Chapter 39
thirty-nine
GREER
It was far later than Greer had wanted it to be, but she hadn’t managed to plan this family meeting any earlier with everyone’s work schedules. And she certainly didn’t want the kids to hear what she had to say. It would break their hearts.
The kitchen was quiet, deadly quiet. It was unnerving, and she knew she was going to have to be the one to start speaking, but she hadn’t found the right words yet. She’d tried with Lachlan that morning, but she hadn’t managed to get her point across. And she was pretty sure that Lachlan hadn’t understood what Greer was saying either.
So she was on round two of trying.
Greer stared at her hands in her lap, and she knew the three of them were staring at her. Fishbowl effect to the max. And not in a good way. She’d much rather be splayed open, naked, and masturbating while they all watched her than this. But this… unfortunately at this moment in time… was far more important than sex.
And sex was what had gotten them into this problem in the first place.
Sex and lack of thinking.
“Greer?” Lachlan said, pushing Greer to get out of her head and finally say something.
“Yeah. Sorry.” Greer cleared her throat and shifted uncomfortably in her seat, but she still struggled to figure out what to say next. The words just weren’t coming out of her mouth. “I think…” She didn’t want to say this, but it was the easiest and best alternative that she could think of that would put everyone at ease and solve a lot of the problems going forward. “I think that we need to talk about my contract.”
“What about your contract?” Nathalie’s voice snapped through the room, rippling down Greer’s spine.
She was the one who was so very contract-oriented, so she would be the one who would be offended, thinking that Greer had an issue with the contract to begin with. But that wasn’t it. The contract was solid and perfect. Greer had signed it willingly, and she’d do it again in a heartbeat.
“What’s wrong with the contract?” Nathalie asked again when Greer didn’t answer fast enough.
“Give her a minute,” Lachlan hissed out at Nathalie, a glare in her gaze. “This isn’t easy for her, can’t you see that?”
Nathalie’s lips thinned, but Greer was thankful for the distraction. She’d never had to quit a job like this. The last time she quit a job, she’d been in college and working at the grocery store. And she was quitting to work her dream job of nannying. Every nanny job she had, she hadn’t quit. She’d been laid off because the kids had gotten old enough that they didn’t need her, and the families were moving on and changing.
Greer swallowed the lump in her throat. “I’m quitting.”
“What?” Three resounding unison voices echoed through the kitchen.
But then it was back to the dead silence that Greer had come to expect from this family meeting. “I’m giving you my two weeks’ notice.”
“Like hell you are,” Nathalie said. “I don’t accept it.”
“No offense, Nathalie, but you don’t have a choice in this one.”
“I absolutely do!” Nathalie slammed her hand onto the top of the table. “And I won’t hear anything about it.” She stood up sharply, glaring at Lachlan and Ivy. “I won’t hear it.”
And she was gone.
Greer frowned, following Nathalie’s trail as she walked out of the kitchen and disappeared into the rest of the house. Greer’s heart thrummed steadily, pushing its way into her throat and making it hard to breathe and think and speak.
“I want to understand why,” Lachlan said, her voice so much calmer than Nathalie’s had been. It was a relief to hear that. It was exactly what Greer had needed.
“I tried to tell you this morning, but I knew you hadn’t understood, and that I didn’t make it clear. And quite frankly, it’s my job to inform all of you. I already told Baylor.”
“You said you told Baylor you were terminating because he didn’t pay you.” Lachlan’s face fell.
Greer nodded. “I did, and that’s true. But I also didn’t give him a choice to renew his portion of my contract either.”
“He didn’t say anything when I talked to him about it.”
“Baylor hasn’t paid you?” Ivy’s eyes widened. “The asshole!”
“Exactly what I told him,” Lachlan muttered. “But that still doesn’t explain why you’re quitting now. We finally figured all of this out. We’re working so well together.”
“In more ways than one,” Greer said, tears forming in the corners of her eyes. This was the part that she had wanted to avoid. The tears, the emotions, the pain that she was ripping this family apart. But it’d be easier to do it now than later, and it’d be easier to escape unscathed this way.
“Yeah, exactly,” Ivy said. She stood up from her chair and came to sit right next to Greer. “So tell us what’s going on.”
“But Nathalie?—”
“Screw Nathalie,” Ivy interrupted her. “If she’s going to act like a toddler, then she can stew in her room for a minute. Our concern right now is you.”
Greer smiled at that, those tears flooding into her eyes again. Fuck, this had been what she’d wanted for so long. The family that she’d been searching for, the love that she knew she’d always wanted. A closed polycule. It was everything she could have dreamed of and more, and it was right here at her fingertips. But she couldn’t do it.
She couldn’t be the one to tear them apart and break them down and make them suffer.
And if she wasn’t involved, then the three of them could live and be happy together. The three of them could continue on much as they’d done before her. Greer knew that. Her time in their lives would barely make a blip on their radar.
“Greer.” Ivy lifted Greer’s chin with a finger and looked deep into her eyes. “What’s going on? Because you’re scaring us, and you’re worrying us, and I don’t know what to do if I don’t know what’s going on.”
“She’s being called as witness against you,” Lachlan said. “And I’m willing to bet that that’s the issue.”
Greer frowned. “I thought you said you were going to tell her.”
“It was a crazy day, Greer. And between Nathalie at work, Baylor and his fit, and Abagail looking over everyone’s shoulders, I didn’t have time to let Ivy in on that detail. I was going to talk to her tonight, but since you called this family meeting…” Lachlan trailed off and put her hands up in the air.
“If there’s one thing that I regret in my life, it’s marrying that woman,” Ivy mumbled. “She’s out to ruin all our lives, isn’t she?”
“She is,” Lachlan responded. “But we’re not going to let her.”
“No, she’s going to make me do it for you.” Greer shuddered. All the emotions and fears that she’d kept pent up for the last month started to boil and gurgle angrily in her body. This was what she’d wanted to avoid—an emotional outburst that was going to set them running off in the other direction.
Then again, since her simply telling them to go away wasn’t working, that would be a good option.
“I’m going to be the one to ruin this family,” Greer stated firmly. Because she truly did believe that. “I’m going to be the one who has to sit in that chair on the witness stand and talk about what we’ve done.” She looked at Ivy then. “And I’m not going to lie about it.”
“I’d never ask you to,” Ivy murmured, dropping her hand from Greer’s chin to her hands in her lap and holding onto her tightly. “I don’t want to hide what I’ve found in you—ever.”
“But the boys…” Greer trailed off. “They’re your priority.”
“They are.” Ivy frowned. “But you and me doesn’t have anything to do with them.”
“That’s a lie you keep telling yourself, Ivy. And you need to stop. Your relationships with everyone, including Nathalie and Lachlan, affect them. And right now, the way I see it, you can’t have me and all of them. I’m the one who’s going to have to sit up there and tell the judge and anyone else in that courtroom what we did, and if they ask that we did it more than once, I’m going to have to tell them that too.”
“There’s nothing wrong with having sex,” Ivy started.
But Greer shook her head wildly side to side. “No, there’s nothing wrong with having sex. But there is something wrong with having sex with your employee. There’s something wrong with having sex with your child’s caregiver. And there’s something wrong—at least they’ll see it this way—with having sex with three other people at the same time. And I’m not going to be your downfall. I’m just not.”
“You aren’t my downfall,” Ivy said firmly. She took Greer’s hand in hers and brought it into her own lap. “And stop thinking like you don’t deserve us or that you’re not a part of us.”
“I’m not,” Greer whispered.
“Bullshit. Absolute bullshit. It’s a lie that you’re telling yourself to believe. But I’m going to fight it. Lachlan and I are going to, because you are a part of us.”
“I’m really not,” Greer repeated. “You three were a family before I showed up, and you’ll be a family long after I’m gone.”
“I don’t want you to go anywhere.” Ivy laced their fingers together, and when Greer looked up into her eyes, she could see the hurt that this conversation was causing.
Greer knew that it was going to hurt, that this was going to be hard. And she really wasn’t looking forward to telling the kids, because that was going to be even harder. That was going to break her heart in ways that this conversation didn’t even touch. She spent so much time with those kids, loving them, and to leave them because adults couldn’t play nice? That was the most painful part.
“We don’t want you to go anywhere.” Lachlan came around the table and knelt down next to Greer, taking her other hand. “Ivy’s not lying. You’re a part of us now, and I don’t want that to change.”
Greer glanced toward the empty kitchen doorway. What would Nathalie say to all of this? Or would she simply walk away without even fighting for her? Not that Greer wanted a fight. What she wanted was to go quietly in the middle of the night and forget that this family existed, forget the impact that they’d made on her, the love they’d shown her.
“I’m going to talk to Nathalie when we’re done here,” Ivy said. “She cares, I promise you that she does.”
Greer swallowed the lump in her throat. She didn’t want to talk about Nathalie. She wanted to figure out when her last day of work was going to be and how exactly they were going to tell the kids.
“Let’s all take a breather until we can figure this out, okay?” Lachlan lifted Greer’s hand to her lips. “We don’t even have a trial date for the divorce yet, so we don’t even know if you’ll end up being called.”
“Actually… we do.” Ivy shifted her gaze from Greer to Lachlan. “I do have a date.”
“Are you serious?” Lachlan looked like she was struggling to look interested, concerned, and overjoyed all at the same time.
Ivy nodded sharply. “June first.”
“Ivy!” Lachlan leaned over Greer’s lap and wrapped her arms around Ivy’s neck. “I like this new lawyer.”
“So do I.” Ivy smiled, but then she nodded back toward Greer. “So there will be an end to this. I promise. At least to this part of it. I don’t want you to leave, Greer. I don’t want you to run away or think that we don’t want you here or that you aren’t so integrated in this family that we can live without you. Because the more that time passes on, I’m convinced it’s the exact opposite. I want you here, with us.”
“I do too,” Lachlan added. She stood up and leaned in, wrapping her arms around Greer’s shoulders in a hug.
Greer raised her free hand to hug Lachlan back, burying her face in Lachlan’s shoulder and in her hair and breathing in her scent. This was home. She’d never quite felt that way outside of Kam before, but these two women were home for her.
That still didn’t mean that she wasn’t going to be their downfall.
“I’ll think about it, okay?” It was the only thing that Greer could give them for right now. She wanted to jump back into their arms and tell them that they were right and that she was willing but there was still something holding her back. And she needed to figure out exactly what that was. She needed to do that for herself and for them.
“Think quick,” Lachlan muttered. “Because the thought of you leaving is devastating.”
Greer nodded. “I won’t keep you in limbo forever. I promise.”
“Good.” Ivy swooped in and kissed her quickly. “Now, I’m going to go deal with Nathalie.”
“Good luck,” Lachlan said. “I’m going to leave that one to you tonight. Greer?”
Greer tensed. “I, uh… I have some studying I need to get done. Finals are coming up faster than I thought they were, and I didn’t do so well on my midterms.”
Lachlan frowned at her. “Do you need more time to study?”
Greer should have told her yes. She should have used that to get more time away from them, which she could spend thinking instead of studying, but she couldn’t make herself lie. And she couldn’t stop that people-pleasing string that had been plucked from singing either. “No, it’s fine. I’ll just study when I can.”
“If you need more time, Greer, just let us know. We can adjust.”
“It’s fine. Really.” Greer slid out of the chair and nodded at Lachlan. “But I am going to go study now. Okay?”
“Yeah. Sure.”
She could feel Lachlan’s gaze on her back as she left the kitchen. She could hear Ivy’s harsh tones to Nathalie as she walked past Nathalie’s bedroom. But she was ensconced in the silence of her room, blanketed by the draining of the emotions of the last two-weeks, and rung out from all the decisions she’d had to make.
She just needed one more night away from everything to figure this out.
One more night to find a way to tell them that they needed to give up on her.