She nodded and lifted her gaze back to mine, the bright blue pools of hope giving me a hint about what she was about to say. “Did you call Heidi?”
“I did, but she’s busy. She won’t be able to have dinner with us.” I said it fast, wanting to rip off the proverbial band-aid. “She said she needed another rain check.”
Millie eyes drifted up to the sky. “Do you think that maybe it will rain tomorrow?”
“I don’t know, baby.” I reached out and ran my fingers through her soft, loose blonde waves. “Maybe, but maybe not. Like I said earlier, Heidi has a lot of work to do for the next few days. You want the party to be fun for everyone, right?”
“Right,” she agreed, but I hated how the corners of her mouth had turned down. “I just wish she didn’t have so much work to do.”
So did I, but I couldn’t exactly say that. Studying Millie’s posture, it dawned on me that Heidi not coming to dinner had gotten to her more than I’d expected it to. I also realised that it was probably time to talk to her about Heidi.
I nudged her gently in the side with my elbow, drawing her gaze back to mine. “Why did you want her to come to dinner for so badly, baby?”
Millie shrugged her narrow little shoulders, her eyes sliding back to the water. “I don’t know. I just like spending time with her, I guess.”
“Okay, but we spent time with her just yesterday,” I pointed out as kindly and tenderly as I could. “Did she tell you she might be able to see us again today?”
Heidi didn’t strike me as the type to make promises to a child that she didn’t intend on keeping, but I needed to know what I was working with. Millie confirmed my suspicion when she shook her head.
“No, she didn’t say anything about it. I was only hoping that we would see her again.”
“We will see her again. She’ll be at the party. That’s only a few days away.” Unfortunately, after that, I had no clue when we would see her again—if ever.
Millie nodded, still playing absently with the grass between her fingers. “I know, but the days will feel so long without her.”
I lifted my hand to squeeze her shoulder. “At least you’ll have me around more often for the next few days before I have to go back to the office full time.”
“Yeah, I guess.” She offered me a weak smile. “I’m glad you’re going to be home.”
Exhaling a soft sigh, I returned her smile. “But you’d like to have Heidi around too, is that it?”
After hesitating for a second, she nodded. “Does that hurt your feelings?”
“It takes a lot more than that to hurt my feelings, kiddo,” I said, but I couldn’t deny that there was a flash of searing pain somewhere deep down near my gut.
It wasn’t because Millie wanted Heidi here and not just me. I wasn’t that petty. What it was about was that it seemed like Millie had grown even fonder of Heidi than I’d realised in the short amount of time she’d known her.
Despite my promise to tread carefully, Millie had grown so attached that a single dinner invitation Heidi couldn’t accept had hurt her feelings.
Maybe it was time to tackle those feelings of hers head on. Lord knew I didn’t want her having any expectations about Heidi and a future with her when we weren’t even really in a relationship.
“How do you feel about Heidi, baby?” I asked, my voice soft and gentle even as my insides tensed, bracing themselves for the worst.
Millie’s eyes filled with adoration, an almost dreamy gleam coming into them. The look in them twisted me up, but her words almost destroyed me with guilt.
“I love her, Daddy. She’s so cool. When I grow up, I want to be just like her.”
My heart sank and a pit the size of New Zealand formed in my stomach. I might have rushed Heidi into Millie’s life, even if I hadn’t been trying to do it. Guilt rushed up from the pit, tasting bitter and like regret that was way too little, way too late.
Fuck. FUCK.
“She is cool,” I agreed, even though it felt like I was being crushed by my own fucking stupidity. “Come on. Let’s go back inside. I saw some cake in the fridge and I think it has our names on it.”
Millie perked up again, and I admired the resilience of children. I just wished I had half as much of it as she did.
As I stood up, I dusted stray bits of grass off myself and then did the same for Millie before extending my hand to her. She took it, swaying it as we walked to the house together.
We spent the rest of the afternoon eating cake, watching movies, and finally having a swim before it was time for her to bathe and get to bed. As I lay curled around her while she fell asleep, Hugo’s words and my mother’s warnings floated around in my head.
Despite my best intentions, Millie was now well and truly involved in whatever the hell was going on with Heidi.
What the fuck do I do now?
Chapter 30
Heidi
At a loss for everything, I paced up and down in my living room. At this rate, I was going to wear a path in the hardwood floor before I got any answers to the questions flying around inside my head.
After my conversation with Bonnie, I’d decided to make use of the flex-time policy the company had implemented for the holidays and brought my computer home to work from here. The only problem was that without Bonnie or the others there to keep my mind on work or otherwise occupied, all I could think about was Archer and Millie.
And all those wonderful points Bonnie had made about them earlier. When she hadn’t been keeping my mind on work.
I sighed into the silence of my flat, wondering what the hell I was supposed to do now.
I’d asked Bonnie that question, but she’d told me that only I knew the answer to it. While it sounded like bullshit to me on the one hand, on the other, I knew it was true.
I needed to figure out the answers to the questions she’d asked me. No one else could do it for me. Having never been in a relationship with someone with a child before, I hadn’t quite realised how different things would be from such an early stage.
Archer and I hadn’t even so much as talked about next week, never mind next month or the one after that. But the reality of Millie being involved was that we, and by we, I meant I, had to take things much more seriously from this point forward.
If Archer and I did talk about the future and by some miracle, considering his status as a renowned and revered bachelor, he wanted to give a relationship a try, was that even something I wanted?
As Bonnie had so helpfully pointed out earlier, we had more events planned outside the city than we’d had this year, and on some days this year, it had felt like we were constantly away from home.
A quasi-long-distance relationship would have been difficult enough without having a child to think about. But I would have to think about Millie.
I had to think about how it would affect her if I was with them often and openly in a relationship with her father, only to have to travel afterwards for weeks on end. I had to consider what she might think or feel if she woke up in the morning and found me in their house, only to have to wake up without me there perhaps as soon as she got used to having me there.
Travel aside, I worked long hours. The very nature of my industry’s beast was that I often got home long after midnight once my event for the evening had wrapped up. If I still had to deal with administration, clean up, venue management, or so many other things, I often only got home shortly before sunrise.
What would that mean to a child? It sure wasn’t necessarily a good example to be setting, staying out until all hours of the day and night. Even if she did understand that it was for work, where would she fit into my life?
I wouldn’t be able to get involved with school stuff or afterschool stuff, probably. Bryan was always telling me that because of the hours I worked, I could relax my office hours during the year to make up for all the overtime I worked.
If I took him at his word, maybe I could do it.
But that didn’t change the fact that
all these issues were ones I had to keep in mind before the actual person I would be in a relationship with even began to feature. Archer and I had been getting along better, sure. But I had seen how he could be. I had experienced the ruthless businessman and the pushy bastard firsthand.
Although I was beginning to think that that wasn’t who or how he really was, I couldn’t know for sure. Not yet.
Only time would tell things like that for sure, and I was fast running out of it with him before a decision would need to be made. Until the party, there was a reason to keep seeing him and to stay in contact without any pressure or need to define anything, but after that? All bets were off.
I swallowed past a hard lump in my throat. It wasn’t supposed to have become this complicated. Did a few great orgasms and mind-numbingly awesome nights really have to come down to this?
Why couldn’t I just have let sex be sex? Come and walk away.
People did it all the time, right? But oh no. Not me.
Noooo, I had to go and develop feelings for the sex god in that damn bed. And not even only for him, but for his freaking daughter too.
Tears burned the backs of my eyes.
I didn’t know what to do.
My heart leapt and swelled with joy at the mere thought that I could have more time with them, but at the same time, my stomach felt like it was filled with a lead weight at that very thought.
I lifted my hands to my hair and pulled at the soft strands as I released a frustrated sound. I needed advice. I needed someone to talk this all through with.
Fuck that. I didn’t need someone. I needed my mother. But she wasn’t around anymore. Not really.
She could be, a soft, hopeful voice whispered in the back of my mind. She could be having a good day.
Eventually, on the brink of both tears and tugging all my hair out, I drove to the nursing home. I knew the risk I was taking, but I also knew that I was already staring down the barrel of a few really difficult and emotional days. What’s one more heartache to add to the mix?
Thankfully, as soon as I walked into my mother’s room, I saw that she was having a good day. Her eyes were clear and bright, happiness shining from them when she noticed me in the doorway.
Sure, I’d seen how fast things could change, but maybe I would actually be able to spend some real time with her today. A wide smile spread on my lips. “Hey, Mom. How are you?”
“I’m so good baby. All the better now that you’re here.” She spread her arms open and pulled me into a tight hug as soon as she could reach me.
The fluttery, floral-patterned curtains in her room were open, letting in the sunshine through the bay windows. They rustled in the breeze, which made our hair move as we hugged. She let me hold her to me, knowing who I was this time around. It filled my heart with such happiness that it felt like it had fluttery wings.
The ocean air filled the room, all of which made it feel like an entirely different place than I’d visited last week. Mom sat in her pink, velvety armchair and, when she released me from her hug, looked me over from head to toe.
“You’re looking wonderful, darling,” she said, her voice filled with approval. “I love you in blue. I always have. It makes your eyes pop.”
“Thanks, Mom.” I smoothed out the sundress I had hastily changed into before I left my flat and looked properly at my mother. “You’re looking good, too. Are you sleeping better?”
The smudges around her eyes weren’t quite as inky anymore and she even seemed to have put on some weight. It was incredible how fast things could change with her these days, whether for the better or the worse.
“I am.” She beamed at me. “Nurse Betty has been making me a cup of lavender tea every night. It works wonders.”
“I’m glad.” I matched her grin and took a seat in the armchair facing hers. “Nurse Betty, she has red hair, right?”
My mother nodded and filled me in on each of the nurses who took care of her. We made small talk for about an hour before she folded her hands in her lap and tilted her head. “What’s bothering you, sweetheart? There’s something on your mind. Talk to me about it.”
While we’d been talking, I’d half considered not wasting this good day of hers by asking for her advice. But a good day had been exactly what I’d been hoping for when I drove out here, wasn’t it?
Who knew? This could be the last good day she had for a long time. Possibly even my last chance, or one of them, to get her advice on anything.
And so, without even really needing to think about the words, they came pouring out of me in a solid stream. Once I was done explaining to her the mess I’d gotten myself into, she fixed me with a serene smile.
“Having a family is the single most incredible thing that ever happened to me.” She inclined her head. “Seeing you grow and learn, getting to experience the world through your eyes, and getting to know the woman you became. Nothing could compare to that.”
“But what about my career?” I asked, my brows knitting. “I haven’t even known these people for two months, but I’ve been working on my career for years.”
Mom waved me off with a frail, long-fingered hand. “A career can be whatever you want it to be. It’s always evolving, always changing. Whenever you want to work harder, you can. Whenever you get bored, you can look for other opportunities or make them.”
“Not always,” I argued. “It’s taken me years to get to where I am.”
“And now that you’re there?” she asked with a shrug. “Is it everything you dreamt about? Does it make you so happy that it feels like your soul could just burst?”
I paused, then shook my head.
She smiled. “Exactly, because that’s what a career is. There’s always more work to be done, more paths to follow. A family, though? Now there’s only one of those.”
“Yeah, I guess you’re right.” Knot after knot of the tension that had formed in my stomach while I’d been speaking to Bonnie this morning and obsessing about our conversation afterwards started unravelling.
It was incredible how speaking to my mother had always been able to make me feel so much better. It was almost like every word coming out of her mouth was the exact one I wanted to hear, needed to hear to help me make the decision that would make me the happiest. The very best decision I could make for myself.
I smiled at her. “No, I don’t guess you’re right. You are right. Family is the most important, most irreplaceable thing in the world. Thank you, Mom.”
She grinned back at me, but there was distance creeping into her eyes. “Family has always meant the world to me, my dear. So I agree with you. Speaking of which, would you please say hello to Heidi for me when you see her? I do miss my daughter so much. I wonder when she’ll have time to come visit with me again.”
Just like that, my heart dropped and nothing felt quite as right in the world as it had merely minutes ago. Maybe it never would again.
Chapter 31
Archer
“I have Heidi Andersen in the reception area for you,” my assistant said when she popped her head into my office after giving her usual curt knock. “Can I send her in? She’s not on your calendar, but she said it would only take a minute.”
My heart reacted to Heidi’s surprise visit with a strange bounce. “Sure, I’ve got time. Send her in.”
I straightened my tie and stood up, pressing my fingertips against the cool glass of my desk to keep myself grounded when I saw her. Once again, I had to fight the urge to go to her, to take her into my arms and kiss her senseless.
Wearing a flowing blue sundress with purple wildflowers on it and with her hair in a simple braid that hung over one shoulder, she looked as beautiful as ever. She lifted her hand in a small wave.
“Hey. I hope I’m not bothering you, barging in like this.”
I shook my head and motioned for her to take a seat. “You’d never be able to bother me.”
Her eyebrows lifted in surprise, but she moved to the couch Hugo favoured and sat down.
“Thank you. I should have called ahead, but I got wrapped up in the planning, and then I had to come here anyway, so I thought I’d come tell you myself.”
“Tell me what?” I walked over to the couches, sitting down in the same one I usually chose. It felt much more intimate to sit this way with Heidi for some reason, with her knee close enough to almost touch mine and her eyes burning brightly as she captured my gaze.
“We’re almost done setting everything up upstairs. The vendors have all confirmed, and after a minor mishap with the abalone, the food is all sorted. I’m only still waiting on the jumping castle to be delivered, which should happen tomorrow. Then all the kids’ stuff is here and most of the infrastructure.”
“I’m impressed.” My mouth curled into a smile. “After the short notice, I was kind of expecting us to still be scrambling on the day of the party.”
Heidi shrugged, but she couldn’t keep the corners of her lips from lifting. “Nope, not with us. I like to have the bulk of the work done before the day itself arrives. There are always so many things to take care of on the day of the event that I don’t want to be hanging lights and putting up tents.”
“Sounds like a good philosophy to have.” Noticing that her leg bounced while she talked and how her gaze had flitted away from mine and wasn’t returning, I reached out to put a hand on her knee.
That got her attention. Her eyes dropped to look at my hand covering her bare skin, my fingers splayed out upwards on her thigh and curling around it.
“Is everything okay?” I asked, sliding the index finger of my other hand under her chin and lifting it so I would be able to see her eyes. “You’re acting a little… differently.”
That was putting it mildly.
Heidi didn’t deny it. She simply—finally—looked at me. “I have a lot on my plate at the moment. I needed some time to just get everything together.”
I held her gaze, but I didn’t see anything that made me think she was hiding something or lying. There was definitely something there, but it wasn’t deception. It looked more thoughtful than that.
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