Omega’s Pretend Mate by Lacey Daize

Chapter 4 - Christian

Gabe wrung his hands as he sat in my passenger seat, clearly nervous about something. Was he afraid to show me his place for some reason? The rental market in Harris Cove was brutal, but his salary should have been enough to at least cover a small apartment.

Did he have a landlord taking advantage of him?

“Turn right here,” he said as we approached the light for Cliffside Avenue.

“Right?” I clarified.

He nodded. “Right.”

I blinked, even more confused. There weren’t many apartment complexes on that side of town. Left would have been a much more understandable direction.

We drove along, until the last apartment complex was behind us. But he didn’t tell me to stop. The houses got larger, more exclusive, and pricier.

Maybe he’d been able to secure a room in a millionaire’s guest house? Reduced rent or something so that somebody was living on the property.

“Left up ahead,” he said as we reached the stretch of road commonly referred to as Billionaire Row. “The one with the gray roof and slate blue paint. You can park in the garage.”

He pulled his phone from his pocket, and I saw one of the garage doors start to open.

Now I was thoroughly confused. Gabe… the handsome but unassuming mid-level associate… lived on Billionaire Row?

I pulled into the garage, and the door slid shut behind us as I turned off the car. Then I looked to my right, and on the other side of the garage was the car I recognized as Gabe’s.

I’d thought that seeing his place would help things make sense. But now I was more confused than before.

“You ok?” I asked after several seconds of Gabe not moving.

He huffed a laugh. “Not really. To be honest, you’re the first coworker I’ve brought here. Not even Alan knows, unless it came up in a background check or he looked deeper into the address on my tax and employment information.”

Alan was the founder of the firm we both worked at, and after working alongside him for more than a decade, I knew his background checks looked for red flags like a criminal history, not into private details of an applicant’s life.

Gabe unbuckled his seatbelt. “I guess… I should invite you in.”

I nodded and followed as he stepped from the car and led me into the house.

The interior was bright and airy, the type of home that would easily grace the pages of design magazines. Floor to ceiling windows let in abundant light that spilled over a soft color palette.

“Welcome to my home,” Gabe said softly.

This was definitely not what I’d been expecting, and my mind reeled, searching for some sort of explanation that made sense.

“Do… are you a live-in property manager?” I asked. I knew that some of the houses in the area had that sort of arrangement. Somebody to live there and deter crime until the owners came into town. Then the person would just go to a hotel for however long they needed to be out. “Are the owners moving in permanently?”

Gabe rubbed the side of his neck. “No. This is my home. It’s in my name.”

Why was he convinced that somebody was going to take away his house if he owned it?

“Have a seat,” he said, motioning to a plush living room set. “Do you want anything to drink?”

“Water?”

He blushed… “Sparkling? Or…?”

“Whichever.”

He nodded and walked into a kitchen that had to be close to half the size of my whole apartment, then grabbed a couple of bottles from the fridge. He returned, handed one to me, then sank into a plush chair.

I looked around, and finally perched on the edge of a couch that probably cost as much as a small car. Then I twisted off the cap of the bottle, noting a hiss as the water inside started to fizz.

“Have you ever heard of Pinnacle Publishing?” Gabe asked after a moment.

I nodded. “They specialize in educational and non-fiction books, right?”

He returned the nod. “That’s right.” He took a deep breath. “My… my family founded the company over a hundred years ago. My dad is the current CEO, my grandfather was the CEO before him, and so forth. When my dad retires, my brother is expected to take over.”

“Wow…”

“It’s still a family-owned company. Grandfather never saw the need to take it public, and both he and my dad have done well. The company is successful, and respected. Between that, and how long it’s been around,” he paused. “Let’s just say that nobody in my family will ever want for money.”

He sighed and looked at the bottle of water in his hands. “Except for me.”

“What do you mean?”

He took a deep breath. “My parents and grandparents are rather old-fashioned in their mindsets. They supported my attending law school because they thought it was a good place for me to find an alpha. They’re less happy that I have a job, but believe it’s just a matter of time until I settle down. You see, to them, omegas shouldn’t have to work, especially since we’ve got fuck-you money. Omegas shouldn’t have to deal with finances either. That’s an alpha’s job. Their ideal would have me already mated and with several children running around while my alpha handles all the serious work.”

“Ok…” I said, not completely understanding yet, but allowing him to lead as he saw fit.

“I love my family,” Gabe continued, “but I needed to get away from that mindset, and from the nagging. It was tradition that grandfather bought a house when somebody either got mated or married, or when they finally graduated college. I’d visited Harris Cove several times and loved it. So I applied to firms here, and when I was hired grandfather bought me this house. I love it here. This is my home.”

“So what’s changed that you’re worried about it being taken away?” I asked. “And how will that even happen if it’s in your name?”

“Do you remember when I had to shuffle my caseload at the last-minute back in December?”

I nodded.

“We’d all been summoned home. Aunts, uncles, cousins… everybody. That’s when grandfather told us that he has less than a year to live.”

“I’m so sorry,” I said.

He gave me a weak smile. “Thank you. They’re trying off-label and other options, so I’m hoping that he makes a full recovery.” He grimaced. “But… and it makes me feel dirty to say it… I suddenly find that I have a financial interest in his well-being.”

“What do you mean?”

“Everybody in my family has a trust in their name, and grandfather has always been the trustee. I’ve never had a problem with it. I get a monthly stipend, which lets me live comfortably, and grandfather has never refused a discretionary funds request as long as it was reasonable. I never felt the need to ask for much, because with the house, my stipend and salary, I didn’t need much. I’m not out here schmoozing and making connections for the family by throwing extravagant parties. I’m not taking the family jet here, there and yonder for lavish vacations. I just want to feel useful and not be the house omega everybody else thinks I should be.

“In fact, I only make two big discretionary requests each year… for property taxes. Grandfather has never had a problem with this.”

Gabe paused and slumped in his chair. “However, that will all change when grandfather passes.”

He scrubbed a hand down his face. “During the family meeting, we were all informed that alphas over thirty, and anybody over twenty-five who’d been mated or married for at least a year would be named trustee on their own trusts.”

“Ok…”

He blew out a long breath. “I… am neither. Remember how I told you that my grandparents believe that omegas shouldn’t have to worry about money?”

My stomach started to sink as I finally started to catch on. “Yeah?”

“Apparently that applies to me as well, even though I would have thought that I’d proven my responsibility with money by now. Not to mention that I’m over the age cutoff that my single alpha cousins will enjoy.”

“So your trust…?”

He nodded. “My aunt Evelyn will be named trustee on the funds that won’t be immediately transferred to their beneficiaries, including mine.”

“And you think she won’t approve your property taxes?”

Gabe shook his head. “I know she won’t, she’s already stated as much.”

“But… why?”

“The official story is that it’s quote-unquote,” he made air quotes as he talked, “fiscally irresponsible for a single omega to have such an expensive house to themselves. But the truth is that Evelyn’s daughter, Ivy, has been jealous of me having this house since grandfather bought it for me. She has a penthouse in Manhattan that cost easily three times what this place did, but thinks she deserves a second home on the beach just because she wants it, and decided that this house in particular has to be it.”

“And you know all this because?”

“That night when we learned about grandfather’s cancer… she threw a tantrum to her mom and I just happened to overhear, even though they had gone to another room to talk. Somehow she’d gotten it in her head that Evelyn would be placed in charge of all properties, not just the trusts. She’d thought her mom could just kick me out as soon as grandfather dies and give the house to her. She then demanded that aunt Evelyn do something so that she could get this house. While they were talking Evelyn suggested the property tax route.”

“Is there a chance she changed her mind?”

Gabe shook his head. “Property taxes were due a few weeks ago. Grandfather paid them as usual, but Evelyn had included notes detailing what she would have done, and she stated that she would not have paid them.”

“Damn.”

Gabe tugged at his hair, and it made me want to pull him into my arms. “I know it’s ridiculous, and that this is such a rich-boy problem that most people would laugh at just how privileged I am. My property taxes alone are more than what most people pay for their entire house. But this is my home. I knew it was where I wanted to live as soon as I walked through it the first time. I’ve made it my own, and to have it so callously taken away, not because I did something wrong, but because my cousin is an entitled brat who’s decided that my home is the next shiny thing she wants… I just…”

He paused and wiped fresh tears from his eyes.

“I’ve been over everything several times. I’ve looked for the tiniest clauses in the trust documentation, any loophole that would either get me to argue that I should be in charge of my own trust, or would force Evelyn to keep paying my property taxes. But there’s nothing. Plenty of rules about when I should be named a trustee, but nothing about what else other than my stipend should be paid until then.”

He took a deep breath.

“After that I went through my finances and savings. But the math just doesn’t add up. Since I was getting a salary on top of my stipend, I hadn’t asked for a cost of living adjustment since I started working. Not to mention that I just never saw the need to pull money from my trust just to shove it into a different savings account. I could still easily cover all the little extras that I was used to, and everybody in my family would expect, and still had money left over. But even if I fired my housekeeper and chef tomorrow, and put their pay into savings for my property taxes, I would only be able to hold out a year or so. The taxes are more than my salary and stipend combined. The first year without money from the trust would all but wipe out my personal savings, and there wouldn’t be enough income to replenish it.”

“Can you talk to your grandfather? Or ask for that cost of living increase?”

Gabe shook his head. “I’ve thought about that, but I don’t think either will work. The cancer treatments are leaving grandfather weak, and I can’t stress him with this. Besides that, he’s already aware that Evelyn was going to look for ways to save money and to any outside observer, her arguments can make sense. He might not agree, but she will be the one in charge once he passes and technically high expenses would be something she’d be on the lookout for as a fiduciary. Without solid proof that she’s doing it to benefit Ivy… Well it makes me look like an overly emotional and entitled omega rather than the target of scheming.”

A spark of anger wound through me. Sure I’d admired Gabe around the office, he was a gorgeous man, but my alpha side wanted me to protect him.

“Damn…”

The entire situation felt so needlessly callous. I didn’t know if he had a history of money problems that might change how his aunt saw him, but in my interactions he’d always been practical.

And, like he’d indicated in the garage, I’d never known how much money he really had. He wasn’t flashy about it. His suits were always nice, but didn’t stand out as overly expensive. His car was a solid brand with a nice interior, but was far from what most people would describe as a high-end luxury model.

If I had to say anything, it would be how down-to-earth he was.

Hell, even the night before the other bartender—Beau—had said that he lived just a few houses down.

I blinked. “Wait a minute…”

“What?”

I shook my head. “Last night, before I took you home. Beau said that he lives just a few houses away.”

Gabe chuckled. “Yeah, he moved in a month or so back. He and Kent, the alpha he mated, decided that they were perfect for each other. Technically Beau is like me now, and wouldn’t have to work another day in his life if he wanted, but he says he enjoys bartending so plans to keep doing it for a while at least.”

I shook my head. My coworker was a billionaire, and apparently so was one of my bartenders.

“Back to the topic at hand,” I said, trying to reorient myself. “Are you sure you were able to see all the relevant documents?”

Gabe’s smile faltered, and he nodded. “My grandparents might think that I shouldn’t be managing my money, but they don’t believe in withholding information. All I had to do was tell them that I wanted updated documentation for my records and it was all sent right over.”

“Can you ask your parents for help?”

Gabe blew out a breath. “I’ve thought about that, too. I think that they’d be willing to help once or twice, but they’re also of the opinion that it’s high time for me to find an alpha and settle down. Sooner or later they’d start to agree with my aunt.”

I scratched my chin. “Are you opposed to somebody having a second look?”

Gabe frowned, and I held up my hands.

“I’m not questioning your ability to read documents,” I said. “But we both know that it’s easy to miss things when you’re too close to a problem.”

He slumped. “I…” He ran a hand through his hair. “Do you think I might have missed something?”

I shook my head. “Probably not. But a fresh pair of eyes is never a bad thing.”

Gabe was silent for a moment, then he stood. “Maybe you’ll spot something I didn’t.”

He walked out of the room and returned a few minutes later with a manila envelope. He handed it to me. “Copies of the trust documentation.”

I nodded and accepted the package. “Just so we’re clear. I’m doing this as a friend and not in any sort of official capacity. It’s not my area of expertise.”

He nodded. “Of course.”

We both were well aware of the risks of anything looking like legal advice. Offering to review documents was one thing, but since we were both lawyers it was safer to state the level of involvement up front.

Gabe sunk into the chair again, and I could see exhaustion—plus probably the pain of a hangover headache—written across his face.

“Do you need me to help you with anything before I go?” I asked, looking around. “I imagine you want to relax.”

He gave me a weak smile. “Thank you. I’ll be ok.”

I stood, walked over and squeezed his shoulder. “I’ll see you at work tomorrow.”

“Yeah…”

I wanted to pull him against me and promise him that everything would be ok. But I knew that might not be the case. Still, my alpha side demanded I do whatever I could to protect him.

“Give Beau a call before you go to sleep, if you decide to take a nap,” I said. “He was a bit wary of me taking you home last night, and he needs to know that you got home ok.”

“Ok.”

I had the sudden desire to lean in and kiss him. He was so handsome, and something told me he needed more support than I could provide as just a friend.

But that was all we were, work acquaintances, and maybe friends.

I backed off, and headed towards the door to the garage.

Gabe was silent behind me, but as I got into my car I spotted him standing in the doorway, watching me.

I wished that I could make his problems go away.

I wished that there could be something more between us.

I pulled out, and headed home. I couldn’t do much, but if I could find something that would help him, I would take it as a win.