Page 51 of Sandro

“Oh.” I relaxed back onto the bed. I’d not thought about much when it came to…well, anything with the delivery. “Then here is fine, I guess. I just thought, since it’s our bedroom, the baby would be born elsewhere.”

“If you would like for the baby to be born in the office, that can be arranged. But I think it’s fairly normal for them to be born in the parents’ bedrooms. Especially since they shouldn’t be born in a human hospital.”

That made sense. “Yeah. Here is good.” I was being dumb. I closed my eyes and took several deep breaths. When I reopened my eyes, I found Sandro staring at me. “What?”

“Are you certain you’re ready? And you are never dumb, so stop that thinking now. You are stressed, and understandably so.”

“That doesn’t mean I like it,” I said.

“That may be, but it’s how things are. We can discuss that with Rio as well.”

I closed my eyes again, just waiting at this point. I knew I needed to talk to Rio about how I was feeling. I didn’t know if there was anything that he could do to help me, but I needed to at least ask.

“He’ll be here in just a moment. I’ll go answer the door for him and be right back. Are you all right here?”

I smiled at Sandro. “I am. Besides, you won’t be far. I know I started to hyperventilate earlier, but I’m fine now. Maybe. I’ve never done that before, so perhaps I’m not.”

“You were incredibly upset with the thoughts of your grandfather knowing about our baby.” Sandro kissed me quickly. “I’ll be back in a moment.” He stood up and walked out of the bedroom. He wasn’t wrong. That was what had upset me. If my grandfather was willing to have his own son killed, where would he stop? His own son. He would no doubt be willing to kill me and our child as well.

I placed my hand on my slightly rounded stomach. I wasn’t huge by any means, but when naked, I was certainly showing. Or when I was wearing one of my shirts. I’d actually taken to grabbing shirts from Sandro’s side of the closet. He didn’t seem to notice, and if he had, he’d not said anything about it.

I smiled as Sandro reentered our bedroom with Rio behind him. “How are you feeling?” Rio asked as he came to stand beside me.

“Okay, I guess. I’m not sure why all of a sudden I started to freak out, but I did. I mean, the thought of my grandfather getting our baby is scary.”

“That’s not something you need to be worrying about,” Rio told me. He sat in the chair that Sandro had been in, and I actually noticed it for the first time. It wasn’t ours. It didn’t match any of our furniture or anything like that.

“Uh…where did the chair come from?” I asked.

“I sent it with you and your mate when you had your quick little sleep,” Rio said. “Sandro was going to need somewhere comfortable to sit, so here it is.” Rio looked over at Sandro. “Now, if you wouldn’t mind getting on the bed beside your beloved, I can start the ultrasound. I can also share my news with you after we’ve finished it.”

“News? About what?”

“Now, if I told you now, then you would be distracted by that instead of being focused on your ultrasound.”

The bed dipped slightly, and I turned my head to look at my mate. “Do you know what the news is?”

“I do not,” Sandro said.

“Only Master Vincent and Marcello know. And I have to assume Abel as well, as I don’t believe that Marcello keeps much from his beloved.”

Sandro sat beside me, leaning against the pillows. “Do I need to sit up?”

“Only if you wish,” Rio said. “You could lay your head in your mate’s lap if that is comfortable. I’m going to project the baby’s image in front of us, and you will be able to see him from any angle.”

“Oh.” I hadn’t really thought about the ultrasound. Mazzi and Abel had both said they loved it and I needed to do it as well, but that was it. I’d been too preoccupied with everything else that I’d not thought to ask them about how it was done. Oh well, I was about to find out on my own.

I glanced over at Sandro, who I found smiling down at me. I felt odd lying here in bed beside him while he was sitting and Rio was on my other side in the chair.

The room darkened completely, and any thought I had about being in an odd place ended when the room was suddenly filled with the most beautiful sound. The swish-swish of our baby’s heartbeat was all I could hear, and immediately, I felt my eyes start to water. “That’s our baby’s heartbeat,” I said quietly. I knew Sandro could hear me though.

“It is. I wish I could have gotten the speakers to work the other day. But you can hear it now, and that’s all that matters.”

I moved, laying my head on Sandro’s thigh, and immediately, his fingers went to my head, and he started gently running them through my hair. I closed my eyes briefly but opened them quickly. When I did, I gasped. There in front of me was our baby. Yes, I’d seen him the other day when Sandro had done an ultrasound, and it wasn’t a terrible experience, but the one floating in the air over the foot of the bed felt as if I could reach out and touch him.

“That’s our baby,” I whispered.

“It is,” Rio said. “He is growing as he should. He might be a little bit on the larger size for his age, but it could be that he just had a growth spurt, and he’ll slow down now. It’s nothing to be worried about.”