“I don’t suppose we could lose her?” Kady asked hopefully.
“We could certainly try,” Daryl said, speeding up a bit more even as he said it.
“Don’t you dare to try it!” Athena commanded him then. “I’ll not have you put my grandchild in danger just to avoid a little bit of a nuisance.”
“Damn,” Kady grumbled.
Mia drove past them as Daryl slowed way down instead. Kady suppressed the very real urge to give her the finger or stick out her tongue at the vile woman. Instead, she pretended not to notice her at all even when she waved and smiled.
They finally arrived at the store and went to the section for babies, which was conveniently located on the bottom floor. There were so many cute items that Kady soon forgot all about the troublesome Mia. Athena happily picked out so many items they needed two carts to hold it all.
“I’m amazed we haven’t seen her yet,” Kady commented dryly once they’d finished shopping in the first store, thinking for sure that Mia would have taken any opportunity to make her miserable. “Let’s just hope our luck holds out.”
“Well, if it doesn’t, it may be like Robert said,” Athena pointed out. “Mia may very well hang herself.”
“Yes, that would be nice.”
“Enough about her, we came to shop,” she said with a grin that only a woman with plenty of money could possibly have. “Have you and Archer discussed the furniture yet?”
“Archer told me to go ahead and get whatever I like, and if we decide later that we don’t like it, we can always replace it then,” said Kady with a roll of her eyes. “He really knows how to spend money.”
Athena smirked at this remark. “Yes, but we may need to convince him to slow down just a little. After all, it isn’t like he’s making money while he’s in there, is it?”
“No, but I will be next week,” Kady reminded he
r. “That ought to count for something.”
“I’m sure Archer won’t see it that way,” Athena chuckled. “He is a man, after all.”
They shopped for the next few hours, comparing strollers, cribs, rocking chairs, and toys, and so many other things that Kady would need for the baby more than she even knew. The way Athena cooed and aw-ed over items with her had her thankful for the motherly figure who had stepped into her life without a second thought, and then she had felt an unimaginable amount of guilt eating away at her for the fraught situation with her own mother.
After months of not reaching out, Kady had finally made the call, only to be told that her mother ‘didn’t raise a gold-digger, or a slut’. The words had cut so deeply, with the note of anger and resentment when Kady had tried to explain that they were in love, and were having a baby out of love for each other: that was so unlike her mother that she had hung up the phone immediately.
To make things even worse, a few days later, her mother’s sleazy new husband had actually had the nerve to call her, pretending to be nice and concerned, all the while asking questions about how much money Archer had, and if she was rich now. She had been so furious that she had almost smashed the phone right then and there, but a deep breath restrained her.
She couldn’t believe the nerve of that awful man! After practically kicking her out of her home and her mother’s life, he had tried to call her and basically weasel money out of her now that he had heard that she was with Archer Devonshire. Now who was the gold-digger?
Kady tried to push the whole episode out of her mind, and focus on the amazing time she was having shopping with Athena, the woman who had been more like a mother to her over the past few months than her own. Her thoughts turned unwillingly back to Mia, the other major problem in her life right now. If only there was a way to get rid of that lunatic for good.
Just when they thought they had managed to evade her, Mia rounded the corner where the cribs were kept. She was surrounded by two reporters, one holding the camera as the other asked her questions. They couldn’t tell from this distance just what those questions were, but her presence in the store was disheartening to say the least.
She kept pointing at the different cribs excitedly and pointing to her belly, making Kady think she was insinuating a pregnancy of her own. She really wanted to storm right over there and demand to know what she thought she was doing.
“If that woman is trying to tell them she’s having Archer’s child now I’m going to end up in prison for a hell of a lot longer than one year,” Kady grumbled fiercely.
“Calm down, Kady,” said Athena in her most soothing manner. “And there’s no way she could prove it, anyway. After all, she and Archer were never together.”
“Yeah, which really makes me wonder why she would try a stunt like that at all,” Kady pointed out. “I mean, even if she is pregnant, there’s no way Archer could have gotten her that way. He and I have been practically inseparable ever since we met. Plus, she isn’t even showing, so there’s no way they could have done anything that resulted in a baby before he go put into prison and her not be at least showing a little, right? Don’t these stupid reporters even think of that?”
“I imagine there are some reporters you could try to convince you conceived immaculately and they’d probably run the story,” said Athena with a disdainful sniff, grabbing Kady’s arm and gently nudging her away from the spectacle.
“Yeah, no doubt,” Kady agreed. “Well, it’s about time to get me home. Archer is supposed to call in about an hour.”
“All right, dear,” she agreed. Then she turned to the guy who was cashing her out and said, “Please have all the furniture fully assembled and delivered to his address.”
“No problem,” the man agreed, and they headed back out to the car.
Chapter 27