Billionaires Dollar Series

I gasp with sudden relief as a contraction lets go of me. “I wanted to go to this market. Did you get the local honey? The organic one Skye told us about?”

“No, and we’re not turning back to find the honey stall.”

I stop dead in my tracks, and he’s forced to stop beside me. “Ethan, that was the whole point of us coming here!”

He looks up at the sky, like he’s asking it for strength. Perhaps he is. I glare at the perfect line of his jaw. “We are not turning back,” he says, “but I can send someone to get it for you? Would that make you feel better?”

“That’s just wasteful. Don’t worry, I’ll be super quick.” But I’m not quick, because as soon as I turn, another contraction strikes me.

If the other ones were Little League, this one is Varsity.

My nails dig into his arm and I’m gasping. “No honey.”

“No honey,” Ethan repeats. “Bella, your water just broke.”

I look down at the leggings that have been my home for the past few weeks. It takes me a painfully long moment to compute that what he’s saying has actually happened. “Oh God. How didn’t I notice that?”

He leads me toward the car. “We’re going to the hospital, and I don’t want an argument about it.”

I’m still stuck on the water breaking. “I really thought I’d notice it.”

“You were in the middle of a contraction.”Content (C) Nôv/elDra/ma.Org.

I breathe through my nose in the front seat, listening to the familiar hustle and bustle of Ethan fastening the girls’ seat belts in the back. They’re unusually quiet. I should ask about that, but then pain hits me again and I pretty much forget my own name.

Ethan calls his mother from the car, and she’s on the curb outside her house when we arrive.

“Come here, girls,” she tells them. “You’ll stay with me for the night.”

Haven hesitates with her hand on the car door. “Good luck,” she tells me. “I hope you’re not hurting too much.”

I give her a wide smile and reach out to clasp her hand. “Thank you, sweetheart. I’m not in too much pain at all. We’ll see you tomorrow, okay?”

“Okay.” Her dad kisses her on the head and lifts her out, and then we’re off again, Evie already dancing up the driveway in the rear-view mirror.

Ethan handles everything in the hospital, my go-to-bag on his shoulder. For a crazy few seconds I almost feel like Haven with a broken arm, when Ethan had shown his insurance card and the arm was in a cast within the hour.

But I doubt this will be as quick.

We’re escorted down the hall and another contraction hits. I want to scream for painkillers, for an epidural, for something, but the hospital is calm around me and perhaps that only happens on television, so I settle for leaning on Ethan.

“We’re almost there,” he says. “You’ll get to lie down soon.”

We get a private room, but I’m mostly focused on the bed and the nurse waiting with a smile. “Shall we count those contractions together?”

So we do, and in short order I’m changed into a gown, attached to a machine that measures the fetal heart rate, and they check how open I am. Apparently more open than they’d suspected, because they administer an epidural without me having to dramatically demand one. And then we’re left there, Ethan and me and our unborn baby.

“The painkiller is kicking in,” I tell him a while later.

“I can tell.”

“Come here.” I pat the side of my decadently wide hospital bed. He takes a careful seat on the very edge, like a little baby bird. The absurd analogy makes me want to laugh.

He smiles at my smile. “Something funny?”

“Yes. A lot of things. Like the fact that I won’t exit this room without a baby.”

“Wild, huh?”

“Very.” In so many ways. Innumerable ways, actually. I stare unseeing at the screen by the end of the bed and think about all the things that can happen after this.

I’m so underprepared.

“You okay over there?”

“I’m fine,” I murmur, trying to breathe. It turns out breathing through my pain was nothing compared to my panic.

“I’ve been preparing for this moment, but not for what happens after. I’ve read all the pregnancy books but not the motherhood books. I’m not ready.”

Ethan grips one of my hands, but I don’t want it right now. I’m too busy panicking. “You know,” I accuse him. “You’re the perfect father, and you have heaps of practice. But what if I screw up on the first day? What if I don’t know how to hold him, or to help him with his homework, or what if he’s allergic! And I give him peanuts!”

“Bella-”

“No, I take it back. I don’t want this.”

Ethan’s eyes are clouded with concern, but through it all, he forces a wide smile. It’s the one I like best-the one that says everything is going to be all right because he’s there.

“So it’s a boy now?”

I shoot him my best death glare. “I’m convinced now. I know it.”

“We’ll figure out how to raise him together,” he says. “And no one knows what they’re doing until they do it. That’s just life.”

“Not making me feel better.”

Laughing, he puts his hands on either side of my face. They’re cool against my skin.

“Focus on this. One thing at a time. I might know how to do a lot of the other stuff, but I’ve never done this, and I’m in awe of you.”

“Oh yes. Seeing you over the past few months, too… you’re magnificent, and stronger than I could ever be. The rest will be a piece of cake, and I’ll be right there with you.”

His eyes widen as mine tear up. “Bella?”

“Excellent speech,” I sniffle. “Did you practice it beforehand?”

“No. Should I have?”

“No,” I say. “You nailed the delivery.”

He smooths my hair back. “Done panicking?”

“Yes, it’s officially over.” I settle back into the bed and nod toward my bag. “I brought some stuff for us to entertain ourselves with while we wait. Skye told me there might be a lot of waiting.”

He grabs my bag, grunting at the weight, and looks through it. His voice is incredulous. “You packed a book on molecular physics?”

“I’ve always wanted to learn more.”

“Wilma’s thesis?”

“She asked me to read through it and comment on any mistakes.”

“You brought this?” He holds up a tome of a book, written by one of the literary greats.

“I saw it in your study. I’ve never read it. It’s a classic, come on. Don’t look at me that way.”

He puts the entire bag down, contents and all. “Have I told you lately that I love you?”

“Hey, the bag isn’t that bad.”

“Sure it’s not,” he says, grinning. “We’re not here for a vacation. But if you want to read Tolstoy in between contractions, I won’t stop you.”