As another surge of pain courses up through my system, I know I have no choice but to go through with this. I might not have expected to have my babies delivered by the very man who got me pregnant with them in the first place, but if this is how it has to be…
“Ah!” I cry out, and the nurse takes my hand again.
“You’re doing great, sweetheart,” she tells me. “I know how hard this is, but you’re doing amazing. Not much longer now, alright?”
As I tighten my grip on her hand in return, I steal another glance at the doctor currently striding around the room, his face a little paler than it was when he arrived.
I don’t have the heart to tell this woman that, for all my problems might seem to be coming to an end, I get the feeling that they’re truly just beginning.
6
MARTIN
I pause outside the door,doing my best to put into words everything I know I need to say to her. But where the hell am I meant to start, when I just delivered the children of a woman I had sex with nine months ago?
It still sounds surreal, even in my own head. I haven’t spoken to anyone about it, of course; my shift finished an hour ago, and I’ve been hanging around at the hospital, making up errands and admin tasks that need to be taken care of before I can go. In truth, I’m waiting for her to wake up so I can go and confirm the suspicions that have been torturing me since the instant I laid eyes on her.
Lila. Lila King. That’s her name. The name on her chart, the one that was hooked over the end of her bed when I stepped in to take over from the maternity ward doctor on call. I’ve been rolling the name around and around in my head ever since I found it out, trying to make sense of it, of her, of what the fuck all of this means.
I know what it means. I might not have the DNA tests in my hand to confirm that the twins—one girl, one boy—are mine, butI could tell from the way she looked at me when I walked in that I was about the last person on earth she had been hoping to see. No doubt because she’d been hoping she could keep all of this under wraps. We never got each other’s names, and it’s not like she left a forwarding address when she took off the morning after, but still, she could have found me if she wanted to.
Which leaves me with the belief that she must really, really not have wanted to.
It makes my head spin, to think that I could have had kids out there that I knew nothing about. If I hadn’t happened to be called away from my break to cover for Justine, Lila could have come and gone from this place without me knowing a damn thing about it.
But as it is, she’s going to have to explain herself to me, even if I feel a little guilty about confronting her on the matter so soon after she’s given birth.
Finally, I put my hand on the door and push it open. No point holding back. She will be expecting this visit.
Shit, maybe she thought I would just dodge my responsibility here, pretend that I don’t know anything about this and let her get on with it. I know a few men who would jump at the chance to be a deadbeat. But that’s not who I am, never has been, never will be, and I refuse to start now.
Inside the room, she jerks upright. Her hair is splayed out around her on the pillow, her eyes ringed with dark circles, but she looks pretty good otherwise. The doctor in me scans her for anything that might need addressing, but as far as I can tell, she’s well.
“H-hello,” she greets me, her voice strained and nervous.
I nod in greeting. “Hi.”
I glance over to the small beds beside her, where both of the twins are slumbering. She follows my gaze, and despite the tension of the situation, she can’t help but crack a smile.
“They’re perfect,” she gushes, reaching over to tuck the covers down slightly on her sleeping little girl. “I…I still can’t get over it.”
“Have you named them yet?”
She nods.
“Mathilda, Matty for short,” she replies. “And Ross for her brother.”
I pause for a moment, casting my gaze over them as they sleep in their cribs before me. There they are. I already held them briefly when they were born, but this feels entirely different, entirely more insistent.
“Thank—thank you, by the way,” she offers me nervously.
I glance over at her. “For what?”
“For helping to bring them into the world,” she replies. She must know why I’m here, but she’s still trying to deflect, to pretend like this isn’t the biggest mess that either of us have managed to land ourselves in.
“It’s my job.”
“I—I know, but still,” she adds. “Given the circumstances…”
