Chapter 20

Knock. Knock. Knock.

I almost jumped out of my skin when someone tapped on the car window beside me. Heart in my throat, I twisted around to see Toby standing on the other side of the glass.

He grinned and opened the door. "Didn"t mean to scare the shit out of you. You looked like you were lost in thought."

"I was." I snatched my bag and phone from the seat beside me and climbed out of the car. How long I"d been sitting there, I didn"t know. Long enough. I considered driving away several times, but hadn"t been able to bring myself to do it. I couldn"t, this was too important.

I went to give Toby a quick kiss, but he gripped my shoulder and deepened it. Our lips and tongues slid together like they were made for each other. I could easily have dragged him back into the car and fucked him here in broad daylight. On another day, maybe I would. But not today.

"Save some of that for me," Cole said from behind Toby.

Laughing, Toby broke off and turned to kiss Cole as deeply as he"d kissed me.

Fuck that was hot.

Cole pressed the heel of his hand to the back of Toby"s neck and kissed him back like he wanted to eat the other player alive.

Eventually, Cole broke off the kiss and grabbed me to devour my lips.

"Are you coming in, or are you going to make out all day instead?" Oliver called from where he stood on the front steps of his house.

"Make out," Toby called back, laughing. "You jealous, old man?"

"Absolutely I am," Oliver said. "All of you get your asses in here." He stepped back and gestured us inside.

With Cole holding one of my hands and Toby the other, we stepped up the driveway and into the house.

The moment the door closed behind us, Oliver"s mouth was on mine, his hands on my hips.

If I wasn't careful, I'd forget why I asked them to meet me here. Instead we could strip each other naked and fuck all over the house. That sounded like much more fun than having a serious, adult conversation.

I placed my hands on Oliver"s chest and pushed him back gently.

"That wasn"t what I came here for," I said regretfully.

"You look very serious, Marley-Jane," he said.

I sighed softly. "I am. Let"s go in and sit down."

With them looking at me in concern, we moved into the living room. I sat down on the couch, my three men arrayed around me. Each one looked good enough to eat. Either I was the luckiest girl on earth, or I was about to be the most heartbroken.

Oliver sat on my left side. He took my hand and looked me in the eyes. "You know there"s nothing you can say to us that we can"t deal with."

"Unless she wants to end it," Cole said softly.

"That"s not going to happen," Toby said. He seemed sure of that.

"When you hear what I have to say, you might want to end it," I said.

"Still not going to happen," Toby said.

"Absolutely not," Oliver said.

"What they said," Cole agreed. "I"m invested in this. In us." He gestured at himself, then at me and Toby. To Oliver, he gave a short nod.

"Me too," Toby said. He placed his hands to either side of him on the chair and leaned towards me. "What is it, sweetheart?"

Over and over, I"d thought about how to tell them this. A thousand scenarios had run through my head from beginning to end. Some ending well, others ending badly. I"d told them quickly and I'd told them slowly. None of it helped decide how to actually say the words. I"d even considered telling them by text, but dismissed that quickly enough.

I exhaled out my nose.

"I just want to start by saying I"m sorry and I don"t know how it happened. I mean, I do, but…" I shook my head.

"Did you sleep with someone else?" Oliver was frowning at me.

"No," I said quickly. "The three of you give me everything I need. I can"t even imagine being interested in anyone else." Things were tangled enough as they were without adding anyone else into the equation.

"So, what is it?" Cole pressed gently. "Like Oliver said, there"s nothing you can say that would drive us away."

"I"m pregnant," I blurted out.

Heavy silence hung in the air for a dozen lifetimes. My words sank in one by one, but the response wasn"t what I was expecting. All three of them grinned. Not just grinned, but looked smugly pleased with themselves.

"That"s awesome," Oliver said finally. "You"re going to be an absolutely incredible mother."

"Absolutely are," Toby agreed. "The best ever."

"The very best," Cole said softly. His response was the hardest to gauge. He seemed uneasy, but happy. Conflicted, definitely.

I looked around at each of their faces. "You don"t seem surprised."

Of course, Oliver saw how tired I was. Maybe he suspected something like this was up. I was surprised he hadn"t asked anything. Maybe he was giving me time to figure things out for myself.

"What we are, is happy and excited," Oliver said. "We knew you wanted to have a baby. We wanted to have one with you. I didn"t think it would happen so quickly, but we"ll be ready."

I looked around at them again. Something was going on here, but I couldn"t quite figure out what.

"I don"t understand," I said slowly. "What do you mean? You knew I wanted to have a baby? You didn"t think it would happen quickly? I don"t—" I shook my head.

Oliver squeezed my hand. "We saw what you wanted and made sure you got it." Like it was nothing more than that.

I stared at him. "You made sure… How?" I felt the blood drain from my face. "What did you do?"

Without any hint of apology, he said, "I changed your birth control pills. The packet I gave you was just made of sugar. Toby and Cole agreed?—"

My face whipped around to stare at both of them. "They agreed to what?"

Cole was looking down at his feet, but Toby met my gaze.

"To help get you pregnant," he said. "To fuck you and put a baby inside you."

I must be hearing things. I sat completely still for at least a minute or two, trying to wrap my head around what they were saying.

"You tampered with my birth control so you could get me pregnant without my knowledge or consent?" I asked slowly. That couldn"t be what he was saying, could it? Was I asleep and having a nightmare? If I was, I"d like to wake up right now.

I didn"t wake up.

Cole looked back up. At least he had the grace to look uncomfortable. Not ashamed, but awkward, like he wanted to step back when tensions got too high.

"We did it because we knew you wanted a baby," Oliver said. "I"ve seen the way you look at Cat and her belly. I love you, I wanted to make that dream come true for you. For all of us." He waved a hand over toward Toby and Cole.

What the absolute, ever loving fuck? I"d heard some twisted shit in my life, but nothing like this. Nothing even close.

I buried my face in my hands. I couldn"t even begin to imagine what Cat was going to say when she found out about all of this. I didn"t even know what to say about it myself.

I looked back up. "You love me enough to do something like this? To go behind my back and make decisions about my body without my knowledge? Do you have any idea how violated I feel right now?"

I shoved my glasses back up my nose. It didn't help to clear the haze of tears. "I feel as though you"ve all raped me. You might as well have. You"ve violated my body and my trust. Worse, you"ve done that to an innocent child, who deserves better than to come into this world this way."

Tears were sliding down my cheeks and dripping onto my blouse. I felt sicker than I had when I was throwing up into the toilet. I wanted to vomit every meal I"d ever had.

I looked around at these three men and all I saw were three strangers. Three guys I thought I knew, but clearly I didn"t know them at all. They obviously didn"t know me. If they did, they would have known not to take a choice like this out of my hands.

"I understand this is overwhelming," Oliver said. "Give it some time. When it fully sinks in, you"ll realise what we did, we did because we love you. We love the child growing inside you. You will too. Knowing you, you already do."

He actually had the nerve to smile softly, like he completely believed what he was saying and he"d done something beautiful. He was out of his fucking mind, or I was.

I barely recognised him. He looked like Oliver, but clearly there was a monster lurking just under the surface. How deep did that really go? I"d completely misjudged him. Toby and Cole as well.

They must have had a good laugh at my expense. Did they rub their hands together when they hatched this plan to get me pregnant? Did they talk about it over a few beers? Did they plan how they"d come inside me until one of their sperm slid inside my fertile egg? How long had all of this been going on anyway? Was getting together with Toby and Cole coincidence or had Oliver engineered all of this from the beginning?

Everything I thought I knew was a lie. They"d all grabbed hold of the rug and pulled it straight out from under my feet. And they"d enjoyed every moment of it.

"You don"t know me at all." I pulled my hand away from him and got to my feet. "I"m starting to think you don"t know anything about me. If you did, you wouldn"t do something like this to me. This is not something someone does when they love someone else. This is… I don"t even know what this is. It"s wrong. It"s horrible. I can"t believe you"d do this to me and not care how I feel about it."

"Of course we care." Cole got to his feet and took half a step towards me. "We did it because we care." His voice was soft and low, almost soothing.

Any other time, I might have fallen for it, but right now it sounded like so many poisonous words. This whole situation was beyond fucked up and toxic. I was living in a nightmare.

"You did it because you wanted me pregnant," I snarled. "You wanted to be the ones to decide that for me. To have control over me. That ends right now. None of you will have control over me or my baby. You have no say over anything I do. I don"t want to see you or have anything to do with any of you ever again."

"You don"t mean that," Oliver said. "You need to calm down, Marley-Jane." He put a hand out towards me.

I jerked away.

"Don"t call me that," I snapped. "You don"t get to call me that ever again. I quit. I quit my job and I quit us. We are done."

I ran over to the door, wrenched it open and hurried through before slamming it shut behind me. I pulled open the door to my car and all but threw myself inside before starting the engine.

Blinking away a haze of tears, I peeled the car away from the curb and drove, not caring where I was going or where I"d end up.