That Telling MomentChapter 2

Stephen joined the reluctant migration of employees shuffling toward the company’s quarterly all-hands meeting, his stomach still churning from the morning’s OnlyFans incident.

The Dabney auditorium was a monument to corporate excess. Blue and silver banners emblazoned with the company logo hung from the ceiling like the standards of some corporate feudal lord. The air conditioning had been cranked to arctic levels, presumably to keep employees awake through two hours of collective wanking over profit projections and “synergy initiatives.”

Stephen slipped into a seat in the back row, tugging his suit jacket closed over his coffee-stained shirt. He’d spent the afternoon avoiding eye contact with colleagues and jumping at every notification on his computer. The all-hands was the perfect opportunity to blend into the anonymous mass of corporate drones. Just another faceless omega in a sea of ambitious alphas and betas.

Except he could never really be faceless when he was a one-in-three-million male omega birth. His first week at Dabney had been a masterclass in unwanted attention. The elevator rides were the worst: confined spaces where alphas would “accidentally” brush against him, nostrils flaring like they were auditioning for a wildlife documentary.

In one week he’d already collected a charming array of comments in a password-protected spreadsheet, ranging from the faux-scientific (”Did you know male omegas have a 37% higher aptitude for detail-oriented tasks?”) to the barely disguised propositions (”My cousin’s an omega too… she says heats are so much easier with an alpha friend”). He’d started labelling each entry with date, time, and an offensiveness rating of one to five vomit emojis, carefully noting which witnesses were present and whether they’d looked uncomfortable or joined in. What began as a coping mechanism was evolving into a meticulously documented arsenal, complete with company policy violations cross-referenced for each comment. If HR ever needed evidence of a “hostile work environment based on secondary gender characteristics,” his spreadsheet could become a very physical, very damning report with a few clicks of the print button.

“Is this seat taken?” asked a woman with a tablet and a severe bun.

“All yours,” Stephen replied, shifting to make room. He pulled his jacket tighter, buttoning it.

The murmur of conversation died as Steven Eames strode onto the stage.

The CEO of Dabney was tall, broad-shouldered, and moved with the easy confidence of someone who’d never had to squeeze into the last seat on public transport. Or even conceptualise what public transport might entail. His jawline looked solid enough to shatter concrete, and his blue eyes surveyed the auditorium with the calm expectation of someone used to immediate compliance.

Stephen slouched further into his seat. Corporate theatre at its finest. Next would come the rehearsed humility, the “we’re all in this together” speech from a man whose annual bonus could wipe out the student debt of everyone in this room.

“Good afternoon, Dabney family,” Eames began, his voice a perfect baritone that carried to the back row. “Thank you all for taking time from your valuable work to be here today.”

As if we had a choice. Stephen imagined the email from his line manager had he dared skip it. “Noticed your absence at yesterday’s all-hands. Let’s discuss your commitment to company culture…”

“Q2 has been exceptional,” Eames continued, pacing the stage. “Our renewable energy division has secured three major contracts, our legal team has successfully navigated the Hargreaves merger…”

Stephen tuned out, mentally reviewing his afternoon workload. The Crawford brief. The new compliance regulations. Somehow avoiding whoever had accessed his computer that morning. Perhaps he could work remotely tomorrow. Claim food poisoning. Or the plague.

“…which brings me to our vision for the coming quarter,” Eames was saying, his gaze sweeping the auditorium. “Dabney stands at the forefront of…”

His voice faltered mid-sentence. His eyes, previously roving across the crowd, locked onto Stephen.

Stephen froze. A flush crept up Eames’s neck, spreading across his face. His nostrils flared, a primal alpha tell that had everything to do with biological response.

Oh God.

Stephen watched the most powerful man in the building visibly lose his train of thought. Because of him. Because his face was identical to that of TheoTheO, who apparently counted the CEO of Dabney, a man backed by the £25 billion Eames fortune, among his subscribers.

Another name for the list. “People Who’ve Seen My Brother’s Arse And Wanked Off To It: Steven Eames, Billionaire CEO.”

Right below Manford from this morning, and presumably half the alpha population of Greater London.

Eames cleared his throat, blinking rapidly. “As I was saying,” he continued, voice rougher than before, “our vision for the coming quarter involves substantial investment in…”

But his eyes kept drifting back to Stephen like a compass needle finding north.

Stephen’s internal anxiety meter, already hovering at “mild cardiac event,” shot straight into uncharted territory. Sweat trickled down his back. His shirt clung beneath his suit jacket. The room felt too small, too hot despite the arctic air conditioning.

People were noticing. Heads turned, following Eames’s gaze. Whispers rippled through the crowd. Stephen caught fragments: “…looking at?” “…junior counsel…” “…isn’t that the new male omega in legal?”

Eames stumbled over a market projection, the numbers coming out wrong before he corrected himself. His hand tightened on the podium, knuckles whitening.

Stephen’s neck burned hotter with each fumbled word. He shifted in his seat, loosened his collar, checked his watch three times in thirty seconds. His fingers dug into the armrests when the CEO’s gaze landed on him again after a particularly egregious mispronunciation of a major Polish client’s name.

“Sorry, bathroom,” he choked out, already half-standing. The woman beside him barely had time to tuck her knees aside before he was stumbling down the row, eyes fixed on the exit sign’s red glow.

He could feel Eames’s gaze following him as he fled, head down, pace just short of an outright run. The moment the doors closed behind him, he sprinted for the nearest men’s room and locked himself in the furthest stall.

His hands shook as he pulled out his mobile. He hesitated for only a second before calling the one person who could possibly understand.

The phone rang twice before Colin Huxley’s voice answered, quiet and deliberate with that distinct Midlands accent. “Stephen?”

That was all it took. His throat closed. His eyes burned, and the first tears spilled over. He didn’t speak, couldn’t speak, just pressed his fist against his mouth to muffle the sound.

A brief silence, then his father’s voice again, impossibly gentle. “Hello, my love.”

Stephen drew a ragged breath.

He felt like a complete tosser, a grown man of twenty-five calling his daddy because work got a bit difficult. Except fuck it. Colin Huxley had raised twin omega sons on his own as a teenage father under the most awful circumstances imaginable. Stephen would sooner give up his left kidney than pretend he didn’t need his dad’s steady voice in moments like this.

“You don’t need to talk,” Colin continued softly. “I’m just finishing up at Mrs. Picton’s flat. Fixed her sink, though the whole bathroom’s going to need redoing eventually. Sander called this morning, said he might come by for dinner tomorrow, so I thought I’d make that pasta thing, you know the one…”

“Fuck Sander,” Stephen managed, his voice cracking.

“Stephen, love…”

“No, Dad, fuck him. That’s all he’s good for anyway.” The words tumbled out, hot and bitter. “Everyone knows it. Just my second week at Dabney and I’ve already got people leaving porno sticky notes on my monitor and playing his videos on my computer. And now the bloody CEO clearly thought I was Theo. He actually forgot what he was saying mid-sentence in an all-staff because he was too busy remembering what my twin brother looks like with a knot up his arse.” Stephen’s voice broke on a sob. “All because Sander can’t keep his fucking knees together in front of a camera.”

“That’s enough.” Colin’s voice was quiet but firm. “I know you aren’t happy about what Lysander does. Neither am I. But he’s still your brother. He’s still my son.”

Stephen’s chest heaved with another sob.

“Breathe, Stephen. Just breathe with me. In through your nose, out through your mouth.”

Stephen closed his eyes, letting his father’s voice wash over him. He leaned his head against the cold partition wall and listened, heartbeat gradually slowing, breathing evening out, as Colin Huxley talked his son back from the edge of despair, one mundane sentence at a time.