Page 214 of Theirs to Desire (Club M: Boxed Set)

SOPHIA

F irst thing Wednesday morning, I go to my doctor’s appointment.

Dr. Hernandez smiles widely when he sees me.

“I've reviewed your results,” he says. “There doesn’t appear to be any problems with your fertility. Your ovaries look excellent. We can schedule the first procedure once you have a donor selected and determine your ideal ovulation period. In your case, I’m going to recommend intracervical insemination. ”

I clear my throat. “I have a question. What would happen if I put this process on hold?”

He gives me a puzzled look. “On hold?”

“I met someone,” I mutter. A pair of someones, though I don’t tell the doctor that. “It's early days. I'm trying to figure out what to do.”

“Ah. Well, that's obviously a personal decision that only you can make.”

“I know that. Let's say that I wait a year. Would I still be in good shape fertility-wise?”

He purses his lips. “I can't make any definitive promises, Ms. Thorsen,” he replies.

“You’re thirty-five. If you want to try to get pregnant the natural way, well, that's certainly understandable.

Fertility treatments are not easy, and people aren't usually here voluntarily.

They are here because they've exhausted other options.”

I think back about the support group meeting I went to last week. Any one of those women would be ecstatic to be in my position.

“I will say one thing, though. Your fertility declines exponentially with each passing year. Things look good right now, but there's no guarantee that it will stay that way.”

Was I hoping he'd have a yes or no answer for me? I guess I was. But of course, Dr. Hernandez can't tell me what to do. Only I can make that decision.

In three weeks, Damien will be leaving Highfield.

Will we have a conversation about the future before then?

“In case there’s any doubt about it, I want to see you again,” Damien said on Sunday.

But what does that mean? Are we heading toward a serious relationship?

And kids. That’s a lifelong commitment. Shouldn’t we know each other a lot better before making that decision?

Dr. Hernandez has given me a lot to think about, but unfortunately, I am no closer to an answer.

Time to talk to the family. Well, not all of them. Aurora is the only one of us with a child. Maybe my baby sister can help me make sense of this situation.

“You’re in a threesome?” Aurora screeches.

I wince and hold the phone further away from my ear. “Will you keep your voice down?” I demand.

She ignores that in favor of her next question. “And it’s not a one-time thing? You did it once, and you’re going to do it again?”

“Tonight.” At a sex club, but I skip that part. I’ve shocked my sister enough for one day.

“Okay, Soph, this isn’t going to work. You can’t just call me up out of the blue and tell me you’re banging two guys. I’m missing several key details here. Start at the beginning, and tell me everything.”

I sigh. I was hoping not to get into it, but it’s too late for that now. Aurora has a stubborn streak in her, and if she wants to worm something out of me, she will. She’s always been able to.

“Okay, it started ten years ago.”

She squeals loudly. “You’ve been dating these guys for ten years? You’ve kept them a secret for that long? What the hell, Soph?”

Oh, for fuck’s sake. “No, of course I haven’t been dating Damien and Julian for ten years,” I say in exasperation. “Do you want the whole story, or would you rather just jump to conclusions on your own?”

“Fine, don’t get huffy. What started ten years ago?”

“Ten years ago, I worked in a hospital in Pennsylvania, remember?”

“The place you hated?” she says. “The one with the horrible boss, the one who made you miserable?”

“Mrs. Caldwell.” I don’t remember mentioning her to my family, but I obviously did because Aurora remembers.

Back in those days, I was contemplating going to medical school.

I believed a stint in the hospital would be a good way to gain some experience and decide if I was cut out to be a doctor.

But even before I got fired, Mrs. Caldwell had made me reconsider that career plan.

In retrospect, being fired was the jolt I needed.

I switched gears, and I’m happier now than I ever was back then.

Getting fired was shocking, but it might have been the best thing that ever happened to me.

Huh. I’ve never seen it that way before.

“Soph?” Aurora prompts.

“Sorry, I just realized something important. Anyway, Damien worked in that hospital too. He was a management consultant. The board brought his team in to figure out why the hospital was performing so poorly.” I take a deep breath. “I had a pretty big crush on him.”

“You did?”

“You sound like that’s weird.”

“Not weird. It just wasn’t anything you did. I was the one who lost her head regularly over a boy. You were my self-possessed older sister. You and Ben, the two of you were pretty intimidating role models.”

I shake my head. “I’m the last thing from intimidating. Anyway, one evening, I finally summoned enough courage to ask him out. He turned me down. He said he had prior plans. A friend of his was opening a nightclub, he said.”

It had been obvious I was fishing for an invitation, but Damien hadn’t taken the hint. When I got to Xavier Leforte’s club and saw the orgy on the main floor, I figured out why he hadn’t wanted me there. It wasn’t exactly a work-appropriate gathering.

“I followed him to that club,” I continue, ignoring Aurora’s little squeak of surprise. “There, Damien introduced me to his friend Julian. One thing led to another, and we had a threesome.”

“Did they blow you off the next morning?” she asks. “Is that why I’ve never heard of them?”

“No, I did.” It feels so strange to talk about this. I’ve kept this to myself for ten years. “When I went back to work on Monday, Mrs. Caldwell called me in. Somehow, she’d found out that I slept with Damien. She fired me.”

“The fucking bitch,” Aurora says indignantly. “How did she find out?”

“I’ve always thought it was because Damien let something slip.

Now, I’m not so sure. It doesn’t matter anymore.

” I take a deep breath. “They came back into my life, Aurora, and I still want them. And I think they want me too. We slept together Saturday night, and it wasn’t just as good as I remembered. It was better.”

My sister is no fool. “Your doctor’s appointment was today, wasn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“And?”

“No fertility issues. Nothing stopping me from moving forward. I should be ecstatic, Aurora. But all I can think about is how fucked up the timing is. I’ve been going on Friday night dates for ages, and the moment I decide I’m done with dating, they reappear in my life.”

“Are you serious about them?” my sister cuts in. “Do you want to be in a relationship with these guys, Soph? Would you want children with them?”

Would I? The only time I’ve thought about it, I’ve dismissed the idea. Damien is too rich. If I had a child with him and something were to go wrong, he could take my baby away. He could destroy me.

But would he? Is he capable of being that ruthless? Is he capable of breaking my heart?

“I don’t know,” I whisper. “It’s too soon to tell, and it’s too soon to talk about. We’ve only just got together. What am I doing, Aurora? I should break things off with them.”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” my ever-practical sister replies. “Look, you have time, right? I’m assuming you’re supposed to monitor your cycle to know when you’re ovulating? You have at least a month before you have to make any decisions.”

“Is that fair to them?”

“I don’t see why not,” she replies. “Stop worrying about them, Soph. If the sex is good?—”

“It’s amazing,” I murmur.

“I don't want to know the details. Or maybe I do. I’m still trying to decide if using my sister's sex life as spank bank material is creepy or not.”

Even through my turmoil, that makes me laugh.

“You’re over-thinking this,” she continues. “If the sex is good, why not keep sleeping with them? If you decide you want to try to conceive naturally, you can. If you figure out they’re not dad material?—”

“What do I do then?” I interrupt again.

“Be a little self-centered for a change,” she advises. “The sex is good, right? So, use them. Keep banging them through the treatment. Use a condom, obviously.”

My first instinctive reaction is no. I can’t do that. It's not right, and it's not fair to them.

Besides, I can’t be in a friends-with-benefits relationship with Damien and Julian. I know myself. I won’t be able to keep it about just sex. My feelings will get involved.

Still, Aurora is right about one thing. There’s no reason not to track my cycle. There’s no reason not to pick out a sperm donor. I’m not committing to this course of action. I’m just keeping my options open.