Weekend Surrender (The Surrender Trilogy, #1)(31)

“I can’t be mad at you. I didn’t remember it either. I’m a little freaked out though.”

He looked horrified, “Why? Rachel, if something happened—”

“No, you don’t understand, Hudson. Earlier today, Rogan and I…well… we kind of had the same accident, which means that I’ve had unprotected sex with both of you in the same day. I’m on birth control, but if something when wrong I wouldn’t know whose baby it was.” Rachel’s stomach twisted into a knot at the thought. This was a huge situation, and it was already too late to fix it. Her heart ached in her chest as she thought about how hurt Sawyer and Parker would be when they found out what she had let happen.

Hudson’s worried expression melted into confusion as he stared at her, “So? Why would it matter?”

“Are you kidding me? Hudson, I just told you that if end up pregnant it may or may not be your brother’s baby!”

He sat silently watching her with his head cocked to the side, and she got the distinct impression he could see into her soul. She only prayed that wasn’t true, because she would die if he knew about the little thrill she got imagining herself carrying his or Rogan’s child.

“You just don’t get it do you, Rachel?”

“What?”

“Rachel, we don’t care. We want you to be free with all four of us, and eventually we want you to carry a child for each of us. It would never matter whose baby you carried, because we would all claim it as our own. That’s what being in a ménage relationship means, honey. It means we’re one unit, not individual couples.”

It settled in her ears, but took longer for her brain to absorb. He wasn’t joking. They wanted a permanent ménage relationship with her. For just a brief moment her heart soared thinking that she could have it all. The four men she was falling in love with, and a half a dozen children to surround herself with so she would always be loved. But her own good sense quickly squashed that fantasy. There was no way that it would work like they wanted it to. How would she be able to keep up with four different relationships and try to blend them into one cohesive unit when she hadn’t been able to make one relationship with one man work. Not to mention it wasn’t exactly a legal sort of arrangement.

“You’re forgetting one thing, Hudson,” she said, taking a deep breath as she stood and stepped out of the tub, “we’re not in a permanent relationship. We’re having a weekend affair. Which means this could turn out to be the worst possible mistake we’ve ever made.”

He was on his feet in front of her gripping her chin in his hand before she could stop him. “Or it could be the best thing to ever happen to us. Rachel, please, just give this a chance. Give us a chance. Stop shutting us out and let us show you that we can make it work.”

“Really? So you’re going to change the views of society all on your own then, Hudson? Or maybe you’re going to change the laws so it’s legal to have more than one significant other? What kind of crap do you want me to believe? David Lassiter can’t even marry the man he loves in this state. A man he’s been with for nearly thirty years, and you’re telling me that somehow the world is just going to accept you, me, and your three brothers?”

As she spoke her voice grew louder and her temper flared. All of her fears and her own anxiety at how this weekend would change her life was coming out of her in one angry blow. Hudson released her chin, and stepped backwards silently. Reaching for a towel he handed it to her and then grabbed another to wrap around his waist before meeting her gaze again.

“Rachel, you’re right. Society as a whole doesn’t get it, but what do you care what people think? You’re a fiercely independent woman who is forging her own way, with a bright career and a solid place in this community. So why would you let anyone dictate who you love?”

She couldn’t answer him. His words stuck in her heart like an assassin’s blade. When her mother told her that her father was leaving them for another woman, and another family, a piece of her heart had died a slow death. There were rumors that kept the gossip hounds circling for months as the divorce was processed through the courts, and alimony and child support checks were argued. The kids at school whispered the things they heard their parents say, and the ladies in town watched her and her mother with pity in their eyes. She had sworn in those days that she would never let other people tell her how to live her life, yet here she was using society’s opinions to dictate her decisions. It was a painful truth, but there it was.

Refusing to let him see how much he had shaken the stability of her arguments, she turned and walked out of the bathroom to the bedroom to redress. No matter what, she was leaving this house tomorrow. She was going back to her life, and she was going to allow herself the time to figure out exactly what she needed. Four possible heartbreaks stood between her and the door, but there was nothing she could do about it. Her mind was made up.

****

A couple of hours later Rachel sat snuggly tucked in between Rogan and Parker on the sofa, while Sawyer sat in front of her with her legs over his shoulders. Hudson was sprawled out in a chair with his long legs propped up on the coffee table, and a bottle of beer in his hand. They were watching X-Men and even though Rachel wasn’t a huge fan of the movie, she was a big fan of the moment. Parker’s fingers were playing with her hair as she rested in the crook of his arm, and Rogan’s thumb was tracing circles in the palm of her hand where he held it in his lap. A big bowl sat on the floor nearby, empty but for a few un-popped kernels of popcorn.