Chapter 31
Parker
Iwas going to be a dad, and I couldn’t do anything right.
That was assuming one of the pack was the father, which we hadn’t yet confirmed one way or the other.
Logan had been willing to take Clover on, even if she had a child by someone else, with or without the bond.
The pack’s attachment to her made things complicated, and if an outsider had fathered the child and wanted to get involved, that was even worse.
I would certainly never expect someone to abandon their child, despite the law dictating Logan as the father, regardless of parentage, since he was Clover’s bondmate.
It was all such a mess.
For their sake, I hoped Clover had good intentions.
The more I learned about her, the more I liked her.
I understood on a cellular level why the others were drawn to her because I felt it too, but liking someone didn’t mean I could give them entry into our entire life.
I was the only one with a clear head in this situation.
My pack had worked so hard to build our wealth on our own. Sure, I got lucky with my parents’ connections, and I was the definition of a nepo baby, but my pack mates weren’t. None of them had come from wealth like I had, so they couldn’t understand how some parts of high society ran.
Clover had talked a big game about being attracted to us and not caring about money—but she’d been so offended by the contract stipulations.
In that moment, I was convinced I was right.
If she didn’t care about money, why was a contract that simply outlined financial boundaries such a horrific thing?
I’d asked my lawyer to draft a simple agreement: no matter what happened, the pack’s money stayed the pack’s money.
She wasn’t entitled to free access to our accounts, but she was welcome to submit a claim to use the family trust for anything the baby needed; the request would simply have to be approved by the lawyers first. They wouldn’t have denied anything reasonable.
My pack mates didn’t seem to understand that any more than Clover did. I needed to talk to people who understood the way our world worked. As much as I loved my pack, they were too na?ve.
“Hi, sweet boy.” My mother rounded the doorway into the kitchen where I was sulking. “I got a security alert when you arrived, but I wasn’t expecting a visit. What are you doing here?”
Elizabeth Ashcroft was a force unto herself—the model of what every omega aspired to be.
While my fathers had been busy building their businesses, she had stood by their sides, raising their children—alongside our nannies—and supporting them quietly.
She threw galas and attended every one of our childhood events.
Even though we missed our fathers, my mother was always there for us.
“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, really mad 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 Carl lost his entire fortune because of the omega who joined his fathers’ pack.”
My mother burst out laughing. 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 lose his fortune, 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 those cases 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. ”
I sat with the information while my mother made us both a cup of tea, gently setting mine in front of me.
“Do you really think this Clover wants to harm your pack?” she asked.
I ran a hand through my hair. “No, I don’t,” I admitted. It was true—Clover had shown me time and again that she wasn’t interested in us for our money.
“Then why the contract?” my mother asked.
“I thought that’s how things were done. When I think about the kind of pack I want in the future—the kind of woman I want our pack to have—I want someone who can handle our world.
Someone like you. Clover is almost an invasive species.
She won’t fit the way someone from society would.
You don’t meddle in Dads’ businesses. You focus on the family. ”
“I don’t meddle in their businesses?” my mother asked, raising her brows. The look on her face warned me I was on dangerous ground.
“You know what I mean,” I said quickly. “Your place was never in the boardroom. It was here, with the family, and that worked. You and the dads balanced each other out. The contract would simply stop Clover from overstepping.”
“Parker Ashcroft,” my mother said sharply. “What do you consider overstepping? Do you truly have no idea how much I impacted your fathers’ businesses?”
“You never really had anything to do with them,” I said, picking at an imaginary piece of lint on my shirt. “And it worked so well. We were all happy growing up.”
My mother stared at me for a moment, then burst out laughing—again—a full, unrestrained laugh that brought tears to her eyes.
“What’s so funny?” I asked, bristling.
“Oh, Parker, my dearest boy,” she said, catching her breath. “For someone so smart, you can be impossibly dense at times.”
“I’m not dense,” I said petulantly.
She rounded the table, placing her hands on my upper arms. Though she was a good foot shorter than me, her gaze locked on mine with steel-like focus.
“Listen to me,” she said. “Your fathers would’ve been eaten alive in the business world without me. I had a gigantic part in your fathers’ businesses. Do you remember when you were a teenager and your fathers were negotiating that deal with a charter company for six months?”
I nodded. I remembered it well—those months were stressful, but the deal had paid off spectacularly. From what I understood, it was one of the best acquisitions they’d ever made. I was pretty sure that deal had bought us several vacation homes.
“That was my deal,” my mother said pointedly. “I brought it to the table, I negotiated it, and your fathers supported me every step of the way.”
I opened my mouth, then closed it again, struggling to find the right words.
“But…you never took part in their business dealings,” I said weakly.
“I can assure you I did.”
“How were you always around for us?”
“Exceptional planning. It was easier once you and Magnolia were in school during the day. Your fathers handle the day to day, but I was present for every important meeting to ensure they weren’t taken advantage of.
And you can ask your fathers—they’ll back me up.
If you were looking for an omega like me, I’m afraid you have a very misguided view of who I am and how we operated as a family.
If you think you need a calm omega who only concerns herself with being at home, there’s nothing wrong with that, but is that what you truly want?
Is that what Clover wants? Have you even spoken to her about this, or did you decide what was best for everyone without a discussion? ”
Blinking, I must have looked foolish, opening and closing my mouth like a fish.
“I didn’t…”
“Think?” My mother chuckled, shaking her head before patting me gently on the arm.
“Our lawyers are like sharks. It’s cruel to set them on someone.
That’s not how you build a life together.
For better or for worse, this woman is going to be in your life now—you need to treat her with the same respect you would treat any of your family.
You can’t try to control her. You’d hate it if someone tried that with you, so you have to think about it from her perspective, though I know it’s not one of your strengths.
If you all like her, there’s a good chance you may choose to bond one day.
” She must have seen my facial expression change. “What is it?”
“I didn’t know this before I had the contracts written up,” I prefaced. “But Logan and Clover were a little reckless and accidentally bonded before she left for Seattle. Regardless of who the biological father of Clover’s child is, it’s a pack baby.”
My mother’s hand whipped up to her mouth, hardly concealing her shock. “Your pack has a bond mate, and you didn’t lead with that? Parker!”
“It didn’t seem relevant at the time!”
My mother pinched the bridge of her nose, an exasperated sigh escaping her. “We don’t have enough time for me to tell you all the ways you’re wrong. I think, for now, you need to go make things right with your pack—and that includes your omega.”
“What if she doesn’t forgive me?” The fear of that reality sank into my bones. What if I’d ruined everything for my pack?
Her brows rose. “Then, my dear boy, you will need to beg.”