Page 76 of After-Hours Heir
“What?”
“If it is preeclampsia, then we need to deliver. Tonight.”
“What is that?”
Everything began to move far too quickly into slowly all at once.
There were so many people everywhere, the organized chaos making his head spin.
He had been right. She was dying.
“The only cure for preeclampsia,” the doctor said to him only ten minutes later, “is delivery. We’re going to prep her for a C-section. If you want to be present—”
“I’m not leaving her,” he said.
“Then, we’ll help you prepare too.”
“Christos,” Sylvie said, her eyes filling with tears. “Just make sure that the baby—”
“I care about you,” he said.
“And thank you,” she said. “The baby has to be safe. Our son…”
He had a flash then, of something he had forgotten. His mother in a hospital bed.
Just take care of Christos…
No. He didn’t want to remember that. It hurt too bad. It was too much.
He didn’t want to remember how much his mother had loved him. How much she had begged his father to care for him in a way that he hadn’t.
He had let him down.
He had let them both down.
He pushed the past away. He didn’t have time to think about it now. “Sylvie,” he said, moving forward, putting his hand on her face, “I’m not leaving you.”
They gave him scrubs to wear. And he looked around the room and saw that he looked like everyone else in it. All the money, all the hardness in all the world hadn’t protected him from this.
He had no status in here. He had nothing. Nothing but hope in a fate he didn’t believe in. Nothing but prayers sent out to a divine force he had confidently stated wasn’t there, wasn’t listening.
There were heart monitors. On Sylvie. On the baby. And he could see them. His own heart moving in time with the lines on the machine.
Their three hearts beating together.
He moved to stand next to Sylvie’s head. Getting down on his knees and cradling her face. He pressed his cheek to hers, and he listened. He breathed with her. His heart beat with hers.
He had survived all this time. All these years.
This was what he had always wanted to avoid.
Because he suddenly realized his survival meant nothing without her. If she wasn’t here, then he didn’t want to be here.
He would trade places with her.
He, who had protected his own life at all costs…
He squeezed his eyes shut and felt a tear slide down his cheek. He had not wept since he was a boy.
