Chapter 31

The car speeds off into the distance. I can almost hear the laughter coming out of it. I look down at the brambles around me. My dress is tattered. The once endless midnight blue now looks like shards of stained glass surrounding my legs. My one heel has completely popped off rendering it unusable.

I huff and push the fallen curls off my face. My entire body shakes with rage as I get up to my feet. I take off my heels and chuck them into the weeds. The red bottoms get hit with the light and glare at me. I throw them the finger. Then I throw the moon a finger then I throw the Gods one. Fuck all of these people.

I scramble my way out of the bush. I gather the torn mess of my dress in my hands and march down the road to the pyramid. I consider going in the servants entrance then decide I’ve had about enough of the patriarchy for the day. I go right to the front door of the pyramid and throw it open like I own the place.

I stomp down the spiral steps. I get to the bottom and see none other than Archer waiting for me. He looks, dare I say it, nervous. I sneer at him.

“What?” I snap. “Gonna yell at me for not taking the correct door? Do it already so I can go to sleep.”

He stands up and starts towards me. “Chloe –” he sighs.

“No!” I hold my finger up. “No. Fuck. You.”

He sighs again, head tilting slightly. His eyes are dark, rimmed with deep purple circles.

“Please, I –”

“Get the fuck away from me,” I throw at him. I begin to march past him but his hand wraps around my bicep. It’s not tight enough to bruise but it’s enough to stop me. I jerk myself out and look at him, waiting for that deep glare I’ve become so accustomed to.

But it’s not there.

Instead, Archer looks at me with sad, big eyes. He has none of the anger boiling behind them that he usually has. The sight make me go limp. My lips part slightly as I stare up at him.

“I’m –” he starts. He huffs a breath. “I’m sorry.”

I blink at him. Once. Twice. I have not once, in my month of being here, ever heard those words be uttered out of his mouth. Not to anyone. Let alone me. I can’t help but stare at him. Our eyes are locked on one another. Mine in awe, his in a begging, plead.

“I’m sorry,” he says again. His voice is quiet, soft.

I run my eyes all over his face. I’m looking for something, anything, that will tell me this is a ruse. It’s another one of his sick, twisted games. I find nothing. His lips don’t twitch. His jaw doesn’t clench.

I finally see Archer as a person now. He’s not consumed with anger, licked by the flames of Hell. His face is soft, skin smooth and perfect. His eyes are this deep blue that I’ve seen in the oceans in movies. His lips are bitten red, another sign that he’s not messing with me. His hair looks soft, slightly curling at the nape of his neck. I ache to touch it. The thought brings me back to reality.

This is Archer Hayes.

Notorious douchebag.

Man who’s made my life miserable since I got here. It doesn’t matter how devilishly handsome he looks right with his pretty blue eyes and his curly brown hair and his plump lips and –

I shake my head. I jerk my arm, trying to get it out of his grip. “I don’t accept,” I say.

“Chloe,” he almost whines my name. It sends a shiver up my spine that I’m trying to ignore. “I am sorry. That was too much – we were too much.”

“I’ll say,” I hiss. I jerk my arm once more. He lets go. I glare at him. “You’re lucky I didn’t die. You’d be back to square one. Looking for a nanny.”

“That isn’t all we’d lose,” he mumbles. More so himself than me.

I blink again. “What?”

Archer snaps up to look at me. He shakes his head and pinches the bridge of his nose as if he’s embarrassed.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “Honestly. We – I got carried away. You’re a member of the Court. We should respect you more.”

I have no idea what the fucking Court has to do with this. I didn’t think the Court changed much besides the back of my hands. But these boys and their weird rich people customs are always throwing me for a loop.

“You should,” I say. “And until then, I won’t accept an apology unless I see change.”

Before Archer can even reply, I turn and rush out of the gold room. The door slams behind me as I enter the hallway to Mia’s and my room. I open the door slowly. The room is dark and Mia is asleep in her crib. I walk over and gently run my hand over her head.

“What is going on here, Mia?” I ask to her. She doesn’t answer but honestly, I didn’t expect her to. I think she knows even less than I do.

Sunday and Monday are uneventful. The brothers, true(ish) to Archer’s word, are more respectful. There’s minimal teasing and they argue less with me now. Beau even thanks me for taking Mia so he can run off to whatever nonsense he planned on doing.

The real test in that Tuesday morning at Nanny class. All four of them walk in quietly and wait patiently for the rest of the class to arrive. Steven comes in last and we begin working with Mia. That morning, I just wanted to see how they interact with Mia and try to find ways to improve it.

I put Mia on her wobbly knees and let her walk around the four massive men sitting on the ground. She brings each of them a toy then bounces between them, seeking attention. They all react to her in a slightly different way.

Steven is very tentative. He holds the doll in his hand awkwardly and corrects Mia when she starts doing things inhumanely possible. Mia doesn’t find this bad, however. Whenever Steven says something, she babbles back gleefully.

Beau is very to the point. He speaks to Mia as if she’s an adult and not a child. He uses no soothing voice, no simplified words. He talks plainly and effectively. He doesn’t understand the toy Mia has given him and asks her to explain it. He listens as she makes baby noises at him that he doesn’t get.

Neil treats Mia like a work of art. He adopts the teacher mentality and keeps pointing to various toys and people, his brothers mainly, and repeating their names. He gets her to garble out something close enough to “giraffe” that everyone in the room claps.

Archer is the gentlest of all of the brothers. Despite the fact that he’s the largest of the four (and the angriest), he treats Mia like she’s the most breakable. He also is the most loving. He kisses Mia’s cheek and wraps her in hugs, pulls her into his lap when she starts trying to explain something in gibberish.

It’s odd, seeing Archer be so sweet and full of adoration. He treats Mia like she’s his own. It makes me wonder if she is. I try and picture the two of them with a nameless blonde woman in a family portrait. Archer and Mia both have blue eyes. The curl of Mia’s hair is so similar to Archer’s. I’m still pondering it when Archer speaks up.

“Can she stay with me tonight?” he asks. I look around and see the rest of the boys have left while I was day dreaming. Mia is fiddling with blocks in Archer’s lap.

“What?” I say.

“Like in my room,” Archer goes on. “I want her closer to me. Most nights I can’t sleep worrying about her.” He sees my face fall and continues. “Not that it’s a slight on you. I think it’s just the alpha in me.”

“Uh, sure,” I say. “That should be okay.”

Archer smiles down at Mia. He leaves, promising to be back at the end of the day. I give him to her and settle down in my own bed, quickly drifting off to sleep. However, in the middle of the night, I’m awoken by soul piercing screams.

It’s Mia.