Page 129 of Daddies' Holiday Toy
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’sbest 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 youMagsme!” she snaps, shoving at his chest hard enough to make him step back. “You—you’re allperverts! 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.Mychoice.”
She blinks in bewilderment, then her anger returns.
“What do you mean,your choice?Do you even hear yourself? You’rehalftheir age, Holly! This”—she gestures wildly between me and them—“this issick. You didn’t consent to this!”
“Yes, I did. I’m the one whostartedit.”
