Total pages in book: 66
Estimated words: 61929 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 310(@200wpm)___ 248(@250wpm)___ 206(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 61929 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 310(@200wpm)___ 248(@250wpm)___ 206(@300wpm)
It felt like we were playing house right now because we were cooking for a big dinner with everyone. Like a true family dinner, which was honestly a bit jarring to me.
I was so used to eating dinner alone or with other foster kids who didn’t care to talk to me. Having a family dinner wasn’t something that I was familiar with, and now that I was able to experience it, I had definitely been missing out.
This level of casual bonding was something special and not just because it was new to me.
However, as much as the thought of that made my chest feel all warm and fluffy, I knew that this wasn’t a permanent arrangement.
I didn’t need to get attached to guys who possibly just saw me as an incubator for their heir.
But that was the thing. I didn’t believe that they saw me just as that.
They smiled too much. Touched me too much. Why would they put so much effort into making me feel comfortable and safe if they just saw me as a means to an end?
Unless I was just making things up in my head to cope with the pain of having to go back to a lonely, confusing life. Or it was my immature self acting naïve. That had gotten me in trouble before and made me lose my apartment.
“Done with the onion, Aisling?” Claude asked as he came up behind me, resting his hand on my lower back like it was the most natural thing.
Warmth bloomed throughout my body as I looked over my shoulder at him, nodding with a small smile on my face.
“Whatever Chris is doing is already smelling good,” I replied, hearing something sizzle in the pan. He was the best cook of us all and often retreated to the kitchen after long days to decompress, whipping up some new recipe for us to try. Well, mostly me since I felt like I was starving all the time.
“It’s all in the technique,” Chris told me as he flashed me a grin. He was perfectly in his element.
I laughed a little and stepped to the side so that Claude could bring Chris the onion that I’d chopped up. Onion joined the minced garlic in the pan, and the aroma started to smell that much better.
While Chris waited for the garlic and onion to be done, he held his hand out to me, not even having to say anything for me to take his hand.
Chris pulled me to his side between him and Claude. His arm went around my shoulders, while Claude’s went around my side. It was such a simple hold, but it felt so intensely intimate too.
No one outright said anything about being together or having anything outside of a business relationship.
Maybe it was the fact that we were forced to be close or that I was carrying their baby. Maybe that was why they took care of me like this. Fawned over me.
It was a dynamic that I could never begin to explain, but it was starting to really twist up my feelings.
I wanted all of them, but that was most likely unrealistic.
They wanted to raise the baby, not be with me. Besides, how could eight guys be fine sharing one woman? There had to be some jealousy mixed up in there, even if they all claimed that they didn’t feel such a thing.
“Feeling okay today?” Chris asked as he used his free hand to nudge the onion and garlic around in the pan.
I nodded.
“Famished,” I replied.
Claude chuckled, giving my side a gentle squeeze that electrified me.
“We’ll fix that soon,” he promised before stealing me away from his brother. “Help me with the potatoes. He can handle the chicken himself.”
Chris smirked, but he didn’t argue.
I helped cut up potatoes and tossed them in a bowl for Claude to season before putting them in the oven to roast. It wasn’t long before I heard noise coming from outside of the kitchen in the main area.
Since we started doing ‘family dinners’, they put in a long dining table next to the bar so that we could all sit together instead of being spread out.
“If you want to set the table and say hey to the others, go ahead,” Claude told me, pecking my cheek before starting to clean up.
My cheek tingled as I took a moment to watch Claude and Chris, something warm and heavy stirring in my chest. I didn’t realize how badly I wanted a family life like this until I was surprisingly dropped in it. I was so used to being by myself, reading about lives that I wanted to live. Now, I was in one of those stories, but it would come to an end.
Stories always came to end. I had read like a hundred romance books, and every single one of them had an ending. But there was one important rule when it came to romance books: they had to have a happily ever after. But was I in a romance story, or a tragedy waiting to happen?