Page 113 of Grumpy Billionaire Bad Boy

Hours pass and I drift into a nightmare, jarring myself awake abruptly.

"Shh." Archer rubs circles on my back. "You're safe. I'm here," he murmurs, lulling me to sleep.

I wake sometime later, a vibration on the nightstand disturbing us both.

Archer kisses me and reaches blindly, his hand hitting the tabletop a few times until he locates the source of the ringing. "It's Ivy," he says, his voice jagged. "I should answer this, she doesn't often call this early."

My eyes adjust to see the time, two after six in the morning. I could use a few or thirty more hours of cuddling Archer.

"Hello?" he says into the receiver.

"Check your email." Ivy is clear and straight to the point.

"What?" Archer clears his throat and sits up, reaching to cover my shoulder with the blanket.

"I said check your email. Right now. It's urgent." Ivy pauses and adds. "I'll stay on the line."

Archer sighs dramatically. "Can't this wait?"

"No."

He grunts and shimmies out of bed, going over to his dresser to pull out a pair of boxers, sliding into them sloppily, almostfalling over as he keeps the phone pressed between his ear and shoulder. "This better be good, Ivy."

I can’t make out what she says, not from my spot in bed. My heart races at what could have prompted her to demand this from Archer, none of it any of my business.

Archer slips out of the room, and I follow his footsteps quietly across the hall until I lose them near his desk. He types onto his keyboard and lowers himself into his chair, a sound I've gotten familiar with in the course of my time here with him.

Curiosity consuming me, I slip out of bed, too, and throw one of his shirts over my head, tiptoeing out, not trying to distract him from his family matters.

But when I settle on Archer's figure, he's tense, tenser than he ever has been, his phone held tightly in his grip.

I go behind him, wrapping my arms around his shoulders and glancing at the screen, my pulse pounding wildly in my ears, threatening to give out completely, my arms going slack as they untangle from around him.

My picture. My face. My driver’s license from California.

My real name glaring back at me.

London Gardella.

My birth certificate loaded next to it, Ricardo Gardella's name listed as my father’s.

"Ivy," Archer says cooly. "I'm going to need to call you back." He drops the phone onto his desk, his chest heaving.

"I—I can explain."

Archer whips his head toward me. "What do you mean, you can explain?"

"I mean, I only just found out. Not that long ago. I wanted to tell you. I tried to tell you." But that's a lie, because if I was going to confess, I could have done it a million times over by now. No, I was being a selfish asshole and keeping this secret to myself. It's my fault he's staring at me the way he is right now, like I'ma fucking stranger to him, someone that he didn't just share an epic night with.

Archer lowers his head into his hand, rubbing his temples. "I don't understand. You're Ricardo Gardella's daughter?"

"Not by choice," I blurt out, tears streaming down my cheeks. "I hate him, as much as you hate him, especially for what he did to Madison."

Archer's eyes dart up to meet mine. "You knew about this?"

My mouth falls open, unable to find the words to say to make this right.

"You fucking knew about this?" Archer rises to his feet, and for the first time since I've known him, he holds all the cards to hurt me, to really fucking hurt me. And the sad thing about it is that I wouldn't blame him, not one bit. His nostrils flare and I sense the end before it even happens. "Get the fuck out."

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