“I know we talked about you going back to work some day,” God said levelly. “But now is not the best time. In fact it’s a bloody terrible time.”

“It doesn’t matter if it’s a good time or not. They want me back now, Godfrey. If I don’t go, they may not ask me again.” And she was not going to risk it. Mack wasn’t passionate about a whole lot of a things, but curse breaking was one of them.

“You seem to be overlooking one small difference between now and last time, Love. This little difference right here. Our son.”

“Right. Our son. Who has a father that is perfectly capable of watching him.” That was why having two parents was a good thing. Mack had done this on her own before but with Godfrey, it made things just so much easier.

“Look, I can’t afford to take time off right now. I barely have enough coming in to pay the bills as it is, let alone clearing the debt we built up while you were out of circulation with Thomas.”

Mack laughed and touched her chest. “Oh, so it’s my fault. I’m sorry that our son was premature and needed me to be there for him. Fuck, Godfrey. What was I supposed to do? Abandon him?” She wasn’t going to do that. “And if I work,” she said, trying to mimic her husband’s calm tone, “we will have money. The debt will be cleared. It’s not like I’ll be working for free.” Even if it was her passion, she wasn’t going to do it without getting paid.

“If I put the business on the back burner for so much as a week, I’m going under. It’s as simple as that. And I’m not going to let that happen, Mack. I’ve put too much into it.”

“I know that, Godfrey,” she said quietly. “I know how important your business is to you. You know I support that, right? You’re so hard-working, and I love that about you. You’re dedicated.” She kissed his lips. “I don’t want it to go under. You know I don’t.” But that didn’t mean she wanted to be a stay-at-home mum either.

“You can’t go running off to dig up treasures —which somebody else gets to keep, by the way — and expect me to look after Thomas and Chrissa. I can’t. I won’t.”

Mack stepped away from him now and threw her arms up, all the calm she had a moment ago gone. “Then have your parents bloody watch them. Or mine! That’s what they’re for.” And Merlin knows her family owed her for all the shit she had to put up with them growing up.

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