Sean

Kota frowned around the room as he pushed his glasses up his nose. "Why aren't Sang and Mr. Blackbourne here for this?"

Sean kept his sigh to himself. He was not happy to be the one having this conversation with the guys. This was Owen's plan. But he'd agreed to it, so he could hardly back out from helping now. Besides, he didn't want to be the one laying out the full plan for Sang right now—which was where Owen was. So instead he was stuck revealing the final bits of the plan to these seven.

All of them had—repeatedly—had lectures from and informal discussions with Owen about the importance of all of them being settled with their polyandry relationship with Sang before moving forward, including possibly testing out dating a single person. This had been going on for three months, with Owen chipping away at their confidence in a choice they had already made, a situation Sean still didn't like. He just . . . couldn't help the little spark of guilt in his chest that said it wasn't fair for them to encourage Sang toward a polyandry relationship before she'd experienced anything else.

Clearing his throat, Sean said, "Sang and Owen are discussing what she'll be doing for the next year."

Frowns spread throughout the room of their townhouse living room—well one of their living rooms, since they owned more than one of the connected townhomes.

"What?" Gabriel said. "What the freak does that mean, what Sang will be doing? She'll be helping us. Does she have some secret special mission within our mission? Why would you keep that from us? Why are we just hearing about that now?"

"No," North said, his voice fierce. "Absolutely not. Sang's not going off to do her own thing on a mission like this without us right there to back her up. No way—"

Sean held his hands up to quiet them, raising his voice to say, "She's not coming! Sang won't be on this mission."

This time, his words brought confused silence.

"But . . ." Luke began, tilting his head in an almost dog-like way. "Where will she be?"

Sean swallowed, his heart sick at even saying the words, at even the thought of being separated from Sang for an entire year. Especially with Owen encouraging her to try out another relationship in the meantime. "She . . ." He cleared this throat, changing what he was going to say. "She hasn't had the same opportunities as the rest of you to explore her interests and find out what she really wants to do with her life. So Owen has found a year-long program the Academy had ties with to help her figure that out."

Victor's eyebrows rose. "You're not seriously saying that Sang is staying here while the rest of us leave? You can't expect us to leave her for an entire year. That's ridiculous. Has she agreed to that?"

North stared at Sean with narrowed eyes as the others continued to complain.

"You remember that year where every time we turned around someone was after Sang, right?" Nathan asked, his voice hard and tinged with sarcasm. "What do you think will happen if we're gone? She's a magnet for trouble!"

"Exactly," Gabriel agreed. "That's why she's Trouble. We can't just leave her for a year. And you know she doesn't have any family other than us. Someone has to look after her."

"The Academy looks out for their own," Sean argued, trying to keep the anger out of his voice. "Of course we're not just abandoning her to the wild on her own without any support. She'll stay in Academy housing while in an Academy approved program, and Dr. Roberts will keep on eye on her for us." And Sean selfishly hoped that eye included scaring away any guys who weren't absolute gentlemen and who would keep their paws completely off and away from her. Which partly defeated the purpose of letting Sang have a chance to experience a one-on-one relationship, but Sean had never claimed to be rational when it came to her.

"How often can we visit her?" Silas asked, frowning. "Leaving randomly might endanger our mission, and having her come to us might cause problems too. How will we work that out?"

Sean stayed silent for too long, and North rose from his seat, his eyes dark. "This is related to that crap Mr. Blackbourne keeps spouting, isn't it? You don't want us to contact her for that entire year. You want to keep us all separate so any idiots in our group who don't know what they really want have a chance to sow their wild oats or whatever."

Sean caught Nathan and Gabriel flinching, while both Victor and Kota stared at the ground. Basically, the four who'd never been that physical with a woman and hadn't had any real serious relationships before Sang. Victor had simply never had anyone genuinely interested in him rather than his family name or money before Sang, things had never worked out for Gabriel—in part, Sean was sure, because of his lack of self-esteem in not seeing how great he was, which, unfortunately, was a turn off for some girls—the Academy had always gotten in the way of things for Nathan, and Kota had been more concerned for a long time with making sure his mom and sister were well taken care of, as well as managing the lives of everyone else. They all loved Sang. They absolutely did. But it couldn't be helped that after all of Owen's prodding, some of them were questioning how nice it would be to not share their girlfriend with so many other men.

Sean and Owen had experienced enough relationships to know that Sang and sharing her with the rest of their family was exactly what they wanted, which was part of why Owen had gone for it so easily. Silas and North had also both managed to experience serious relationships. Luke . . . Sean was less sure of, but he was pretty sure that opportunities for serious relationships had been there, and he simply hadn't taken them because he wasn't interested. But with the other four, Sean had the same concerns he had with Sang, that maybe it wasn't really fair to ask if they were sure they wanted a polyandry relationship with her when they hadn't fully experienced anything else.

"Has Sang agreed to this?" Kota asked quietly, his hands twisting together. "Is this what she wants?"

Everyone's eyes focused on Sean as a mixture of guilt and fear twisted in his gut. Guilt over encouraging this ten way relationship for everyone, then insisting on yanking it away for a year, and fear that Sang would be devastated—and in that devastation, find someone else. "I don't know," he admitted quietly, unable to lie. "But the fact still stands that Owen is right. She's never experienced anything but a relationship with the nine of us. It's not fair to—"

"Not fair to what?" North snapped, interrupting him. "Not fair to believe that she's grown up enough to know her own mind? Not fair to think that we didn't somehow brainwash her into accepting her relationship with us?"

"It's not like that," Sean snapped back, even though part of him feared maybe it was. They could be so, so wrong about all of this. Were they being unfair to Sang and to everyone else? He just didn't know. There were good arguments either way. "But Owen is talking with Sang about this right now."

~.~

Sang

"So what do you think?" Mr. Blackbourne asked as he sat on the bed beside Sang, his eyes cautious.

"It sounds like a great program," she answered slowly. And it did. But . . . did this have anything to do with him recently asking if she was really sure about their family? About being with all of them? When he'd first asked, she'd been worried she'd somehow done something to make it seem like she wasn't, that she was suddenly having doubts. But then some of the others started pulling away, and she worried she wasn't the one with the doubts. "But . . . but why don't you want me on this mission? I might not know a lot about politics and politicians, but I'm sure I can help."

"I'm sure you could as well," Mr. Blackbourne said, but she couldn't help feeling the words were only meant to placate her since she apparently wasn't going with them. For an entire year. "But this mission . . . it's an even bigger scope than the Ashley Waters project. A much bigger one. And you've never had the same opportunities as the boys to explore what you'd like to do with your life. I want that for you."

On the surface, the words made sense, but this wasn't a few weeks or just a month. This was an entire year. "Will . . . will I be able to see you all? Or talk to you all?" She was well aware that communication during a mission could be complicated, but they wouldn't go an entire year without talking with her, would they?

Mr. Blackbourne hesitated, and Sang's heart skipped a beat.

"Mr. Blackbourne?" she couldn't help whispering, like maybe she didn't quite want him to hear her because she was afraid of the answer.

"Miss Sorensen," he began, laying a hand on her knee. "This coming year . . ." He hesitated, his gray eyes searching hers. His hand tightened on her knee for a moment before he let go, putting his hands in his lap as he sat with perfect posture, something in his expression turning remote. Professional. Like he wasn't telling his girlfriend he was leaving her for an entire year without any plans to see or talk to her. "I have some concerns for you and some of the boys that you've never had the opportunity to experience other relationships, to experience having only one—"

Sang leapt to her feet, spinning to face Mr. Blackbourne as a sick feeling spread through her chest. "You're leaving me?"

"No." His voice was a command, which didn't make sense since there was nothing to command her to do. "We're not leaving you, Miss Sorenson. We will return after a year. We're just . . ." He hesitated. "Giving everyone space to make sure we all know that this is truly what we want now that we're all adults."

What everyone wanted? Hadn't they all made that decision before finishing the Ashley Waters project? They'd all said they loved her . . . but some of them had been pulling away lately, hadn't they? Kota, Victor, Gabriel, Nathan, Luke. Maybe Silas. They would act as if they were about to kiss her, then seem uncertain. Or act like they weren't picking up on hints that she wanted to be close to them. They'd obviously beeen keeping something from her for weeks now. And it was that they didn't want her.

She couldn't breathe as a numb feeling spread through her. They were her family. They'd all promised to be together, to stay together. They'd gone through so much to reach this point together. She'd thought everything would be so much easier now that they were all adults, now that all of them had finally moved in together, with a handful taking longer due to family who'd expected them to stick around until they turned eighteen.

But maybe them all being adults was exactly the problem. Maybe they'd only wanted her, only loved her, when she was someone who'd needed saving. And she didn't need any saving anymore. Or maybe she'd just become too much of a burden. Her lips started trembling, her entire insides feeling like they were shaking as her world and everything she'd trusted in started crumbling around her.

Somehow, she made her mouth open to ask, "Has everyone agreed to this?" Did everyone want to leave her? Want to get rid of her? So much that they were going off on a year long mission? A humiliated flush climbed up her face. She would have at least thought they'd respected her enough to be honest with her about their feelings rather than going through some elaborate scheme to get rid of her. And was this program Mr. Blackbourne wanted for her supposed to be some sort of consolation prize? They didn't want her anymore, but they'd provide a way to make sure she learned how to get a good job and take care of herself?

Mr. Blackbourne didn't answer right away, instead standing and stepping toward. She stepped back. She didn't want any pity touches. She wanted to crumple to the ground in a ball. Her arms twitched with the need to wrap around her chest, to hold herself in so she didn't fall apart. But she didn't want to do it in front of Mr. Blackbourne. He probably already pitied her enough.

He stopped in place, one hand partially raised as though he'd been reaching for her. Slowly, he put his hand back down. "Dr. Green is telling them the rest of the plan right now." Determination turned his eyes steely. "But this is temporary, Miss Sorensen, as I have already said." For the tiniest second, she almost thought he looked lost, almost thought he looked at her with enough longing to make her catch her breath. But it was so short that it must have been a trick of the light. "I just need to make sure that I didn't push you or any of the others into anything you don't truly want."

More excuses. A brief flicker of anger lit in her chest before being overwhelmed by grief. How long had they been planning on leaving her for? When had they become unhappy? And why? What had she done wrong?