Page 75 of Pregnant By A Rich Demon 4

“You want to hold her?” the nurse asked him, already moving to help transfer that small weight from my chest into his arms.

I watched Amai’s face when they placed her against him—watched this six-foot-something man who could probably bench press a small car go completely rigid, arms shaping themselves around her like he was terrified of every single movement, cradling her head with a care so precise it looked almost mechanical, like he’d studied exactly how to do this and was executing it with the same focus he’d give a job that could kill him if he got it wrong.

“Hey,” he said to her, voice wrecked, barely above a whisper. “Hey, Tru.”

She made a small sound, not quite a cry, but more like a complaint. Amai’s whole face crumpled at it, more tears coming, and he didn’t even try to stop them this time.

“I got you,” he told her. “I got you, baby. I promise. I got you.”

Mama was openly sobbing by then, one hand pressed to her chest, the other dabbing at her eyes with a tissue somebody had handed her. “Lord have mercy,” she kept saying over and over, shaking her head. “Lord have mercy, look at my grandbaby.”

Odette had both hands over her mouth, tears streaming, and when Amai finally looked up and caught her eye, something passed between them that I couldn’t fully name—grief and joy tangled together so tight there wasn’t any separating them. A mother watching her son become a father.

“She’s got your nose,” Odette said, voice thick, moving closer to get a better look. “Lord, Amai, she really do.”

“She’s got Truth’s mouth,” Amai said, still staring down at her. “Look at that little mouth.”

“That’s a Renois mouth alright,” Mama said, wiping her eyes and laughing at the same time. “God help this baby. She about to be running her mouth by the time she’s two.”

The room stayed loud after that—loud in the good way, loud with crying and laughing tangled up together. Everybody taking turns getting close enough to see her. Mama counting her fingers all over again like she didn’t trust the nurses’ first count, and Odette asking about her weight, her length, and whether she’d taken to breathing okay.

Amai eventually brought her back to me, and I took her into my arms with a care that felt instinctive, like my body already knew how to hold her, even though nothing about the last hour had felt instinctive at all.

“Trumai Delphine Landry,” I said, testing the full name out loud for the first time with her actually in my arms instead of just a plan on paper. “Hey, Tru.”

“That’s a strong name,” Mama said. “Good name.”

“Delphine,” Mama repeated, hand pressed to her own chest now, overcome all over again. “You didn’t have to do that.”

“We wanted to,” I said, looking up at her. “You’ve been there. Every step. You deserve it.”

Mama couldn’t say anything to that. She just nodded, wiped her face again, and reached out to touch Tru’s tiny hand with one finger, the way you touch something you’re not sure is real yet.

I looked at my daughter’s face—really looked, past the redness and the swelling that would fade in a few days, past the newness of everything—and felt something settle in my chest that had nothing to do with exhaustion or pain relief or the hormones the nurse warned me would be flooding my system for the next several days. She was here. She was healthy. She was mine and Amai’s, and she was going to grow up surrounded by people who loved her fiercely enough to threaten grandfathers with cast iron skillets over her.

And somewhere underneath that joy, quiet but present, was the same ache that had been living in my chest for months now. I looked at her and thought, the way I always thought now, there should have been two of you. I thought about a second bassinet that never got bought, a second set of tiny socks that never got worn, a brother she’d never get to fight with or protect or resent the way siblings do.

I didn’t say any of it out loud. Not yet. Not in a room full of people crying happy tears over a baby who deserved every bit of that joy, unclouded by anything I was still working through.

But it was there. It would always be there.

The room emptied slow, the way rooms do after something big happens—Mama leaving first because she wanted to go home and get some things packed for when we finally got discharged, Odette staying a little longer, holding Tru one more time before she finally let the nurses convince her that visiting hours were closing and she needed rest herself. Raven, Honor, and Saroya had already come and gone in a blur of hugs and phone cameras, and Honor threatening to fight anybody who tried to hold the baby before she got her turn.

By the time it was just me, Amai, and Tru in that quiet hospital room, the light outside the window had gone soft and orange, evening settling in over a day that had started with pork chops and ended with a whole new person in the world.

Amai sat in the chair beside my bed, Tru asleep against his chest, her whole tiny body rising and falling with his breathing. He hadn’t put her down since Odette left. I don’t think he could’ve, even if he’d wanted to.

“You okay?” he asked, not looking up from her face.

“Tired,” I said. “Sore. Happy.” I paused. “All of it at the same time.”

“That tracks.” He finally looked up at me, and something in his face had settled since the delivery room, the raw shock of it smoothing out into something steadier, though his eyes were still red around the edges. “You did that. You did all of that.”

“We did that.”

“You did the part that mattered.” He looked back down at Tru. “I just stood there panicking and let your mama boss me around.”

“She’s good at that.” I co-signed.