Chapter 32
thirty-two
LACHLAN
“Well, that was interesting,” Lachlan murmured mostly to herself, but she knew the others heard her.
“Yeah, it was,” Ivy agreed, pulling herself to sit on the edge of the kitchen table. They both turned simultaneously to Nathalie, looking for some kind of explanation.
“Want to share where that idea came from?” Lachlan asked Nathalie.
“In a minute. I need to test something else.” Nathalie turned and cupped both of Ivy’s cheeks and dragged her in. She breathed deeply as their mouths connected, their lips and tongues moving together.
Lachlan’s entire body was on fire again, wanting and begging for her to be touched not just by Greer but by these two amazing women. She’d already slept with Ivy once, but she wanted to know what it’d feel like to have both of them—no, all three of them—with her.
Nathalie slowed the kiss, pecking Ivy’s lips before sucking her lower one, eliciting a moan from Ivy in the process. Lachlan had to press her thighs together in response. She wanted to be in there pressed up against them, not standing here watching them.
“Fuuuuck,” Ivy groaned out when Nathalie pulled away.
“Yes, let’s talk about that.” Nathalie pointed at both of them. “Because what Greer just told us? She’s wrong.”
“She’s wrong?” Lachlan furrowed her brow. “I thought she was pretty on the money.”
Nathalie canted her head to the side, her lips playing upward before she went back to her standard resting bitch face. “Mostly.”
Nathalie walked away from them and into the main part of the kitchen. She pulled open the refrigerator and snagged some food. “You two going to help with dinner?”
“Oh, sure.” Lachlan immediately walked toward the sink to wash her hands. Ivy followed her but at a much slower pace.
“How do you do that?” Ivy asked.
“Do what?” Nathalie questioned.
“Go from that kind of kissing to normal in two point five seconds.”
Nathalie laughed and handed Ivy the thawed chicken. “Chop that up, will you?” Lachlan was handed carrots. “Chop into about three inches and quarter them.”
Lachlan said nothing as she snagged a knife and went to work.
Nathalie started talking to them with her back toward them as she rummaged through the freezer. “Greer is right in that we need to start treating this like a family, because we are a family. We designed it that way when we all moved next to each other and when Ivy and I used the same donor.”
“Okay, so how do we do that?” Lachlan asked.
“We move together.” Nathalie pulled out the garlic bread and put it on the counter and then started getting out spices from the cabinet.
“What’s that mean?” Lachlan was still confused as to where this was heading, but this kind of relationship was something completely out of her norm. She felt like she was drowning in this conversation, that everyone else was miles ahead of her in terms of what was going to happen.
“It means that we close ranks, like I said earlier. We figure out how Penny knows about the patients, how she’s filing these complaints against me, and we figure out how she knows that Ivy’s an adulterer.”
“Hey now!” Ivy squeaked. “I am not.”
Nathalie laughed at her. “I know, but it’s fun to say. And since the accusation is on the record.”
“Oh shove it.” Ivy shoulder bumped Nathalie before she went back to cutting up the chicken. “So we get our lawyers talking, we figure out what Abagail has to say about the practice, and then what?”
“You fire everything you have and everything we have at Penny. It’s time you get divorced, Ivy. I’m sick of this battle already, and I’d really like for this baby to be born into a family without so much drama flying around.” Nathalie pulled out pots and pans next, putting them onto the stove.
Lachlan looked over each of them, wanting to make sure that the point she was about to make was clear to each of them. Because in all of their talk there was still one very important piece missing. “In all of this you haven’t mentioned Greer.”
“I haven’t.” Nathalie sighed, looking toward the doorway to the kitchen. “I don’t want to leave Greer out of this. As much as she thinks this is a conversation the three of us need to have, she needs to be involved in it.”
“I agree,” Ivy added. “Because she’s already involved in all of it.”
Lachlan bit her lip. “But she’s our nanny.”
“She is, and she’s probably more at risk from Penny than we are. She’s the one who’s seen as being on the edge of the family unit, and we can either keep her there and keep her vulnerable, or we bring her into this with us so that she’s protected. Fully.” Nathalie drizzled oil into the pan.
“What’s that mean, though?” Lachlan stopped chopping, really needing to concentrate on this conversation in order to figure out what was happening. Because she was still lost.
Nathalie wiped her hands on the kitchen towel and faced Lachlan, moving in and kissing her quickly. “It means that we bring her in fully to the family.”
“But we haven’t even made the family yet,” Lachlan murmured, wanting another kiss already.
“No, but it’ll be easier to do this if she’s involved from the start than to try and add her in later. Then it always feels weird for that person and there can be jealousy involved, and I don’t want any of that.”
“Is this what you do?” Lachlan narrowed her gaze, sliding her hand down Nathalie’s arm to tangle their fingers together. “When you have relationships with people?”
“Not really,” Nathalie whispered and kissed her again. Lachlan hummed and pulled Nathalie in again, but Nathalie kept it quick. “My relationships have been about sex and nothing else.”
“Is-isn’t that what this is about?” Lachlan stuttered.
“Oh, no, so much more.” Nathalie grinned fully. “We’re going to seduce Greer.”
“We’ve already done that.” Ivy frowned, finishing with the chicken and washing her hands again in the sink.
“No, I mean we’re going to seduce her into the family. We’re going to make her want to be a part of who we are, and we’re going to make sure that she’s with us every step of the way.” Nathalie took the cutting board of chicken and dropped it into the hot skillet.
“How are we going to do that?” Lachlan went back to chopping the carrots.
“Well, that’s the difficult part, isn’t it?” Nathalie sighed and focused on each of them. “So I’m open to ideas, because this part of relationships isn’t where I excel.”
“And you think we do?” Ivy pointed at each of them. “She’s divorced, and I’m trying my damnedest to get there.”
“Right.” Nathalie rolled her eyes and crossed her arms. “We need to do this carefully, because I’m not sure about either of you, but I’m not ready to lose her because of our incompetence.”
“That sounds like more than just lust, Nathalie.” Lachlan’s heart skittered rapidly. Were they actually having this conversation? Was Nathalie actually admitting that she might like them all a bit more than she wanted to?
“It is,” Nathalie said smoothly. “Did you think I only wanted you for your body?” Nathalie slid her hand down Lachlan’s side, along her curves from her breast down to her hip and back up again. “Because I have to say, I do love a woman with curves.” Nathalie’s voice dropped low.
Arousal coursed through Lachlan. Was this what it was like to have the full effect of Nathalie turned on her—the flirting, the teasing, the seduction? Greer wouldn’t stand a chance with that, would she? What would Lachlan even have to do in the meantime?
“I uh… I mean…” Lachlan winced.
Ivy chuckled. “Seems you’ve managed to make her speechless.”
“Seems I have,” Nathalie answered, lifting her hand to Lachlan’s breast and massaging it gently.
Lachlan moaned, rocking back into the kitchen counter to keep herself upright and steady from the onslaught of feelings rushing through her right now. Nathalie bent down, her breath brushing across Lachlan’s ear. Was this what Greer had felt like being at the center of all this attention? Lachlan’s heart thundered, and she gripped onto Nathalie’s side to keep herself upright.
“I’ve been cleared for sex, you know,” Nathalie whispered. “And I don’t plan on waiting for you to make the first move this time.”
“Oh God,” Lachlan murmured.
“Not just yet,” Nathalie sucked Lachlan’s earlobe before pulling back with a sexy smirk on her lips. “What do you two suggest, for seducing Greer into our lives?”
Ivy moved to the stove and started to move the chicken around so it wouldn’t burn. “We need to make her a part of decisions. I think she made that clear tonight when she was talking with us. She feels left out of that, and we can’t keep doing that to her.”
“Agreed,” Nathalie answered. “But I think she’ll resist.”
“Probably,” Ivy said. “But it’s a start.”
“I think we need to just treat her like she’s part of who we are, and that’s it.” Lachlan curled her fingers around the edge of the counter. “If we want her to feel that way, then we treat her that way. She’ll figure it out soon enough, but we just start wanting her and she’ll feel wanted.”
Nathalie hummed and nodded. “You’re right. I’m complicating this.”
“You are.” Lachlan smiled at Nathalie. “But you also tend to do that when things are important to you.”
“So, much wiser one than me, we treat her like she’s already a part of us,” Nathalie said for clarification.
“Yes.” Lachlan grinned. “And I know she’s going to be resistant at first. There’s something behind those eyes that I haven’t figured out yet, something that makes her think she’s not worthy of us. I want to know what that is. Don’t you?”
“Hmm, I noticed that too,” Ivy pointed out. “And yeah, I wanna know what that is.”
“Me three,” Nathalie added. “So where do we start?”
“We start by listening to her about spring break, and we start by bringing her into the conversations about lawyers and business. That’s one of the major issues we’re facing right now—Penny.”
“And Baylor—don’t forget him.” Nathalie rolled her eyes and pointed at Lachlan. “Because I don’t think he’s done trying to buy Ivy’s shares.”
“Baylor?” Ivy frowned. “If I’d known he was going to try that one, I’m not sure I would have sold.”
“You would have,” Nathalie fired back.
“Fine, I would have. But if I’d known that Penny was going to come after you for it, then I wouldn’t have.”
“True.”
Lachlan tensed. “I don’t think Baylor is going to be a problem.” Since she’d put her foot down on boundaries, he had respected them. He was a decent guy for the most part. He just came with his own issues of being raised by a family that set certain expectations—ones that Lachlan hadn’t been able to meet. Sometimes she really hated how Ivy and Nathalie could go off on him, bashing on him like he was the worst husband in the world. That wasn’t true.
“Baylor is just looking for his step up in the world,” Lachlan said.
“He might be,” Nathalie tagged on. “But I don’t want to deal with him as a partner, and if he keeps pushing it, then I’m going to start to resent him for it.”
Lachlan breathed slowly. She hated when they lumped Baylor in with Penny in this manner. He definitely wasn’t as bad as Penny—nowhere close even. He might have broken Lachlan’s heart when he’d told her he wanted to leave her because she wasn’t good enough for him, but he had only been speaking the truth.
“Lachlan…” Ivy trailed off, moving in closer. “You know why we don’t like Baylor, right?”
Lachlan shook her head, fighting the tears that were threatening to make an appearance.
“Because he hurt you, and we don’t ever want to see you hurt.” Ivy lifted Lachlan’s chin up so she wasn’t staring at her toes any longer. “He made you believe that you were the one who was wrong and you were to blame for your marriage falling apart, but it wasn’t because of you.”
“It wasn’t? Because it certainly felt that way—still feels that way sometimes.”
Ivy shook her head. “No, it wasn’t. He was the one who decided he couldn’t wait for you to be ready to have sex. He was the one who couldn’t focus on your pleasure, only his. And he was the one who decided that instead of pouring attention into his relationship with you that he would do that with someone else.”
The tears broke through the dam, and Lachlan lifted her hands to wipe them away.
“He was wrong,” Ivy whispered. “Not you.”
“It’s not so easy to believe that. Trust me.”
“I know,” Ivy said. “I struggle with that too when it comes to Penny, but sometimes you have to believe it in your head instead of your heart just to get through those moments for your heart to catch back up.”
Lachlan smiled through the tears, shaking her head. “When did you become the wise one?”
“I don’t know.” Ivy frowned. “I think I should stop that. It’s scary.”
Lachlan laughed fully then, glad to be back to where they typically were. But Nathalie broke the tension. “Ivy’s right.”
“I know she is. Sometimes I just don’t want to believe her, like she said. I want to believe that I’m the one to blame because then I know where to put the blame that won’t hurt as much.”
“It hurts regardless,” Nathalie responded. “And until you can accept that, it’s not going to change.”
“I hear you.” Lachlan frowned. “So about Greer.”
“We always end up talking about Greer, don’t we?” Nathalie stole the carrots from Lachlan and tossed them into the pot with boiling water and a dash of oil.
Lachlan stayed back from the cooking, knowing that it wasn’t her strong suit and that these two had everything under control. She wanted to talk about Greer—every day she possibly could. Greer had made such an impact on her life, and she wasn’t going to sacrifice that for anything.