His lips flatten. “What we just did wasn’t casual sex, Alec. You told her to beg for you. You can’t do that and then pretend like nothing happened.”
His words slowly filter through. He’s right. Summer gave us a gift today. We’ve crossed a line we can’t uncross. “Aye.”
“So,” Cameron says, letting me go, “what do we do now? Because she’s staying in our house for the next three weeks.”
Before I can respond, my bedroom door gently opens and Fraser steps out. “She’s asleep,” he says quietly. “Worse than a man, I’ll tell you.”
“You bothlefther?” Cameron asks, exasperated. “Alone in the bed? She slept with three men and not one of themstayedthere with her?”
Fraser nabs a teacake. “Get off my back, I’m starving. And someone needs to feed the wee one in the cot.”
“Youdidn’t stay with her either,” I point out to Cameron.
His jaw tightens. “I don’t do that. Cuddling.”
Fraser snorts. “Aye, right. Pretty sure I remember you snuggling her to death last night, mate.”
“She was upset,” Cameron grinds out. “I don’t want her upset again.”
“No,” I agree. “Neither do I.” My brain is ticking over.
“So what now?” Cameron demands. “The three of us just…keep on sharing her? For the next three weeks?”
Fraser scrunches up his face. “Aye. What else would we do?”
“She’s leaving,” Cameron repeats. “We shouldn’t be getting close to her. It’ll be like having a…girlfriend.”
The thought makes my stomach drop. The next three weeks of having Summer on the farm are going to be torturous now I’ve touched her.
Fraser rolls his eyes. “God, you’re both so emotionally constipated. Alec, you’ll feed the bottle baby tonight, aye?” I nod. “Then if you’ll excuse me, I have a pretty girl waiting for me in bed.” He takes the plate and heads back to the bedroom. I rub my temples.
“Well?” Cameron demands.
“Fraser’s right,” I say quietly. “It’s three weeks. We’ll take cues from Summer. If she wants to continue this throughout her stay, it won’t do any harm.”
Besides. I don’t think we could go back now, even if we wanted to.
FORTY-ONE
SUMMER
Iwake up alone in bed. For a few minutes, I stare up at the wooden ceiling beams, my mind going over last night.
Last night.
I roll over and bury my face into Alec’s pillow, happiness popping in me. Lulu is going todiewhen I tell her.
A rooster crows outside, and I check the clock on the bedside table. It’s after eight. I bet the men started work hours ago. I’m not sure what to do. I guess I’m officially on a break now.
Back home, I usually wake up and immediately hop onto my phone to answer comments or check my email. It’s weird not having anything to do. I roll out of bed and grab one of the guys’ abandoned T-shirts from the floor. I yank it on and glance around curiously.
Alec’s room is orderly and very clean. He doesn’t have a lot of stuff—a wardrobe, a desk, an armchair next to a few built-in bookshelves.
I drift over to snoop. The shelves are packed full, stuffed several volumes deep. The bottom shelves are full of textbooks with names likeSheep and Their Diseases: Volume TwoandAnimal Welfare: An Ethical Perspective on Husbandry.Nearer the top of the bookcase, Alec has a collection of classics.FarFrom the Madding Crowd. Great Expectations. North and South.
I scowl at the book. We had to readNorth and Southin secondary school. I almost failed my English GCSE because of it. It was just impossible for me to read. The copies the school handed out were cheap, with tiny font that kept mixing up in my brain. I had to embarrassedly tell my teacher that it was a nightmare for my dyslexia. After a lot of huffing and puffing, she had me loan an audiobook of it from the library, but that wasn’t much better. The story was so meandering and slow that trying to pay attention to it was like torture. Every five minutes, I had to rewind my cassette player because I’d zoned out. I got more and more desperate and furious at myself, staying up late into the night to force myself to listen to it while retaining nothing.
I probably spent about a hundred hours trying to read that damn book, and I still never managed to finish it. I remember the blinding panic of sitting in the exam hall and not being able to write anything.
