The day before the wedding is moving day.
Not that I have a lot to move. A duffel bag full of Posey’s clothes. A dog. Reba.
We meet Crown and Sin downstairs in the living room, and I’m struck by how good they look together. Like a president and his VP. Only instead of Cat and Crown, it’s Crown and Sin. One day maybe. One day.
“You ready?” Crown asks, glancing over at Reba with a sigh. He would prefer she wasn’t here at all, but I’m not getting married without her. That, and she isn’t ready to leave yet. Because leaving this compound means facing up to the fact that her entire life is different. Her parents are dead. School is no longer an option. The mafia will be looking for her.
Besides that, Reba wants to be a part of the wedding. I want her to be a part of the wedding. Nellie has taken Reba on as a stand-in for her dead daughters. Vice versa for Reba; Nellie is a replacement for her mom. They need each other, and it wouldn’t be fair to separate them just yet.
“Ready,” I say, allowing Sin to take my bag when he offers.
“What a gentleman, Colton,” Reba says, and he gives her a look.
“You wouldn’t think that if you saw me and Gidget on the balcony the other day,” he starts, and Reba shakes her head sharply, lifting a finger in warning. She scolds him like, well a nun, I guess. She’ll make a good one—assassin nun or not. Although I think it’d be pretty dope. She could garrote enemies in the name of her Lord and Savior.
The thought makes me smile.
“Don’t be crude,” she warns him as we follow the guys outside. “I am not a fan of your arrangement, not at all. What are the five of you planning on doing? Shacking up together and sharing babies?”
I cringe a little at that. Grainger had a point. I sort of do need to take another pregnancy test.
Why the fuck does passion have to make a person act so goddamn dumb? I’m the queen of sex ed. I know how things work. I know that birth control pills take about seven days to be effective, and I was having plenty of unprotected sex prior to that.
That’s after-the-wedding Gidget’s problem, I guess.
“Is there anyone that doesn’t know about us at this point?” Crown asks sarcastically, giving me a harsh look to accompany his words. I shrug.
“Cat?” I query, and he shakes his head. I can’t decide if that’s a yes or a no. Either way, I don’t care. Once I’m married to Beast, I’m ‘his problem’ rather than my father’s. After that, we’ll figure things out. Cat won’t have a say in who I’m fucking or why; it won’t be his business at all. Not that it ever was, but that’s good ol’ misogynist, sexist Cat for ya.
Crown escorts us down the hill to his bike—his new bike—and I can’t help but wonder how he explained away the other one, what story he told Cat. The new bike is a bit different than the previous model. The old one was white and teal, an Indian Chieftain Classic. This one’s a Super Chief in teal and black with a backrest pad for passengers.
I give him a look.
“Get on,” he says, shoving my duffel bag into one of the leather saddlebags on the side. “We won’t go fast; the dog can run with us.”
“His name is Feminist,” I remind Crown as Reba balks at the idea of climbing onto Sin’s bike.
“No, I won’t do it,” she says, stumbling back like the motorcycle has teeth. “I won’t. I’ll walk.”
“It’s five miles up the road,” Crown tells her as Sin gives him a look. “But if you want to walk, be my guest.”
“Bless your heart, Calder,” Reba replies which is Southern for ‘fuck you’. She lifts her nose up in the air. “I wouldn’t mind a long, leisurely walk this time of day.”
“It’s not so bad,” Sin assures her, patting the seat behind him. “Just hop on and wrap your arms around my waist. We’ll go slow—like your cousin, Ryan.” This last part is said with no small amount of sarcasm.
“Ryan?” Reba queries back, giving me a look. I lift a single finger to my lips, so she doesn’t spill the beans. If she tells Sin that her cousin wears a promise ring and is ‘waiting until marriage’ then I won’t hear the end of it. “Well, shoot. You’re gonna go real slow, right? Slow enough for Fem?”
“Slow enough for Fem,” Sin promises, and I watch with a huge grin as my best friend climbs onto Sin’s bike, throws her arms around his waist, and squeezes her eyes shut so tight that her entire face wrinkles up. He revs the engine once and she shrieks while he chuckles. “Okay, sorry. I won’t do that again.”
Sin takes off at as slow a pace as he can manage, winding up the road that leads deeper into the compound, one that I’ve never been on before.
“Technically, you shouldn’t be riding with me,” Crown says, watching as they disappear into the trees. Fem is still hanging out with us, reluctant to leave me but also desperate to follow after Reba. I stroke one of his triangular ears as I watch the play of emotions on the VP’s face.
“Technically, I shouldn’t have stolen your last bike and crashed it. Life doesn’t run on technicalities, Calder.” I climb on behind him, but the way I wrap my arms around his waist isn’t chaste and routine the way it was with Reba and Sin. No, this is more. A hug. A caress. A melding of bodies. “Thank you again, by the way,” I add before he can say anything to ruin this moment (which he’s certainly wont to do). “This is therapeutic for me, seeing your new bike. Letting you take me for a ride.”
Crown says nothing, but I can feel his body expand with a deep breath before he hits the kickstand and off we go.
Fem enjoys the journey, jogging alongside the road with his three legs and still somehow managing to keep up with us. The road is winding, but Fem cuts through the trees, running in more or less a straight line.
I inhale deeply, breathing in the scent of the woods, Crown’s suede and violet musk, and the grittiness of leather and motor oil. My most favorite scents. My most hated scents. All at the same time.
I’m not expecting to see a yellow farmhouse with a wraparound porch waiting for us at the end of the road. Honestly, I don’t know what I was expecting, but this … isn’t it.
As soon as I see it, I know I’m going to have problems here.
Crown parks his bike next to Sin’s, waiting for me to climb off before he joins me. Fem hops up to us, panting happily until he gets close to Crown. He bares his teeth and I snap my fingers to shut him down.
“What is this?” I choke out and Crown pauses, glancing back at me with a concerned expression on his handsome face.
“Well, the yard was overgrown with blackberries; I took a Bobcat and cleared it out.” He gestures to the raw dirt around the house. We’re bordered by woods on all sides, but there’s a nice sized yard, empty and ready for plants or grass.
That’s not what I meant when I asked that question. Maybe Crown knows that, maybe not.
“Did you really buy this house for me?” I whisper, and he turns away, looking up toward the front porch where Sin is waiting with Reba.
“I bought it for my future wife,” is the answer that I get.
The house is … well, it’s disturbingly cute. I mean, like sickeningly cute. The paint is fresh; I bet he had hang-arounds do most of the work. The deck has been repaired in several places, and the white railing is crisp and clean. There’s even a pair of rocking chairs out front.
“I see.”
“Gidge,” Crown starts, but I’m already walking past him. Fem slips nicely in between us so that when Crown goes to grab my arm, he’s got a snarly, toothy barrier to stop him. I pound up the front steps in my riding boots and reach for the handle on the screen door.
“This sure is cute,” Reba is saying, but I breeze right past her. Past Sin. I storm inside to find a short hallway with an entrance to the right that leads into the kitchen, one on the left that leads to a sitting room area. The kitchen itself is in bad need of some updates, but there’s a huge farmhouse sink and a brand-new refrigerator, a small table with mismatched chairs.
“Gidget.” It’s Crown, chasing after me. I ignore him, moving deeper into the house to find a larger living room area with an empty spot that’s probably supposed to house a dining table. The place is comfortable and homey, but clearly it isn’t very well lived-in. “Stop.”
I whirl around on him, emotions tumbling through me that I don’t understand.
What is this place? Why do I like it? Why do I hate it? Why do I feel simultaneously devastated because this can’t be mine and also like I’m trapped here?
Should I … should I really be marrying Beast? Should I run away to some random country and start a new life without any of these men?
I feel like pulling my hair out.
“Where is my room?” I grind out, and Crown hesitates, pointing up the stairs.
I stomp up them, biting back my feelings until I can get a moment of privacy. I’m not sure if I’ll cry or scream or break something when the full force of them hits me.
“Four bedrooms upstairs; two downstairs,” Crown tells me as I open a door to find a bathroom. “You can pick whichever one you like with the exception of the master.”
I ignore him, searching through the rooms one after the other until my hand reaches for the knob of the last.
“Not that one,” he says, but I turn the knob anyway and shove my shoulder into it.
The master bedroom is huge and airy with a four-poster bed, neatly made-up with white linens. The window is closed—it’s still pretty smoky outside—but the sunshine peeking through doesn’t seem quite as sickly as it was the other day.
There’s a chaise at the foot of the bed, a pair of armchairs with a table between them in the corner, and a nook with a bench seat on the far wall. An armoire, a dresser, and two nightstands take up the remaining space.
I stare at the room, and I think about another woman sleeping here. Fucking Crown here. Decorating the space. Loving it. Smiling at him from her reading nook beneath the window.
Pure, unfiltered rage swarms over me.
“Get out,” I tell him without bothering to look back. “You can leave my bag outside the door.”
“Gidget, this is my room—”
“Get out!” I yell, spinning on him, hating him, hating the choice I really don’t want to have to make. Marriage is fucking stupid; it’s paper. I want a commitment made up of blood and lies and truths and fucking and feeling and passion and loyalty. That’s what I want. Why does he have to be such a friggin’ stick in the mud all the time? Who cares about the ring?
This is my house.
“Get out, Crown,” I hiss, and, because he’s not a stupid man, he listens.
I am not in the mood for lectures today.
Crown retreats and I end up sitting on the edge of the bed, staring at the old hardwood floor. It’s stupid, but something about this house reminds me of the one we lived in before Cat bought the blood-soaked mini-mansion he has now. That house, the old one, was an ugly ranch home with orange linoleum counters and an avocado fridge that froze things on the bottom shelf and let things on the top shelf go bad.
I drop my face to my hands, but I don’t cry.
A few minutes later, a soft knock on the door precedes Reba’s entrance. She brings my duffel bag and my dog in with her, carefully closing and locking the door behind her. Fem wastes no time jumping on the bed, and I hope he just fucking sheds all over Crown’s perfect white blanket.
“Are you okay, darlin’?” she asks me quietly which really isn’t fair at all, considering what she just went through. Because of me. I lift my head up, and Reba’s already soft expression softens even further. “It’s a nice house,” she offers, and I shake my head.
“I hate it.”
“Don’t be like that,” she scolds, because momming me is easier than dealing with her own trauma, and I’m totally okay with that. I’m used to being mommed by girls my own age, like Queenie. Nellie just freaks me out when she tries.
“This was supposed to be my house, Reba,” I tell her, and she lets out a soft sigh, putting her hand on my knee.
“Then why are you marrying Beast instead of Crown?”
“I want to marry Beast,” I tell her, knowing that it makes absolutely zero sense. “I also want to marry Crown. And Sin. And—”
“Do not say that man’s name or I swear to you, I will break somethin’ nice.” Reba points at a vase nearby, one with dandelions in it. Like, who picks dandelions and puts them in a vase? Someone like Crown, I guess. “See that right there? I will break that lovely vase.”
I laugh then because Reba says vahze and I say vayse , and it doesn’t matter because we love each other. I consider texting Grey, too, but I’m not sure I can deal with any mafia/club bullshit right this second. Personal bullshit is taking up all available headspace for me.
“Grainger,” I finish, and she sighs heavily.
“You are dead-set on annoying me …” she starts, huffing another sigh.
“I thought I hated it here,” I tell her, shaking my head and then laying back on the bed until I’m curled up against Fem’s side. He licks my hair before settling down, and Reba lies beside us. “Then I thought this is where I wanted to be. Now that I see this house, I can’t decide if I’m definitely making the right decision or if I should run—and not get caught by the mafia this time around.”
Reba stares up at the canopy above our heads, contemplating things.
“After the wedding,” she starts, her red hair as pretty as blood on the white surface of the comforter. “I want to go to the convent. Grey promised he’d find me a place.” She turns her head to look at me. “But I’m worried about you.”
“You’re worried about me?” I query back, reaching out to take her hand. We tangle our fingers together, and she smiles at me. “You just lost your parents, Reba. You … I’m the one who’s worried about you. ”
“We’re worried about each other,” she agrees, nodding her head and sitting up suddenly. “We need a third opinion.”
“Oh no, please don’t,” I groan as she leans over me and digs my phone from the pocket of Beast’s jacket. I sigh heavily. I’d rather argue with Cat than Reba. He might kill ya, but at least the fight would be over. She, on the other hand, is stubborn beyond all reason. “I delete all our conversations after we’re done. Let me give you his number.”
Rather than text Grey, Reba calls him.
She video calls him.
“Gidge,” he says, blinking in surprise and then smiling when he sees Reba on the screen as well. “Reba.”
“This is a personal call, not a business one,” she assures him, and he nods, settling back in a chair and looking beyond exhausted.
“Good. I don’t have any business-related information at the moment anyway.” His gray eyes flick past her to find me. “I hope you’re practicing self-care. It’s important, whether you believe it or not.”
“Go fuck yourself, Grey,” I tell him, playing with Fem’s fur. “I have better things to do than floss, moisturize, and starch my underwear.”
He laughs at that, but only part of that sentence is a joke. Grey doesn’t starch his underwear; servants starch his underwear for him. Whether that’s on Giulia’s instructions or his, I never did find out.
“Gidget’s worried about me travelin’ to the convent after the wedding, and I’m worried about her because she’s in love with four men.” Reba doesn’t mince words, leaning one palm back on the bed for balance and holding the phone just right so that Grey can see us both. “We wanted to get your opinion.”
“On which part? I love the idea of you becoming a nun,” he tells her honestly, glancing over at me as if for confirmation. “I want someone by my side who I can trust, a religious figure to guide my actions.”
“As what? A pseudo-prisoner in your own home?” I quip, and he laughs, that smoky, sexy laugh that never quite did for me what Sin’s chuckle does, or Grainger’s irritating guffaw. God, love sucks serious ass. It’s irrational and annoying, and it makes you act like a crazy person. I’m pissed off because a guy bought a house, and I can’t have it? That’s dumb as fuck.
“As the future Don of the Grey Wolfe Mafia,” he corrects, and a chill travels down my spine. When he says it like that, I almost believe him. “And you will be the liaison for the club, at the very least. Because I will not deal with anyone else in it. So however those knuckle-dragging barbarians want to cast your role, that’s fine. But it’s a non-negotiable point.”
“You think the club won’t wipe its ass with your family?” I query back, genuinely interested in his response.
“I think my family and your club are fairly evenly matched; I think the war both sides are preparing for will destroy us all. Our city, and the remnants of our organizations, will become fodder for lesser criminals. A cartel perhaps? A Russian mob? Who knows? However it happens, it won’t be good for any of us. We need a truce, and that only happens between me and you. Only we can trust each other.”
“Y’all just promised not to talk business,” Reba complains, and I sit up, tossing my hair over my shoulder.
“Reba will be safe in the convent?” I ask, and Grey nods.
“Regardless of what happens between our families, she’ll be safe there. The convent is affiliated with my family, but it’s also an extension of the Catholic church as a whole. She’ll be alright.” Grey reaches up to swipe a hand over his hair. It’s cut short again, slicked back, his face clean-shaven. I would love to know every detail of what’s happened to him since he crawled into that pipe organ, but that’s a story for another day. “As for you? I don’t envy you, being in love with four men. You’re the one I’m worried about.”
“See!” Reba calls out, jerking the phone around in her excitement. “I told you. It ain’t me you should be concerned with.” She glances at me and lifts her chin in that saintly way of hers. “I have God on my side.”
“Well then, what am I supposed to do?” I ask, humoring the pair of them. I mean, who else can I talk to about this shit? Sure as hell can’t call up Dena, Chardou, and Amiya. How about Johnny R. and Johnny K.? Think they’d understand after that bad dope I fed them? “Sin promised to be mine, by the way. Beast is marrying me. Grainger is … well, you can lead him with sex like a horse with an apple. But Crown? Crown doesn’t want to give me his ring or his house or his heart.”
“You want all four of them?” Grey queries, but not in a judgmental way, more like he’s contemplating the situation the way he always does. He stares wistfully into the distance, at something I can’t see, and then reaches out, plucking a glass full of red wine off a nearby table. “Interesting proposition. You would’ve been better off marrying me.”
The edge of his mouth quirks up, and my chest gets tight. There’s a chance that he’s right, that marrying him could’ve worked out very well for me. But that’s something we’ll never know. There’s an equal possibility that the club would’ve taken the mafia down and dragged me right along with it.
“If Crown—this is the man named Calder Reid, the Vice President, yes?—if he doesn’t love you enough to accept that you need things done a little differently, then that’s his choice. Let him go. To be fair, you are asking a lot of him. Maybe he simply needs more than you can give?”
Grey gives sound advice, but it hurts. Goddamn, it fucking hurts so bad.
Especially because I already know that he’s right.
“State your intentions clearly, give the full truth always, and if it doesn’t work out, it wasn’t what you needed in the first place.” Grey taps his fingers against the side of the wineglass. “By the way, since I won’t get a chance to say this later, congratulations on your upcoming nuptials.”
He sounds sad, but whether that’s because he really did like me or some other reason, I’m not sure.
“I miss you, Grey,” I tell him, and he offers a melancholic smile in return, meeting my eyes through the screen.
“I miss you, too, Gidge. But don’t worry. One day, we’ll rule the city together from opposing thrones.” He lifts his glass in salute as Reba kisses the phone screen.
“I’ll be in touch after the wedding,” she says, and he nods.
“Will do. Stay safe, you two.”
The call ends and Reba hands me my new phone, the one I’ve been very careful not to reveal to Cat. After the wedding, I can flash it around all I want, and Cat won’t be able to say a damn word without having one out with Beast.
“Did that help?” Reba asks, and I nod.
It did.
But I’m still not giving up this goddamn bedroom.
Crown can pry it from my cold, dead fingers for all I care.
The morning of the wedding, I wake up early, like before the sun is up early. My skin is soaked in sweat, and it occurs to me how odd it is that I’m in another man’s house, in another man’s bed, on my wedding day.
None of the guys slept in here last night, but they were close, just like always. The world right now is far too dangerous to leave me alone for a second. I sit there for a while, my hands in my lap on Crown’s comforter, and I think about Beast. Catcher Coffey is his name, actually, a name that I’ve always loved the sound of.
He’s still the right choice as far as politics go. Even if I suddenly changed my mind, it’s far too late for that. But … I don’t want to change my mind. I’m okay with this. It isn’t a step I ever thought I would take, but now that it’s here, it doesn’t seem quite so scary.
The only parts of this whole thing I’m afraid of are the other three men in the equation.
I’m not ready to give them up.
I swing my legs out of bed and pad across the hardwood floors toward the door. It creaks slightly as I open it, but in the most pleasant of ways, the soft murmur of a house with history. It thrills me yet again that Crown bought this place with me in mind.
Way to prepare for the life you want instead of getting complacent with the life you have.
Crown is in his own room—rather the room he relegated himself to after relinquishing the master to me—with the door cracked. He’s awake, on guard duty most likely, and working on polishing a sleek black handgun with a rag.
“Morning,” he says, but his voice is thick with emotion and hindered by deep thought. I pause briefly outside the room, leaning my body up against the doorjamb. I should probably apologize to him for yesterday, but I can’t seem to make myself do it. Admitting that I had an emotional meltdown feels too personal in the early morning light.
“You sound like you did the day of my sisters’ funeral,” I remark absently, and Crown sighs, setting his rag down and laying the handgun beside it.
“I’m happy for you, Gidget,” he tells me, and I hate that he uses the T at the end of my name. For years, I’ve yelled at him, refused to let him call me Gidge, and now that he’s stopped doing it, I’m just as irritated. “I really am. But it isn’t what I want.” He gives a harsh laugh and swipes a hand over his handsome face. “Seeing you walk down the aisle with another man is my worst nightmare.”
I swallow hard.
“Worse than anything you ever saw as a cop? As an outlaw?” It’s meant to be a bit of a dark joke, but Crown takes it like a serious question, mulling it over, exhaling, rising to his feet. He’s so damn tall that I have to crane my neck to meet his eyes.
“Worse than all of it combined,” he admits, cupping the side of my face in a way that probably would’ve annoyed the crap out of the old Gidget. The thing is, this is a new Gidget. The world feels like a different place than it was two years ago. “But I know this has to happen. I won’t do anything to interfere.”
He drops his hand by his side and scoots past me, heading into the bathroom.
We have a lot to talk about, me and him. Unfortunately, right now is not the time to do it.
After the wedding then. After the wedding night. There’s no honeymoon for me and Beast, other than one shared together in bed. We can’t really leave in the middle of a war.
I watch the bathroom door close behind Crown before continuing down the hall toward the kitchen. I’m not entirely surprised to find Grainger there, awake and sipping coffee. He lifts his brown eyes to stare at me over the rim of the mug.
“Coffee,” I say, and even though he lifts the edge of his lip in a snarl, he sets his own mug down and pours me a cup of my own. Grainger adds the appropriate amount of cream and sugar since, frustratingly enough, we like to drink our coffee the same way.
“Here,” he says, handing it over before grabbing a familiar looking box from the surface of the counter. Another pregnancy test. Just like that day. Only this time, Beast is the only person whose kid it couldn’t possibly be. And he’s the guy I’m marrying today.
Man, my life is fucked-up.
“Um, thanks?” I reply, drinking my coffee with one hand and holding the box in the other. Grainger’s in a pair of gray joggers and nothing else. Me, I’m wearing an oversized t-shirt and shorts. He’s seen me in pj’s plenty of times, but I’ve never seen him in his, and I … gag … like it. I like the look of him, casual and comfortable.
“If you are pregnant,” he starts, and I roll my eyes to the ceiling.
“I’m not pregnant,” I snap back at him, but I could be. I could. Denial won’t help in this situation; it’ll only make things worse.
“If you are,” he continues, picking his mug up again. “Then it’s gotta be mine.”
“You don’t know that,” I throw out with a scoff, taking a sip of the coffee and finding it pleasantly hot and perfectly sweetened. Figures this dickhead would be able to make a great cup of coffee. He has to be good at something other than sex, right? “It could be Sin’s or Crown’s.”
Grainger’s already shaking his head, his reddish-brown hair mussed up in a way I’ve never seen before.
“No. If you’re pregnant, it’s mine.” He takes a step toward me, and I glare up at him. “I fucked you in the cathedral; I fucked you in the woods.”
“Maybe we should wait until I actually take the test before having this argument?” I say with a sigh, lifting the mug to my lips only to have him grab my wrist, sloshing hot liquid onto the floor.
“God help you if you have my baby, Gidge,” he says, his fingers burning where they press into my skin. His eyes blaze, and that possession I’ve always seen in him becomes almost glaringly apparently. “I will never let you go.” He yanks me closer, spilling more coffee onto the floor. “Never.”
My nostrils flare with my usual anger, but I push it down, fighting back against a motley of emotions.
This is my wedding day for fuck’s sake. Of course I’m going to be emotional. I didn’t want to get married. I don’t really believe in marriage. Yet, I’m not entirely displeased by the idea of committing to Beast. Committing to Sin. To … Grainger. Crown, if he’ll have me. Hard to say, based on his melancholy mood this morning and yesterday.
“And if I’m not pregnant,” I start, the reality of that so heavy that it nearly staggers me. Would I get an abortion? Would I keep it? What would the guys think? Whose baby would it even be? “You’ll let me go?”
Grainger releases me suddenly, drawing back and turning away with a curse that sounds a bit like a prayer. That, or a dark spell. Yeah, more likely that. We’re all heretics here.
“I told you that I knew the night you walked into the clubhouse bathroom that you were meant to be mine.” He turns away from me, grabbing his own coffee and then moving over to the window to stare out at the bare dirt of Crown’s front yard.
Mm. A non-answer, but an acceptable one. I’ll take it.
I finish my coffee, set the mug aside, and head into the downstairs bathroom. Déjà vu is hitting me hard today. Not just because this is my second wedding in as many months, but also because it reminds me of the last time I did this.
Unlike last time however, I don’t look at the two tests I take. Instead, I grab them off the counter and head back into the kitchen, waiting for Grainger to turn around and look at me.
“I can’t do this right now,” I tell him, emotion making me feel dizzy and lightheaded. I slip the two tests in his pocket (sure, I peed on them, but whatever) and put my forehead against his chest. “You keep them and tell me after the wedding. I don’t want to know right now.”
I turn away and Grainger lets me go, but I can feel his eyes as I flee down the hall.
I know exactly where I’m going and what I need to do.
Beast doesn’t seem surprised when I burst into his room and find him in the bathroom. But I sure as hell am.
“What … what are you doing?” I choke out, staring at the clean-shaven man standing before me. Beast takes a wet cloth and swipes it over his chin, glancing my way with a slight smile on his unbelievably gorgeous mouth. I mean, I liked it before, but I can see it so much better now.
“This is a one-time thing, Gidge,” he drawls, tossing the towel over his shoulder and moving over to stand in front of me. He rests his forearms on either side of the jamb, leaning down to look at me. “Don’t get too used to it.”
My throat constricts because even this wedding, which seemed so certain, now feels impossible.
“We’re getting married today,” I whisper, and he nods.
“That we are.”
I gather my resolve together, an ironclad force that pushes the words from my mouth that I really, really don’t want to fucking say. It’d be easier, maybe, if I just looked at the damn tests now. But only if they’re negative. If they’re not, this whole situation becomes even more tangled, even more twisted.
“Would you still want to marry me if I were pregnant with another guy’s baby?” The question is bold, forthright, direct. Because we’re club, right? Not the mafia. Although, the advice on honesty did come from a mafia brat’s lips.
Beast taps his fingers on the wall as I gape up at him, still trying to come to terms with the fact that his beard is gone. I mean, I liked it; he wears it well, short and well-kempt. But this is … this is nice, too.
“I told you before that I was on your side,” he says, and then he steps forward and I’m scrambling out of the way. He gives me a bit of a warning look, but I can’t touch him right now. I just can’t. I’ve waited years for this; he’s been teasing me for weeks. I’m explosive. Beast opens the nightstand drawer where he’s stashed some of his personal things.
One of the items buried in there is the pregnancy test that he put in his pocket, two long years ago.
“I don’t care who fathered your baby,” he says, tossing the old test onto the bed and giving me a look. “You’ll be my wife after today; that child is mine.”
He moves toward the bathroom, pausing in front of me just long enough that my skin begins to ache at his nearness, and then steps inside and closes the door behind him.
I’m only standing there for a minute or two when I hear footsteps behind me.
“Are you really pregnant?” Sin asks, maybe wondering if the kid could be his. If I am, it might be. You never know.
“I don’t want to look at the test until after the wedding,” I admit, and he slides his arms around me from behind. Everything feels so uncertain right now. Not just things with the club, but with these men.
We haven’t fully agreed to anything, the five of us.
But the wedding is happening. The pregnancy thing is … ugh. And I’m in love with four dudes.
That’s about all that I know.
“Regardless, I told you: once you said I could have you, that’s it. I’m not going anywhere.”
I squeeze his hands and close my eyes for a brief moment.
That sense of wrongness I felt the other night when I was with Sin is the same that I feel now, like something terrible is going to happen. My stomach is twisted into knots, and my head is spinning.
With my eyes still closed, my other senses are heightened.
Sin’s touch is electric, his breath stirs my hair, and I swear that I can taste the faintest tint of blood and ash on the breeze through Beast’s open window.