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“Nova is going with me,” she argued. “And everyone is forcing me to leave. There won’t be anyone—”
“I’ll be here,” I told her, my tone leaving no room for argument. “Her daddy will hold her hand while her mommy goes home and gets the rest she needs.”
“But—”
I leaned in and tenderly pressed my lips to hers. It was the first time I’d gotten to kiss her in months, and it eased something inside me that had been tense, even though I’d seen with my own eyes that she was alive. It wasn’t a passionate kiss, and she didn’t kiss me back, but it quieted her arguments. When I finally forced myself to pull away, she touched her lips as if in a daze.
Stepping back, I slowly released her hands and closed the door. Guzman was sitting in the front passenger seat, and I met his gaze. There was a brief flash of respect in his eyes, before he gave me a chin lift and the driver pulled away.
After they were out of sight, I turned and went back into the hospital. Up on the NICU floor, I made sure the guards outside the doors didn’t need a break before going inside. A nurse met me at the hand-washing station.
“Sir, Miss Ramirez has instructed us not to let you in,” she said with regret.
“Call Nova Hannigan. I’m sure she will tell you that I have full access now.” With a huff, she went to make the call, and I continued to wash my hands.
It was a process, like a doctor prepping for surgery. Washing up to my elbows, getting under my nails, scrubbing every inch in between. Rinse. Repeat. Once I was dry, I pulled on the protective covering that went over my clothes. By that time, the nurse had spoken to my sister and didn’t give me any more trouble as I walked through the ward and straight up to my daughter’s incubator.
Since my arrival, I’d told myself I was prepared to see Justice. That she wouldn’t have anything to worry about because her daddy was there to make it all better. But I’d been too scared to even look at her, let alone attempt to make anything better for her.
Disgusted with myself, I pushed the self-deprecation down and finally looked at my baby girl for the very first time. Seeing that tiny body, smaller than a baby doll, attached to so many machines nearly brought me to my knees. It was a hard pill to swallow that I, a grown-ass man, wasn’t even a tenth as strong or as brave as that little baby who would barely fit in one of my hands.
Blinking back tears, I gently placed one of my hands into the incubator and stroked my thumb over her fist. She reacted by wrapping her itty-bitty fingers around my digit and holding on. “Hey there, beautiful girl,” I murmured, unsure if she could hear me or not, but needing to talk to her. “Daddy’s here now. You don’t have to worry. Just concentrate on getting better for Mommy. Daddy will take care of the rest.”
Cali
Slowly, reality entered my sleep-fogged brain. The ache in my body lessened with each passing day, but I was still so sore that it was slow moving first thing in the mornings.
Beside me, Nova mumbled in her sleep and turned just enough to get comfortable. Her foot wasn’t nearly as swollen as it had been when she’d first returned from New York, but it was still bruised. She had it propped up on a high stack of pillows, while her head rested on my arm. Night after night, we fell asleep in my bed, with her promising tomorrow would be better than the previous day.
It had been three weeks since I’d been released from the hospital, leaving my little angel in the NICU. During that time, she’d gained a little weight, but we kept having other setbacks that delayed her heart surgery. But today was the day. Justice was finally going to have the opening in her heart closed. It was the most troublesome of her disabilities caused by her extremely premature birth, and with it, we hoped that she would begin to thrive.
The night before, it had been difficult for both Nova and me to fall asleep, but once she had, it had been with a restlessness that had my friend tossing and turning for hours. I’d hugged her to me, wishing it were my little girl in my arms rather than her aunt. Around one, my brain had finally relented and let me get a few hours of sleep.
A glance at the clock showed me that we still had another two hours until we had to be at the hospital before Justice was taken into surgery. I hated being so far away from her. Even if the hospital itself wasn’t more than an hour away, it might as well have been a thousand miles that separated me from her when I returned to the mansion each night.
But saying goodbye to my baby was a little easier, knowing that her daddy was there for her. Garret hadn’t left the hospital once since my release. It had surprised me at first. He’d been so adamant that he couldn’t handle me being out of his sight, but that had changed when I was released and had to leave our little girl behind. I needed to rest and recover from the C-section and hysterectomy. That meant traveling back and forth throughout the day so that I didn’t overtire myself and eating the right foods regularly in order to produce enough milk to feed Justice.
Garret, however, slept in the waiting room each night. He was the first parent through the NICU doors each morning. He knew every move the nurses made where our daughter’s care was concerned. I got a texted update at six every morning, when he went into the ward and spoke to the night nurse. Then another message after one of the many doctors came in to check on her. By the time I got to the hospital, I knew everything that had happened from the moment I’d left the previous night.
When he’d stayed behind the day I was released, I’d been torn. I didn’t want him hanging around when he’d barely even looked at her to begin with. But at the same time, I’d been thankful to have someone there to hold her hand and report to me if something happened in the middle of the night. Mostly, I just didn’t want Justice to be alone. I didn’t want her to think that she’d been abandoned.
I wanted to hate him, but that became harder and harder to feel toward him when he was taking such good care of our little one.
All while handling the business side of things for the Ramirez company.
Nova had confessed to me that she’d given her brother half of her own holdings that I’d signed over to her. At first, I’d been upset, but then I realized it only made sense. Nova did a good job handling the company, but she wasn’t a businesswoman at heart. Garret, on the other hand, had a degree in business, as well as apprenticing with the Vitucci family—in both the legal and not-so-legal aspects of their family-run businesses.
Between his long nights sleeping in the waiting room, followed by the even longer days, I’d expected Garret to be dead on his feet after three full weeks. But if he was exhausted, it didn’t show. There were no dark circles under his eyes. Every morning when I saw him, he had a smile for me—even if it was grim at times depending on if Justice had a bad night or not.
Over the last week, she’d had more bad nights than good. Her surgery became more important with each passing day.
With a gasp, Nova suddenly sat upright in bed, her foot falling off the stack of pillows. “Did we oversleep?” she mumbled, rubbing at her eyes.
It was still dark outside the window, but we always left the bathroom light on. I was a grown woman and still needed a night-light. It made me feel pathetic; the monster who had tortured me most of my life was dead and gone, but I couldn’t sleep without it on. I picked up my phone to show her the clock on the display. “We still have time,” I assured her, easing into a sitting position beside her.
She sighed. “Thank goodness. Sit tight. I’m going to grab us some food, and then we can get ready. It won’t hurt anything if we show up at the hospital earlier than expected. I won’t be able to sit still if we wait around here, so I know you won’t either.”
While she rushed around, pulling on a cardigan over her sleep shorts and tank top and left the bedroom, I texted Garret.
