“Oh my god Margot, you look well fucked and sexy as hell,” Tricia said approvingly.
“Definitely well fucked,” Jake said and grabbed me into a big hug. “You smell like sex. Yum!”
“Gross,” I said and pushed him away laughing. “I do not, I had a shower this morning.”
“Tell us every damn thing there is to know about Ryker Montgomery,” Maria said as we all sat down. They leaned in to hear some more.
“Well, he’s amazing. But so is his brother Quinn,” I said and raised my eyebrow as I looked around the table with a meaningful gaze.
“Oh dear, you’re fucking both of them?” Tawny said as she strolled up. She looked thinner and older than before and I wondered what kind of crap she was getting up to.
“I might be,” I laughed and brushed off the tone in her voice.
“I might need to borrow my half of the rent,” Tawny said and draped herself in the seat next to me.
“Ryker gave you six month’s rent,” I said, “how could that be gone already?”
“Oh you know, new clothes and shit,” she said snottily.
“And blow,” Jake said behind his hand but loud enough for everyone to hear. “Lots of it.”
“Oh Tawny, why are you doing this to yourself?” I asked, feeling sorry for her. She used to be a nice girl when she wasn’t a bitch, and a decent friend from time to time; I hated seeing anyone like that. “I can’t help you. You have to learn how to dig yourself out of this mess.”
She brushed me off with a haughty glare and ended up dominating the conversation with her stories of biker parties and private groups until I literally felt sick halfway through the meal.
I jumped up and rushed to the bathroom, threw up everything I’d just eaten, and felt immediately better as I splashed cold water on my face.
Maria came in as I was finishing up and watched me for a moment. “Are you pregnant, girl?” she asked.
I choked and said, “God no, we’ve been careful.”
“You’re on the pill?”
“Yeah,” I said.
“And you haven’t missed any?” she asked.
I thought about it and remembered the trip to the bed and breakfast. I hadn’t brought my birth control along but hadn’t thought a couple missed days would make much of a difference. “Uh…shit,” I said as it clicked in. I’d started sleeping with both of them almost immediately.
“You’d better get yourself a home test,” she said.
I went back to the table and listened as Tawny talked endlessly about her escapades. I leaned towards Jake and told him, “Let’s just you and I meet up next week some time.”
I stood up and told them, “I need to get home, I don’t feel so good but I’ll have them put this on our card so order whatever you want.”
They were sad to see me leave and I was sad to go, but the thought of being pregnant wouldn’t leave my head and I had to know.
I picked out a digital test and drove home in a daze.
I parked in front of the house and ran upstairs to our bedroom to read about the test.
Once I was confident I understood how to pee on the stick, I went ahead and did it.
The guys were due home in about an hour but I couldn’t wait. I stood next to the counter with shaking hands until my phone gave off an alarm and I checked the results.
Pregnant.
There it was, the little word in the little box that just completely turned my world upside down.
I was pregnant. And there was no way to tell who the father was.
I was elated and terrified.
Elated because it was everything I’d ever wanted, but terrified because I didn’t know how they would react.
What if they threw me out? What if they thought I’d done it on purpose?
What if they denied me and the baby?
I waited for them downstairs. I sent the kitchen staff home early so we could have some privacy and I was almost sick again when they got back.
“I have to talk to you,” I said, waiting for them at the top of the steps. I was lucky they’d gotten home at the same time, apparently some road work on the way back had kept them both in the same traffic jam.
They looked at each other, shook off their wet jackets and hung them up.
“What’s this about, kitten?” Ryker asked.
Lighting flashed outside and I tensed up, waiting for the thunder to follow. I squeaked when it did.
“Are you okay?” Quinn asked and rushed to my side. “She’s terrified of storms,” he explained to Ryker.
“I’m pregnant,” I blurted out without the flare and flourish I had been practicing.
They both froze as the words sunk in.
“Pregnant?” Ryker asked.
“Yeah,” I said. “I don’t know who the father is.”
I felt a hot tear slip down my cheek.
“It’s me,” Ryker said with a growl and he stood on the other side of. “That baby is mine.”
He grabbed my arm and tried to pull me away from Quinn.
“There’s no way to know,” I said and tried to get away from his tight grip.
“This baby could be mine, asshole,” Quinn replied and gripped my other arm.
I twisted hard and pulled away from both of them. I turned in a rage and said, “Don’t you get it? There’s no way to tell! You’re identical twins, how will we ever know which one of you fathered this baby? You’re going to have to get used to it.”
“It’s my child,” Ryker said stubbornly.
“No it’s not,” Quinn replied with equal hostility in his voice.
Ryker turned and punched him and in a flash they were fighting, rolling around on the ground and swearing at each other over who the father would be.
I screamed but they didn’t listen to me, they completely ignored me. I stomped my foot and yelled at them to stop. It was like I wasn’t there.
I was so angry that I grabbed my purse and keys and ran out into the stormy night.
I got into the Range Rover, started it and waited for a few minutes to calm down. They didn’t even come after me; it was like they didn’t even notice that I was gone.
I put the car in drive and decided they needed time to cool off before I went back in. I decided to drive to the city, but remembered the roadwork that had kept the twins held up for so long.
I took a winding road along the ocean and was going to drive until I found somewhere to pull over and gather my thoughts.
The rain beat down and made it hard to see. The road was unfamiliar to me and it began to wind and twist upward into the thick forest, away from the water.
Fewer and fewer houses remained and I realized I might be headed into the mountains. The GPS was confusing and I was fiddling with it, trying to get home when a flash of lightning just ahead of me made me scream in fear and grip the wheel, preparing for the thunder.
It came with a deafening boom that made me instinctually squeeze my eyes shut and scream in fear.
I felt a thud and my eyes flipped open to see the Range Rover driving off the road and down a steep embankment.
I hit the brakes and jerked the steering wheel, but it was too late.
In an instant I was rolling and rolling and rolling. The sounds of metal twisting and grinding were all around me and all I could do was scream for Ryker and Quinn.
I felt my body flop around like a rag doll and my head slammed into the steering wheel.
I felt my phone slip out of my pocket and saw it briefly in front of me as the car did another flip. I reached for it, but it slid from my hands and my head hit the steering wheel again.
The airbag deployed and I was slammed right in the face as the car finally settled down into its final destination.
I groaned, reached up and felt blood covering my face.
I tried to unbuckle my seatbelt, but my hands wouldn’t work properly and my vision was going blurry.
I took a deep breath and gave it one last attempt.
I failed
as the blackness overcame me and I slipped into the deepest darkness, away from my troubles and away from my loves.
The last thing I heard was the rain beating down on the side driver’s window of the car and my cell phone ringing.
Chapter Twenty Six
Oh god I was so thirsty. Why was I so thirsty? I reached for the glass of water on my nightstand and found only empty air.
Suddenly I came back to consciousness in my body and remembered where I was.
I’d gone off the road in a stupid freak out during the storm.
After I’d fought with the twins.
About the baby.
Oh my god, the baby. I strained against my seatbelt but couldn’t wiggle my arm free. I used my other one to feel my belly, as if I could diagnose the health of my fetus using my own touch. I couldn’t feel much of anything in the midsection though; the seatbelt had cut off blood flow to most of my body.
What I could feel really fucking hurt though. I groaned and shifted, tried to get my hand down to my seatbelt so I could unhook myself but there was no way I could get that close.
I heard my phone ring again, almost desperate in its need for me to answer and I wondered if it was Quinn and Ryker. They must have been sick with worry.
I struggled again and realized I was on my side hanging in the air. That’s why it felt like I was fighting just to move, I was fighting against gravity itself.
Where the seatbelt cut into my body I was completely numb, but along my chest and face where the airbag had deployed, I was aching and sore.
My head throbbed from hanging when I’d been passed out and my neck felt like it was going to crack.
“Come find me,” I said to my ringing phone. My voice cracked and my throat was so dry it hurt.
I closed my eyes and prayed that they would find me soon…or that anyone would find me. I wasn’t even sure where I was.
Rain still fell against the window of the car but the thunder and lightning had passed. It was dark and I opened my eyes again and tried to move my head to get a look at where I was, but all I could see was the thick brush surrounding me.
I felt myself fading again and let myself slip away. I couldn’t stay awake and the darkness in my head was more comforting than the darkness outside the car.
***
I had no idea how long I’d been passed out and I had no idea how long it had been since the accident. It was still dark outside but something had woken me up.
I listened carefully but all I heard was the gentle pattering of rain on the car. I closed my eyes to fall into my own darkness again but something caught my attention in the distance.
I thought I heard something, a noise like a voice in the night.
I listened again and didn’t hear it. I passed it off as my imagination and closed my eyes again.
I snapped them open a second later. That was definitely a voice.
“Help! Over here!” I yelled but my dry throat was too cracked for the sound to travel that far.
“Please,” I started to sob and tears poured down from my eyes and dripped along the side of my head to drop on the seat below me.
A light cut through the night and pierced my vision. I struggled against the seatbelt again and wriggled with all my force. The light almost came to the edge of the car but cut away again, swinging the other way. It was leaving and I couldn’t get free.
My phone started buzzing and I perked up, used every ounce of my energy to scream, “Help!”
The light swung back towards the car and I began to shriek hysterically, fighting and kicking as I dangled in the seat belt.
“She’s over here! Ryker! I found her!”
I started to cry harder at the sound of Quinn’s voice. I saw two beams of light cut through the night and heard the sound of them running through the underbrush.
They shone their lights into the cab of the Range Rover and I began to laugh with joy. “I’m here,” I called out.
“Margot, thank god,” Quinn exclaimed.
“We were so worried,” Ryker told me. Their faces were matching masks of naked concern.
Ryker leapt onto the side of the car and pulled at the door. Quinn jumped up behind him and helped him jerk it open. “Hold on, sweetheart,” Quinn said and reached in towards me. He propped himself against the seat and wrapped his arm around my waist as he unbuckled the seatbelt at last.
Ryker helped him lift my body from the car and I stopped crying as I realized I was free. I was safe.
I was with my guys.
Quinn passed me up to Ryker’s waiting arms, he pulled himself out of the car and they let the door slam shut.
I was limp; my body ached so badly that I couldn’t even keep my own head up. I felt like a weak little animal and I had nothing left in me to give. I couldn’t even talk as Quinn jumped off the Range Rover and Ryker passed me back down to him.
“Oh Margot, sweetheart,” Quinn said and brushed my hair off my face. “Are you okay? Did you break anything?”
I finally found my voice even though it was tiny and barely perceptible above the sound of the blood rushing through my head as I was upright again. “I think…I might be okay. I don’t feel anything broken.”
“Take my jacket, you’re shivering,” Ryker said and removed his leather coat. He draped it over me while Quinn still held me tight. The rain had slowed down but I still felt cold to my very core.
“How did you find me?” I rasped as Quinn carried me out and Ryker held the flashlight to help us find out way.
“Your phone,” Ryker told me. “We used that tracking app to find you.”
“What tracking app?” I asked.
“Oh,” he said, “I meant to tell you. When I was deep undercover I decided to keep track in case I lost you.”
I felt like I should have been mad but at that moment I didn’t care. His tracking app had saved my life.
“Thank god my brother is a controlling fucker,” Quinn chuckled and squeezed me tighter. “Without that we never would have thought to come up here.”
“I could hear you calling and calling but I couldn’t reach my phone,” I said with a trembling voice.
With one last struggling step Quinn walked me over the last edge of the embankment and we were on the road. I glanced back down and Ryker followed right behind us.
There was a swath of broken bushes and torn up dirt from where I’d gone over the edge.
The gravity of my situation hit me then and I started to cry again. Quinn let Ryker take me from him as we walked down the road a ways to where they’d parked Quinn’s car.
They helped me into the front seat and Ryker pulled out his phone. He punched in the emergency number and reported the accident.
“We’ll drive you to the hospital,” Quinn said. “We can make it faster than the ambulance.”
He started the car and we slowly turned around and picked up speed as we headed back towards the city.
I rested my head against Ryker’s shoulder and let myself watch the road slip under the front of the car until I felt hypnotized and sleepy again.
It took no time at all before we pulled in front of the hospital and Quinn jumped out of the car.
“Come on, kitten,” Ryker said and helped me out while Quinn waited. Quinn picked me up in his arms and carried me to the sliding doors.
“She needs help!” Ryker called out and we were immediately surrounded by medical staff. I was whisked away into a room of my own and was once again reminded of how money and influence makes life easier.
I felt completely detached from my body as the doctor and nurses began to examine me. I closed my eyes and let myself sink down into the twilight behind my eyes.
***
I didn’t know how much time went by but it felt like I floated on a cloud of blissful unawareness. I slowly began to return to the surface of consciousness and heard voices around me.
“Is she awake?”
“I don’t know.”
“You’re sitting right next to
her, dude.”
“She might be. Margot?”
I tried to open my eyes but couldn’t. It felt as though they were glued together so I tried again but didn’t manage it.
“She is,” Quinn’s voice floated into my ears.
“Margot,” Ryker called out, his concern was evident and I wanted to tell them I was okay.
But I couldn’t. I tried but I couldn’t.
“Did she open her eyes?” Ryker demanded.
Quinn’s voice was closer, right next to me. “She’s trying. Margot, sweetheart…can you hear me?”
I felt him take my hand in his and I forced every ounce of energy into my eyelids and managed to crack them open.
“Hey,” I said in a hoarse, dry voice.
“She’s awake!” Ryker exclaimed and joined Quinn at my side. “Kitten, are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” I croaked. “What happened?”
“You were in an accident,” Quinn told me, “you hit your head and have a mild concussion. Other than that, you’re going to be just fine.”
“What about the…” my voice trailed off, I was unable to continue the horrific thought about the baby.
“The baby is fine,” Ryker said quickly. “Well, the peanut. It’s pretty tiny right now, just a little tiny speck on the ultrasound.”
“You got to see it?” I asked.
“We both did,” Quinn replied and took my hand. “It looks just like Ryker with his big round head and all.”
I laughed and opened my eyes fully. “You guys are identical, you know that right?”
Quinn grinned and said, “Not exactly. I’m obviously much better looking.”
“In your own head maybe,” Ryker quipped, “you lack my obvious charms of course.”
I laughed again and brought my hand to my forehead. “Ouch, I can’t laugh that hard you guys.”
“Geeze, Margot, we’re idiots,” Quinn said and leaned towards me with fear in his eyes. “I was just so relieved to see you awake I think I forgot myself.”
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