changed after yesterday. It boggled my mind that someone who was so wounded but who had had an olive branch extended to him could be right back to being a peevish mess again.
“We were just talking about you and wondering if you’re okay,” Shawn said.
“I don’t need your worry or your pity,” Walt grumbled.
“It isn’t pity, I’m just?—”
I held a hand up to cut my alpha off and stood so I could face Walt more directly. “Did you run into your parents before coming in here and finding us?” I asked, suspecting that I knew where this was coming from.
Walt’s face flushed pink, and for a second he had a hard time looking into my eyes. “Dad is still disgusted with me,” he said.
“That’s it,” I said, throwing the napkin I had clutched in my hand onto the table. “I’ve had enough of watching that man cut both of your egos to shreds and pitting the two of you against each other.”
I started marching toward the door. My memories of Papa from that morning still seemed to be fresh in my heart. Papa hadn’t only said I was a natural at taking care of people, he’s said I was a born advocate for those in need as well.
“Whoa, whoa, Enzo, where are you going?” Shawn asked, jumping up to chase after me.
Walt followed as quickly as he could as well. Both brothers looked deeply alarmed.
“I’m going to find your parents and tell them just what I think of the way they treat their kids,” I said.
“No, no, no!” Walt gasped. “You can’t say things like that to Dad.”
“Watch me,” I said, stepping out into the lobby and searching for Mr. Wythe.
Lucky for me, he and Anthony were back at the command center, so I headed in that direction, fists balled, working up the right head of steam I would need to get past any intimidation I felt to say what needed to be said.
“This is a bad idea,” Shawn said. “This is a really bad idea.”
“This is something both of you should have done a long time ago,” I said as Mr. and Mr. Wythe noticed us and dropped what they were doing to watch our approach.
It was ironic that the PA system in the Pullman Center was playing cheerful, borderline cheesy Christmas music right at that moment. It was at complete odds with everything I was feeling and everything that needed to be said.
“What did you say to Walt when he arrived just now?” I started off by demanding as I came to a halt in front of the two men.
Anthony glanced stonily at his husband. I took it as a sign of hope, like he didn’t approve of what had been said either.
“I told him the truth,” Mr. Wythe said. “That he has brought shame on our family by producing a child out of wedlock, but that I would happily find a suitable alpha for him to marry so that he doesn’t have to raise his bastard alone.”
It took a huge effort of will to find the shred of goodness behind Mr. Wythe’s otherwise frustratingly despicable statement.
“Walt is your son. He’s not some family asset you acquired to improve your standing in society,” I said, hoping the man felt every ounce of my fury.
“That’s exactly what I said,” Anthony said quietly, crossing his arms.
Mr. Wythe glanced sideways at him, color painting his cheeks, but he was still as stubborn as a stone. “You know very little of the sort of people we interact with every day,” he told me. “They’ll use this to make Walt’s life miserable. They’ll exclude him from social events and leave him off of the boards of charities and other events.”
“I never cared about those things,” Walt said, though without much conviction.
“I do,” Mr. Wythe said, his anger returning. “If you think the hoops we are all asked to jump through for the sake of society are bad now, you should have seen them when I was growing up. Omegas were seen and not heard, and once they’d secured a mate, they were removed from public interaction entirely. I’ve fought my whole life to protect you from that fate,” Mr. Wythe turned to Walt, “and now you’ve gone and ruined all my efforts.”
Again, I wanted to scream at the painful blend of horribleness and care behind Mr. Wythe’s words. The man had been poisoned by the time and society he’d been raised in.
“It was an accident,” I shouted, raising my voice at the man because I didn’t think either Shawn or Walt would ever raise their voice where it was needed. “Walt didn’t go out and try to get pregnant.” And since there was no time like the present to light the whole thing on fire, I added, “Just like Shawn did not intend to get me pregnant during my heat seven weeks ago. But it happened, and instead of cutting your sons down all the time and making them miserable with your disapproval, maybe you should start looking forward to your two grandchildren.”
I’d definitely dropped a bomb, and all of the Wythes reacted to it. I felt panic from Shawn, and he squirmed like he was getting ready for his dad to smack him. Walt’s eyes went round, not so much because I was pregnant, because he already knew, but probably because of the way I stood up to his parents. Anthony looked completely stunned, like he didn’t know what to think. It was Mr. Wythe who glowered at me like I’d pushed over his Christmas tree.
“How dare you?” he hissed. “Have you no respect for who this family is and what our name and reputation means? Do you have no idea how hard I’ve worked to put us all in a position of respect?” He looked at both of his sons as well.
