“I left because I thought it was the only way to protect you. Almost every time we were together, I’d get a message. Theykept threatening to expose us, to ruin you.” She met and held my gaze. “But all that, while it’s crazy and sounds made up, is not the only thing I’ve been hiding from you. I left to protect you, but also because I panicked.”
She went quiet. We all continued to wait.
Whatever else she had to share, the stilted twitches of her feet beneath the covers and the way she broke eye contact only to come back and hold, then break again, warned that what came next might be truly awful.
Dante resumed his still as a statue posture. “Whatever you need to tell us cannot be as bad as what is going through my head right now. Please, for the love of god, tell us and put us out of our misery.”
“I’m pregnant. One of you is the father.” A tremor shook her arms, and her hand spasmed.
I realized I’d been squeezing her fingers so tight they were turning purple and relaxed my grip. I refused to let go. Her admission landed between us with the effectiveness of a land mine. No one moved. I barely breathed.
Pregnant? I would ask how, but we all knewhowit happened.
I was going to be a father. One of us was the father.
Was that why she’d hesitated to tell us? Did she want the real father to step up and do what was right? I couldn’t see Harper as the kind of woman who would even attempt to use this against us.
She’d left her whole life behind because she thought it would protect us. That was not the kind of woman who used a pregnancy for her own gain.
A deathly silence prickled my skin. I held Harper’s gaze, afraid to look away. If I broke away, this whole thing might go away. It might be a dream. I had to hold on. I had to keep looking at her until I knew it wouldn’t fade away.
31
HARPER
It took every ounce of my courage to admit everything. I waited for the fallout. For the moment when anger took over and they all stormed out. They stared at me. Three sets of eyes. Brown. Gray. Blue. They all rivaled each other in intensity, and I could not look away.
Like a bug caught in a spider’s trap, I knew better than to wiggle and squirm. I held still, afraid to do more than take shallow breaths to keep from passing out.
They kept staring at me like I’d grown a second head, and fuck if I could keep quiet any longer. “Are you angry?”
Dante soared to his feet for the second time in twenty minutes. “Angry? I’m fuckingfurious.”
My heart fell to my toes and my stomach clenched. I’d expected it, but to hear it from him was more than I could bear.
Dante sat on the side of the bed and gripped my shoulders. “Harper, I’m furious that you kept this from us. We should have all been part of the decision making. You have been shoulderingall the responsibility. We could have helped. That is all I have ever wanted to do, and instead of trusting us, you decided to take it on alone.”
Hurt filled his eyes, turning the blue glacier.
They wanted to help? Words failed me. I should have known better. I’d let fear overrule my common sense and everything they had shown me about who they were.
Julian and Alexander converged on the bed, both wrapping their arms around me from either side. I lost sight of Lila until she appeared at the foot of my bed with a delighted look on her face. She mouthed “told you so” and I rolled my eyes.
She had told me, but I’d decided I knew what was best. Look where that had led me.
Three sets of arms hugged me, voices murmuring in my ears, each one distinct and reassuring me that they never wanted to be apart from me again.
“We’re going to be fathers.” Julian grinned and kissed my cheek. “Do you have any idea how happy I am about that?”
“No.” I shook my head because I genuinely had no idea. “We never talked about kids. I told you I was on birth control. I assumed you’d be angry, like I’d tried to trick you or something.”
“You would never.” Alexander shook his head, his eyes narrowed as an exasperated breath pulsed from his lips and drifted over my cheek. “You should have asked us. Or we should have mentioned it. We all know that birth control is not always effective. It never crossed my mind that you would consider it an issue.”
A mix of emotions filled the room, warming my skin and eliminating the last of my concern at how they’d react, what they would think of me.
“Our love for you is all-consuming.” Alexander brushed hair from my cheek and pushed it behind my ear. My heart melted, and it was a good thing I was already laying down because my knees would have given out at the warm confession. “Our child is a product of that love, and we will do anything for them, just as we would for you.”
Dante rubbed my upper thigh and nodded. “Alex is right. I love you, Harper. Losing you was the most painful experience of my life. We will not let that happen again, and our child is loved. So much more than you could ever know.” His voice cracked, and his mouth pulled to one side an embarrassed smirk I found utterly adorable.
