Broken Bride

“I’m pregnant?”

“We’ll have to do a scan to confirm, but yes. Urine rarely lies. That was a strong positive.”

I thought I was getting fat from the Tahitian food.

“I’m pregnant.”

I sat on the news all afternoon until the sun went down. I was trying to think about how to tell the others. At the clinic, I just told Mark that I’d eaten something bad. It was a little lie, one designed to buy me time. But I hope it’s my last lie, especially to him.

There’s no point keeping the news secret. I hate when people do that. Bobby, Angelo, and Mark are all sitting down to spit roast pork and roasted vegetables cooked under the ground.

They all stop eating and stare at me, as if they don’t understand the words. So I just keep talking, babbling, really.

“And it could be any of yours. And it’s too far along to do what you’re thinking, and I wouldn’t let you anyway. I want this baby. I am keeping this baby.”

There we go. All my cards out on the table.

There’s another long silence. The men look at one another. Should they be more surprised? Or am I the fool for being surprised? We have not been completely careful. I have allowed lust to override common sense and birth control. I thought… I don’t know what I thought. I don’t think I thought at all.

“I’m not changing diapers,” Bobby says. “This ruins everything. Who wasn’t using condoms?”

“Shut up, boy,” Angelo growls. “Tilly, you know…”

“Yes, I know, it’s dangerous. My relatives might still try to off me for my father’s fortune. This isn’t a world for a child…”

“No,” he interrupts me. “You know we want you to be happy.”

“Oh. Uh. Yes. I guess?”

He looks over at Mark. “I guess this is the contingency we’re enacting.”

Mark nods.

He seems to know what’s going on, which is weird, because none of them should know what is going on. I was the only one who knew anything. Or at least, I thought I was. I have been around Angelo Vitali long enough now to know that he has plans for plans, backups for backups. If you think you’ve gotten one over on him, it’s because he wants you to think that.

We have not been as careful as we should have been. Passion has taken over more than once with more than one of these men. I have become a desert island fuck toy, and I’ve enjoyed it as much as they have. I don’t know why I didn’t think about pregnancy. Probably because it just doesn’t fit with this life I’m living, or these men I’m with. Most of them, anyway.

“What is happening?” I ask the question, confused.

“This has been some time coming,” Angelo says, pushing back from the table, taking me by the hand, and pulling me down into his lap. “Bobby was right. You don’t belong with us. You can live a normal life. You can have babies, and a little house with a white picket fence, and some kind of dog with doodle in the name. It’s too late for me. But it isn’t for you.”

“What are you saying, Angelo?” My eyes prick with tears. “Are you… are you going to get rid of me?”

There is just as much emotion in his eyes as I feel in my chest, though he contains it better. “No. I’m going to set you free.”

I feel as though my world just came crashing down around me. These men are my safety. My everything. They are the only reason I know what the world means. They’re the only reason I care.

“I don’t want to be free…”

“You’re not going to be alone.” He looks over at Mark. “Mark is going with you.”

“He is?”

Mark smiles quietly. Bobby says nothing. He sits there, a model of dark intensity, watching the conversation happen. I wonder what he thinks of this. I wonder if he’ll miss me, or if maybe this is the culmination of a plot he started when we first met.

“I destroyed Mark a long time ago, but he has been loyal ever since. He deserves a second chance at a real life. So do you. And so does whatever life is growing inside you.”

“But it could be…”

“It doesn’t matter who the father is among us. There’s only one man here fit to be father to an infant. Or act as a real husband to you, Tilly. That’s Mark.”

Mark clears his throat. “Angelo…”

“Mark, you have been a wanted man for a long time for crimes you did not commit. I’ve hurt you terribly over the years, subjected you to endless pain and humiliation. This is your chance out of a life that has no happy ending. I’m giving it to you.”

“But what if we want to stay?” I form the question timorously.

“It doesn’t matter what you want.”