A smile spread across my lips. “Really, Princess?”
“Really, Myth Maker. I really love you.”
Chapter 36
Fern – 3 months later
“I’m so glad you’re back at work. I don’t know how you do this job every day and look as relaxed as you do. I was a wreck.” I looked across at Addi, who was back at her desk, running the label, where she should be.
“Trust me, running this place is a piece of cake compared to wrangling two small people into bed each night. Mav winds them up so much that they don’t want to sleep and he usually passes out from all the excitement.”
I laughed because we all knew Mav was like a big kid, so it didn’t come as a surprise. “You’re enjoying it, though?”
A smile curled Addi’s lips, her face lighting up. “It’s perfect. There is a tiny unexpected issue, though.” She held her thumb and finger close together in the air. “I’m pregnant.”
My eyes widened, and my mouth fell open. “W-what? I thought you couldn’t…”
“So did we.”
“Happy?”
“Shocked, but so happy. But I’m going to have three kids and this time last year we weren’t sure we’d ever have any.” Addi’s voice cracked before she sucked in a deep breath. “But that means more time off.”
My eyes narrowed. “Neo will be back by then… I mean, that’s the plan, isn’t it?”
“He’s back next month as long as his last hospital check up goes okay, but he’s been off for months. You… you’ve been running this place.”
“I—”
“I know I’m asking a lot. Tell me what you need. Pay rise, a bigger team, another assistant… anything, Fern. I can’t leave the place with anyone but you. You and Neo are as important to this place as me, and he’s going to need time to ease back in. After what he nearly did, I need to protect his mental health.”
“And what about my stress levels?” I joked, but it was a rubbish attempt to make light of her leaving me in charge again.
She stood from her seat, walking around her desk to me, her baby bump now suddenly obvious. Sitting in the chair next to me, she took my hand in hers.
“If it’s too much. If it’s really too much, then I’ll listen. I’ll hire in someone external and they can keep the place ticking over, but you, you’re meant to do this. You know what you did while I was off, everything you achieved.”
I snorted. “My psycho ex leaked a load of fake news stories about our bands, put out an ad on the dark web to have me kidnapped, leaked an album, potentially costing the label millions and—”
“And you dealt with it all. Have you heard from him?”
I shook my head. “Nothing. I’ve made Thomas stop watching me. He and Sean have bigger baddies to catch, so I told them I’d sack the lot of them if he didn’t step back.”
“I bet he wasn’t happy,” Addi laughed.
“Not in the slightest, but I can’t have them follow me around indefinitely.”
“If it’s about the cost, the label is happy to keep paying.”
“It’s not. I just need to feel… I don’t know. Normal for a while.”
“You’re living with one third of Alchemy Myth. I don’t think you’ll even live a normal life again. And how is Charlie?”
A blush spread up my neck as I thought about just how well Charlie was and how good he looked last night as I bent him over the dining table and pegged him until he came and then he buried his face between my thighs until I was a boneless mess.
“That good, eh?”
“I mean, I appear to be living with him now… he won’t even talk about me moving back to the house I shared with Luci.”