26. Mary
Mary
Two days later, the elevator dinged, letting us know Damien had arrived.
I waited at the far side of the sitting room. That sounded cowardly but it was strategic, actually. I’d positioned myself near the window with Sienna beside me, and a cushion in reach in case I needed to do something with my hands that wasn’t clawing my own skin off.
Hudson stood beside the fireplace, calmer than I expected, while Lincoln waited near the sofa, his thick arms folded in a way that made his biceps look bigger than ever.
The doors opened and Damien stood in the center.
He looked exactly the same as he had in Boston.
Sandy hair, his pretty-boy face, and jock shoulders that still tried to convince the world he was taller than five foot eight.
He had the same mouth that had kissed me in the library…
and months later told me we weren’t exclusive.
He looked at me, and his eyes narrowed, then his face went blank before recognition landed and fury came right behind it. “Marli? What are you doing here?”
I hated that name from his mouth now.
“Mary,” I said. I was sure I had already told him as much.
His eyes moved over me, then to Hudson, then Lincoln, then slowly they came back to me and the room seemed to shrink around the silence.
“What the fuck is this?”
Hudson took one step forward. “Damien.”
“No.” Damien laughed but it had an edge to it. “Don’t Damien me. What is she doing here?”
“You need to sit down,” Lincoln said.
“I don’t need to sit down. I need someone to explain why my ex-girlfriend is standing in your apartment smelling like both of you.”
My stomach dropped.
Betas didn’t scent the way alphas and omegas did, not with the same depth, but he could smell scents. It’s not like they didn’t exist for betas. And now mine was wrapped in Hudson and Lincoln now. In their home, their hands, their bed, their care, and their choice.
“She’s not your girlfriend,” Hudson said quietly.
Damien’s head snapped toward him. “I know that.”
“Do you?”
“Don’t talk to me like that.”
“Then don’t make me.”
The words cracked through the room.
I’d seen Hudson precise, I’d seen him controlled, dry, and tender and I’d seen him furious at Callum in a way that made the air taste like storm clouds, but this was different.
Damien flinched, then covered it with anger. “You slept with her.”
Lincoln’s jaw tightened. “Careful.”
“Did you?”
Nobody answered quickly enough.
Damien’s laugh turned breathless. “Oh my God.”
“Damien,” Hudson said, “this is complicated, and you have every right to be shocked. But you won’t speak to Mary as if she has done something shameful.”
“She was my girlfriend.”
“Exactly was,” I said. “I was one of many.”
His eyes cut to me.
My fingers clenched on the cushion. “You were my ex before them. Before any of this.”
“You left because we had one argument.”
“You told me we weren’t exclusive.”
“I was angry.”
“You were honest.”
“I was talking to someone.”
“You were flirting with someone while I was going into heat.”
Hudson’s scent sharpened. Lincoln looked at me.
I hadn’t meant to say that part.
Damien’s face went red. “Don’t make this sound like I abandoned you in the street.”
“You made it sound like I was stupid for thinking I mattered.”
“And then you ran to them? Ended up in my dads’ bed. You fucked them.”
I swallowed.
“Apologize.” Lincoln moved before I could blink. He didn’t cross the room or touch Damien. He only took one step, but the entire penthouse seemed to move with him.
“What?” Damien stared at him.
“Apologize to her.”
“For what? For being surprised that the girl who ghosted me is apparently sleeping with my fathers?”
“Ah, we’re your fathers now,” Hudson said.
The word landed badly. I saw it, and Damien saw it too.
His face twisted. “Right. Of course. Convenient.”
Lincoln’s expression changed in a way that hurt to see, and Hudson turned to stone beside him. “Don’t do that. You’re the one who reminds us permanently that we’re the bonus dads,” he said.
Damien’s eyes glittered. “Does it matter?”
“Look you’re hurt,” Hudson said. “But that doesn’t give you permission to be cruel.”
“You don’t get to lecture me about cruelty. You fucked my ex.”
The word hit me like a slap, not because I’d never heard worse, but because it made the room smaller and uglier.
“Enough,” Hudson snapped.
The sound made Damien flinch again.
It made me flinch too.
Lincoln turned at once. “Mary.”
I shook my head and told myself not to cry but my eyes, unfortunately, had never respected leadership, and the tears came thick and fast.
Damien looked at me, and the anger faltered. Not remorse, more confusion, as if he hadn’t expected me to be a person inside this.
“Mary,” Lincoln said again, softer.
I wiped my face hard. “I’m fine.”
“You’re not,” Hudson said.
“Very observant.” My voice broke, and I hated that.
Damien looked away first.
“Apologize,” Lincoln said again.
“I didn’t make her cry.”
“You did,” Hudson said.
Damien’s mouth opened. Hudson crossed the room so quickly Damien shut it.
He stopped short of touching him. Only just.
“You came into our home,” Hudson said, voice low and furious, “and you spoke to a pregnant omega as if she had set out to humiliate you. You don’t have to understand this tonight. You don’t have to forgive us tonight. But you will apologize to her.”
Damien stared, and the word pregnant hit the room late. His gaze dropped to my stomach.
I’d chosen a loose sweater that morning because I hadn’t known what armor looked like and fabric seemed like a start. It hid behind enough of it that he wouldn’t notice.
“Pregnant,” he said.
My hand went to my belly as Lincoln moved between us, not fully blocking me, but enough.
“Yes,” Hudson said.
Damien’s face paled. “Is it mine?”
The silence after that was worse than the question. I stared at him, and Hudson’s face went cold enough to frighten me.
“You’re a beta,” I said.
His face changed. Lincoln froze, and Hudson closed his eyes for half a second. I felt bad immediately, but I couldn’t take it back, and some frightened, furious part of me didn’t want to.
“I got pregnant during my heat, Damien. Omegas do. And you were busy that night, so unless you’ve worked out how to be in two places, how can it possibly be yours?”
“Oh.” Damien laughed once. “Right. Out it comes.”
“Damien,” Hudson warned.
“No, it’s fine. It’s perfect, actually.” Damien’s eyes were too bright now. “The omega who lectures me about being faithful is standing here pregnant by my dads, but I’m the problem because I’m a beta.”
“Don’t do that,” Hudson said.
Damien ignored him. “You did this to get back at me.”
I blinked. “What?”
“Don’t act stupid. You found out who they were.”
“I didn’t.”
“Of course you did.”
“You’re delusional,” I said. “I never even knew who they were.”
“Right. Come off it.” He turned to Hudson, then Lincoln, and laughed in a way that made my skin crawl. “She played you really good. Don’t you get it? She found out who you are after I cheated on her and decided to pay me back.”
“Enough,” Lincoln said.
Damien looked at me again. “Okay, you win, Marli.”
“Mary.”
“Fucking Mary, then. You win.”
Hudson’s scent went sharp enough to make the room feel charged.
Damien lifted both hands, mock surrender. “Come back to Boston, and I can bring the baby up as mine. These two did it for me. I can do the same. Be a bonus dad.”
For one second, no one spoke. My mind had to think about the offer before I understood. Bring the baby up as mine, not because he loved me or wanted the babies, but because he had found a way to make the story about him.
“No,” I said.
His face hardened. “No?”
“Of course it’s a no.”
Damien’s face hardened. “So it’s theirs.”
“Yes,” I said.
“Both of them?”
“Yes.”
“That’s disgusting.”
Lincoln yelled at Damien, “Get out.”
Damien looked at him. “What?”
“Not from London. Not from our lives. From this room. Now.”
“You’d throw me out for her?”
My heart dropped to the ground.
Hudson’s voice was rough. “We’re asking you to leave this room because you’re hurting someone who doesn’t deserve it.”
“Someone,” Damien repeated. “Right.”
He looked at me then, and for one awful second I saw the boy beneath the pretty face, the child who had been left and had grown hatred around the abandonment. Then he turned away. “Fine.”
“Damien,” Lincoln said. Damien stopped but didn’t look back as Lincoln’s voice lowered. “You owe her an apology.”
Damien’s shoulders went rigid. “Sorry.”
The word came out flat and false. Then he walked back into the elevator, and the doors closed while the rest of us stayed exactly where we were.
I looked at Hudson and saw devastation in his face. Lincoln looked furious or afraid enough to shake. Neither of them looked regretful.
The next morning, I woke before the city.
The room was gray, and the Thames beyond the glass looked like a strip of dull metal. Hudson and Lincoln weren’t in bed. Their sides were cool, but their scents were still in the nest, heavy enough to make my chest ache.
I lay still, one hand on my stomach. “Well,” I whispered, “I hope today is better.”
I sat up slowly. My head felt thick from crying, my face felt swollen, and my heart felt like something someone had dropped and then tried to put back on the shelf at an angle.
Voices reached me from the hallway, not loud at first, then louder. Damien.
“You don’t get to do this,” he was saying. “You don’t get to pretend I’m the problem because I reacted badly to finding out my fathers knocked up my ex-girlfriend.”
I froze as Hudson answered too quietly for me to catch.
Damien laughed.
“No, go on. Tell me I’m being cruel again. Tell me she’s delicate. Tell me I have to be nice to the girl who vanished and then turned up in your bed.”
Lincoln’s voice cut through. “Enough.”
“No, it’s not enough. It will never be enough. You chose her before I even walked in.”
“That isn’t true,” Hudson said.
“It is. You looked at me like I was the threat.”
“You were hurting her.”
“Because I was hurt.”
“Pain isn’t permission to hurt another person,” Lincoln said.
“How do you know she never planned it to hurt me? You trust her, but not me?”
The hallway went quiet as I held my breath.
Hudson said, “Damien, no.”
But the pause had already found me.
“If you choose her, I’m done.” Damien’s voice changed, colder now.
My hand went to my mouth as Hudson said his name.
“No. I mean it. If you choose Mary and those babies over me, then I’m done. Don’t call me. Don’t come to Boston. Don’t pretend you’re my family when you’ve made it very clear what I am.”
His words opened something in me. Damien was turning himself into a weapon because he didn’t know what else to do with being hurt.
The seconds of silence afterward kept opening inside me.
I swung my legs out of bed as my stomach rolled, not with sickness but with certainty I didn’t want.
“Please don’t be boys who grow up dramatic,” I whispered to the babies. “Or if you do, please be dramatic about theater or football or whether chocolate counts as a good group. Not love. Please don’t make people prove love by making them bleed for it.”
The argument continued in the hall, but Hudson and Lincoln were quieter now, Damien was louder because he thought volume was truth if it was applied long enough.
I found my phone on the bedside table, and my fingers shook when I unlocked it.
“Mary?” Maeve answered on the second ring.
I closed my eyes. “Can you come and get me?”
The silence lasted half a second before Maeve’s voice changed. “Are you hurt?”
“No.”
“Are the babies okay?”
“Yes. I think.”
“What happened?”
I looked toward the door as Damien’s voice rose again. “I can’t be here right now,” I whispered.
Maeve didn’t ask a useless question. She covered the phone, but I heard her.
“Gregor.”
There was a low male answer in the background.
Maeve came back on. “Gregor is on his way.”
My breath shuddered. “Don’t tell Hudson and Lincoln yet.”
“Mary.”
“Please.”
Maeve went quiet. That was worse than if she had argued.
“I’m not running,” I said, though I wasn’t sure who I needed to convince. “I’m just stepping out before I become the reason they lose each other.”
“You’re not the reason,” Maeve said.
My eyes filled. “I know that in my head.”
“And your heart?”
I looked at the door, then at the nest, at the scarf, the clothes, the cushions and blankets that had gradually made my nest mine. “My heart is being stupid.”
Maeve’s voice softened. “Hearts often are.”
“Please send Gregor.”
“He’s already gone.”
I hung up and sat there for a moment with the phone in my hand.
Then I got dressed quietly, like a woman who wasn’t leaving forever, only trying to keep a family from breaking in half.