My mind raced through impossible options.

I couldn’t tell them about the children I’d raised alone for five years. Couldn’t reveal that one of them might be a father who’d abandoned me before he even knew.

But I also couldn’t afford a lawyer to fight this contract. Couldn’t walk away from my veterinary practice or my home. My family’s legacy was slipping through my fingers, and these two men held the rope.

Kameron and Colt watched me, waiting. The silence pressed against my chest like a physical weight.

“Fine. I’ll stay,” I finally forced the words through clenched teeth. “But I have conditions.”

I held up one finger and Kameron’s eyebrows rose, amused, while Colt didn’t move, but his attention sharpened.

“First—we start from a clean slate.” I lifted my chin. “You don’t presume you know who I am now, and you sure as hell don’t treat me like the twenty-two-year-old girl you left behind.”

A slow shift rippled through the room. Kameron’s smile weakened as Colt’s jaw ticked.

“That’s fair,” Colt said quietly. “Six years is a long time. People change.”

“They do.” I lifted a second finger. “Any breach of my boundaries gives me the right to terminate my contract without penalty. I don’t give a damn what that contract says—you cross a line, I’m gone.”

Colt’s fingers flexed at his sides and Kameron’s smile turned tight, thoughtful.

“And these boundaries…” Kameron crossed his arms, looking amused. “You planning to write us a manual? Maybe some flash cards so we know which topics are off-limits?”

“You’ll know when you’ve crossed one. And when I say back off, you back the F**k off. No negotiating. No using that smile to charm your way past my walls like they’re made of tissue paper.”

“Sounds reasonable to me,” Colt said. His hazel eyes held mine. “We’re not here to make your life harder, Ivory. We want this partnership to work.”

“Partnership.” I let the word hang in the air. “Is that what we’re calling it?”

“What would you call it?”

“Indentured servitude comes to mind.”

Kameron laughed—a real laugh, genuine surprise breaking through his façade. “Damn, firecracker. You really did grow a spine. Used to be you couldn’t look at us without turning red.”

“That girl burned to death in a tack room six years ago.” I held up a third finger. “Last condition—no territorial bullshit. No competing over me. No jealousy. I am not a prize for either of you to win.”

Silence crushed the air and Kameron’s grin spread slow and dangerous, like I’d just issued a challenge he was dying to accept.

Colt’s expression didn’t change, but his hands flexed at his sides—a tiny fracture in that iron control. And it meant he was already strategizing how to work around my rules without technically breaking them.

“Agreed,” he said. “All three conditions. Should we put it in writing?”

“Every word.”

“Then it’s settled.” He moved to the desk and pulled out a leather notebook. “Now, about the ranch operations. I’d like to schedule weekly meetings to discuss livestock health reports.”

“Weekly meetings are fine. Mondays work best for my schedule.”

“Mondays it is.” He made a note.

Kameron stood, stretching like a cat waking from a nap.

“What about a tour?” he said, tone suggesting he wanted to inspect more than just the property. “It’s been six years. We need to see what we’re working with. And who better to show us around than the woman who’s been keeping this place alive?”

I kept my face neutral. “I’ll arrange something. Later.”

“Later,” he echoed, stepping closer.

I held my ground even as his cologne, different now but still devastating, invaded my senses. My throat constricted but before I could fire back, my phone exploded with sound.

Once they were settled with fresh clothes and distracted by coloring books, I collapsed into Marisol’s corner booth and told her everything.

The sale. The contract. The trap I’d walked into.

The rules I’d set that already felt like paper walls against a storm.

The men who could destroy everything with one look at my children’s faces.

“Let me make sure I’m understanding this clusterF**k correctly.” Marisol’s expression darkened with every word. “Your baby daddies—plural—now own your family ranch. You’re financially handcuffed to them. And they have zero idea that those three little chaos agents exist?”

“That’s the summary, yes.”

“Ivory.” She leaned forward. “You can’t hide three five-year-olds in a town this small. People gossip. Hell, the second Kameron or Colt sees those children… Anyone with half a brain is going to start asking questions.”

“I know.” My voice broke. “I know, okay? I just need time to figure this out. A few days to get my head straight and come up with a plan.”

“A plan for what? For lying to them indefinitely? For pretending your children don’t exist?”

“For protecting my kids from men who already abandoned me once.” I leaned forward, desperation bleeding through. “Can you keep them for a few days? Just until I figure something out. Please, Marisol. I’m begging you.”

She was quiet for a long moment. Then she sighed, reaching across the table to squeeze my hand.

“Fine. A few days. But Ivory…” She became more serious. “This is stupid, and you know it. You can’t run from this forever. Eventually, the truth is going to come out, and when it does, you better have a damn good explanation ready.”

“I know.”

“Do you? Because from where I’m sitting, you’re building a house of cards in a windstorm.”

I looked over at my children—Lily showing Luke her drawing, Levi stealing crayons from both of them. My whole heart, sitting at a café table covered in breakfast stains.

“Maybe I am,” I said. “But those kids are all I have. And I’ll do whatever it takes to protect them. Even if it means lying to the men who might be their fathers.”