Big Three: MFMM Contemporary Romance

by Demi Donovan

  “I’ll say that again. Jesus. Fucking. Christ,” Callum announces.

  I laugh and Troy and Austin chuckle. I know I’ve done this before, but… well, it felt like the first time, and not only because of what Troy did. I feel like this was a beginning… of something unquestionably good.

  “How are you, baby girl?” Austin asks, planting a kiss on my cheek.

  All I can do is nod.

  I think I’ll be fine.

  Scratch that. I’ll be better than fine. I’ll be fucking fantastic.

  Thirty-Three

  Callum

  I haven’t checked my phone since going to Honolulu International, and I think I won’t for at least another week or two. There’s nothing there I need to see.

  The wind’s blowing gently and I’m surrounded by the people I love, and who love me, no matter what. And I can’t believe I’m here, having this moment.

  It seems fucking surreal in the best kind of way. Lily’s dressed in a light pink gown that Andrea found in her luggage, because we still haven’t been able to collect her suitcases from the airport. I’m in light slacks and a white button-up, which seems to be on par with the dress code of a beach wedding. Austin’s on the right of Lily and Troy’s right next to me, in the first row of our father’s Hawaiian beach dream.

  Candice is right next to Troy and he has his hand on her shoulder, squeezing a little bit too tight as dad and Andrea say their vows. I know why he’s doing that. He always cries at wedding.

  Which isn’t to say that I don’t, but I tend to have the mental fortitude to keep my blubbering for a more private moment.

  At the moment, I’m entirely busy looking at Lily, who is smiling wide. I’ve been fighting with the urge to throw her over my shoulder and carry her up to the minister the moment dad and Andrea are done, and ask him to marry me, Lily, Troy and Austin. Because I don’t ever want to lose her, or what we have.

  Fortunately though, I’m sane enough not to do that, because it’s not like there isn’t enough scandal surrounding us already. Or at least that’s what Candice told us the moment we got back on the island.

  The island which Milan had been kicked off of, and Candice had stayed on with us. Apparently it had been entirely easy to talk Milan out of her hair-brained scheme once dad knew what she was up to – thanks to Lily – and he just needed to throw enough money at her to make her go away.

  He agreed to let her see Candice every now and then, but I have a feeling that there’s a lot unsaid there that I don’t want to know about, and I think that’s for the best for all of us. As long as Candice is with us, and Lily is as well, I think everything will work out fine.

  Lily catches me staring at her and she smiles, nodding her head towards dad and Andrea.

  “You’re supposed to be watching them, not me,” she mouths at me, and I shake my head.

  I’ll look at the pictures later. Right now, I want to focus on the sight of Lily, and the amazing fact that she’s here. With us. And she’s happy.

  “Suit yourself,” she mouths with the slightest roll of her eyes.

  I squeeze her hand and she squeezes back, as Austin throws his arm around her shoulder. She drops her head on his shoulder and I can see a tear in her eye that she quickly wipes away. I love seeing her happy tears. I feel like she hasn’t cried enough of those to know that they’re not the bad kind, yet.

  The ceremony is over maybe a little too quickly, because I’m not done staring at Lily as we turn to douse the happy couple in white rose petals and rice. Andrea and dad run through the procession laughing and then stop with their backs to the ocean, smiling as we cheer for them.

  Hell, I have no way of knowing whether or not this marriage will stick, but dad definitely looks happy right now. I hope it stays that way.

  I think we all deserve a little bit of happiness. Or a lot of happiness.

  Personally, I would pick the latter option, given the choice.

  I can make my own happiness, I remind myself.

  One glance at Lily confirms that. It’s a happiness that we’ve orchestrated as much as it has happened to us and I’m proud of the four of us for managing to make it happen.

  We move closer to Andrea and dad as he gives a quick speech and I loop my arms around Lily’s waist, kissing her neck. She struggles for like half a second, before remembering that everybody knows already. Sure, we’re still getting odd looks, even among family, but it doesn’t matter. We’ll make it not matter.

  “I love you,” I whisper in her ear, and she gasps, looking at me with her big hazel eyes.

  “What did you tell her?” Troy asks, Candice having run up to join dad and Andrea in their thank you speech.

  “I told her I love her,” I say simply.

  Troy nods as Austin steps closer as well and I let go of around Lily’s waist.

  “That sounds about right,” Troy muses out loud.

  He flicks his gaze up at the cloudless sky for a moment and after a bit of internal rummaging, looks back at Lily with a smile.

  “I love you, too.”

  “We can make that three,” Austin adds in.

  Lily looks absolutely shell-shocked and I think we all share the sentiment, one way or another. We’ve only known this woman for a couple of weeks and yet, I’ve never been so sure of anything before. I love her. My brothers love her. And we’re never going to let her go.

  “I…” she stutters, pressing her lips into a thin line for a moment, before looking down at her feet.

  She keeps doing that when she’s nervous.

  Troy’s the one to push her chin up so she can look at us again. We’ve formed a private island between the four of us, somewhat absent of what’s going on with the rest of the wedding party.

  “You don’t have to be afraid,” Troy tells her gently.

  “It’s a lot to process. You’re allowed to take your time,” Austin adds.

  Lily shakes her head and for a second, my heart drops.

  “No, it’s not that,” she says, her voice barely above a whisper. “I… I think I love you too.”

  We’re stunned, the three of us. Troy looks at me and for the first time, I think our connection is up for an overhaul. Clearly, we need to let more people into our little link.

  Austin’s the first one to come back to his senses, because he steps up to Lily and grabs her, kissing her deeply.

  “Good,” he whispers.

  I can’t do anything other than to agree with the sentiment.

  Things are good. And they’re going to fucking stay that way.

  Epilogue

  Lily

  Five months later…

  “Would you stop doing that?” I ask, giggling as Troy tries to poke at my belly for the twelfth time today.

  He’s not hurting me, he’s just… entirely fascinated by the process of a pregnancy, I think. Or at least one that he can claim to have as much part of as anyone else in the household.

  “We’ve had this talk,” Troy starts grimly, before grabbing me and putting both hands on my belly in the middle of the kitchen. “My kitchen, my rules!”

  He kisses my neck and I laugh, relaxing against him just as the front door bangs shut. We share a look and Troy reluctantly lets go of me, demanding a quick peck on the lips before I can get out of the kitchen.

  “Don’t be a stranger,” he says, swinging a sauce ladle at me. “These carrots won’t chop themselves, you know.”

  Over the last few months since we all moved into the twins’ Hampton house, I’ve had a crash course in cooking, and I’m oddly transfixed by it. Not only is Troy an awesome cook, but he’s also a great teacher, and I think he genuinely enjoys being out of the spotlight for a while. We’ve sort of been hiding out, though if you believed the press, we’ve fortified ourselves in an unknown bunker off the coast of Maine, not shacked up in the Hamptons.

  Whatever, I don’t care about what the media thinks.

  Which is not something I would have ever thought I’d say when all of this b
egan, I remind myself with a smile, walking over to the front of the house to see who came home.

  I find both Callum and Austin discussing something casually as they trudge in.

  “Finally, all my boys are home,” I say cheerfully as they come up to me and kiss me on either cheek at the same time.

  I love it when they do that.

  “We missed you too,” Callum murmurs as he kneels down and kisses my belly as well.

  I’m only four months along but by the way Austin, Callum and Troy have been treating me, I may as well be seconds from giving birth. I sort of don’t mind. Their excitement is adorable, and makes me feel like I’m in good company. It’s not every day a woman carries triplets… by three brothers. Well, stepbrothers, partially. But still.

  “How did it go?” I ask, as Austin takes my hand and leads us back towards the kitchen.

  We converge around the island and as we take seats watching Troy cook, I’m overcome with a feeling of… well, bliss. Everything feels right.

  It’s something that I’ve been experiencing time and time again since making the leap and deciding to stay with Austin, Callum and Troy. Thought they’ve done their best to insulate me from the world, and I haven’t really been looking for contact with it outside of what’s necessary, I think I’ve come to a place now where I’m at peace with it.

  I know not everyone agrees with our love, nor will understand it, and that’s fine. I know that the choices I made for my career were difficult to overcome, but it was the only right thing to do in order to build a future with these men. And I’m proud of what we’ve accomplished.

  I’ve told them all about my past, what happened with Jacob… How he kicked me out of my home, how he cheated on me and how he destroyed my confidence. For every wrong that Jacob ever did to me, or that I allowed him to do to me, the Stephensons have done at least three rights. I think that more than makes up for it, and I hope I’ve managed to do the same for them.

  “Everything’s fine,” Austin says, stretching his arms above his head. “The office is fine, everything’s working well.”

  “From the tone of his voice, you can tell how thrilled he is by that,” Callum adds dryly.

  “Aw, is the world not falling apart when you’re only spending six hours a day at the office instead of fifteen?” Troy mocks from across the kitchen, ducking as Austin sends a roll flying his way.

  Troy catches it and takes a bite, making a muffled groaning sound as he chews.

  “Divine. I wonder who baked these!?”

  It was him, of course.

  “Wise-ass,” Austin snorts. “Or should I put that in the plural?”

  “You know you love us,” Callum says with a grin, taking my hand in his.

  I giggle. This is what we go through on a daily basis. Friendly bickering and giving each other a hard time… and then being the closest family that I ever could have imagined. It’s magic, and I don’t want it to ever stop.

  “Oh, I ran into Christine,” Callum says, making me snap into the moment.

  “You saw her and you didn’t tell me?!” I gasp.

  “Well, is that really that shocking that I saw her, considering that she works for us?”

  I guess he’s right about that.

  Christine quit the same day that the brothers came to find me at the airport. A couple of weeks later, she’d turned into the unofficial media rep for the Stephenson family, and she’s sort of been running with it ever since. We have her over for dinner at least once a week, and Troy makes a big show and tells about making her guess which of the dishes he cooked, and which were my contraptions.

  She’s annoyingly good at guessing which is which.

  “Fine,” I say, admitting defeat.

  “She’s coming over in like an hour,” Callum says, checking his watch. “For late Thanksgiving.”

  We had a Thanksgiving meal, the four of us (or should I say the seven of us?) but Christine was off with her family then.

  “I can’t make a turkey in an hour,” Troy says, scowling at Callum.

  “Yeah, well, I bet we can order sandwiches in an hour.”

  He looks at me and my breath hitches. I know what it means when he looks at me like that.

  It means that an hour might not be enough.

  Like they’re all on the same wavelength or something, I feel strong arms scooping me up from behind, with Austin grabbing me in his lap. Troy’s already turning down the heat on the stove and Callum’s pushing the kitchen door open as I sigh and shake my head with the widest smile on my lips.

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  Loved what you read? Check out Demi’s previous releases here:

  Daddy’s Girl

  Teach Me Daddy

  Daddy Daddy

  PS! Don't miss the excerpt of Demi’s next release, My Best Friend’s Baby, on the next page!

  My Best Friend’s Baby Excerpt

  “I have a proposition.”

  I had been up till the early hours of the morning, translating a contract to get my mind away from my personal life for a while. Luckily for me, it was pretty standard stuff because, despite my better efforts, my head had not been in the game at all. All I could think about was Blake and my decision to have a baby and how it would affect my life.

  So when Blake appeared in my doorway the next morning at an ungodly hour of seven am, I was still in my pajamas and very much not awake.

  “If the proposition entails you making me coffee while I go and lie unresponsively on the couch, then I accept,” I mumbled.

  “Yeah, fine, go and do your thing,” he said dismissively, already heading toward the coffee maker.

  I was pretty sure I nodded off for a while because the next thing I knew, Blake was sitting down next to me, handing me a steaming mug.

  “So what happened to you?” he asked with a raised brow.

  “What do you mean?” I yawned.

  “You look kind of… tired,” he said, obviously trying to avoid saying that I looked like a mess.

  “I was working,” I explained, not really interested in going into details. “What’s the proposition?”

  He contemplated for a moment before speaking.

  “I’ve been thinking about your problem. You know, with the whole baby stuff,” he started. “And I don’t think you should do it.”

  I stood up from the couch, finding the energy to become fittingly peeved once more.

  “I’m going back to bed. Come back with a more positive attitude next time,” I announced.

  Blake grabbed my wrist and tugged me back down.

  “Sit down and listen to what I have to say.” He sounded slightly annoyed. “I don’t think you should use someone else’s sperm,” he clarified.

  “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I kind of have to use someone else’s sperm, on account that I am a woman, and I don’t have my own sperm, so it’s kind of a given that I will, in fact, be using someone else’s sperm,” I said sarcastically.

  “Okay, first, could you stop saying the word sperm? I think we can all agree that it’s one of those nouns that should be used sparingly. Like yolk and phlegm.” He made a disgusted face. “Secondly, you didn’t let me explain. When I said you shouldn’t be using someone else’s sperm then what I meant was that you should be using mine.”

  Well, that woke me right up. I blinked and tried to process what he’d just suggested. It seemed to be an impossible task because suddenly, I was dead certain that I was either hallucinating or dreaming.

  How long had I been up again?

  “Are you… are you saying that I should have your baby?” I finally asked.

  I couldn’t believe those words had even left my mouth. Maybe I was being punk’d? It seemed increasingly likely.

  “I’m volunteering to be your sperm donor, yes,” he confirmed.

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  About Demi

  Demi Donovan is a writer o
n a mission. A mission to bring bad boys, dark love and filthy dreams to every page she writes, that is.

  A lifelong reader, writing is something she always wanted to do. The fact that she can write about all the dark, twisted things going through her head only makes it that much better.

  Demi lives in a small town with big dogs, even bigger aspirations and a man who isn't a bad boy, but definitely plenty filthy.

  authordemidonovan

  donovan.demi@gmail.com