The Billionaire's Illicit Twins - Holly Rayner Page 0,60
ended up being relatively straightforward, thank God. Ethan was there with me the entire time, holding my hand and rubbing my neck and getting me ice chips—which were, for some reason, the only thing I was allowed to have. He was my comfort and my anchor when I wasn’t sure I’d be able to pull it off.
And then, suddenly, I was lying in that bed with a baby boy on my chest, his small, perfect face scrunched up in displeasure at the extreme inconvenience of having been born, his features all perfect. He had ten fingers and ten toes, a tiny button nose… and I was completely in love with him.
Ethan was holding our baby girl. She was just as perfect—though she’d screamed a lot more loudly than her brother, and I was already assuming that she was going to be more trouble. And Ethan… Well, the look on his face was part joy and part dream, and completely soaked in love. He was head over heels for our daughter. Head over heels for both of them.
As was I. God, I realized, I’d never be able to give either of them up. These were two pieces of me. Two pieces of my soul. I would never be able to choose between them, choose which one I was going to send with their father. Choose which one I’d never get to see again.
And of course we hadn’t talked about it before they were here. We’d been too busy with the whole labor thing, when conversation had consisted of “You can do this, Bells,” and “I’m right here for you. What do you need?”
We didn’t have a solution yet. And now they were here, and I had to make a decision. A decision that I was positive would actually break me.
The moment the nurse and doctor left the room, saying they were going to give the new family some time to itself, I turned to him, the tears already starting in my eyes—well, continuing, since they’d been present for the past three hours.
But regardless of me or my tears, it was time. We couldn’t go on like this. I couldn’t keep putting this decision off. The babies were here now, and that meant I had to choose whether one of them was going home with Ethan—and which one it would be.
I didn’t have any idea what I was going to say. But I started talking anyhow.
“Ethan, I—”
He put a single finger up to my lips, stopping me.
“Don’t,” he said quietly. “I know what you’re going to say, and I don’t want to hear it. These babies… We can’t split them up, Bells, and I know you must know that. They should grow up together. They should both grow up with both of their parents. Both of them. I know I’m saying ‘both’ a lot, but I’m tired and I’m scared and I’m overwhelmed and I…”
He took a deep, heaving breath, the kind that said he was about to start sobbing if he didn’t control himself, and then turned his eyes firmly to mine, the blue of them serious and settled. Certain.
“We can’t split them up. I was a fool to have ever thought we could have. And it’s not only about the babies. It’s you and me, Bella. I don’t want to take one baby and send you away with the other. I don’t want to think about you raising one while I raise the other. I don’t want to think about never seeing you or the other baby again.”
He ran his fingers through his hair again, doing even more damage to what had probably been a perfect coif this morning. Then he leaned forward and pressed his lips to mine in a sweet, soft kiss. One that gave me his entire heart, his entire body.
One that told me exactly what he was thinking.
“I can’t lose you, Bella. I never thought I would have wanted to keep anything like a relationship, but in the last few months I’ve realized that I… I can’t do without you. Please don’t make me. Please say you’ll raise these babies with me. Please say we can do this together instead of apart.”
I looked up into his eyes, thinking through everything we’d been through. Thinking about his offer to raise the babies together, and how hard I’d fought it. Thinking of all the reasons—my reputation, my career, his company, what people might think…
And realizing that those things didn’t actually mean anything. Not when our hearts were on