His features soften and he smiles, bending once more to kiss me. “Then let’s find out so we can tell him.”
Fuck, I love this man.
“Your Majesties, you are having one boy and one girl.”
And that’s when I officially break into tears.
We make it home with me as a slobbering, blubbering mess. Sebastian is thoroughly amused, but he’s been through this three times already. I’m a newbie. A virgin again. He also can’t stop smiling, so he can tease me all he wants, but I know better.
Still, I’m dying to tell my dad. He’s the reason I wanted to know, after all.
I race up the stairs and fly down the hall, pounding myfists on his door. Without waiting for an answer, I twist the knob and enter, only to stop dead in my tracks. My lungs seize, my heart freezes over, and a scream lurches from my lungs.
“Dad!”
My legs feel like lead as I move sluggishly through his room to where his body is lying in a heap on the floor, blood pooling around his head like a lake, seeping into the carpet, thick, dark red, and sticky.
He fell. That much is clear. He also obviously hit his head, but I can’t yet tell if he’s just unconscious or…
“No!” I roll him onto his back, already knowing that’s the wrong thing to do if he has a head injury. My ear presses against his chest, but…silence. No heartbeat. A shredded wail rips from my chest as my world falls apart. “No!” I scream. “No. Dad. Please no. Not yet. Not yet!” I shriek. “I’m not ready. I need you here with me. Please, don’t go. Please not yet.”
Tears stream down my face as I hug and clutch my father’s lifeless form. I came in here to tell him about his grandbabies. I wanted him to know. I wanted him to be there after they were born. I wanted him to hold them.
I just wanted my fucking dad, and now…now he’s gone.
Scalding tears burn my cheeks. I wasn’t here when he died. I wasn’t here when he fell. Again. If I had been, could I have saved him?
Grief ransacks through me to the point where I can’t catch my breath. I can’t do anything other than hold my dad and cry. And cry. And cry.
“What—oh, no. Oh, Bellamy.”
Sebastian. I feel him next to me. I feel him touching me. But I can’t look at him. All I can see is my dad.
Sebastian’s on the phone. He’s talking to someone. Telling them to send help, but it’s too late.
“I can’t lose him. Not now.”
Sebastian wraps his arms around me. “I know, baby. I’m so sorry.”
My eyes pinch tight and my breath stalls. I don’t know how to live in this world without my dad. This is what I’ve been for as long as I can remember. His daughter. His caretaker. It was just the two of us against the world since I was thirteen.
He’s my dad and now…now he’s gone.
And I can’t get him back.
This isn’t how this was supposed to go. Not how this was supposed to be.
My heart breaks, shatters, explodes, and I have no strength to move. No desire to either. I hold my dad, telling him all the things I’ll never be able to tell him again, until at some point, I feel my body gently being moved, soft words in my ear that I can’t make sense of.
“No!” I scream at the top of my lungs. “No!”
“Baby, you can’t stay in here.”
“No!” I cry. “Please, don’t take me from him.”
“The ambulance is here to take him.”
“No.” I sob into Sebastian’s chest, pounding on him with my fists as he lifts me and moves me away so the paramedics can take over. “Please, not yet. I’m not ready.”
