Chapter Nine #3
“Yes.” Katie sighed. “I’m not proud of what I did.” Hell, she should have faced them and told them the truth. Instead, she had run. She’d let fear of the unknown send her scrambling off with her father.
“Why did you leave?” Jed asked, his voice quiet, almost serene.
“I’d heard the rumors about you two.” She shook her head to displace her father’s voice. “About how you shared women. I was frightened.”
“Of us?” They asked together.
“No. Of myself.” She stopped her pacing and faced them. Hopefully they would understand. “I was eighteen; you two had made love to me just as I’d dreamed about, and then my father showed up with promises of a life with him, in New York City, that I’d only dreamed of.”
Ry and Jed moved to stand, and she raised her hands to stop them.
She needed them to stay seated and not touch her, or she’d never get this out.
“I let my father convince me that I could have a better life at his side. And somehow he knew about you two.” And the words he’d used scared her at that time.
Now she knew it was just a way to control her.
“What did he say?” Ry’s fingers curled into fists.
“That it was unnatural, and that was no way to live.” Tears blurred her vision.
“Your parents being so close, and how Ry’s mom had sex with both Jed’s dad and Ry’s dad.
It wasn’t normal. It wasn’t how men and women were supposed to be.
” Now she could see what her father had been doing.
She lost eight years because she was too young and na?ve to understand.
“I was so damned confused. I wanted to stay, and I wanted to go. And…” She took a shaky breath.
“And what?” Jed asked in a quiet voice.
“Peggy Morris.” Her voice trembled. Just saying the woman’s name made her stomach clench with dread. “My father brought her to talk to me.”
Both men swore, and in a way, Katie agreed. Peggy had dated both Ry and Jed. She’d played them off one another, and when they caught on and dumped her, Peggy became quite a bitch. It didn’t matter they were all adults.
“She made you afraid,” Ry said as he rose and paced to the kitchen and back.
“Yes.” Katie raised her head. “Not of the two of you, but of how I felt.” She took a step closer to Ry before he paced to the kitchen once again.
“I was confused. I wanted to be with you both. Wanted both of you as lovers, and she kept on and on about how it wasn’t right.
And painful.” And her father hadn’t helped either.
“I don’t get it.” Ry raked his hand through his hair. “We would never hurt you.”
“Ry.” Katie placed her palm on his arm. “She made it sound like being with the two of you would be all pain and humiliation. That I’d never have a life.
I would be a slave to the two of you. I would have no voice and would have to obey the two of you no matter what.
She made it sound like Ry’s mother was a slave to your fathers. ”
“Fuck, no.” Ry curled his arms around Katie, pulling her to him.
“Never.” Jed stood and hugged her from the back.
This time, she sank into their embrace, enjoying the warmth and security. She’d gotten the words out. Now she needed them.
“My mom was a strong woman.” Ry’s breath brushed her cheek.
“She took care of Ry and me. Lord, she was the only mother I remember,” Jed said.
“I know.” Katie put her hands on Jed’s where they rested against her stomach.
“And what did your father say?” Jed asked.
“He convinced me that Peggy was right. While I was still trying to sort things out, he had me packed up and on the road.” She closed her eyes against the pain. “He barely let me say goodbye to Gran.”
“Why didn’t you come talk to us?” Jed rubbed his cheek against hers.
“How could I?” Her gaze captured Ry’s. “My father was making things sound so reasonable.” The knots in her stomach returned. “And I was afraid they might be right.”
Katie tightened her arms around Ry’s waist when he would have pulled away from their embrace. The hurt in his eyes was like a dagger to her heart.
“Ry, I was eighteen. All I knew was from what little I had found to read, what Peggy and my father told me. None of it was pretty.” She took a deep breath.
“The times I met your mom, she was kind to me, but she was always busy doing something around the house or running errands for your fathers. It all sounded so reasonable.”
Ry let out a breath before relaxing back into her embrace. “I know, baby.”
“So I went to New York City.”
“Will you tell us about that?” Jed asked.
She nodded, her heart lighter than it had been in a long time.
“If we’re going to do this, let’s get comfortable.” Ry slipped from her embrace, maneuvered an extra-large love seat into position, and made some adjustments before Jed led her over.
“Why not the sofa?” she asked.
“We can be more comfortable with the reclining love seat,” Ry said.
Jed guided her to the middle, and they each took a position on either side of her. “Lean back and relax,” Ry said.
Taking a deep breath, Katie did so. The seat reclined, the three of them half lying down. Both men had their arms around her shoulders, and she snuggled up against them.
“There, that’s better,” Jed said. “Tell us what happened after you left with your father.”
“Well, at first, everything was fine. I was living with my father in Manhattan but wanted to get out on my own. In order to do that, I needed a job.” She’d been so foolish. “I was chasing a dream where my father actually cared about me.”
For the next hour, she told Ry and Jed about her first few years in New York City and how her father hadn’t wanted her to work.
But Katie didn’t like sitting in her father’s luxury apartment doing nothing.
She began to work for another company, started working her way up the ladder, and began college.
Her father had been furious when he found out about the job and that she wasn’t out spending his money or with friends.
Friends her father carefully curated. But there hadn’t been much he could do about it.
She’d moved out into her own place. Yes, it had been small, but she didn’t have to answer to anyone.
After getting her degree in accounting, the company she worked for promoted her, and she started learning about forensic accounting.
When the economy took a nosedive, the company she had worked for was bought out by a bigger company—her father’s. So she ended up working for her father anyway, but at least no one knew the truth.
“It wasn’t until a year ago I realized my father had been making some shady deals.”
Both men stiffened. “Did you confront him?”
“No.” Katie shifted, enjoying the warm cocoon the two men provided her. She was safe here. “My father would have denied it anyway. But there was more to it than that.”
Was she ready to go there? Yes, she had to. Ry and Jed needed to understand why she came back. It was more than her father’s broken promises. A lot had to do with her learning about BDSM. She yawned. She wanted nothing more than to take a nap.
“Will you tell us?” Jed asked.
“Yes,” she whispered, her lashes drifting shut. “But not tonight.” She wiggled around again and let herself drift off. Lord, she was tired.
* * * *
Jed glanced down at Katie and smiled. Her eyes were closed and her breathing deep. Satisfaction at her trust curled around his heart. “She’s asleep,” Jed whispered.
“Yes. She likes to fall asleep on us.” Ry tightened his arm around her. “What do you think about what she said?”
Jed ran his free hand over his face. “Makes sense, but I also feel as if there’s something more.”
“Me too.” Ry brushed a kiss against Katie’s temple. “And it has to do with her father.”
“Yep. Randall was always an asshole.”
“True. But how did he know about us spending the night with Katie and that we’d dated Peggy?”
“I don’t know.” Jed rubbed his chin.
“Katie trusted her father, and he broke that trust.”
Jed sighed. “Do you think she’ll tell us the full story?”
“Eventually. Right now, let her rest.”
Both men closed their eyes. This was the best place to be right now. Katie was in their arms and their lives.