Page 58 of After-Hours Heir

He loosened his tie as he walked into his London penthouse. And was shocked to see Sylvie standing at the center of the room, her hand resting on her stomach. It took him thirty seconds to notice that the doctor and the nurse were present as well.

“I brought the ultrasound to you,” she said.

“I told you—”

“You tell me a lot of things. You told me that we were getting married. You told me that I had to get a DNA test for the baby. You told me that I had to get an ultrasound to determine whether or not the pregnancy was viable. And now I’m telling you that I want you at this ultrasound to see our child. I don’t want to report back to you. I don’t want you to distance yourself.”

“I’m not distancing myself,” he said. That would imply that he had any hope of being close even if he wanted to be.

Sylvie made direct eye contact with him and lay down on the table, lifting up her top and rolling down her pants.

“What happened to not wanting me to see?”

“That ship has sailed. Even if it’s been a while.”

It had been a while. He did his best not to let his eyes wander over her curves. Over all the changes that had taken place in her body. Her fuller breasts, her rounded stomach. He did his best not to stare at her. But it was nearly impossible. She was so beautiful. Had she always been?

She reminded him of a forest nymph. Her hair was wild, and she looked almost sinfully beautiful with her rounded pregnancy curves.

Or maybe it was the defiance. Maybe that was the biggest thing that grabbed hold of him and held him steady. That kept him in thrall.

She had shown up here when he had refused to come to her.

When had something like that ever happened? The only time a person had ever come to find him it had been to beg for something from him. But she wasn’t doing that. She was making him bear witness. To this. To this thing that they were in together. The thing that he had been trying to deny.

The ultrasound tech squirted gel onto her stomach and began the process. The heartbeat was strong in the room. And he felt it echoing inside of him. Beating almost in rhythm with his own.

His child. A son or a daughter that had been created in the center of his passion with Sylvie.

He felt like he couldn’t breathe.

And yet that heart beat on. Like it was his own.

He looked at Sylvie, trying to determine if she felt the same thing. He saw tears shimmering in her eyes.

And then she smiled. “This is what I was waiting for. This is what I was waiting to feel. I’m so… I’m so happy.”

A tear spilled down her cheek, and right then he felt like a boy with his nose pressed up against the glass window, something uncompromising separating him from being entirely in this moment.

What exactly did she feel? How did he find a way to feel it too?

And at the same time, he wanted to turn and run away from it. He wanted to get on his plane again and fly somewhere else. He didn’t want to stand there witnessing it, watching it. He would’ve preferred that she texted to him.

He would’ve preferred that he could have some distance.Distance.

That word again.

His whole life was distance.

But Sylvie wasn’t allowing him to maintain it.

“What has kept you from feeling it?” he asked, his throat so tight the words were nearly strangled.

“It’s been overwhelming. I was grappling with the idea that the person that I thought you were didn’t exist. He does, though.”

He had no idea what that meant. He had no idea what it meant, and he felt as if he had been stabbed clean through the chest.

But he wasn’t going to ask. Not there in front of the doctor. Not there in front of that nurse that hated him. Openly. She was glaring at him even now.