Page 59 of His Gift
“What if we don’t care about positions of respect in society?” Shawn asked, slightly wary, but gaining in strength every moment. “I don’t even particularly like all those society families you’re always pushing us to interact with.”
Walt blinked, like that was news to him. “I think they’re all a bunch of snobs,” he said.
“They are the people who make things happen in this town,” Mr. Wythe insisted, still not backing down.
“I’ve only ever just wanted you to be proud of me,” Shawn said in a stunning moment of vulnerability.
I stepped closer to him and took his hand in support. “It’s well past time for you to stop pitting your sons against each other and to just accept each other and be a family,” I said.
“Competition causes people to excel,” Mr. Wythe insisted. “And look where it’s gotten us all. Wythe Industries is one of the most respected companies on the entire East Coast.”
“And everyone with the name Wythe is miserable,” I said. “It’s time you sorted out your family priorities before the company is all that’s left of you.”
Mr. Wythe looked like his head might explode. It probably would have if one of the Pullman Center organizers hadn’t rushed up to us, looking like he was racing into a hurricane.
“I really don’t want to step into any of this, but there’s a big problem with License Incorporated. They didn’t realize they would be donating their services, and now they’re saying they’ll pull out at the last second.”
If anything could have made the fraught moment worse, that was it.
“I’ll take care of it,” Shawn said, squaring his shoulders and looking at his dad like he was determined to prove he had just as much command and assurance as the patriarch of the family.
“I’ll help,” Anthony said, starting forward. “I’m sure it’s just a misunderstanding.”
The two of them walked off, Anthony leaning close to Shawn to speak quietly to him.
“I need to get back to sorting out registration,” I said, starting to turn away from Mr. Wythe.
“Oh no you don’t,” Mr. Wythe said, catching my arm in an iron grip.
He recognized the impropriety of touching someone else’s omega right away and let me go, but the gesture had already upset me.
I didn’t get a chance to do or say anything about it. Mr. Wythe stepped in very closer to me and said, “You think you can waltz in here and trap my son into some sort of union by getting pregnant with his child?” he growled.
“As I said, it was an accident,” I defended myself.
“I don’t believe that for a second,” Mr. Wythe said. “Who are you anyhow? You’re a nobody. You aren’t from any sort of good family, and you have no education or experience in the business world whatsoever. I know, I looked into you.”
A deep, swooping feeling of dread filled my gut.
“You don’t have the first clue what sort of a world my son has to operate in,” Mr. Wythe went on. “This isn’t some movie where the street trash omega swoops in and makes the wealthy alpha happy in time for Christmas. This is a cutthroat world of business and family dynasties with billions of dollars at stake. The lives of hundreds of thousands of people across the companies we own and manage are in my sons’ hands. None of us can afford to lose focus or drop any balls.”
“Life is more than just business,” I argued, though the overpowering alpha might of Mr. Wythe was starting to have a negative effect on me. “Your sons deserve love, too.”
“They can find love with someone suitable,” he said, pulling himself to his full height. “You are in no way suitable.” He sniffed, then said, “If you leave now, I’ll make certain an appropriate sum of money finds its way into your bank account. I have all those deals through the foundation.”
“You can’t pay me off,” I told him. “I love Shawn and Shawn loves me. I plan to stay with him for as long as he’ll have me.”
“And I will make certain that he will not want you for long,” Mr. Wythe said before turning and marching off, like I was no longer worthy even of being argued with.
The problem was, he had some points about me not knowing much about the world the Wythe family came from. I knew that high society lived by a really old set of rules. Some of the wealthiest families of Barrington and beyond still conducted themselves like they were in the eighteenth century, and since they were the ones with the lion’s share of the money, no one really challenged them. I’d even heard stories of omegas with arranged marriages and families who paid exceptionally pretty or intelligent omegas to let their alpha sons breed them and then take their babies. There was a lot of messed up stuff in the world of high society.
“I need some air,” I told Walt, who had stood by and watched the whole confrontation with a worried expression.
“You’re not actually thinking of leaving, are you?” Walt asked, following me at a fast waddle with one hand on his belly.
We stepped through the center’s sliding doors and out into the frosty parking lot. “I don’t know,” I said, feeling particularly lost in that moment. “Your dad is completely horrible, but he has some good points about the world you guys come from. I don’t really know anything about it or what the two of you have faced your whole lives.”
“We’ve faced shit,” Walt said. “Shit that I don’t want any part of anymore.”
