The Billionaire's Illicit Twins - Holly Rayner Page 0,59

bought me books. Told me he’d buy me the whole store if I asked for it.”

The pain was getting to me, now, and I wasn’t making sense anymore. That book thing hadn’t had anything to do with the babies. Why had I even brought it up?

“So he thought he wanted to buy the baby, and now he wants to raise them with you instead?” she asked quietly. “And you don’t want that?”

“I don’t know!” I said miserably, tears starting to form in my eyes. “I thought I didn’t. I thought I couldn’t afford to be seen with him because I’ve faced him in court before, and beat him. I didn’t want to risk my career. I thought I didn’t need a relationship. That I didn’t have time for one—especially with someone who would offer to buy my baby! I don’t even know if he cares about me!”

A short pause, long enough for me to take a deep, sobbing breath, and then she said, “And yet he offered to buy you an entire bookstore if you asked for it. And he asked if you could raise these babies together instead of separately. Honey, I don’t know the guy, but that doesn’t sound like someone who doesn’t care for you. That sounds like someone you should grab onto and hold with all your strength. For your babies and for yourself.”

I slouched against her, every muscle in my body giving in to the need to relax at her words. Because she was right. I’d been working so hard for so long to stand up on my own that I’d never even thought about letting myself lean on anyone else.

Ethan was asking me to lean on him. And I’d been so busy trying to hold myself up that I’d almost missed it.

We came screeching into the parking lot of the hospital before I could answer Mara, and within moments we were out of the cab, the cabbie doing his best to support me as I tried to stand up. And then I was seated in a wheelchair pushed by an orderly who was flying through the front doors of the hospital, shouting that he needed a gurney bound for the delivery ward.

Chapter 33

Bella

The nurse and I rushed out of the elevator on the delivery floor at the same time as the doors to the elevator on the other side of the bank opened to expose Ethan. He was in a snazzy business suit, gray with a navy tie, as if he’d just come from the office, which I knew he must have. And he looked completely out of place in a hospital. A businessman who had it all together, here in this chaotic atmosphere.

Except for his hair, which had gone from combed and gelled into place to completely wild. He must have been running his hands through it again and again on the ride to the hospital, because it was sticking up at all angles, the slight curl creating havoc in the sooty waves.

His eyes were also wild with panic—though as soon as he saw me, they calmed, as if he suddenly got completely sure of himself. Suddenly knew exactly what he had to do.

I focused on my breathing and stared at him, glad that one of us did. Because I was having more and more trouble stringing words together through the pain. And I wasn’t afraid to admit that I was scared.

“Bella,” Ethan said, striding toward me. He reached out and took my hand, then brought the other hand up to my face to cup my cheek. “How are you feeling?”

I snorted. “That might be the stupidest question you’ve ever asked me.”

His mouth twitched with a smile and he looked up at the nurse behind me. “Is everything… I don’t know, going the way it should?”

“No way to know yet, sir. We need to get your girl into a room so we can start to monitor her vitals and the baby’s, and then we’ll know more.”

“I’m not his girl,” I said quickly.

Then I noticed that Ethan himself hadn’t said anything. She’d called me his girl… and he hadn’t argued with her.

My gaze shot to his and I saw that confidence again, that knowledge that he knew exactly what he was doing. I remembered him saying that he wanted to try something different. Try to stick around, if I would have him.

And then I stopped thinking, because another cramp tore through me and obliterated any power I might have had over my mind.

The labor