Chapter 29
twenty-nine
GREER
“I thought that I could take the kids to a couple of different parks while they’re home for spring break,” Greer started.
Nathalie’s kitchen table was full as all the adults sat around it while the kids were in the playroom. Greer needed to talk to them about everything that she had planned for the upcoming spring break, which would lead right into her midterms, which she really needed to focus on studying for. She handed them a piece of paper with the schedule she’d created.
“I thought the boys would really like the trampoline park. There’s a toddler time, so I can take the littles, but the boys can go play on the other part with other big kids.”
They didn’t seem all that interested. Greer frowned as they all sent furtive glances toward each other but said nothing to her.
“I thought we could go to the public library for a bit too.” Greer added. She’d tried to make the week fun and exciting with a lot of adventures out, so they didn’t feel like they were stuck at the house. But she wasn’t quite getting the reaction that she thought she would.
“This all sounds excellent.” Nathalie pushed the paper toward Lachlan but stared directly at Greer. “But we need to talk about something else. I trust you’ll figure out what you and the kids want to do over spring break.”
“All right,” Greer answered nervously. Lachlan and Ivy didn’t seem to know what this conversation was about either from the looks on their faces, but Greer was fairly certain that it wasn’t unexpected that Nathalie would make yet another confrontation of some sort.
Greer took the paper back and put it in front of her, waiting for the other shoe to drop. Had Nathalie finally decided to fire her? Well, that wouldn’t make sense either, not with what she’d just said about spring break. So what the hell could it be?
“Now that I’m back at work full time and getting into the swing of things, we really need to discuss Penny.” Nathalie’s lips thinned, and she moved her gaze from Greer to Ivy. “And her newest argument against us.”
“Us?” Ivy raised her eyebrows at Nathalie. “You mean me.”
“No, I mean us.” Nathalie crossed her arms and leaned back into the chair. She was going full mom mode on Ivy, and it was amusing. Greer’s lips twitched at the thought of it. “Each time Penny goes after you or me for something, she’s attacking all of us. And this latest one just takes the cake.”
“Latest one?” Greer frowned. What were they talking about?
“Penny hit me with adultery,” Ivy flicked her gaze to Greer’s. “I didn’t want to tell you about it.”
Greer’s stomach sank. Her heart shattered. This wasn’t just about having fun anymore with two people who really could give her a good time and make her feel loved. This was about the fact that she’d given Penny the ammunition she needed to launch yet another attack on Ivy.
“Please don’t do that,” Ivy murmured, reaching out and stealing Greer’s hand. “Don’t think this has anything to do with you.”
“With Greer?” Nathalie frowned, her gaze flicking between Ivy and Greer. “Why would it have anything to do with Greer?”
Lachlan’s lips parted. “Because Greer, Ivy, and I have all been sleeping together on and off for the last month.”
“You what?” Nathalie’s eyes widened, and she spun around to face Lachlan. “You and Ivy?”
Lachlan shrugged slightly. “We talked about this.”
“No, we didn’t.” Nathalie looked like she was about ready to blow a gasket.
Greer winced each time her voice pierced the air. She removed her hand from Ivy’s grasp, not wanting to touch her anymore, and definitely not in front of Nathalie when she was about to go ballistic. She’d been on the receiving end of that more times than she wanted, and another shot at her wasn’t going to end in her favor.
She wasn’t even sure she could sit here and listen to this.
“We talked about an open relationship, Nathalie. Remember?” Lachlan reached for Nathalie’s hand and clasped her fingers. Did she have some kind of magic lotion on her skin that would instantly calm Nathalie down with just a single touch? If so, then Greer wanted it.
“Open relationships mean communication. I didn’t know…” Nathalie dropped her voice. She looked from Lachlan to Ivy. “I didn’t know that Penny’s accusations were true. You didn’t tell me that you were cheating on her.”
“I’m not cheating on her. I might still be legally married, but we’ve been separated for over two years. Don’t you dare come at me with that.” Ivy’s brow furrowed, and she put a hard line up there. Greer was impressed. Both Lachlan and Ivy had a way to deal with Nathalie’s bullheadedness that seemed to actually work.
But that still left Greer without any defenses, and probably at the center of all of Nathalie’s anger and hatred.
“This is worse than I thought,” Nathalie murmured to no one in particular. “Open relationships already come with a great deal of judgment and negativity. And you want to enter into that when Penny is biting at the bit to take you down and bury you six feet under?” Nathalie looked at all three of them. “I can’t believe any of you right now. You’d honestly think that this is a good idea under the circumstances?”
“Sometimes things just happen,” Lachlan said. “Like confessions of love in hospital rooms.”
Greer jerked her head up at that, looking directly at Lachlan. What had she just said? Nathalie’s cheeks pinked.
“And sometimes, when you’re lonely, you find solace in the perfect companion’s arms,” Ivy added, looking directly at Greer. “And that companion brings far more to the table than you bargained for.”
“I can’t believe you.” Nathalie scoffed. “You think this is all in the name of love? You’re doing this because you’re horny.”
“Well, that too,” Ivy added with a chuckle. “And it was a very good time indeed.” She grinned at Greer before focusing back on Nathalie. “I’m going to fight this. And aside from the fact that it came as a shock because I still haven’t figured out how Penny might have found out since you didn’t even know, I think it’s a bunch of smoke she’s blowing. No judge is going to think I’m committing adultery when I filed for divorce two years ago and have been patiently waiting for the proceedings to happen and the divorce to be final. No one can be expected to put their life on hold for that long.”
Nathalie’s lips thinned.
Greer continued to watch as the three of them seemed to toss around the hot potato that was Nathalie’s anger in a deft sequence that dissipated it almost entirely. Fuck, they had so much practice doing this, didn’t they? They’d known each other for decades, and Greer was such a newb when it came to entering into this situation.
Nathalie hadn’t been right about her experience with polycules and open relationships, but she had been right about the very fact that Greer didn’t know these three women as well as she thought she did. She’d never been fully included in their lives. She had a closer view than most, and she was about three steps closer to the center than anyone else, but she still wasn’t in it.
Greer glanced toward the kitchen doorway, begging for the kids to come in so she could have some sort of escape. This wasn’t her battle to fight. Why had Nathalie even insisted on having this conversation in front of her anyway? Especially if she hadn’t known…
Had she suspected?
Was this all to get them to confess every time they’d had sex so that Nathalie could masturbate to it at night?
Greer shuddered at that thought. She was so used to picking up the tactics of manipulation, and she’d worked so hard over the years to put that all behind her and to learn to trust people. But the thing about Nathalie was she made it so fucking hard to do that. Greer wanted to see the intentions behind the actions, she wanted to know why Nathalie was pushing things the way she did, because in some ways it was so similar to what Greer’s parents used to do, and in other ways—like the extended three-week apology until it finally sticks—Nathalie was so very different than them.
And right now, sitting at this table with the three of them, Greer had no idea what she needed to believe. Not in Nathalie, and not in herself. And she needed to be able to remedy that. Putting her hands flat on the table, Greer pushed the chair back and stood up.
“If you’ll excuse me,” she mumbled before she snagged the paper she’d printed out and left the kitchen.
She couldn’t keep putting herself in the line of fire when it came to Nathalie. She had to sort out her own feelings on the situation and on the entire issue at hand. Because this wasn’t just about a relationship—or potential relationship—with Lachlan and Ivy. It now involved Nathalie.
Lachlan had seen to that.
And Greer wasn’t certain she could manage a relationship with two when the third was involved.
Her feet almost seemed to float as she raced up the stairs and toward her bedroom, the one place that she knew she wouldn’t be disturbed. Except Nathalie caught her arm just as she went to open the door.
“Don’t walk away from me,” Nathalie said.
“I’ll walk away when I damn well want to walk away.” Greer raised her chin and stared defiantly right into Nathalie’s eyes. “You don’t control me.”
“I know I don’t.” Nathalie took a steadying deep breath and let it out slowly. “But you can’t walk away when we’re having an important conversation.”
“That conversation?” Greer pointed down toward the kitchen even though she couldn’t see it. “That conversation doesn’t involve me.”
“It very much does.”
Greer rolled her eyes and twisted her hand out of Nathalie’s grasp. “No, it doesn’t. I’m not part of that circle, Nathalie. I don’t know why you would ever think that I am.”
Nathalie’s lips parted in surprise. She flicked her gaze over Greer’s shoulder to her bedroom and shook her head. “Let’s actually talk about this, all right?”
“I don’t really want to.”
“Well, I do. Because I’m sick and tired of this.”
“What’s this ?” Greer raised her voice, firing back with all the pent-up anger and fear that she’d held at bay in the kitchen. Because she couldn’t do it anymore. She couldn’t keep putting herself down in front of this woman just for the sake of shutting her mouth and keeping quiet.
“This tension between us.” Nathalie forced her way into Greer’s bedroom and then stood just inside the door with her arms crossed and an eyebrow raised like she was waiting for Greer to join. “And I don’t need anyone else to hear what’s about to happen.”
“What’s about to happen?” Greer looked at her in confusion. “What is about to happen then?” She certainly didn’t want to shut the bedroom door if she needed witnesses. Surely Lachlan or Ivy would come and rescue her, wouldn’t they? They wouldn’t leave her and Nathalie alone to duke it out, because Greer seriously had nothing to defend herself with right now and it would get ugly. And she would end up being the one to walk out and leave.
“Talking.” Nathalie dropped the anger in her voice to something akin to simple acceptance. “Just talking, Greer. I promise.”
Greer squinted, still unsure if she wanted to shut the door or not.
“Please trust me,” Nathalie whispered. “Just this once.”
Just once? Greer might be able to handle that. Stepping into her bedroom, Greer shut the door and then stood right next to it. She wanted an easy escape if she needed it, and this was the only exit. Her shoulders were so tense that they hurt, but she wasn’t willing to let them relax yet either. She needed to know exactly what this was about.
Now.
“I didn’t bring up open relationships because I think whatever’s going on in these houses needs to end.” Nathalie crossed her arms, and Greer was impressed that she managed to keep her voice calm and at a relatively normal volume. “I brought it up because if they’re going to continue, then we need to think about how to do them smartly.”
“There is no we in this conversation, Nathalie. That’s what you’re missing.” Greer bit the inside of her cheek. She hated saying that, but she had to. It was the truth. In a few months or even a few years if she was lucky, she would be gone and moving on to a new family, and Nathalie, Lachlan, and Ivy would be left to be together just like they were now, with maybe a few added benefits.
“There’s so much a we. ” Nathalie stepped closer to Greer, arms at her sides. “And Ivy’s confession just now? That proves it.”
“It proves nothing except that you were right. We got horny, and we got careless. Now the entire family is under threat of being ripped apart because of a stupid mistake that I made!”
Nathalie halted in her forward movement. She literally froze mid-step before putting her foot down without coming any closer. “Mistake that you made?” she repeated the statement, like that would get her more information. “They both made those same decisions that you did, Greer. Lachlan and Ivy had a part in this, not only in their relationship with you but in their relationship with me. And they kept that information from me for longer than they should have. This wasn’t your mistake.”
“That’s not what I’m talking about.” Greer bounced on her toes, the fear ready to spill out in front of Nathalie just so she could stomp on it while Greer was down. “I’m talking about the fact that I slept with two out of three of my bosses, and I don’t regret it at all.”