“You're not alone, you know,” he said. “You're not going to have to do this by yourself. Just know that.”
“Thank you, Nathaniel,” I said.
The look we shared between us helped me relax, for a moment. But, the talking and planning continued around us. The normalcy of the whole situation was grinding on me. I know how ridiculous it sounded, but they were all carrying on like there was nothing amiss. Like there was nothing wrong and today was just like any other day.
Except it wasn't.
What color should we paint the nursery? Maybe Jude should look at a bigger house? The voice in the back of my head was urgent. Insistent. Nothing about this whole situation was even in the same universe as normal.
“A bigger house than this?” I asked. “It's plenty big enough for us.”
“All of us?” Dominic asked with a sly wink.
“What do you mean all of us?”
I looked at Jude. He put his coffee cup down and cleared his throat. He exchanged a funny look with his friends and then turned back to me.
“We've been talking for a while about going in on a place together,” he said. “It makes sense, since we're all like a family anyway.”
I looked around the table again and the guys were all nodding. It was already feeling unreal to me and that was just making it all that much more surreal.
“Would you be okay with that, Ember?” Jude asked. “All of us living together?”
I stared at him for a long, anxious moment. It had never occurred to me before that very second that we could all live under the same roof. Each of these men meant something to me now, but compared to what I had with Jude, what I felt for them paled slightly. The idea of all of us living together under one roof wasn't even something that had occurred to me – and with a baby on the way, it only meant things would be more crowded.
Except, of course, if one of them was the father...
“Is this because of the baby?” I asked, finally swallowing my pride just enough to choke those words out.
“It's true we could use all the help we can get,” Jude said.
“I didn't mean it like that,” I said. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. “What I mean is – because we don't know who the father is?”
The room went silent for a long few minutes. You could have heard the proverbial pin drop. I opened my eyes again and all four men were staring back at me. Dominic was grinning, even Zane had a slight smile touching the corners of his mouth. Nathaniel had his boyish grin and Jude – well, Jude – looked amused as hell.
“Ember, I'm the father,” he said matter-of-factly.
“You don't know that, Jude,” I whispered, as I clenched my hands in my lap, trying to avert my gaze. “There's no way we could know that.”
“Yes, there is,” Jude said. “Because you're mine, Ember. You're mine and this is our baby, to raise together.”
I shook my head, the heat rising my cheeks. My eyes were stinging. He just wasn't getting it. There's no way he could definitively know that it's his child. Yes, I'm his. But, this baby very well may not be.
“I've slept with every man in here,” I said.
My words became slurred. I realized, in that moment, that I'd felt some guilt for enjoying it. Guilt for being with these different men, and now I felt dirty. I didn't even know who the father of my child was, what kind of woman was I?
“It could belong to any one of you, for all we know,” I said, my voice barely more than a whisper.
Nathaniel slid over to
sit beside me, placing an arm over my shoulder, a gentle smile upon his lips. Jude was on the other side of me, holding my hand. It all felt so good, to be comforted by these men, whom I cared for a great deal. But, that also only exacerbated the situation – any one of them could be the father of this child and none of us, not even Jude, knew whose it was.
“Ember, let me tell you something important,” Jude said, leaning down to whisper in my ear. “I can't have kids of my own.”
He lifted my chin and made me look at him. His eyes glistened and sparkled, filled with unshed tears. Happy tears, as evidenced by the smile on his face. He rested his forehead against mine and kissed the tip of my nose, that smile playing upon his lips never faltering. His expression giving me no indication that he was being anything but genuine. Sincere.
He knew. Of course he knew. All along he knew that he couldn't have actually fathered this child. He wasn't stupid.