to know them.
It was going to be a good thing, he thought, being a part of this family.
Chapter 24
Elise
Six Months Later
Elise’s babies—two boys and a girl—were born on a warm Saturday afternoon in midwinter.
She lay in her hospital bed, cradling her firstborn son in her arms and watching him as he slept. The babies were perfect, she thought. They were tiny, but the doctors had assured her and Lucas that they were a good weight, given that there were three of them.
Exhausted after the birth, Elise had slept for several hours. Now, though, the sun was going down, and she felt awake and alert. She felt as if she never wanted to sleep again. She wanted to spend every moment possible with her newborn children.
Lucas had assured her that nothing interesting had happened while she was asleep. “They did a lot of sleeping too,” he’d said. “It was a pretty exciting day for them.”
Now, Lucas was taking his turn to nap.
They’d agreed on Italian names for the babies, in honor of the place where they had been conceived—Marco, Sofia, and Angelo. Now Elise ran her thumb across Marco’s tiny, plump cheek.
“You’re perfect,” she said. “Don’t ever let anyone tell you otherwise. You hear me?”
Marco cooed softly.
By the window, Lucas shifted in his chair. Elise watched for a moment to see if he was going to wake up, but he settled into a new position and continued to sleep.
She had told him that he didn’t have to stay, that it was all right if he wanted to go home—that he must be exhausted too after staying up with her all night after her contractions began and through the birth. But he’d refused to leave her side, and secretly, she had been glad.
He hadn’t left her side, in fact, for the past three months.
It was remarkable. She had been happy knowing that her parents would be by her side throughout her pregnancy, of course, and they had been. But having Lucas had been different. It had been more than she had ever dared to hope for.
As she’d reached her sixth month of pregnancy, he had moved her into the new house he had bought on the outskirts of town. Elise had expected her parents to put up a fight about that, but as usual, they had been supportive. Elise had her own wing of the house—her own bedroom, her own massive bathroom with a claw foot tub, even a spare room that Lucas had encouraged her to turn into an office or a library—whatever she felt she needed.
It hadn’t been long, though, before Elise had found herself spending less and less time in her room and more time in Lucas’s part of the house.
They had taken to eating dinners together, cuddling on the couch and watching TV together, even sleeping together. Without ever really talking about it or putting a name to it, they had slipped into the pattern of a relationship. And Elise knew that Lucas felt the same way about her as she did about him. She no longer had any doubts.
He stirred again in his chair, and this time he sat up and blinked. “You doing all right?” he asked.
She nodded. “Can you take Marco? I think he’s falling asleep.”
“Do you want another one?” he asked her, easing Marco out of her arms and putting him down carefully in the baby cot. “Sofia’s kicking.”
“Sure, let me have her.” Elise held out her arms. “I feel like I need to keep a record of how much time I spend holding each of them so I don’t accidentally favor one of them over the others.”
Lucas chuckled. “It’ll balance out over time,” he said. “Don’t worry.”
She took Sofia from him and cuddled her close. “She has so much hair,” she marveled. “She looks like you, doesn’t she?”
“I have no idea, to tell you the truth,” Lucas admitted. “I’ve never seen a baby picture of myself.”
“Really? Never?”
“I don’t think my parents kept any,” Lucas said. “I don’t know if they even took any at the time.”
“That’s so sad.”
“Well, it’s a mistake we won’t make,” Lucas said, holding up his phone. “Say ‘cheese,’ ladies.”
“Cheese,” Elise said happily.
Lucas snapped the picture, then he frowned.
“Hang on,” he said. “I’m getting an email.”
“Is it work?”
“No, they know I’m on paternity leave,” Lucas said. “They wouldn’t bother me.” A grin split his face. “I can’t tell you how nice it is to work for a company that respects my private life for a change.”
“I believe it,” Elise said