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December 20 - December 22, 2022
“We don’t get married. Instead, we sign legal documents making us a polycule, naming each other as next-of-kin with all the same rights as spouses, and an airtight prenup that keeps your dirty fucking hands off my company.”
“You always were the best of us. Even your father knew that. It’s why he let you go.”
“You did so well, baby girl. You were so fucking gorgeous when you came all over my fingers while Rian and Liam watched.”
God, I wanted to relax into him and enjoy the hug. It was a false comfort though, nothing more than trauma-bonding with a man who wanted to buy sex with me in exchange for acceptance by the old money that ran this town.
nodded into his chest, uncaring that I smeared tears and snot all over him like a child. Served him right for spanking me like one. I tried to laugh, but it just came out as another sob. Cormac’s arms tightened around me as I burrowed into his warmth.
“We have you, Ginny-love,” Cormac murmured into my hair, continuing to whisper sweet praise to me as I slowly drifted off.
“You don’t need me to spoil you, princess. Now that you’ve submitted to Cormac, he’ll fucking pull the moon down from the sky for you. And Liam’s a golden retriever, but ready to murder if someone so much blinks at you wrong.”
“You deserve our respect.” Cormac pulled her hair hard enough that her eyes watered. “Except in bed, where we’ll treat you like the slut you are for us.” Her eyes glazed over as her breath turned ragged. “Deal?” I whispered in her ear. “Deal,” she answered.
“To the future,” I proposed, raising my glass. As they echoed my words, I looked down at Ginevra, allowing the rosy tint of optimism about the future to cloud my vision for a moment. Maybe this could work. Maybe we had a shot at a house full of laughter, a house full of family.
I didn’t think it was possible for Laila’s eyes to get bigger. Ginevra had insulted me in front of the whole fucking arena, then she had the ovaries to correct me. And she wasn’t done yet.
“I didn’t expect to be protecting her from your goddamned head of security,” I snapped right back at him. Antonio slumped down in his chair. “I should have known.”
“God, Cormac, love isn’t about being deserving enough. It’s sliding into each other’s jagged cracks and edges and tangling ourselves up in each other, somehow more whole together than apart. I found you, and I held you tight. Liam came back into our lives, and we snatched him up, too. And we’re not going to let Ginevra go either. Because she’s fucking perfect.”
“You’re safe now, love.” “Am I?” she asked, removing her hand from mine and breaking my heart.
“I mean, I’m not going to lock her in a room and make her a fucking prisoner! We’re goddamned better than that. If she doesn’t want to stay, then I’m not going to make her!” Cormac shouted back. I blinked. I’d never heard him raise his voice before. Rian walked over to me. “Are you leaving us?” My heart cracked. “Are you willing to give up all of this?”
I turned my face away so he wouldn’t see the tears gathering in my eyes. Leaving them, leaving my family, was going to hurt so fucking much. But not as much as a day and a half of torture by Yuri, I reminded myself, steeling my heart.
I dragged my hands up to the back of his head and pulled him to me, kissing him with all the love and sorrow in my breaking heart.
“Ginevra, please,” he said, his voice catching. “Don’t ask me to hold you in my arms tonight, and then let you go tomorrow,” he rasped, as he pulled away from me and returned to the chair, leaving me aching for the comfort of his arms as I lay in the bed. “I’ll be right here, baby.” When I opened my eyes in the morning, he was gone.
“Would you just—” I didn’t know how to ask for what I wanted, for what I needed. “Want to keep the line open while you sleep?” he offered. I was crying again. How had I not drowned in all the tears I’d cried over the last two days? “Would you? Please?” He pressed his fingers to his lips and then touched the screen. “Of course, Ginevra. Anything you need. Just prop the phone up beside you, and I’ll be right here, okay?” I nodded, scrubbing my hands over my face, not caring that he saw me at my weakest. Liam wouldn’t hold it against me. I set the phone on my bedside table, leaning it against the
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When I turned my mouth into her palm to kiss it, her breath caught.
“We’re calling ourselves your brother-husbands these days.” Ginevra burst into laughter. “Are you serious?”
“Damn straight.” I tilted my mouth back to Rian’s and stole another quick and sticky kiss before dragging Cormac and Liam over for the same. Thank God, I picked up the phone when Sofia called asking me for help.
