Damon stormed into the house, the door almost slamming against the wall in his fury. “Sasha!” he bellowed.
Moments later, Sasha waddled down the stairs. “I’m right here, Damon,” she told him, a hand pressing against her back, trying to relieve the pressure. But at this point in her pregnancy, nothing could really help.
“You’re going to the hospital!” he told her.
Sasha’s mouth dropped open. “Why in the world would I go now?” she demanded. The man had been trying to get her to go to the hospital for weeks now! She never would have guessed that he could be so worried about something as natural as giving birth. In a way, his anxiety took away hers since she was constantly needing to reassure him that she was okay.
“You’re going! Chloe called me and told me that you were feeling pains. You’re going to the hospital now!”
Sasha turned her head and spotted the housekeeper as she bustled from the kitchen to the dining room. The woman was oblivious though.
“I’m fine,” she said when she turned back to face Damon. “I don’t need to…” she had to stop speaking because the pain that had been in her back all day long suddenly shifted and she almost doubled over as the pain slashed to her stomach.
“Sasha!” Damon growled. He didn’t wait for any response this time though. He simply lifted her into his arms and carried her out of the villa, snapping instructions to his bodyguards and driver to get them to the hospital.
Twenty minutes later, Damon was furious with himself for not getting her there earlier. But his driver screeched to a halt outside of the emergency room doors and Sasha’s obstetrician was already there with a team of nurses, ready to help. They were quickly checked into a hospital room and Damon hovered over her as she worked through the contractions.
“I’m fine!” Sasha assured him, but then clenched her teeth as another contraction hit her full on.
“You’re not fine!” he snapped. “I’m getting the doctor!”
Sasha grabbed his hand, pulling him back before he could desert her. “No! Don’t leave me. Please! I just need…” she closed her eyes and clenched at his hand, trying to breathe her way through the contraction. When it was over, she gulped for air, trying to deal with the pain. “Just don’t leave me,” she whimpered.
Damon was furious that his precious wife was in pain and he couldn’t do anything to help her. “Can’t you do something for her?” he demanded of the nurse when she came in to check on Sasha’s contractions.
The nurse smiled patiently. “She’s doing great. And the anesthesiologist is right around the corner. He should be…”
“Get him here now!” Damon ordered.
Sasha bit her lip and started clenching Damon’s hand as another contraction started.
“You’re doing great,” the nurse said calmly, watching the monitor as the contraction peaked and then slowly started to subside.
Damon would have fired the woman on the spot for saying something as ridiculous as that, but the doctor walked in at that moment so he kept his mouth shut.
After sixteen hours of this, Damon had fired just about every person on the hospital staff, including the janitor who dared to mop the floors outside of Sasha’s delivery room. The smell just about made him gag and Sasha’s nose squinched up.
He knew that he was being irrational, but he wasn’t very calm when faced with Sasha in pain. The epidural that had been administered hours ago seemed to be completely ineffective. Stefan, Harrison, Grayson and even Malik were in the waiting room, causing major problems because of security issues while Scarlett simply chuckled at the ruckus, driving all of them nuts.
“Looks like we’re ready to start pushing,” the obstetrician commented.
Sasha looked worriedly at Damon, shaking her head. She was exhausted from the contractions and tired of being in pain. “I can’t,” she whispered to Damon. And after months of worrying himself sick over her pregnancy, her words shifted everything. His entire demeanor changed and he took her hand, looking into her eyes. “You can,” he promised her. “You’re the strongest, most beautiful woman I’ve ever known. Sasha Galanos, you can do anything and everything. And right now, you’re going to deliver our child and you’re going to be perfectly fine!”
She stared at him, his dark eyes looking into her brown ones and, with all the strength she had left in her, she pushed when the doctor told her to. It was one of the worst moments of her life, feeling the pain of their child being born. But after less than an hour, the cries of her baby were heard over her exhausted heartrate and she fell back against the delivery table, still holding Damon’s hand in hers.
“It’s a boy!” the doctor announced with a huge smile on her face. The doctor and nurses seemed to go into overdrive and Sasha just watched in exhausted fascination as one of them wrapped her baby boy into a blanket and handed the tiny bundle over to Damon. Her husband! The man she’d sworn she would escape from, had captured her heart. And now there was another man to love with an intensity that she hadn’t ever thought possible.
Damon brought the little bundle over to her and Sasha lifted her finger, taking the tiny, red hand and touching the softest skin ever. “He’s okay?” she asked.
Damon looked up at her, love shining through his eyes as he said, “He’s perfect. Just like you, my love.” And he bent over and kissed her, still holding their son in his arms.
Sasha smiled, thinking that she might just burst with the love she was feeling at this moment.