Page 64 of Ruthless Claim

She comes in quietly, and she stops when she gets to the door of the labor ward.

She’s holding her bag with both hands and she looks…unsure.

Scared, really.

She’s looking at the door to Emma’s room but she isn’t going through it.

I get up and go to her. “Teresa.”

She looks at me. Her green eyes are very bright and very afraid.

But she’s not afraid for Emma; she’s afraid of the rejection, that Emma won’t want her there, afraid of what Connor has made of things and whether she’s allowed to want something for herself.

“She needs her mother,” I tell her. “Go.”

Teresa looks at me for a moment more. Then something settles in her face. She lifts her chin and goes through the door.

I stand in the hallway and listen to Emma’s voice through the door. My friend is surprised to see her mother. “Mom!” she exclaims, her voice cracking slightly. I close my eyes and let out a long breath.

Good.

Leo comes out of Emma’s room at intervals to update us whether we’ve asked or not.

He has regained some of his composure but not all of it — he updates us on dilation, and my mother listens to this with a wry look on her face as Leo explains exactly how big four centimeters dilated is.

I must have a similar look because is Leo seriously mansplaining labor to our mother who has birthed three children?

My mother decides not to say anything, which I find to be very admirable. I wouldn’t be as composed.

At hour seven Emma’s epidural has been administered and the atmosphere from behind the door improves noticeably. At hour nine Emma is apparently telling everyone she loves them and also that she’s starving. The nurse has explained, again, that she cannot eat, and Emma has said that’s a bullshit rule.

“She’s feeling better,” I say to my mother as Emma loudly says how badly she wants a Jimmy John’s turkey sandwich.

“The epidural is God’s gift to humans,” Leo says. He looks slightly less gray and sits down between our mother.

He puts his elbows on his knees and stares at the floor while my mother rubs his back.

I look at my brother, feeling a rush of sympathy for him. Leo may be the head of the Santoro family, but he has no power or control over childbirth.

“She’s going to be okay,” I tell him again, because it’s the thing he needs to hear, even though he knows it. Some things need to be said out loud.

“I know,” he sighs. He’s quiet for a moment. “I didn’t expect it to feel like this.”

My mother hums. “Like what.?”

He looks at his hands. “Like everything I’ve ever been afraid of, happening in the best possible way.”

I don’t say anything. Instead, I put my hand over his.

He turns his palm up and squeezes once before we both remember we’re in a hospital waiting room and pull ourselves together.

It’s hour twelve when the elevator opens and Cillian walks in.

I see him before he sees me and my first thought is: he came.

My second, more traitorous, thought is how good he looks walking through a door, which is a completely stupid thing to think in a hospital waiting room.

He’s in jeans and a dark jacket, his auburn hair slightly wind-roughed from outside.