Page 57 of Filthy Rich Santas

I stumble a little, not sure if it’s my place to criticize his parents no matter how shitty it is that they put their own child second to their selfish needs.

“What?” he asks.

I’m about to brush it off and say it was nothing, but I feel closer to all three of these men right now than I have to anyone in a long time. And while I know I’ll have to go back to censoring myself once the road trip is over and I’m around my family again, right now I want to be real, just like Ryder was brave enough to be.

“I wish they hadn’t ruined Christmas for you. I wish they had put you first,” I tell him, squeezing his hand again before I start to let it go.

But he doesn’t let me. He squeezes back tighter, tugging me a little closer to him.

“Thank you, love,” he murmurs, pressing a chaste kiss to the top of my head. Then he looks up at Tristan, something close to his usual grin back on his face. “Your turn.”

Tristan nods, but instead of spilling a secret, he takes his glasses off and carefully cleans them, then puts them back on his face, adjusting the fit for a moment.

Stalling.

“Should I go?” I offer, trying to give him a way out.

But he surprises me, shaking his head and pinning me with a look I can’t quite interpret.

“No,” he says. “Ryder is right. It’s my turn.” He takes a breath, exhales, and then says, “I lied to you.”

I blink. “To me?”

He nods, and a little ball of anxiety starts spinning inside me.

“Recently?” I whisper, my mind racing.

What did he lie about?I’m not sure I’ll be able to take it if he tells me that he was faking his attraction to me this morning or something. He did call it a mistake, after all.

Tristan nods again. “This morning?—”

I suck in a sharp breath, and Ryder wraps an arm around me, his body heat unwinding the knot in my gut a little.

Tristan’s cheeks flush, but he holds my gaze as he finishes. “This morning I told you that what happened in my room was a mistake. But that wasn’t true.”

“You… lied about it being a mistake?” I ask over the pounding of my heart, my anxiety from a moment ago doing a one-eighty as the atmosphere in the room shifts.

Tristan nods again, and just to be sure, I murmur, “So… you liked it. You wanted me. You enjoyed what we did.”

His eyes flash with enough heat to burn away my doubts, but he answers me anyway. “Yes.”

My pulse picks up at the implications of that word. It wasn’t a mistake. I can think of dozens of reasons why he could have gotten gun shy this morning, starting with my brother and ending with my own insecurities, but the way he’s looking at me now puts all of those to rest.

He means it.

He wanted me.

Hestillwants me.

I’m not even drunk, but I almost feel that way. Each one of these men has opened up to me in ways that have rocked my understanding of who they are tonight, and fundamentally shifted all my own assumptions about my relationship with each one of them. And while I know none of them will pressure me if I don’t want to go there, they’re all looking to me formysecret now.

I swallow, my blood burning in my veins and a riot of emotions swirling inside me. Almost like I really am in some kind of magical bubble. A snow globe of possibility.

Tonight feels like the kind of night where I can either take the leap… or let it pass me by.

“My turn,” I whisper, licking my lips. “Did you all hear what Ryder was teasing me about on the drive? About waking up sandwiched between him and Beckett?”

I get three nods. Three stares hot enough to make me combust.

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