I shook my head, my teeth locked as another contraction swept through me. This time, tears leaked free.
“Daisy,” Todd said quietly once he felt my hand let up. “I’m sorry.”
My throat tightened. I was surprised he’d held out this long before apologizing. Though, to be fair, my water had broken the moment I saw him, and after that happened, chaos steamrolled straight through whatever Todd had come to say.
“Don’t apologize,” I said, grabbing the cup of ice water and sucking down a sip. “You didn’t want to marry me, and I didn’t want to marry you.” There was no room for anything but the raw truth.
“I know.” He slid his hand through his hair, and I took a good look at him for the first time since he’d shown up at the house, seeing almost nothing of my fiancé who’d left me at the altar. Todd looked…good. Maybe that should make me upset or angry, but it didn’t. Not in the slightest. “But I want to tell you…I want to explain?—”
“Really, you don’t have to,” I said, wishing I could pull my hand away, but the contractions hurt so bad, and it felt good to be able to squeeze something.
“Daisy—”
“I didn’t love you, Todd. I don’t think I ever did.” I wasn’t sure where the sense of urgency came from to tell him the truth, but it was there, and it was violent. And it felt like I had to get it all out before I gave birth. Like I needed to put this last piece of who I was—the woman who was too afraid to let people in—before my daughter saw that example set for her. “I just…You were safe. You didn’t make me feel too much where I had to worry—” I broke off with a groan of pain, but the instant it let up, I forced myself to continue, “I shouldn’t have agreed to marry you. Not when I wanted him. Not when I’d fallen for Max.”
“I know, Daisy.”
I whimpered, my head thrashing back. He didn’t know.He didn’t know.“No,” I panted. “You don’t know. You don’t know, don’t remember, but I said his name that night. The night I got pregnant.” I didn’t want to be harsh, but I was in no condition to be soft. “I want to be his wife, Todd, and I want this baby to be his.”
His jaw flexed. “That’s what I’m trying to tell you, Daisy, if you would just listen?—”
“Daisy!”Max’s deep voice charged into the room as he burst through the door, chiseled and chivalrous and heart-stopping.
He was here.
My heart leaped into my throat, and for the space of an instant, I felt no pain, only sweet, slow-motion relief. He was here, and just looking at his face, I knew everything was going to be okay.And I didn’t know how I could’ve ever doubted it.
“Todd,” Max growled.
“Wait, Max?—”
“Get your hands off my fucking wife,” Max said, and I’d never seen this side of him outside the bedroom—the side that stalked across the room and grabbed Todd’s arm to forcibly remove his hand from mine. I didn’t hate it. But neither did I love it at this moment when I was in labor.
“I’m sorry, Max?—”
“Fucking right, you’re sorry. How dare you come here after what you and your parents?—”
An unearthly sound tore through the room. I never understood what they meant by a bloodcurdling scream until the moment it left my lips. It ricocheted around the small room and soured every drop of oxygen.
“Daisy!” Max was by my side, my hand wrapped in his big one as he brushed the hair back from my face. “What can I do?”
“Get the nurse,” I said through sharp, practiced breaths. “The baby is coming.”
“Already here, hun.” Jennie strolled in and went right to the foot of the bed. “I’m going to check and see how dilated you are.” She stopped and looked to Max and then over to Todd. “I’m afraid only Dad can be in here right now.”
My heart raced straight off a cliff and then plummeted. Max was by my side, so of course, she assumed Max was the father. But…
“I guess that’s my cue to wait outside,” Todd’s voice filtered in, and my eyes flung open, meeting those of my ex-fiancé. He gave me a small, tight smile and then walked out of the room as though…as though he didn’t belong in it.
And he didn’t.
“Told you that you were going to have this baby fast,” Jennie said after her quick exam. “You’re fully dilated. I’m going to go grab Dr. MacDonald, and then you’ll start pushing.”
I must’ve been more than fully dilated the way she jogged out of the room, but then another contraction hit, and all I could think about was the pain and the urge to push.
“You’ve got this, Daze,” Max murmured, his face right next to my ear. “I’m right here. I love you so much, and I’m right here.”
Air pumped in and out of my chest. Voices came through scrambled into my mind, encrypted into a code that spit out the same word over and over again.Push.
