Page 87 of His Obsession
“Oh, my God,” she whispers.
I can’t say anything.
I look at her, then at him, then back at her, and something in me gives way so completely I have to grip the bedrail with my free hand. I thought I knew what fear felt like. Then I looked at Val holding our son and realized I had no idea what it meant to have this much to lose.
Val looks up at me through tears. “Sebastian.”
That breaks whatever was left of my control.
I bend over them both, pressing my mouth to her hair, one careful hand covering our son’s back. He is warm. Real. Mine. Ours.
“I love you,” I tell her.
“You better,” she says, crying and laughing at the same time.
The nurse asks if I want to cut the cord. I do it with steadier hands than I expect. A few minutes later, they take him just long enough to clean and weigh him, and Val watches every second like someone might try to run out of the room with him.
I would kill them before they reached the door.
When they hand him back, she lets me hold him. He fits against my forearm like he was made for that space. His eyes are closed now, his face calmer, one tiny fist tucked under his chin. Hemakes a soft sound, and I look down at him with the sudden understanding that I would burn down the world for someone who has been alive for less than half an hour.
Val watches me from the bed. Exhausted, pale, beautiful, amused despite all of it.
“You look scared,” she says.
“I am.”
“Good. Welcome to parenting.”
I sit carefully on the edge of the bed with our son in my arms. “Marry me.”
Her eyes widen. This is not how I planned to ask. I had a plan, actually. A ring in the safe at home. Dinner somewhere private. Flowers that weren’t white. Something that didn’t involve hospital lighting, my wrinkled shirt, and Val looking like she might still murder someone if they adjusted her blanket wrong. But the words are out, and I don’t regret them.
Val stares at me for a second.
“I’m sorry, did my thirty-six-hour labor damage your brain too?”
“Probably.”
“Sebastian.”
“I have a ring at home,” I say. “This isn’t how I meant to do it.”
“No kidding.”
“I know you’re exhausted. I know this is ridiculous timing.”
“Deeply ridiculous.”
“I also know I don’t want to wait.” I look down at our son, then back at her. “Marry me, Valentina.”
Her eyes fill again, and this time she doesn’t try to hide it. “You are absolutely insane,” she says.
“Yes.”
“And bossy.”
“Yes.”
