For a minute, we just sat there looking at each other. As I examined the vivid golden specks that decorated the blue-green swirls of her eyes, it was difficult to think it could be wrong to be with her.
After my intense conversation with Millie yesterday, I had lain in that tiny bed with her for at least an hour after she had fallen asleep. Before I’d gotten up to stumble to my own bedroom, I’d realised that I’d been right when I’d thought that Millie was now well and truly involved.
She was. There was no way around it. My little girl was sold on the woman sitting in front of me, and if I was being entirely honest with myself, I was getting there too. Fast.
When I’d tried to keep them apart before, all I’d ended up doing was withholding something from both of them. Something they both wanted and enjoyed: the other’s company.
At this point, it felt downright futile to keep them apart again. I wouldn’t only be withholding something this time. I’d be hurting them. And for what?
Because my own stupid ego wouldn’t get out of the way? Because I was so afraid of having anyone else in Millie’s life that I was going to isolate her from someone who obviously cared for her?
Fuck that for a joke.
I wasn’t that guy.
Sure, I still wasn’t about to propose to the woman, but what harm did spending time with her do? The more I’d thought about it, the more I’d realised that spending time with her had been good for Millie.
Not only had she enjoyed every minute, but she’d had a woman—a successful, beautiful, intelligent one at that—to really look up to. As much as I loved my mother and as much as I believed she was a role model to Millie, there were things she could learn from Heidi that she couldn’t learn from my mother.
And vice versa, of course.
It just didn’t make sense to keep that kind of good influence from her because I didn’t know how things would turn out between us or because my mother wouldn’t like it. In the early morning hours, I’d come to the conclusion that I wouldn’t let those things turn me into a coward.
What would happen, would happen, and for now, my mother didn’t have to know. And no, that didn’t make me a coward. I wasn’t going to hide it from her. I just wasn’t going to rub it in her face either.
Maybe with time, she’d come around. Maybe she wouldn’t. I knew she’d always be there for Millie. It wasn’t like she was going to try to force me to choose between her and Heidi.
Things might be uncomfortable between us for a while, but fuck it. Millie liked Heidi, I liked Heidi, and Heidi liked us. Or at least, I thought she did.
Spending time together, even after the party, wasn’t a crime. If we kept doing it and saw where it went, what was there to stop us?
Nothing. That’s what. So if not, why not?
“I hear you,” I said to Heidi, snapping myself out of the daze that staring into her eyes had brought on. “You’ve performed miracles for me this past month or so. Why don’t you come over to the house tonight? Relax with us. I’ll cook dinner, we’ll eat, and we won’t talk about work. How does that sound?”
She didn’t answer immediately, but when she did, it was with a smile that made my heart and my cock take notice. “Sure, I’d love that. Thank you for inviting me. I know it sounds weird because it’s only been a couple of days, but I’ve missed you guys.”
“We’ve missed you too.” I gave up on trying to control myself then, lifting the hand that had been on her chin, sliding it into her hair and bringing her mouth to mine.
When her soft lips brushed against mine, her hands slid into my hair and held me against her for a slow but surprisingly passionate kiss. She moaned into my mouth, a sound that made me wonder how much time we had before I had to go to the meeting I’d come to the office for today.
Just as I was about to slide my hand farther up her thigh, my assistant’s voice crackled over the intercom. “Mr. Meyers is here for you. Should I ask him to give you a few minutes to finish up?”
With my hardening cock and the fire burning in Heidi’s eyes, we were going to need more than a few minutes if we let this go any further. She stifled a laugh when I groaned, then planted a final, chaste kiss on my cheek.
“I should get going anyway, I just wanted to give you that progress report. I’ll see you later.” She got up with far more ease than I was going to be able to, gave me a little finger wave from the door, and blew me a kiss before she left.
Shoving my palm against my crotch, I pushed down and thought about the most unsexy things I could think of for a few seconds. Once I was done with that, I walked over to the door myself and let in my next appointment.
It was only once I was at home, once again behind the stove and cooking for Heidi and Millie, that I could concentrate fully on something other than that kiss. There had been a permanent grin etched on my lips after Heidi left that had earned me more than a few raised eyebrows, but I didn’t give a damn.
“Did I remember to mention,” I asked Millie when I glanced down at my watch and saw that Heidi would be arriving within a minute or two if the estimated time of arrival she’d messaged to me was correct, “that Heidi will be having dinner with us tonight?”
Millie stopped colouring, her eyes snapping to mine. “Really?”
“Really.” I flicked my hand lazily at the door. “In fact, she’s going to be here any minute. Would you like to go get the door?”
She was off the stool and running for it already when the knock came, as if Heidi and I had choreographed the whole thing. I laughed but set down the butter I’d been melting in a pan and followed after her.
“Heidi,” she exclaimed, launching herself into her arms as soon as she opened the door.
Thankfully, Heidi saw her coming just in time and caught her in a big hug. “Hey, you. How are you? I’m so glad I was able to come over tonight.”
Millie nuzzled the crook of Heidi’s neck, where another soft-looking braid lay. “I asked Daddy if you could come last night, too. He said you were busy.”
“I was.” Heidi gave Millie another squeeze, then let her down.
Millie sighed but didn’t protest. “What with? Was it Daddy’s party?”
“Yes, and I had a few other things to do yesterday,” she said vaguely, then walked all the way into the house.
I closed the door behind her, then drew her in for a quick hug myself. It wasn’t nearly as long as I’d have wanted it to be, but at least I got to feel her soft body melt into mine for a second. I nearly moaned out loud at just that brief bit of contact.
Heidi smiled up at me when I let her go. “How was the rest of your day?”
“Hard.” I smirked at her, then softened it to a smile. “But I got through it. Yours?”
“Pretty much the same.” She gave me a playful little wink before turning around and motioning for Millie. “It smells divine in here, so I guess we’re headed straight for the kitchen.”
“Yeah, I thought I’d try to make—”
I was cut off by another knock on the door. A frown pulled my eyebrows together. I hadn’t been expecting anyone else.
Millie and Heidi both looked to me, still standing near the door, to get it. Both of them had questions in their eyes, but I just shrugged. “I don’t know who it is. I didn’t invite anyone else.”
Out of the two possibilities of people who arrived at my house without any warning or an invitation, I was desperately hoping it was Hugo at the door.
It wasn’t.
My mother stood there instead, with her hair back into a severe silver bun and irritation flashing in her eyes. “What took you so long? And who’s car is that out there?”
Oh dear, God. No. My mother was here. Well, this is going to be a clusterfuck of epic proportions.
Things had just gotten interesting, just not in the way I’d been hoping they would. Fuck. This was going to suck.
Chapter 32
Heidi
An older woman stood in the doorway, her thin arms folding across an expe
nsive jacket-clad chest. She had the same ice-blue eyes as Archer and Millie, so I assumed it was his mother.
Oh, jeez. An accidental meeting with the mother just after I’d decided to go with the flow with this relationship? A fact I hadn’t even had the opportunity to inform Archer of as of yet? Things really did seem to be happening at a million miles a minute with Archer and me.
As I smiled, those eyes, so familiar and yet so terrifying with the current glacial expression in them, landed on me. Her thin lips twisted into a sneer. “I take it this is Heidi.”
“Yes, Mother.” Archer didn’t invite her in. “This is Heidi. Heidi, this is my mother, Vivian.”
“It’s nice to finally meet you,” I said, stepping forward and holding out my hand to shake hers.
She didn’t take it.
All she did was stare at it with an expression of severe distaste on her face. Her eyes lifted away from my offered hand and sought out Millie’s. “You’re coming home with me, sweetheart. Right this instant.”
“What?” Millie frowned.
I felt the sudden urge to protect her from this woman, my arm reaching for her shoulders almost automatically.
It was Vivian’s glare that halted me in my tracks. “You heard me. No need to pack. You have all your spares at my house. Go wait at the car, sweetheart. Now.”
I noticed that she didn’t say please. These weren’t requests she was making. She was issuing orders.
“No, but Grandma, Heidi’s come to have dinner with us. I can’t come sleep over at your house tonight. Can I come tomorrow?”
“No, tonight.” Vivian raised an arm with more grace and authority than anyone her age I’d ever seen and pointed at the driveway. “My car, Millicent. Now.”
Archer stepped in front of Millie before she could move, but he kept his voice low. “You will not speak to her that way, Mother. She’s not going with you. Heidi, Millie, and I are going to have dinner as planned.”
“No, you and I are going to have a little chat. If you want to do that in front of Millie, we can. I think you’ll find you don’t want to have this discussion in her presence. At least you will if you’re still trying to be a good father at all, which I’m honestly wondering about right now.”
Archer’s jaw tightened. Clearly, his mother had struck a nerve.
“Millie, Grandma and I need to have an adults-only conversation. Why don’t you go read in your room for a while, with your music on?”
Whatever was going on, the situation didn’t seem to be a good one. Millie let out a soft sigh and, with her eyes darting from her grandmother to her father and back again, must have decided not to argue.
“Okay, I’ll go. Come get me when you’re done.”
“We will,” Archer told her, but he still seemed to be locked in some kind of silent battle of wills with his mother.
I shifted my weight when Millie walked away from us, uncertain whether I was expected to leave as well. God knew I wanted to.
What I’d done to offend this woman, I didn’t know. It was obvious that she didn’t approve of me being in their home, though. It was also quite obvious that she didn’t like me very much.
Millie disappeared around a corner, and before I could ask if I should just wait in the kitchen or something, Vivian’s eyes narrowed to slits and her tone turned to pure venom.
“What you’re doing here is wrong, Archer. You know it, too. This woman,” she gestured to me with the sharp stab of a manicured finger, “is going to ruin your life and Millie’s. She’s only after your money. Don’t you see that? Are you so blinded by a pretty face that you can’t see what she’s really here for?”
She scoffed, tossing a dismissive glance my way before looking back at Archer. “She has no idea what it means to be a family. We’re family. Me, you, and Millie. She’s nothing but an outsider who’s trying to hurt us, to come between us. What she’s doing is wrong.”
I was so stunned by all the bullshit she was spewing that I couldn’t even muster any words in my defence. My jaw was slack as I tried to figure out what the hell I might have done that made her believe any of what she was saying.
Archer seemed to be suffering from the same sudden speechlessness I was. His throat worked and the muscles in his arms bunched and released as he curled and uncurled his fists. I didn’t think he was about to clock his own mother. It just looked like he was having trouble standing still and listening to this.
Well, good. Because I was having trouble with it, too. Forcing my feet to take a step forward, I put my hands up in front of me. “Excuse m—”
Vivian jabbed another finger in my direction, but her gaze didn’t leave Archer’s. “End it. Now. What she’s doing is wrong. It might be hard, but you have to break it off before she can do any more damage.”
What in the ever-loving fuck was she talking about?
Archer finally found his tongue and remembered how to move his limbs because he strode the few steps to the door and flung it open. “Leave, Mother. I’ll speak to you tomorrow.”
She planted her hands on her hips and gave him a long, narrow-eyed look before her head dipped in a curt nod. “Very well. I’ll leave you to do what needs to be done.”
Slamming the door behind her when she left, I was still too shocked to move. Archer turned slowly, his hands coming up to shove through his hair.
“Well that was interesting,” I said finally, dragging a deep, cleansing breath of air into my lungs. “What was she talking about? Do you have any idea?”
He frowned, blue eyes cold on mine when they landed there. “Maybe it’s best if you leave, too.”
“What?” I took a staggering step back, blinking in utter confused disbelief. “Do you actually believe all that shit she said? That I’m only here for your money and to somehow ruin Millie’s life?”
I expected a denial or at least some kind of explanation, but Archer didn’t have an answer for me. He crossed his arms over his chest and just stared, eyes darting between mine like he was searching for an answer.
If he found whatever he was searching for, he didn’t tell me. He just stood there like a fucking ice sculpture.
In that second, I realised that he did believe his mother. To some extent, anyway. Enough that he hadn’t defended me to her and wanted me to leave. Enough that he wasn’t denying it now. Enough that there wasn’t even a sliver of warmth in those eyes.
Honestly? It felt like he’d slapped me, like he’d grabbed the rug and yanked it right out from underneath me.
“Are you being serious right now?” Aware that Millie was somewhere in the house, I didn’t raise my voice. Contrary to what these people believed, I wasn’t actually here to hurt anyone and I was guessing that hearing an argument between me and her dad would do just that.
Again, Archer didn’t answer me. He cocked an eyebrow and reached for the door handle, letting it swing slowly open once again.
My breath left my lungs in a rush. I stormed forward, grabbing onto the door and turning to give him one last piece of my mind. “I don’t believe this. You have no idea how I feel about you or about Millie. I’ve never given you any reason to believe that I was after your money or out to ruin your goddamn life.”
When he still didn’t reply, I released a frustrated groan. “Fine. You know what? Fuck off. If you really believe all that, I’m done with whatever this even was.”
Using my grip on the door I propelled myself out and followed Vivian’s example by slamming it shut behind me. Petty but the crack when it slammed was also a little satisfying.
I was fuming, so angry that when I got into the driver’s seat of my car, I just sat there for a minute and gulped in deep breaths of air. My fingers tightened around my steering wheel until my knuckles were white and there were dots swimming in my vision.
My first big breakup since arriving in Australia and this was how it went down? Because of the twisted beliefs of the guy’s mother?
I really couldn’t believe it. I’d thought so much more of Arch
er than that, but apparently, I’d been dead wrong.
The saddest part of all was that I couldn’t even really call it a breakup. We’d never defined our relationship to one another, and until just a little more than twenty-four hours ago, I’d firmly believed that whatever was going on between us was doomed to end on New Year’s Eve.
Huffing out a breath, I took a deliberately deep one next and repeated the action again and again until the spots cleared and I could finally think straight again. Whatever.
My first impression of Archer had turned out to be spot on. He really was a flaming bloody arsehole. I just wished there wasn’t an ache in the centre of my chest, in that one soft spot that he and Millie had somehow crawled into and that he’d just ripped out.
Fuck.
Chapter 33
Archer
“After that, she slammed the door, and a few minutes later, I heard her tires screeching as she left the house,” I said to Hugo, massaging my temples and praying that the headache I’d developed the minute Heidi had left my house would just fucking ease up already.
Hugo slowly lowered his burger, letting it drop on his plate as he stared at me with disbelief swimming in his eyes. “That was it?”
After my detailed explanation of what had gone down at my house, even I had realised that there should have been more to this story. “That was it.”
He sighed, shaking his head. “So, let me get this straight. You invited the woman over for dinner, your mother arrives, tells you to end things with her, and then you do?”
“I didn’t end things with her. I just told her it would be best if she left as well.” It wasn’t the same thing. I’d asked her to leave so that I could think, so that I could try to make sense of things before saying something I would regret.
My mother’s comment about my not even trying to be a good father anymore had really thrown me off. I should have expected it, but I hadn’t. She’d never come right out and said something like that to me.
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