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“Cherish the ground you walk on, hold your hand, show affection. Yes, I know,” I grumble. The same shit I’ve been doing all morning since we’ve been in public.
“Good.” She smiles as if she’s successfully trained me like a dog.
Hector makes a stop at the light, and we’re roughly jolted forward as the sound of metal on metal rings out. Victoria smacks her head against the window, and the seat belts tighten around us, locking us in place. She squeals, and I curse when the belt digs into me. Fuck.
I turn around to see a large truck has slammed into the back of the SUV. Small fender benders like this are common, but Victoria isn’t having it.
The next half hour passes in a chaotic blur as Hector nearly knocks the guy’s teeth out and I call 911. Victoria cries in fear about the babies and tells the police officers she wants the driver who hit us unnecessarily arrested.
It’s a fucking shitstorm.
They take her in an ambulance, and I’m forced to ride along as her worried husband. I play my damn part, but I’m slightly eager to talk to a doctor not on her family’s payroll. I want to see an ultrasound in real time and find out how far along she truly is, considering how big she looks.
“Thanks for staying by my side,” Victoria whispers as she lies on the bed, waiting for the ultrasound tech.
“Of course,” I mutter.
The tech introduces herself as Talia and explains she’s going to take some measurements and pictures for the doctor to make sure everything is fine. Though the impact was minimal, Victoria was determined to get checked out.
Victoria raises her shirt up to her bra, and for the first time, I see her bare round belly. Even lying down, I can tell she’s bigger than she should be for this far along. I’ve been suspicious since the moment she announced she was pregnant and started reading up on it, and even with twins, she looks twice the size of the pictures I saw online.
Talia reassures us that both babies look great. The heartbeats are strong, and they’re moving around without any distress. Victoria exhales in relief, but I study the size of them. She claims she got pregnant over the Fourth of July week when she came to California, which would make her about two and a half months. I’m not buying it.
But I’m about to find out the truth.
“Can we get some pictures?” I ask like an excited father-to-be. “With the number of weeks on there?” I ask, then smile wide. “For the babies’ scrapbook.”
“I already have some from a couple of weeks ago,” Victoria blurts out, but Talia is already printing them out.
“Absolutely! They change so much at this stage, so it’s nice to have more!” She hands them to me, and Victoria looks like she’s ready to rip off Talia’s head. “Everything looks really good, but the doctor will still want to review it all. Once he does, he’ll be in to discharge you.”
I thank her, and the moment she’s gone, I stare at the images and read the small print at the top.
O’Leary-Evans, Victoria
GA=18w4d
I learned from researching that GA means gestational age, which is how pregnancy weeks from the woman’s last menstrual cycle are counted. This means the babies were conceived about sixteen weeks ago and that was right around the time Johnny was about to kill me.
“You wanna tell me how it’s the middle of September and this is saying you’re over eighteen weeks along? Pretty sure the first week of July was only ten weeks ago.” I squeeze the pictures tight in my hand, rage building in my blood at the audacity this bitch has to lie to me over and over. “There’s no fucking way they’re mine.”
“We’ve been married for four months, so it’s very believable we got pregnant right away and that they’re yours,” she states matter-of-factly.
“But we both know they’re not.” I’m fuming and can barely control myself. “You were already pregnant when your father was about to shoot me, weren’t you?”
I don’t need her confirmation to know she was. She would’ve been super early, but it’s possible she could’ve known at that point. What other motive did she have for saving me? She needed someone to marry her and claim the babies.
But why?
“What’s it matter? We’re married, and you’ll be the father to them,” she says sternly.
“You bitch,” I whisper-hiss. “This was never about getting your trust fund and out of the family business, was it? You needed a father for them. Who’s the real one?”
“Shut. Up,” she snaps. “This conversation is over.”
The fuck it is.
“What exactly were you going to say when you went into labor two months early?” I push.
“Twins come early all the time.” She brushes it off like I’m a goddamn idiot. “I’m giving birth in a private suite, and it’ll be kept quiet until it’s time to announce their births.”
