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But at seven, she couldn’t lie to herself anymore. She picked up the house phone and dialed her mom’s extension. “I think I’m in labor.”
“Oh, no! Ginny, sweetie...this is too early.”
Her stomach contracted again and she doubled over with pain. “All right. I no longer think I’m in labor. I know I am.”
“Did they tell you what to do?”
“I have to call the doctor, but—” She doubled over again. “Oh, my God, this hurts.”
“That’d be labor. Okay. I’m coming over. I’ll call Sally who will tell Dom.”
“He’s in the war room. We’re at war.”
Her mom was quiet for a few seconds, then she said, “Didn’t know if you’d been told, but, yes. I saw the news this morning. We’re at war.”
“I don’t even know if Dom can come out for this.”
“Oh, dear Lord, of course, he can. You just go get some clothes on so security can get you to the hospital. I will take care of calling Sally who will get Dom to the hospital.”
Ginny did as she was told. The week before she’d been advised by her birthing coach to pack a bag for the hospital “just in case.” So after sliding into maternity jeans and a sweater, she lugged the bag from Dom’s room to the sitting area.
Then pain roared through her stomach and she fell to the sofa. She tried to breathe, but the fear that gripped her kept her from being able to focus. Her new country was at war and she was in labor. Four weeks too early. She didn’t even want to contemplate that her baby might not be ready, but how could she not?
When she was almost at the point of hyperventilation, her door swung open and her mom raced in. “I talked to Sally, who said she will talk to the king. She said not to worry. She’ll take care of everything.”
She rose from the sofa, the pain so intense, tears speared her eyes again. “Good.”
The doors opened again and Dom’s top security team ran in.
“Ma’am? Can you walk?”
She caught her mother’s hand. “Oh, jeez. Now I’m ma’am.”
Her mother led her to the door. “That’s right, sweetie. Keep your sense of humor.”
Her labor lasted twelve long hours. Every twenty minutes she asked where Dom was. Every twenty-one minutes her mother would say, “He’s been told you’re in labor. He’ll be here any minute.”
She gave birth to a healthy, albeit tiny, baby boy. The happy, smiling doctor, a man who’d clearly gotten sufficient sleep the night before, joyfully said, “Can you tell me his name?”
She blinked tiredly. “For the birth certificate?”
He laughed. “No, just because I’m curious.”
She swallowed. “We didn’t really pick a name yet.” But she remembered James Tiberius Kirk. There were some times Dom could be so much fun, so loving, that she knew this war had to be god-awful to keep him away from his son’s birth.
The doctor placed her little boy, her little king, in her arms, and the tears that fell this time were happy tears. “Look at him, Mom.” But she wished she was saying that to Dom. She should be saying, “Look at your son.”
But they were at war. And he was needed.
Still, the sting of giving birth to their child alone caused tears to prick her eyelids.
“He’s beautiful.” Her mom kissed her cheek. “But you’re tired.”
“Have you heard from Sally?”
“Not a peep.”
“Okay.”
The doctor walked to the head of her bed. “The nurses need to take your son to be cleaned up and examined. You can have him back in an hour or so.”
“You’re taking him?” She hadn’t been told this protocol, but it just didn’t seem right to hand over the future king to people who were essentially strangers.
The doctor laughed and pointed outside the delivery room doors where her security detail stood guard. “Don’t worry. He’s already been assigned security. He might be leaving your sight but he won’t be leaving the royal family’s sight.”
Her mom took the future king from her arms. “Why don’t you go to sleep, honey?”
She said, “Okay,” and felt herself drifting off as her mom handed her little boy to the doctor.
When she woke forty minutes later, she took off the ugly hospital gown they’d insisted she give birth in, and with her mom’s help put on a pretty nightgown. She prayed Xaviera’s war didn’t last long, and also knew that when he could Dom would slip out and see his son. She wanted him to see she’d done okay. That she was fine. She was being the stiff-upper-lip princess she needed to be in this difficult time.
