EPILOGUE

 

The last time Emily had felt so miserable she’d been sure she was going to die.

Now, she was slammed with a wave of heat, pain, and intensity. She closed her eyes to breathe through it, her hand tightening on the arm rest in the backseat of the chauffeured car. She tried desperately to keep Paul from seeing how horrible it was.

When the wave finally subsided, she peeked out through her lashes.

Paul was glaring at her.

He looked stunningly handsome in his tailored tux, with the bow tie slightly loosened from where he must have run a restless hand along his collar. His face was a little pale though, and his gray eyes were narrowed over what she knew was intense anxiety.

“I’m fine,” she gritted out, partly because she was annoyed by his silent reproach and partly because she wanted to ease his worry.

“You should have told me,” he said, not for the first time that evening. His voice was slightly thick.

Emily fidgeted with her emerald necklace—the one Paul had given her on their wedding day six years ago. She wore an evening gown of silvery silk that draped flatteringly over her curves, but she wasn’t comfortable in it at the moment. She really wanted to get it off. “If I’d told you earlier, then we wouldn’t have gone to the banquet. And there was no way I was going to miss a banquet in my husband’s honor. It’s not every day your husband is appointed CEO of a company before he’s even thirty.” She stuck out her chin, so he would know she was serious.

“The damned banquet wasn’t that big a deal, and it certainly wasn’t worth—” He broke off his words when Emily was hit by another wave of heat and pain. He reached over and took her hand, letting her cling desperately to his as she tried to breathe.

The chauffeur was driving much faster than usual, since Paul had emphasized how important it was that they reach the hospital as soon as possible. Emily tried not to look out the window at the way they were weaving through traffic, since she was afraid it would make her feel nauseous.

She already felt bad enough.

When she was able to speak again, she gasped, “How long did that one last?”

“Sixty-five seconds,” Paul replied. She hadn’t noticed him looking at his watch, but he must have been doing so. “And they’re less than three minutes apart. We should have been at the hospital at least an hour ago.”

“I didn’t want to go then. I wanted to finish your banquet.”

“Who cares about the silly banquet?” Paul grumbled, gently brushing some stray pieces of hair away from her damp face. She’d put it in a French twist earlier than evening, but her elegant hairdo was starting to fall down now.

“I do,” she said, shifting uncomfortably in the backseat of the limo. “I’m so proud of you.” She suddenly felt ridiculously emotional and was afraid she might cry.

Another wave of agony overwhelmed her before she could, and she couldn’t do anything but try to focus on breathing, her vision blurring over with pain and intensity.

It was absolutely horrible, but it wasn’t like what she’d suffered six years ago. The sensations now were full, heavy, with a knowable pattern, rather than the empty, endless agony of being burned alive from a fever.

And she wasn’t going to die at the end of this.

When she could speak again, she turned to Paul and asked weakly, “Can you help me get my jewelry off? It's bothering me.”

Without comment, Paul gently helped her take off her necklace, the emerald earrings he’d bought her shortly after their marriage, and the bracelet he’d given her on her eighteenth birthday.

She held her heavily rounded belly and prayed she hadn’t waited too long to tell Paul she was in labor. She’d felt the contractions begin that afternoon, but she hadn’t said anything, thinking maybe they were Braxton-Hicks. When it was time to get ready for the banquet, she was pretty sure she was in labor for real, but the contractions weren’t very painful, and they were still fairly far apart. She'd been determined not to get to the hospital too early, since she didn't want to stay there for hours or be told it was too soon and that she needed to go back home.

The contractions intensified dramatically during the banquet, however, and she’d had a hard time disguising them during the last half-hour when Paul was giving his speech.

She’d seen him watching her, even as he was standing at the podium in front of a huge ballroom full of guests, and she wasn’t surprised when the first thing he’d done afterwards was put his hand on her forehead to check for fever.

That was when she’d told him they needed to go to the hospital since she was going into labor two weeks early.

“I thought first babies were supposed to come late rather than early,” she muttered, trying to relax and prepare for the next contraction, which she knew would come at any moment.

“We always did defy expectations,” Paul said, smiling at her with a tender look she knew he only gave to her.

She returned the look, but only for a few seconds, since another contraction hit just then. When it was over, Emily was uncomfortably aware that either her water had broken or she’d just peed all over herself. All over the backseat of the fancy car.

She gave a little sob. “Maybe I waited too long. I’m sorry.”

“We’re almost there, baby,” Paul murmured. “Just hold on.”

They were almost there.  When they arrived at the hospital, they discovered she was well into the transition phase and dilated almost nine centimeters.

Less than an hour later, she gave birth to their son.

***

“I’m sorry I waited so long to tell you,” Emily said, feeling weak and kind of giddy. “I should have told you earlier.”

Paul was sitting next to her bed in the quiet hospital room. He was still wearing the trousers and dress shirt from his tux, but his collar was hanging open and he’d pushed up the sleeves to the elbow.

She could see that he’d been wearing the cufflinks she’d given him on their wedding day—the Spanish Damoscene cufflinks with the horse and rider in black and gold. The sight, even now, gave her a warm, silly feeling of possession. Like they branded Paul as hers.

He shook his head. “Do you really think I care about that now?” His eyes strayed to the door of the room, through which their baby had disappeared a little while ago for a short trip to the nursery.

“I thought the labor would last a lot longer,” she explained. “That's what everyone had told me. I didn’t expect everything to happen so quickly.”

“Emily,” Paul said, his eyes narrowing in the way they did when he was exerting authority, “Stop stressing about it.”

“Okay.” She smiled at him fatuously. “I love you.”

Paul gave a huff of amusement, but his eyes were soft as he said, “I love you too.”

“Can you go find him and bring him back?” she asked, her eyes focused on the door to the room as well. She’d held their baby for almost an hour and even started to breastfeed him, but it still didn’t seem fair that they’d taken him away to the nursery for exams so soon after she’d gotten him.

Paul stood up. She had a feeling he wanted their baby back too. “I’ll see what I can do.”

She had to wait less than ten minutes before Paul returned to the room with their son.

“Everything’s good,” he said, reaching out to put the baby in Emily’s arms, “Jonathan’s perfectly healthy.”

Emily felt like an absolute sap, but she didn’t even care at the moment. She cooed over Jonathan for a long time, trying to resist the impulse to wake him up so she could see his pretty eyes.

He was her father’s namesake, and Emily wished little Jonathan could have known his grandfather. His other grandfather was still in prison and was likely to remain there the rest of his life.

Paul went to visit him regularly now. They weren’t close, but they were almost like family.

Prompted by that thought, she looked over at Paul. He was staring down at Jonathan with a look she’d never seen on his face before—a mingling of joy, bewilderment, and awe.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

Paul nodded. It took him a minute to get the words said, but he finally managed. “You were my miracle. I didn’t think I would get two.”

Emily insisted later that the only reason she cried was because she was so exhausted after labor and delivery. If Paul believed otherwise, he didn't try to contradict her.

When she’d wiped the tears away, she gave Paul a wry look and asked, “Do you have our list?”

Always prepared, Paul went to retrieve a folded piece of paper on which were written twenty items, only three of which were crossed off.

He spread out the paper in front of her and put a pen down next to it. Then he took Jonathan out of her arms and held the baby so she could sit up and grip the pen.

She grinned at Paul, who smiled back, looking incongruously natural with a baby in his arms.

And, together, they crossed off another item from their list.