Page 160 of Mile High Ex's Dad
“Any bleeding?”
“No.”
He checks her pulse while she breathes through another contraction, then looks up at me. “Stay with her.”
As if there is anywhere else I would be.
I sit beside her and take her hand properly this time. She feels cold from shock, though her skin is damp with sweat.
Yuri appears in the doorway with towels and water. Behind him, I can see Alina and Anna in the hall, both of them pale now for entirely different reasons than before.
Maksim takes the towels, glances once at the wet dress, then back at Sienna’s face. “All right. We’re not doing this here long. I just need to know if we have time to move or if we have to start dealing with this on the floor.”
That gets her attention even through the pain.
His voice softens by half a degree. “You’re fine. I just need you to answer me.”
She nods again.
Another contraction takes her then, stronger than the last, and she folds toward me on instinct. I put my arm around her without thinking and hold her there while she grips my hand hard enough to bruise.
“That’s it,” Maksim says. “Breathe. Don’t fight it.”
She does her best.
He waits until it eases, then says, “We’re going to the hospital. Now.”
I look toward Yuri. “Car.”
He nods once. “Already coming around.”
Maksim stands and picks up his bag. “I’m riding with you.”
Good. Because even with him here, even with his voice level and his hands steady, I can feel how quickly this could become something worse.
Sienna looks up at me then, dazed and frightened and trying very hard not to show either one. “Viktor.”
I bend closer. “I’m here.”
Her fingers tighten around mine. “Don’t let anything happen to my baby.”
The words go through me like a blade. I put my forehead briefly against hers and say the only thing I know with completecertainty. “Nothing is happening to either of you while I’m standing here.”
Then I lift her again. This time she doesn’t argue. Her arms go around my shoulders at once, her body curling instinctively toward mine as I carry her into the hall.
Maksim is already ahead of us. Yuri is clearing the path. Anna opens the front door herself. Alina steps back without speaking.
The morning has stopped being a wedding altogether now. It’s just wreckage and flowers and frightened faces moving out of my way while I carry her through them.
The car is waiting at the steps. I’m halfway there when she goes rigid in my arms and a new sound tears out of her, low and frightened enough that every part of me locks.
“Maksim.”
He turns immediately.
And then I feel it.
Warmth. Too much of it.
