William
I moved a couple of hairs out of Heather’s face and smiled.
It took me a while to figure out that I actually liked Heather. The day at the shelter when I watched her interact with the kids, I realized that I wanted her to be the one to have my kids. I wanted to grow old with her and hold her hand through every twist and turn we went through. I wanted to be the one who wiped her tears and held her while she slept. I wanted to be the one to make her smile every morning, every night, every day of her life.
And I didn’t want to be the one who hurt her.
Great, you’re turning into a sappy poet, a voice in my head muttered.
I chuckled to myself as she snored quietly in her sleep. If only she could hear my thoughts.
We were in my room, and I was just watching her sleep soundly. After I had gone upstairs, I did some work and came back downstairs to find her asleep with Jonah. I fed Jonah some applesauce and put him in the guest nursery. Then I carried Heather back upstairs to my room, where she was now cuddled up to my chest.
I really hoped she would give me another chance. If she didn’t, I didn’t know what I’d do.
“William?” A groan snapped me out of my reverie. I looked down to see her rubbing her eyes.
She squinted adorably. “What are you doing in my bed?”
I smirked. “I’m sorry to disappoint you, sweetheart, but this is my bed.”
“What?” She lifted her head and looked around. “I-I…what am I doing here?”
“You fell asleep on the couch so I brought you up here. I put Jonah in the guest nursery.”
“Great,” she murmured. “Can you let go of me now?”
“Nope,” I said, leaning down and nuzzling her neck. Damn, she smelled good, like butterscotch and hot chocolate on a cold winter day. Don’t ask how I knew all that, I just did.
“William. Please let go of me!” she said firmly.
I sighed and reluctantly removed my arms from around her. Heather leaped out of the bed and was out the door before I could say a word. This was going to be a long night.
***
Heather
“What do I do? What do I do? Do I believe him?” I paced back and forth in the kitchen. Jonah had gone back to sleep after I fed him his bottle, and William was at the police station to talk to the officers about Jonah.
I sighed and texted SOS into the group chat.
In about ten minutes, we were in my bedroom with the guys pacing around the room and the girls laying on the bed, trying to think. It would have been a funny sight if it weren’t for the fact that this was a seriously sticky situation.
“Let’s get this straight. He says that he likes you but he couldn’t tell you that before because Kelly would hurt you. But if she apparently knows everything, wouldn’t she know he told you now?” Ethan asked, his lawyer side coming out.
I frowned. “William says she is not in the country right now, so she won’t know.”
“Gosh, this is so messed up,” Chelsea said tiredly.
I snorted. “You’re telling me.”
“I think you should give the guy another chance. If he broke down in front of you like that, it obviously means he cares a lot about you,” Jason said, running a hand through his hair.
“Anyone else have any thoughts?” I asked.
“Well, we don’t know if he’s lying or not. I say you should at least give him a second chance because he says he was trying to protect you, even if it was the wrong way to do so. So it’s up to you if you want to believe him or not.”
I rubbed my face tiredly. “My heart says to give him another chance. But I’m scared. I’ve practically been verbally abused by him, just so he could ‘protect’ me. I’m scared that this might be part of his revenge plan and he’s just faking.”
“You’ll never know unless you try. We’ll all keep an eye on him. If he does something wrong, we’ll be there to torture him to death, sell his organs, and throw his balls to the bulldog on Main Street,” Chelsea said, cracking her knuckles.
We shuddered at the horrifying image.
“Chelsea, honey, we agree with the keep an eye on him part, but the punishment is a bit gruesome,” Ethan said, frowning slightly.
“You’re all a bunch of wimps,” she whined, causing us to burst into laughter at the look on her face.
As the conversation changed to a different topic, I started thinking about William again. I was going to give him one chance. Just one chance, but he had to work for it. If he messed up, I was leaving and never coming back. I was not giving in so easily.
William was going to have an uphill battle.