“She’s pregnant.”
Despite how life altering the news was, something instinctive kicked in immediately, as though I’d been waiting for this baby my entire life. Hell, maybe I had. “Why was she in the hospital? Is something wrong with Francesca? With my baby?” I demanded urgently.
“She couldn’t stop throwing up,” Emmie explained. “We got worried and took her in. They gave her an IV, which has seemed to help with the dehydration. Other than that, she’s perfectly healthy and the baby has a strong heartbeat.”
I swallowed, nearly overcome. “You heard the heartbeat?” I rasped.
Emmie’s gaze softened at my obvious emotion. “We saw it. It was too early to hear it. It was like little wings flapping. Really cool.”
And I’d fucking missed it.
“Congratulations, man,” Gunner put in, clapping me on the back. Max followed suit.
“You can congratulate me when my hand’s on her belly where it belongs,” I muttered, raking a hand over my hair. “I’m goin’ in there,” I stated, my eyes on the door that separated me from my family.
“I don’t know, man,” Gunner grumbled.
I turned narrowed eyes on him. “I do.”
“Mad.” The authoritative tone wasn’t one I’d heard from Olivia before. “I know you’d do anything for Frannie. This time it means giving her space.”
Scarlet’s words came back to me from when Francesca had first been injured. She hadn’t needed it then, space. My ability to provide the one thing I was reluctant to give my girl hadn’t been tested… until now.
And yet, my instinct screamed at me not to let go. That if I did, I might never get her back.
“I get you, Livie.” My voice sounded foreign in my ears, a pained rasp. “But my girl’s in there, sick and pregnant with my baby. She’s doubting me, doubting us when she’s never been anything other than my entire world. So, I’m gonna go to her. Not because I don’t respect her, not because I don’t love her, but because I do.”
I was surprised when a slow smile spread across her face. “All right, big brother. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
I snorted. My girl was a fighter and had faced far more sinister adversaries. Even so, I heeded her warning. “I won’t.”
I walked into Max and Wren’s home, mentally noting that I needed to get a start on building a home for Francesca and me. Especially when it would be more than just the two of us soon. I hadn’t even thought much about kids; it had never been on my radar. And now, knowing Francesca was pregnant, it was as though it had been a dream all of my life—one she was now fulfilling that I was determined to pay back tenfold.
The house was quiet save for the dogs’ whining out on the back porch. Max must have put them out along with their pet pig Rosie. For anyone else it might seem weird that they had a pig, but for Max and Wren it worked somehow.
I pushed into the guest room, finding my girl curled on her side, her back to the door, looking so small and fragile in the big bed.
I ached to wrap my arms around her, to protect her from anything that could harm her. Knowing it was me who’d caused her pain was something that would haunt me for the rest of my days. I stripped out of my clothes and climbed in beside her dressed only in boxers. I resisted the urge to pull her close, not wanting to disturb her, and settled for listening to her breathe, imagining I could hear the beat of my baby’s heart, cocooned safely in her mother’s belly.
I couldn’t say why I thought it was a girl, but as I drifted off to sleep all I could imagine was a beautiful baby girl with wide brown eyes and rosy pink cheeks smiling up at me with her mother’s grin.
With my luck she’d be as beautiful as her mother.
I was so fucked.
Chapter 24
FRANCESCA
When I woke up early the next morning, for a moment it was as though everything was as it should be. Maddox’s smell and heat enveloped me as I slowly slid into wakefulness.
Then it all hit me like a ton of bricks.
He’d lied.
Slowly, I slid away from him, surprised when he didn’t wake up. Usually he woke immediately when I left the bed, even if it was to use the bathroom in the middle of the night. A pang of guilt slid through me at the realization that he must be exhausted after a round-trip drive to Vegas and back and then driving up to Max’s in the middle of the night. I forced the emotion away, determined to find some space.
Maddox wouldn’t give it willingly; I’d have to take it.
