37. An Offer and a Confession
37
An Offer and a Confession
Lilith
We’re late for brunch.
We do our best to play it cool when we enter the room, but I can tell no one’s even remotely fooled. The smirks and teasing glances are blatantly obvious, and after a few minutes of this, I finally say, “Go ahead. Get it over with.”
Antoinette turns innocent eyes on me. “Whatever do you mean?”
I give her the same innocent look, my palm pressing against my chest as I drawl, “Oh, nothing at all. My bad.”
Agatha snickers from her seat on the other side of the table. “I bet you are bad.”
Turning my narrowed eyes on her, I show her my middle finger. “No one asked you.”
Antonio’s hand squeezes my thigh. “Come now, Lil. I’m sure they know they got it from you.”
I pretend to think over his statement, then shrug because it’s obvious he’s not exactly wrong. Then I turn to Matt and ask, “How’re things back at Declan’s?”
“Quiet so far,” he responds. “Declan is a bit disappointed to not be here but understands his job there is critical.”
“Am I allowed to ask a question that pertains to the events we pretend never happened?” Darius asks.
Antoinette replies, “Depends on which events you’re referring to.”
“Yeah,” Tony adds. “There are so many at this point; you’re going to have to be more specific.”
Darius frowns, his hand rubbing over his jaw. “Well, technically, it was a conversation I had with Carolina, so maybe I better wait and ask her.”
“And when was this conversation?”
“Right about the time the warehouse blew up.”
Tony frowns, as does Antoinette, and then Antoinette asks, “If one of us can answer the question, then just ask.”
“Tony should be able to answer it, but it might be delicate.”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Matt mutters. “If The Beast is feeling awkward about potentially delicate question, it must be bad.”
Darius glares at Matt. “I thought we were done with all that Beast shit.”
“We will never be done with the Beast,” Tony interjects. “So, get that idiotic thought right out of that pretty head.” Darius snorts and shakes his head. And then Tony adds, “I think we are all past anything being considered delicate, so ask whatever you want. If I can’t or won’t answer for her, then you’ll just have to wait for an answer.”
“Where is baby Darius?” he asks bluntly.
I spit out my drink, coughing and choking, and Antonio has to whack me on the back a few times before I’m able to take a decent breath. With tears streaming down my cheeks, I grab a napkin, wheezing as I say, “What would Carolina have to do with a baby Darius?”
Antoinette laughs, patting Darius on the arm as she answers, “He told Carolina to name their first baby after him.”
“Oh, shit,” I mutter. “I forgot about that.”
Tony grimaces. “This is far more serious than I imagined, and I’m happy you mentioned it to me and not my wife.”
“Is everything okay?” Darius asks with obvious concern.
Tony sighs, then shrugs. “Well, yes and no.”
“Can you elaborate?” Antoinette chimes in.
“Let’s just say the lack of a baby Darius isn’t for lack of trying,” Tony responds. “It just hasn’t worked out yet.”
“Has she…” I let the question hang out in the air, knowing he’ll know what I’m referring to without having to spell it out.
“No,” he responds quickly. “No losses or anything like that—”
“Is it your swimmers?” Matt interrupts with a smirk.
Tony glares and throws his napkin at him. “No, it’s not my fucking swimmers, you asshole. Though honestly, that would make it easier because I wouldn’t take the difficulty personally.”
“Carolina is upset, then?” Antoinette asks quietly, obviously worried about her friend struggling.
Tony sighs. “Sometimes. Mostly, she’s disappointed. She never thought she could have more children, so when it was no longer an impossibility, she started to seriously consider it.”
“That must be difficult for her,” Matt responds. “And for you.”
Tony waves Matt off. “I’m perfectly fine with or without more babies. I just want Carolina to be happy.”
“Hey, there are tons of options out there,” Agatha offers. “If you decide more babies is what you want, then you can see which path works best for you.”
“Yeah,” Antoinette adds. “You can always get an egg donor. It’s not just sperm being put on ice now.”
Tony laughs. “I’m not sure if she’s up for egg shopping just yet, but thanks for the tip.”
“She can have mine,” I offer easily, not even thinking about how strange the statement might sound in my current company.
Everyone turns their eyes on me at once, and I laugh nervously, kind of wishing I had thought to make this conversation private. So, I add, “I had my eggs frozen years ago, just in case I ever settled down and wanted to try for more kids.”
“Seriously?” Agatha asks, frowning.
“Well, I never really thought anything would come of it, but I figured it wouldn’t hurt to do it.”
“But you would have liked more children,” Antoinette says, more of a statement than a question.
“In a perfect world where I got to have you two and more, sure.”
Agatha sighs, her expression almost sympathetic. “If that’s what you truly wanted, I’m sorry you never got the chance.”
I laugh a bit hollowly. “No reason to be sorry, Aggie. I have everything I need right here.” I look back to Tony and continue, “But if they were needed, wanted, even, then they’re yours.”
Matt asks, “You wouldn’t have a problem watching someone else raise your biological children?”
Now, I grimace, shaking my head. “Nope, my baby days are well behind me. Just call me Grandma, and be back in a couple hours, and we’re good.”
“I’ll definitely talk it over with her if it comes to it,’ Tony states with a laugh. “Though some may find it odd for me to father Agatha and Antoinette’s half-sibling.”
Antoinette and Agatha cackle, and Agatha responds, “If only that was the oddest thing to ever go on with you lot.”
Everyone laughs, their amusement echoing through the room, and I smile as I take in my family, enjoying another joke at their expense.
Smiling, I turn my attention to Antonio, who’s tapping his fingertips on the table rather nervously, asking, “Are you alright?”
He nods, far too quickly, and with far too much vigor, and my eyes narrow in response as I add, “What? What is it?”
“Maybe we should talk about this privately.”
This can’t be good.
“Dude,” Tony says lazily. “We just talked about fertilizing one of my closest friend’s mother’s frozen eggs with my sperm. There is nothing private around here anymore.”
All the color drains from his face, and he seems to be having difficulty meeting my eyes. “What the fuck did you do?”
“It was stupid, really, I know, but,” he responds with significant hesitation. “I’d just been notified of your untimely death, and I know in these instances, they normally dispose of unused samples, and I just thou—”
“Just tell me what the fuck you did, Antonio,” I shout, my worry over what he possibly could have done to have him so uncharacteristically nervous at an all-time high.
Sighing deeply, he places his hand over mine, squeezing firmly as he responds, “Your frozen eggs are actually embryos.”
My blood runs cold in my veins. “What?”
“The eggs that you had in storage,” he responds slowly, clearly. “Back when you died but ended up not being truly dead dead, I used my sperm to fertilize your eggs.”
“Oh, shit,” Agatha whispers, but my eyes don’t leave Antonio.
“What? How?”
He lifts a shoulder and tilts his head. “Money, how else?”
I blink at him, completely dumbfounded. Everyone is silent. All I hear is the pounding of my own heart and that incessant tapping of his finger on the tabletop, which is ridiculous considering, for most people, it’s probably soundless tapping.
“Let me get this straight,” I finally manage to say through my gritted teeth. “Somehow, you found out I put my eggs on ice.” He goes to speak, but I put my hand up, stopping him. “Then, I supposedly died, so you thought to yourself, ‘You know what this world needs? More of our babies,’ and proceeded to bribe a medical facility to not only inject your sperm into my eggs but also to keep this fact hidden from me indefinitely once it turned out I was not indeed dead?”
He has the decency to look somewhat contrite, but I don’t believe for one minute that he truly feels remorseful about high-jacking my eggs. “I know it was a stupid thing for me do. It was invasive, presumptuous, and wrong on so many levels, but even if you weren’t dead, the mere idea that someone else would get to—”
He stops talking abruptly, but we all know what he was going to say. He didn’t want there to be even a tiny chance that I would have a family with anyone other than him. Ever.
Staring at him, I attempt to dissect my chaotic emotions in this moment. Shock. Anger. And something else I can’t quite pinpoint. Something wild and a bit insane.
So, after a long moment of silence, I laugh.
I laugh and laugh and laugh until tears stream from my eyes because this has to be one of the most ludicrous things that has ever happened to me, and I am relatively certain ludicrous things tend to just follow me around for sport.
Everyone stares at me as if I’ve gone completely mental, and I can’t say I blame them. Then Antoinette giggles, too, and everyone turns their attention to her, frowning. She laughs again, this time more loudly, and Darius asks, “What could possibly be funny right now?”
“Nothing,” Antoinette mutters, waving him off. “It’s stupid.”
Agatha responds, “She was gonna make a joke, I know it.”
Antoinette’s sheepish expression proves Agatha is correct, so I say, “Well, go on, then. May as well take the piss out of it and get it over with.”
She smiles brightly, leaning forward and teasing her forearms on the table as she explains, “This is like those super morally grey guys who fuck with their woman’s birth control. Total diabolical shit.”
“I mean,” Agatha responds. “Technically, all he did was create some embryos that will sit on ice for eternity. He didn’t go so far as to fertilize her eggs and then implant them in her uterus ‘cause now that would be fucked up.”
“Pretty sure it’s been done,” Tony adds.
“Oh, yeah. Definitely,” Agatha agrees. “Though most likely not done in loving and protective relationships because we all know how fucked up things get with power-hungry shitbags.”
Antoinette nods, making a face of disgust as she says, “That’s for fucking sure.” She pauses, then her smile returns as she adds, “But this is almost romantic.”
Everyone boos, then they all start arguing at once, laughing and carrying on as if we didn’t just learn a fucked-up secret from Antonio. As if we hadn’t just come from a warehouse where we had to leave a trail of bodies in our wake to survive. As if we’re not on the cusp of the biggest battle of our lives.
Antonio’s hand on top of mine draws my attention, and I meet his eyes, sighing at the worry I see there, so I ask, “Are you going to apologize?”
He frowns slightly, then shakes his head. “I’m not a liar.”
I give him a skeptical look, and his smile, though small, is pretty smug. “I suppose you didn’t actually lie, but that sounds like a super shitty excuse for being a sneaky douchebag.”
He tips his head, unable to deny the truth behind my words. But then he stands and holds his hand out to me. “How about you allow me the opportunity to make it up to you.”
“Any more secrets I need to know about?”
He looks away, making out like he’s racking his brain for possible answers. Then he looks back at me and says, “Maybe you better interrogate me properly, just to be sure.”
Smiling broadly, I place my hand in his, allowing him to help me up, and then lead me out of the room.