He leans into my ear, his breath warm. “I’m going to make you the happiest woman alive.”
I hold him tighter. “You already do.”
The words barely leave my mouth before a strange pressure ripples through my lower belly—deep, urgent, different. My breath catches, and I feel a sudden warmth gush between my legs.
“Oh my God,” I whisper.
Yuri pulls back. “What is it?”
I glance down and see the spreading stain darkening the silk of my dress. My cheeks flush as a fresh wave of disbelief crashes into me.
“My water just broke.”
“Oh, shit,” Elena says, setting her champagne down quickly and running over to me.
“Are you sure?” Lev asks as Dalia pulls her phone from her clutch.
“I’m sure.” I half-laugh, half-gasp. “It’s pretty unmistakable.”
Yuri goes completely still, and I see the moment it clicks when calculation, alarm, and protectiveness flashes in his eyes. He snaps into motion, issuing orders. “Lev, get the car. Elena, call ahead to the hospital. I want security doubled along the route.”
Someone grabs my purse. Dalia takes my elbow while Yuri is at my other side, his hand warm and solid at my back.
The next ten minutes are a blur. I don’t even remember getting into the SUV. Just the hum of the engine and Yuri’s fingers tangled with mine as we speed through the city, my body tensing with the start of contractions.
“I’m not ready,” I whisper to him as another contraction tightens low across my belly.
He turns to me, face fierce and loving. “You’re ready. You’ve already fought harder than anyone I know. This?” He squeezes my hand. “This is the beginning of another amazing chapter.”
Hours pass in a blur of sterile white lights, machines beeping, nurses moving with quiet efficiency. I scream. I cry. I threaten to murder him if he keeps telling me to breathe. But he never leaves my side. He murmurs in Russian, in English. I hold onto him like he’s oxygen.
A sudden release of pressure. A few seconds later, a wail.
I barely have a moment to recover before the pressure returns. A few minutes later, another release of pressure and more wailing.
The room shifts from urgency to wonder to joy.
Two tiny babies, perfect, pink miracles.
The nurse places our daughter in my arms first. Her skin is warm against mine, her cries loud and indignant. She has Yuri’s mouth. I can already tell.
Our son follows, swaddled tightly, blinking at the world with quiet confusion, as though unsure how he got here but determined to figure it out. My little puzzle solver.
Yuri wraps his arms around all of us, forehead resting gently against mine.
“We did it,” I whisper.
His voice breaks. “Youdid it.”
I smile through the tears.
“They’re perfect.”
EPILOGUE II
ASTRID
A little over year later…
