The moment I left the shop, I’d been tempted to follow Ellis across the street, but I hadn’t. Something held me back, not only because I knew that I was partially responsible for whatever it was that had overwhelmed him enough to run and because I knew I had nothing to offer him. I’d always known how to comfort Janie. She was strong in her own way, tough as iron, but she let herself bend and be comforted. Ellis was made of steel, and something told me that if I tried to force it, he was going to break.

Not that I knew how to comfort him, even if he wanted it. Hell, from the outside looking in, he had his shit together more than I did. There wasn’t a question I had thrown at him all day that he hadn’t had an immediate answer for. I’d been expecting a diamond in the rough when I’d walked through the doors of Stover Electronics, like most of our acquisitions were, not the well-oiled machine I’d found. I knew Ellis was the one responsible for the company’s health, too, and the findings our auditor had reported so far suggested that all the bad fruit was due to Brayden’s excess spending and Patrick’s general incompetency. Now that the twins were out of the picture and I was there to stand between the company and all the frivolous suits that had piled up around it, Ellis actually stood a chance of getting it back on track and more profitable than ever.

The only obstacles that remained were of a personal nature, and while I’d been prepared for a full-scale overhaul of the company’s infrastructure, I found myself woefully unprepared for the next step toward dealing with my mate.

Namely, how I was going to convince him to let me claim him when the very thought of doing so filled me with guilt. I knew better than to think that it was possible to just ignore a mate bond and hope it went away like I’d done in the past. We’d been mere kids then, so ill-equipped to deal with the gravity of the force that had been pulling us together ever since that Fall of our sophomore year. Especially me. Maybe it was wishful thinking, and all it had ever been was an adolescent crush, but I wanted to believe that he’d known then, if only vaguely. He’d known what I refused to acknowledge or accept, and instead of working out my own confusion and frustration, I’d taken it out on him. He’d born the brunt not only of my rejection but all the anger and undeserved scorn that came with it.

He was my mate, my omega to protect and cherish and value the way my father had always treasured my mother, the way I had always loved Janie, and in my selfish cruelty, I’d set a pack of dogs on him and not only looked the other way but joined in on the hunt. If he never forgave me, it would be too soon and more than I deserved. It was bad enough when I’d convinced myself that it was all so much worse in retrospect, tinted by youthful melodrama. Now I knew that it was probably a hell of a lot worse than I’d even realized at the time.

Drew was at the center of it. I’d turned the entire school against Ellis, a kid who barely had anyone other than his neglectful brothers, but Drew was the name that kept coming up with the darkest tint. I knew I had to get the truth, if not from Ellis, then from him.

First, I had to come to terms with what I was going to do with that truth once I had it. Gray had tried to keep the truth from his destined mate, and so had Jayce. Both of them made it clear that their greatest regret in life was not manning up to claim Dylan and Wren sooner, and while I was still coming to terms with the whole bisexual thing about fifteen years behind schedule, I knew there was no option in which an Alpha could keep his sanity or his life intact without claiming the omega who belonged to him.

Even if that omega happened to hate me.

Ellis didn’t come back to work that day, and I found myself driving to the house my father and Luis shared. The dark-haired omega appeared at the door, smiling at me. “Hey, Reece. We weren’t expecting you until a little later. Anika’s taking a nap, but I can go get her.”

“It’s fine. I actually came by early to talk to dad.”

“He’s in his study,” the omega said, closing the door. His eyes were full of worry. He was younger than I was, but sometimes he really did feel like a step-parent. He had the same radar that always made it impossible to get away with pretending like everything was fine. “Is something wrong?

“Yes and no. It’s complicated.”

“Ah,” he said knowingly. “Last time this family had a complicated situation, it was me.”

I sighed. No hiding anything from him. “Long story, and I promise I’ll tell it once I know what to make of it myself.”

He gave me a sympathetic smile before heading into the kitchen. I knocked on my father’s home office and entered when he gave the go ahead. “There he is,” the older Alpha said, taking off his glasses. “How was your first day at Stover?”

“Eventful,” I said, dropping into the chair in front of him. “We need to talk.”

“Haven’t heard you use that phrase in a while.” He leaned forward, his eyes full of curiosity and concern. “I know this wasn’t exactly an undercover mission, but so far, every time I’ve sent one of my sons out to investigate something and he comes back with that look on his face, there’s an omega at the root of it.”

“There is,” I admitted, “but hold your congratulations, because there’s a lot I need to tell you and it started fourteen years ago.”

* * *

They said confession was supposed to make your soul feel lighter, but by the time I’d finished owning up to every juvenile act of bullying I’d subjected Ellis to and copped to the fact that I’d imprinted on him and kept it a secret—from myself, as well as my family—for all these years, I just felt like an even shittier person. Gray and I were close enough in age that he knew the shame of my past firsthand, and Jayce knew it through hearsay. I’d still been too deep in denial about my attraction to Ellis to admit as much to Janie, but I could still remember the disappointment and sadness in her eyes when I’d told her about the rest.

“You’re a different person now,” she had told my softly, once I was finished. I’d been convinced that if she knew the truth about the man I’d been before we’d met, she would come to her senses and walk away before it was too late. That she’d realize she deserved so much better than a barely reformed manwhore who bullied other people and ran from his responsibilities like it was all a game. Instead, she’d offered forgiveness, at least in the ways she could. She’d offered absolution with the caveat that if I ever had the chance, I should find a way to put things right. To seek forgiveness from the one I’d hurt.

That promise had turned out to be so much easier than it was to keep. Maybe meeting Ellis again the way I had was karma. Wanting him now, as much as it still scared me, and having him reject me the way I had always rejected him.

Except, it wasn’t the same. Giving me the cold shoulder when I was the one who’d turned his life upside down was hardly the same thing as lashing out when he’d done nothing other than stir my heart in ways I wasn’t ready for.

When I saw that same look in my father’s eyes as I spoke of the past, I realized just how far from absolution I really was. “I had no idea,” he said after taking a few minutes to process the burden I’d just unloaded on his shoulders. My father always said that he was proud of his corporation, but it paled in comparison to how proud he was of us. Now he knew the truth. “I knew your mother’s death affected you all, but if I’d known that was going on…”

“I know,” I said, ready to face whatever long-overdue lecture he intended on giving me. “You would’ve killed me.”

“You’re damn right I would have,” he snorted. “That boy never did a damn thing to anyone, and your mother and I raised you better than that. We raised you to stick up for the innocent, not to be a bully. I know I’m not always a saint when it comes to doing what it takes to get ahead, but I never cheated an honest man and I sure as hell never would have tolerated half of what you just told me.”

“I know. I always knew, and I don’t have any more of an excuse now than I did then,” I admitted. “I’ve tried so hard to become a better person, but I can’t keep hiding from my past. It’s become obvious this past week that Ellis is the one who’s been dealing with it the whole time I’ve been running, and trust me, I hate myself for that more than you ever will.”

He frowned, leaning over his desk. “Hating yourself isn’t going to change the past, and I won’t lie and say I’m not incredibly disappointed, but I’m still proud of the man you’ve become. That’s what makes it such a shock. That and the fact that you felt the need to hide it at all. Did you think we wouldn’t approve because you imprinted on another male?”

“I didn’t know what you’d think. I didn’t know what I thought back then,” I admitted. “I still don’t.”

He cocked an eyebrow. “Given the fact that every other member of this family is currently in a same-sex relationship, I’d hope you think it’s not something that can be helped, or something that should. I didn’t raise a bully, and I certainly didn’t raise a bigot.”

“That’s not what I mean. It’s different for you and the others,” I muttered.

“How is that, exactly?”

“Because Jayce and Gray didn’t promise mom they’d find a nice woman to settle down with,” I blurted out. “By the time they were in my shoes, the world had changed. Fated mates were so common that people had started to accept the fact that you can’t choose who you imprint on. I always knew I liked women, and I was your oldest kid. I was the one she always talked to about her dreams of grandchildren, of the ‘daughter she’d never had’ coming into the family.’”

He stared blankly at me, finally shaking his head. “Your mother was…traditional. Her family was from a different world, and they had other ideas about what the ideal family life looked like, but they were from a different era. She was better than them, and she always wanted you boys to be better than we were. Even if we didn’t fully understand it, more than anything, we wanted you to be true to yourselves and I know for a fact that no matter how long it took her to get used to the idea, she would have welcomed Ellis into the family.”

“I know that now,” I said as the shame filled me once again. “Back then, I didn’t. I just wanted to make her happy, to honor her memory by doing the one thing she ever asked me. And it was more than that,” I admitted. “I was an insecure jerk, and I didn’t know what I wanted. I wasn’t ready to claim Ellis, so I thought if I pushed him away enough, I’d stop feeling the way I did.”

“Could have told you that wouldn’t work,” he said with a snort.

“I know. What I don’t know is where I’m supposed to go from here. I know I have to find a way to make things right with Ellis, if that’s even possible at this point, but I don’t know how I’m supposed to do that if he won’t tell me what happened.”

“The time for asking that question and demanding an answer passed a long time ago, son. I hate to say this, but some wounds go too deep to heal, and this might be one of them.”

“He’s my mate,” I protested, finding it so much easier to say those words in the face of losing him. “I can’t just never say anything.”

“Why not? You’ve been doing it for the last fourteen years.”

His words were a punch in the gut, but I knew he was right. I couldn’t just walk back into Ellis’ life and start making demands of him. Telling him that I’d imprinted would only benefit me at this point. He was obviously just fine without me. All it would do was put an obligation on him.

“If you care about him the way I hope you do, whether you’re ready to claim him as a mate or not, you’ll start acting like an Alpha who’s worthy of him. That starts by figuring out what it is that you want so you’re not subjecting him to even more unnecessary rejection.”

I swallowed hard. The part of me that had already been given over to my need to protect and claim my mate now that the link between us had been activated and was stronger than it ever had been was raging against his words, but I still had enough reason left to know he was right. “I think I need to find Drew.”

“I think you’re right about that. I’ll understand if you need to take some time off from your other responsibilities.”

“Thank you,” I said, standing. I wouldn’t have said I felt better after talking to my father, but as always, I felt a clearer sense of direction. “Oh, and one more thing. We’re not changing the name of Stover Electronics, and I made Ellis the only CEO.”

He cocked an eyebrow. “You know if you do come out and claim him, that’s going to be seen as a conflict of interest, right?”

“When, not if,” I said firmly. “And I know, but I don’t care. If we had CEOs like him at the head of all of our countries, we’d double our profits in a single quarter. And no, I’m not just saying that because he’s my mate, I’m just stating the facts.”

Dad chuckled. “One way or another, I think it’s time I finally met this omega of yours. I think I’ll like him.”

“Oh, you will,” I said, smirking. “But you’re just going to have to be prepared. If there’s one person he hates more than me, it’s probably you.”