7. Ivy
IVY
I wake up in West's bed, which shouldn't surprise me anymore, but somehow still does.
The sheets are dark gray. His tattoos look different in morning light—softer somehow, less like warnings and more like stories written in ink. His arm is draped across my waist, fingers loose, and when I shift, he doesn't wake. Just tightens his grip for half a second before relaxing again.
I should feel something.
Guilt, maybe. Shame. The hot crawl of wrongness that should live somewhere behind my sternum when I think about the fact that I've spent the last several days sleeping with three men who are technically—legally, if not in any way that actually matters—my stepbrothers.
I search for it.
Actively look. Dig around in the places where guilt usually hides—the space between my ribs, the back of my throat, the pit of my stomach where anxiety likes to coil up and wait.
Nothing.
Not denial. Not avoidance. Just... nothing.
I'm waiting for the voice in my head that says this is twisted or your father would be horrified or what would people think if they knew?
But the voice doesn't show up. Hasn't shown up since that first night in the living room when I walked downstairs in a silk nightgown and made a choice I can't take back.
Don't want to take back.
That's the part that surprises me. Not that I did it—I'm impulsive, always have been, the kind of person who makes decisions and regrets them three hours later when the adrenaline wears off. But this? No regret. Just the quiet hum of something that feels suspiciously close to satisfaction.
West shifts beside me. His thumb finds the curve of my hip bone and traces it, slow and deliberate, and I realize he's awake.
"You're thinking too loud," he says.
"I'm not thinking at all."
"Liar."
I turn my head. His blue eyes are open, watching me with that stillness he has—the kind that makes you feel like he's cataloging every expression, every breath, filing it away somewhere you can't reach.
"What time is it?" I ask.
"Early."
"That's not a time."
"You don't have anywhere to be."
He's right. I don't. For the first time in years, I have nowhere to be, no schedule to keep, no version of myself to perform. Just a few more weeks in this house with three men who've somehow made captivity feel less like a cage and more like the first deep breath I've taken since my mother died.
I don't say that. Instead, I shift onto my back and stare at the ceiling. West's hand stays on my hip.
"Knox is making breakfast," he says after a moment.
"How do you know?"
"I can hear him."
I listen. Faint sounds drift up from downstairs—the clatter of a pan, water running, Knox's voice saying something I can't make out followed by Roman's low response.
"They're arguing," I say.
"They're not arguing. Knox is talking and Roman's ignoring him."
"Same thing."
West's mouth twitches. Not quite a smile, but close. "Get dressed. You're not going down there in my shirt."
"Why not?"
"Because Roman will drag you back upstairs and we won't eat until noon."
Heat flickers low in my stomach. I don't let it show. Just roll out of bed and find my clothes—yesterday's dress, bra, and panties crumpled on the floor, underwear I don't remember taking off draped over the back of a chair.
West watches me the whole time.
Not leering. Just... looking. Like he's taking inventory.
"You changed your nail polish," he says.
I glance down. Dark red, almost burgundy. I did it two days ago in my bathroom, sitting on the counter with my feet in the sink because I was bored and restless and tired of looking at the chipped pale pink I'd been wearing.
"Yeah."
"Looks good."
That's it. That's all he says. But I think about it the entire time I'm getting dressed, pulling the sundress over my head, smoothing my hair with my fingers. The way he noticed. The way he said it—not a compliment, exactly. Just a fact. An observation he thought I should know he made.
I think about it while I'm brushing my teeth in his bathroom. While I'm walking down the hall toward the stairs. While I'm passing the security office and catching sight of Roman through the open door, standing in front of three monitors with his arms crossed, jaw tight.
He looks up when I pass. Doesn't say anything. Just watches me until I'm out of sight.
I think about Knox calling me sweetheart yesterday when I spilled coffee on the counter and swore, the way he said it without thinking, like it was my name and always had been.
The way I didn't roll my eyes or tell him to stop.
Just grabbed the towel he handed me and wiped up the mess and let the word sit in my chest, warm and easy.
I think about Roman walking into the living room three nights ago and the way the air tightened. Not because he did anything. Just because he was there. Because his presence rearranges a room whether he wants it to or not, and I've stopped pretending I don't feel it.
I'm not lying to myself anymore.
This is more than physical.
I know it because when Knox laughs at something stupid I say, I want to hear it again.
I know it because when Roman looks at me across the dinner table, I forget what I was going to say next.
I know it because West told me I wasn't performing for them, and I believed him, and something in me unclenched that I didn't know was tight.
I've never heard of a relationship like this.
Don't know if it has a name. Don't know if it has a future. Don't know if anyone outside these walls would understand it or if my father would disown me or if the world would crucify me if they found out.
Don't care.
Not right now. Not in this house where the rules are different and the only people who matter are the four of us.
I reach the bottom of the stairs. The kitchen smells like coffee and bacon, and Knox is standing at the stove with a spatula, humming something under his breath. He looks up when I walk in.
"Morning, sweetheart."
There it is again. The word I should hate. The word I don't.
"Morning."
Roman appears in the doorway behind me. I don't turn around, but I feel him—the way you feel a storm rolling in, pressure dropping, air going still.
"Sleep okay?" Knox asks.
"Fine."
"West kick you out?"
"I left voluntarily."
Knox grins. "That's a first."
I flip him off. He laughs and turns back to the stove.
Roman moves past me, close enough that his arm brushes mine. He doesn't say anything. Just pours himself coffee and leans against the counter, eyes on me.
I meet his gaze. Hold it.
"What?" I ask.
"Nothing."
"You're staring."
"You're standing in my kitchen."
"It's my father's kitchen."
"Technicality."
Knox slides a plate in front of me—eggs, bacon, toast. I didn't ask for any of it. He just knows what I eat now, the same way he knows I take my coffee with cream and no sugar, the same way he knows I hate mornings but I'm less hostile if I'm fed first.
West comes downstairs a few minutes later, still barefoot, T-shirt wrinkled. He doesn't sit. Just leans against the doorframe and watches the three of us like we're a scene he's studying for later.
I eat. They talk—something about a meeting, something about schedules. I'm only half listening. My brain is somewhere else, turning over a thought I've been avoiding for days.
I don't want to choose.
The thought surfaces, and I hold very still.
I don't want to pick one of them. Don't want to wake up in Roman's bed and wonder what Knox is doing downstairs.
Don't want West's quiet observations and lose the way Roman's hands feel when he pulls me against him.
Don't want Knox's warmth and give up the way West looks at me like he's solving a puzzle only he can see.
I want all of them.
Not rotating. Not taking turns. Not some arrangement where I'm shared like a resource.
Just... this. All of it. Every version of them.
I don't say it.
I'm not ready. The thought is too new, too fragile, too impossible to explain out loud. So I hold it carefully, the way you hold something breakable, and I finish my breakfast and drain my coffee and stand up.
"I'm going outside," I say.
Knox raises an eyebrow. "It's hot."
"I like hot."
"You hate hot. You complained about it yesterday."
"I changed my mind."
Roman's watching me again, that look that says he knows I'm up to something but he's going to let me do it anyway.
I walk toward the back door. Feel their eyes follow me.
I don't look back.
The garden is quiet.
Sun filters through the trees, dappling the grass in gold and green. There's a spot near the back wall—private enough that the house can't see it from most angles, open enough that if someone wanted to look, they could.
I've been here long enough to know where the cameras are. Long enough to know when Roman's in the security office and when he's not. Long enough to know that Knox can hear me from the kitchen if I'm loud enough and that West has a habit of appearing in doorways without warning.
I know exactly what I'm doing.
I stand in the sun for a moment, letting the heat soak into my skin. The dress I'm wearing is thin, easy to pull off. I wore it on purpose.
I reach for the hem.
Pull it over my head in one smooth motion.
Underneath, I'm wearing a white lace bra and matching underwear—nothing fancy, just the kind of thing that looks deliberate without trying too hard. I drop the dress onto the grass and lie down, stretching out on my back, closing my eyes.
The sun is warm on my stomach. The grass is soft under my shoulders.
I wait.
I don't have to wait long.
Footsteps. More than one set. The sound of the garden gate opening and closing.
I don't open my eyes.
Not yet.
"Sweetheart," Knox says, voice low and amused. "What are you doing?"
"Lying in the sun."
"In your underwear."
"It's hot."
"You hate hot."
I open my eyes. All three of them are standing over me—Roman to my left, Knox at my feet, West to my right. The sun's behind them, haloing their heads in gold, and for a second I just look.
"I changed my mind," I say.
Roman's mouth twitches. "You said that already."
"Still true."