Page 21 of Doctor Daddies

My shoulders sag as I come out with it, and I pray they don’t think so little of me that they won’t believe the truth I’m sharing with them now. It hurts to even imagine being shot down when I’m being totally genuine, but I have to try and explain my side of things.

None of them speak for a long moment, and I look between them, searching their expressions for something, anything that will give away what’s going on inside their heads.

“So he doesn’t know anything about us,” James demands bluntly.

I shake my head. “It wasn’t the right time to tell him.”

Cole scoffs. “And when will the right time be, exactly? Have you even told your son that you’re going through with this?”

“No, of course not,” I reply. “I’m going to explain it when I’m a little further along, when things have settled down a bit. When the money?—”

I stop myself dead in my tracks, aware all at once of how it will sound if I bring up the matter of cash right now. I mean, they can’t be under any illusion as to why I’m doing this, but it feels crass to even touch on that matter in the middle of such a heated conversation.

“The money will be in your account by the end of the day,” Cole tells me, his voice low. “Just to be clear. Since you held up your end of the deal…”

He gestures toward my belly, and I clamp my hands to my torso without thinking, even though I know there isn’t any way thatthe embryos will have attached yet. I feel protective of them, even now, especially knowing that the men who are meant to be their fathers are pissed as hell at me. I hope it doesn’t reach them somehow, as crazy as that sounds. I get the feeling they can sense what’s going on out here, even now.

“Well, thank you,” I reply, trying to pull myself together. “I should—I should rest. I need to call a cab to get home, and?—”

“You’re going to move in with one of us.” Ross speaks calmly, his voice leaving little room for argument.

My head snaps toward him in surprise, hardly able to take in what he has just said.

“I’m sorry, what do you?—”

“You and your kid,” he replies. “My—our kid. Move into one of the apartments in my block. Cole and I both live there. We can keep an eye on the pregnancy in real time, and it would make me feel a whole lot better if I knew what you were getting up to.”

His eyes lock onto mine, and there’s a steeliness there that I don’t dare argue with. I had hoped to take the first payment to move into a place of my own, somewhere bigger that Lewis and I could get settled into before the pregnancy advanced too much, but I get the feeling I’m not going to be allowed to get away with it.

Hell, it’s probably what I deserve, being treated like a liability—if I can keep a secret as big as a son from them, why would they trust a word that comes out of my mouth?

“I don’t know if I can—my son, he has school?—”

“We’ll make sure he gets there,” Ross replies, not breaking my gaze for an instant. “I think we deserve a chance to get to knowhim, Millie. Especially given that you’re going to be pregnant with his siblings soon enough.”

I’ve hardly even thought about that aspect of things, but I guess it’s true. I glance down to my belly again. They’re right, as much as I don’t want to admit it—as much as I want to pretend that I’m still the one calling the shots here, that I’m the one at the center of all of this.

“I guess….I guess I could,” I reply. “If it would help the pregnancy go smoother…”

“You’ll have all the care you need right there in the building,” Cole adds. “Any time of day or night. It makes more sense than anything else.”

When he says that, something clicks into place in my mind—Lewis. He might be able to benefit from their care too. If they work in this industry, they must have connections, people they can reach out to when they need a helping hand here or there. They might be able to get him into some of the trials that I’ve been looking at, and really, I can’t pass up the opportunity to make his life a little easier.

“I’ll pack up my stuff tonight,” I reply, lifting my chin, mustering as much certainty as I can.

“I’ll come over and pick you up,” James replies. “Ross, Cole—you make sure there’s an apartment ready and waiting for her and the boy when she arrives tonight, okay? Around eight?”

“Got it,” Ross responds.

Everything is happening so quickly—just like that, I’m agreeing to move in with them, agreeing to uplift my whole life just because they have asked me to. But honestly, having a place ofmy own, especially a place close to two of them, is going to make my life easier.

It might be hard to explain to Lewis, but it would be even harder to explain why all the money that I was so sure we had coming in had just vanished because the people involved had changed their minds. Placating them after that huge reveal, that’s the most important thing right now, and I would do well to remember it.

I sink back down onto the bed, remembering what Marianne said to me about taking it easy now I’ve been through the implantation.

God, I doubt this falls into her idea of taking it easy. But I’m the one who walked into this mess, when I could have just turned them down when they came to me with the idea in the first place. I can make all the excuses in the world for it, but there’s no getting away from the fact that I did this.

“Can I just have a minute to myself?” I mutter, and I glance up between them, hoping that they’re not going to make this any harder for me than it already has been. I need to unwind, I need to clear my head, I need something to get my brain out of the racing mode that it has been on since the second I saw Cole’s face behind the curtain. Something that will keep me from losing it entirely.