When the world told lies as easily as breathing, we valued honesty. My friends and I had experienced too many lies to know how much they could hurt, so we'd made sure we never told anything but the truth to each other. We were a close-knit group because of that.

Until now. Which was why this was a betrayal.

"Can we go talk in my office?" I asked, my eyes strayed towards the kitchen entrance. Emma and Mateo could wake up at any time, and I wasn't ready to tell them all at the same time.

Gideon gave me a gruff nod and stalked towards my office ahead of me. He'd been at my place enough times to know where everything was.

My heart hammered as I walked behind him, trying to stay calm–though I was anything but. It felt like I was offering myself to the slaughterhouse.

He took a seat on the couch while I took the chair opposite him. I had a feeling I should stay as far away as I could. His right hook was impressive.

"Talk," he barked, hot anger simmering in his eyes.

"I just...fuck," I cursed, dragging my hands through my hair. "I fucked up; I know I did. I should've told you guys the second I knew, but...here was finally a girl we all wanted. That's never happened before. I was egoistical, only thinking about how this would benefit me."

"Tell me what you know," Gideon prompted, his patience wearing thin.

"When my PI called to tell me what he found out about her, I should've told you right away–"

"Get to the fucking point."

Shit, I was screwed. "I found out that Emma worked at Euphoria and that... she's a student at NYU." I had to force the words out, ashamed by my own actions. The guys and I had been through our fair share, and going behind their backs was something I didn't know if I could forgive myself for.

The thing was, we required the truth from each other. It was who we were, what we all needed. Not only that but in an arrangement like this, sharing a submissive, we had to have trust between us.

My friend looked at me in complete shock. "Explain yourself, right the fuck now. Why the hell have you been keeping this from us?" His voice was a low and angry whisper. Even pissed, he never raised his voice.

Well, weren't that the million-dollar question. To be honest, I'd struggled to find an answer to the same question ever since I decided not to tell them.

"I–I was afraid I would lose you guys," I admitted begrudgingly because that was the only reason I could think of that made me hide this from them.

"So, lying was the answer? Intentionally misleading us?" Gideon breathed out sharply. "Fucking hell, man." He shook his head, but the anger in his eyes dimmed.

Gideon knew me probably better than I knew myself. He knew the experiences in my life that led me to be so goddamned afraid of anyone leaving me. I didn't need to go into words to explain to him the mess that was going inside my mind–he'd known for years.

Growing up, I didn't have many–hell, I had two people in my life: my grandmother and grandfather. The parents I'd dearly longed for had abandoned me at birth, and it became a deep-seated issue for me. The ones who should've loved me didn't want me. It was crazy how even as an adult, I still hadn't gotten over that fact. And now, when I let people in, I was always scared they'd turn their backs on me and leave like they had done.

"As soon as they wake up, I'll tell them," I promised. "I'll tell them everything like I should've done as soon as I found out about it."

"Don't." That one word shocked me just as much as I'd shocked him just moments ago.

"Don't?" He couldn't possibly mean that I shouldn't tell them.

"I've talked to Mateo after he met with his father. He'll be quitting his job after this semester and take over his father's business." Damn, and I thought I couldn't possibly get more shocked. Mateo had sworn up and down that he'd never work at Wright Enterprise; it just wasn't what interested him.

"What changed?" I knew Robert was recently diagnosed with cancer, but I still didn't see how that would change Mateo's mind.

"He's thinking of Rebecca. It's the only thing that'll be left of her dad if he dies. Mateo knows how much his business means to her," Gideon explained, and it finally made sense. Rebecca had always been Mateo's first priority. While he couldn't care less about Robert, Rebecca was a whole other thing. If the company meant that much to her, he'd fight tooth and nail–and sacrifice his dream job–to keep it in the family.

"So why shouldn't we tell Mateo and Emma about this?" I asked, unsure what the company had to do with him working at the same school she studies at.

"How long has she gone to New York University?" He was trying to get to the point, but I still couldn't see it.

"Two years."

"And in all that time, their paths never crossed." Gideon looked at me pointedly, and realization dawned on me.

"And he only has one semester left, and taking into consideration that they've never met in those two years...the chance of them meeting is slim," I added, knowing that was where he was going with this.

Why Gideon was on board with this, I didn't know. Maybe he just wanted to make this whole thing salvageable. If we told them now, we'd lose Emma, no doubt about it. In such a short period of time, that girl had taken over our lives, bodies, and mind. That something special we'd seen in her the first night had only grown even more since. She complimented all of us in ways we never thought were even possible. It was already hard enough to find a woman who suited so perfectly with just one man, but three? That was damn near impossible.

I guess Gideon must've seen the same thing as me; if she left, we'd never find someone like her again. She fit us perfectly, like the last piece of the puzzle we needed to make us complete. It was crazy, absolutely insane, how that had happened in a matter of days. Some said, "If you know, you know," and we knew.

We hadn't talked about the issue with her being a submissive and not a slave, though we didn't know if that might change in the future. Still, I was willing to give up parts of what I was in order to have her with us, and I had a feeling my friends felt the same. It was definitely something we should talk about just so we knew we were on the same page.

Of course, I wanted more than anything for her to be our slave, but... I'd never force her to change or give her an ultimatum. I'd never make her feel like she wasn't good enough.

Maybe, if the guys agreed, we could ask her to become our submissive permanently after Mateo quit his job. We didn't need even more complications at the moment.

Maybe we were making the wrong choice about this, but God, I hoped not. My chest tightened just thinking about how this whole arrangement between us end. Only because I was the idiot hiding this fact for everyone in the first place. But then again, would she even have been with us now if I'd told her the truth?

One day at a time, I reminded myself. I would take it one day at a time and hope it all worked out in the end. I'd try to ignore the tightness in my chest like I'd done ever since I decided to keep the secret to myself and just let faith run its course.

"Why are you willing to keep this from her?" I knew my reasons, but I had to ask about his. At this point, I didn't know if telling Mateo would do any good, or how he would react. He was honorable, he'd tell her, but if he didn't and she still found out...she'd feel just as betrayed by him as us. We were sparing him that, at least.

"Because that girl... she's the closest I'd gotten to feel something besides anger," he muttered, shocking me for the third time. I knew he had to like her, but hearing him say something this deep? It was so unlike him. Still, I was happy to see that change in him–that little glimmer of who he truly was, the man I thought we'd lost after the anger took over him.