Chapter 9
Ever since then, I had this homeless guy tailing me everywhere.
When William figured out it was Archer, he was in a pissy mood for like two weeks straight.
But at night he’d get all weepy and insecure in bed. “Do you still have feelings for that piece of shit?”
I didn’t even look up, brushing him off. “What? For some street bum? Please. I don’t do charity cases.”
William’s whole face immediately lit up like Christmas morning.
He pulled me close, all clingy and desperate. “Promise me you’ll never leave me again.”
“I’d literally die without you.”
“When you picked that asshole over me back then, I almost lost my fucking mind.”
“I knew you were miserable with him, and I kept begging you to marry me instead, but you kept shutting me dow. I seriously thought about eating a bullet.”
“Do you have any idea how happy I was when you finally said yes?”
I looked up at him and smiled, nodding seriously. “I was pretty damn happy too.”
Then I pointed at my stomach. “So is she.”
William’s eyes went huge. “Are you serious? Another baby?”
I grinned and nodded, then leaned in to whisper, “It’s a little girl.”
William scooped me up and spun me around in excitement, then carefully set me down and started rubbing my belly like I was made of glass. Total daddy mode activated.
‘Sorry, princess. Daddy got a little too excited there.”
I cracked up at how ridiculous he was and kicked him off the bed with my foot. “Go run me a foot bath, servant boy.”
William jumped up immediately. “Yes ma am! Whatever the queen wants!”
Right then I got a text from my assistant Amy: “Boss, we brought Hayley and the kid back from Africa. She’s on her way to find Archer now.”
grinned, ready for the entertainment.
Sure enough, the local news was all over some crazy scene at the park-woman with a toddler going absolutely psycho on a homeless guy, screaming hat he needed to man up and support their kid.
The homeless guy didn’t say a word-just grabbed the kid and chucked him straight into a septic tank.
Then he started calling the woman a cheating whore who’d been screwing around behind his back.
They kept fighting until they stumbled into traffic and got flattened by an eighteen-wheeler.
The kid didn’t even look at their mangled bodies-just kept bawling about wanting to go back to Africa.
I closed my tablet, feeling kind of empty all of a sudden.
All those years with Archer seemed like some twisted nightmare I’d finally woken up from.
But watching William carefully testing my bath water across the room-that was my real happiness right there.
