Page 36 of Daddies’ Holiday Toy (Kissmass Daddies #1)

HOLLY

Oh. My. God.

I’m so dead.

Every drop of blood in my body drains straight through the floor.

My mother’s eyes blaze with anger, her nostrils flaring while she waits for someone, anyone , to say something.

She wears the same look she had when she caught me at sixteen climbing out my bedroom window to meet a boy at midnight and when I dented her car pulling it out of the driveway to take a joyride with Mallory without a license at seventeen.

I’m familiar with this side of her but only in the past. Except this isn’t teenage trouble that I’m about to be grounded for the next month over.

This is about a million times worse.

I should’ve thought about this.

I should’ve remembered that Margaret Callahan, queen of the surprise breakfast invites, still has a damn key to my apartment.

That she’s been letting herself in for years to “start the coffee” before I wake up or “drag me out” to the diner before she heads in for work.

I gave her that key because she’s my mom and I never, in a million years, would’ve guessed I needed to hide something from her.

But last night while I was busy getting fucked into a coma by three men who all happen to be her age, three men who also happen to be her ex’s best friends , not once did it occur to me she might stroll in here before the sun’s even fully up and surprise me.

If I’d even imagined it as a possibility, I would’ve texted her that I was sick with a highly contagious virus and told her not to come over if she had been planning on it.

Hell, if she still remained stubborn and told me she’d be over with meds and some soup, I would’ve shoved a chair under the knob and made sure the chain lock was over the door.

Too late now.

This is just as bad as it looks.

Maybe even worse.

I’m frozen to say anything when she turns that fiery gaze on Jack, demanding more answers from him.

My brain’s too busy replaying every detail from last night in humiliating high-definition, overlaying it with this morning’s horror reel.

Somewhere behind me, Reece’s bare arm brushes mine as he steps up, his palm pressing between my shoulder blades trying to steady me.

Liam moves first before Jack can respond, stepping toward her with both hands up. “Mags.”

“Don’t you Mags me!” she snaps, shoving at his chest hard enough to make him step back. “You—you’re all perverts ! You’ve been defiling my daughter under my nose?”

That word, defiling …it lands like a punch to the gut.

But it’s what comes next that slices right through my shock and fills me with anger.

“Have you all been passing her around? Playing your filthy little games and using my daughter as your toy? You’ve all been taking advantage of her!”

“Mom!” My voice comes out more forceful than I expect, loud enough to make her actually pause mid-rant. “No. Absolutely not. You don’t get to come in here and throw that accusation around. Everything that’s happened between me and them has been my decision. My choice.”

She blinks in bewilderment, then her anger returns.

“What do you mean, your choice? Do you even hear yourself? You’re half their age, Holly! This”—she gestures wildly between me and them—“this is sick . You didn’t consent to this!”

“Yes, I did. I’m the one who started it.”

Her expression falters then.

She wasn’t expecting that.

The fight is still there in her eyes, but something shifts as confusion overtakes the anger, maybe even hurt worming its way in too.

“Holly…please. Come with me. Get your stuff. You can stay at my place, just—just get away from those creeps.”

I take a full step back from her, shaking my head. “No. I’m not going to do that.”

“You can ,” she insists, moving toward me and holding out her arms like I’m a baby she’s trying to catch while falling. “You’re just…you’re just confused. It’s okay. Come with me and we’ll figure this out.”

“No, Mom. I don’t want to. I want to stay here with them.”

Her mouth twists like she can’t decide whether to yell or cry.

“You expect me to believe you came onto them ? That this was all your idea?”

She shakes her head, her eyes whipping around to the corners of my apartment like she half expects cameras to be mounted there or for a crew to pop out and tell her this is all one massively tasteless prank.

“Yes.” I’m trying to keep my voice as calm as possible even though the rage is still swirling in me. “They’ve never done anything I didn’t want. If anything, I’m the one who’s been pushing them to keep this going.”

“Do you love them?” she gasps.

The silence that follows is brutal.

My mouth drops open. Love?

Something in her face snaps back into place when I don’t answer her.

Her chin lifts, spine straightens, and she squares her shoulders in that rigid way I’ve seen only a handful of times in my life.

The way she does when she’s gearing up to make something final.

An ultimatum.

“Then you leave me no choice. If you won’t come with me, I’m calling the police. I am not going to stand here and let them keep coercing you into whatever nasty fantasy they’ve roped you into.”

My whole body goes hot, then cold. “No.”

She doesn’t even flinch at my tone, she just steps in, and grabs my arm, using it to start tugging me back toward my bedroom.

“Pack a bag. We’ll go back to my place, and we’ll figure this out with the police.”

My heels skid against the floor, muscles locking. “No!”

“Enough, Margaret,” Jack’s voice snaps.

Her eyes flash at him, and for a beat she just looks at me with an expression that shatters my heart.

Betrayal.

Within seconds, her expression calcifies again, all warmth stripped out. “Then I’m calling the cops.”

“ What ?” The words land on me like a block of ice dropped straight onto my head.

“You heard me. If you won’t leave with me right now, then I’ll have them arrested for whatever…whatever sick fantasy they’ve coerced you into.”

“They didn’t coerce me!” I bite back, my voice cracking at the edges.

“Maggie, leave her alone.” Liam comes over to put himself between us both.

She slaps him hard across the cheek the second he’s close enough. The sound ricochets like a bullet.

“Don’t you care get near her! You sick pervert!”

“I’m pregnant!”

It rips out of me before I even know I’ve made the decision to say it.

One second my mouth is clamped shut while trying to wrestle out of my mother’s steel-like grip, and the next it’s just tumbling out of me.

Her lips part, but nothing comes out.

For a long, suspended moment, she’s just standing there, blinking at me, the color draining from her face once again.

When her voice finally comes, it’s small, and almost child-like. “Y-you’re…what?”

I can’t look at her.

My eyes find Jack first, his eyes wide as he stares at me in disbelief.

Then Liam, statue-still, frozen in place with his hand raised to his rapidly reddening cheek.

And finally Reece, still rooted to where he’d been moments before, his jaw dropped and shaking his head like what I’ve just said can’t be true.

I swallow hard, forcing the words out of my mouth before they leave again.

“That’s why I invited you over last night. I was going to tell you then. I just…didn’t get the chance. I panicked.”

The faint hum of the fridge is the only thing that cuts through the silence.

I make myself look back at Mom.

“There’s no point in called the cops. You’ll be wasting their time and ours. Just…please go.”

Her eyes are glassy now, filling until one tear escapes and tracks down her cheek.

She catches it with the heel of her hand, his fingers trembling so hard that she looks on the verge of having a panic attack.

“Oh, my god,” she whispers, more to herself than at me.

I pull in a slow breath, untangling myself from where she’s still gripping my wrist, and take a few steps back, giving myself the space to both move and breathe.

“Mom. I need you to promise me something.”

She stares at me, speechless.

“Do not tell Dad about this. About any of this.”

“ What ?” She shakes her head. “Holly?—”

“Promise me.” My voice doesn’t rise, but the steel in it is unmistakable, even with the tremor that threads through the edges of it. I’ve never ever asked her for anything like this before.

This is the one time in my life I’ll ever do so again.

Her throat works as more tears slip free, cutting quick tracks down her cheeks.

She doesn’t even bother wiping them away. “Fine…I promise.”

“Thank you.” I make myself say it, even though a small, bitter part of me is already wondering if she’ll keep it.

But right now I can’t fight that battle.

Right now, I have to take the small mercy of her agreement and hold it like a shield.

I walk her toward the door, my hand light at her elbow.

Her steps are slow and reluctant.

She stops once she’s in the frame, her eyes darting over my face like she’s searching for the right words, the right anything , to say to bridge the canyon that’s now between us.

I wait for a long moment but nothing comes.

“I’ll call you later,” I end up saying. It’s a truce in words, if not a small olive branch for us later on down the road.

She nods once, swiping at her eyes with the heel of her hand, and steps out. The door swings shut with a muted click.

I stay there for a long second, palm flat against the cool wood, forehead dropping against it like maybe I can press some of the heat out of my skin.

Finally, I push back, turning, and find them all still standing there.

Waiting.