Chapter 21 The Fathers #2
My mate let out a broken laugh. “Since he’s in jail after breaking in and assaulting us, I think that’s wise of you.”
“Don’t be sarcastic. It’s unbecoming to a young omega.”
While Ansel’s papa spoke, his alpha father braced his hands on my dining table, his back to us. What was going on in his head?
“And what are your plans now since you’re virtually penniless? Your father has not yet excluded the possibility of reporting your relationship to Mr. Pembroke’s dean. Mr. Pembroke here might reconsider taking care of you if you cost him his employment.”
“Again, a threat. Two strikes out of three, Papa. One more intimidating remark, and I’ll be asking you to leave.”
Ansel’s papa pursed his lips and exhaled through his nose. “What are your plans?” he asked, his voice tight.
“I want to finish college. I’m changing my major from business to foreign language.”
Ansel’s father made a derisive sound but didn’t say anything, still facing away from us.
“You never deemed a college education of any value for an omega,” Ansel said, “so it shouldn’t matter to you what my major is.”
“Your father was hoping that since you showed no genuine interest in the business, your husband would. We expected you to either marry Valentin or attract a suitable alpha at Wintringham College.”
“Are you telling me that if I were interested, you’d groom me to take over the company? Me, an omega?”
At that, Ansel’s father spun around to face him.
“Of course! What did I work for all these years? To go to my grave rich? It doesn’t matter that you’re an omega.
It’s not the nineteen fifties anymore, is it?
But you think a two-hundred-year-old French children’s book is more interesting than our company’s financial report! ”
I thought any book would be more interesting than any financial report, but I held my tongue. It didn’t seem like my remark would be constructive.
“Why didn’t you say something?” Ansel asked, visibly stunned.
“There was no point. It has been obvious since you were a child that you take after your grandfather.” He said it as an insult, but Ansel grinned.
“Maybe one of your grandchildren will inherit your talents. You’re not even fifty. You don’t want to retire yet, do you?”
Ansel’s father froze, gaping at his only omega son. The mention of grandchildren seemed to have knocked the air out of his lungs. I glanced at Ansel’s papa, who was observing Ansel with bemused respect. My mate looked smug.
The silence stretched.
Bernard Perrault closed his mouth and swallowed.
“You’re…pregnant?”
Ansel’s papa groaned and shot his husband an incredulous glare.
“Bernard, for heaven’s sake, use your brain!
He hasn’t even had his first heat yet. Let alone the second.
How on earth could he be pregnant already?
” He shook his head and released a long-suffering sigh before turning back to Ansel.
“In any case, it’s not appropriate for you to be living together after a mere week. You should return home, Ansel.”
“I can’t, Papa, even if I wanted to.” He smiled at me softly. “And I don’t want to.”
“Why?”
“I was at a doctor’s this morning. I’ll be going into heat soon.”
Ansel’s papa raised one eyebrow. His father, still flabbergasted, went pink. He dabbed his forehead with a handkerchief.
“But that’s not acceptable,” he said, sounding weak.
Ansel’s papa tilted his head to the side and gifted his husband with the bitchiest sneer I’d ever seen. “I don’t think even you could order away a heat, dear alpha.”
Didn’t he just say that sarcasm was unbecoming to omegas?
“But we can’t just let them…” Ansel’s father pointed at us with both hands, pleading with his husband. “This is preposterous!”
“What do you suggest instead?”
Ansel and I simply waited for his parents to duke it out. It would have been highly entertaining if Ansel’s well-being weren’t at stake.
“A… a…” Bernard Perrault swallowed, thinking so hard his head must have hurt. “A heat teacher! I’ll fly Walter Sébastien himself here in our private plane if I have to.”
“Sébastien retired years ago, darling. There are others with even better reputations, but that’s beside the point. Are you going to drag your son away from an alpha he’s chosen and put him with a heat teacher? Really? You said yourself it wasn’t the fifties anymore.”
“We can’t just leave him here!”
At that, Ansel’s papa shrugged. He gazed at his husband, his expression resigned, and waited.
Bernard Perrault gazed back, stunned. Then he glanced at me, at Ansel, and back at his husband.
“You suggest we just leave?” he asked in a whisper. We could hear him as well as if he’d spoken in a normal voice.
Ansel’s papa turned to Ansel. “Your father and I need to talk some more. We’ll be in touch.”
With that, he stood and gripped his alpha’s elbow, tugging him to the door.
We followed them to the elevator. Ansel’s father kept throwing murderous glances vaguely my way but didn’t say a word.
“We’ll meet again,” Ansel’s papa told me with an elegant tilt of his head. The elevator door glided shut behind them.
Ansel twirled around and strode back to the living room. Laughing, he collapsed on the sofa.
I closed the door to my apartment and leaned my back against it.
“That was…”
“Something else,” Ansel finished for me.
I pointed behind me. “Was your papa on our side? Did I understand it correctly?”
“No. He was on his own side, as usual. Papa is very pragmatic. He saw no better solution, so he decided to leave us be.”
“And your father let it happen?”
“My father decides about everything. Always. If my papa lets him.”
I chuckled. “Wow.”
“I know. They’re a trip. It took me years of therapy to decode the dynamic between them.”
“I honestly don’t know if that went well or if it was a catastrophe.”
“Oh, it went well. Don’t worry.”
I walked over and sat next to him. “How are you feeling, love?”
Fluidly, Ansel slid into my lap and laid his head on my shoulder.
“I’m fine. Just tired. I think it’s still the meds Dr. Clearbridge gave me.”
“Do you want to go to bed? But you should eat something first.”
“Probably. I’m not very hungry.”
“Soup?”
He looked up, and I got stuck on the small hollows by the corners of his lips. He had such flawless lips—the ideal shape, the enticing color. “That would take a long time to make,” he said.
Oh. We were talking about lunch. “I have something in the freezer, I think.”
“Okay.”
I heated up chicken soup I’d frozen a couple of weeks ago after cooking a big pot on a rainy Sunday. Ansel inhaled a full plate.
“I must have been hungrier than I realized.”
“You look half asleep.”
“I don’t want to go to bed alone.”
I grabbed my laptop and tucked it under my arm. “Then I’d better keep you company.”
Ansel curled up on my bed, one hand on my thigh, and fell asleep quickly.