Shopping for a CEO's Baby (Shopping for a Billionaire Series Book 16)

by Julia Kent

  The contraction steals my breath.

  The doctor leaves, Andrew in slo-mo as he moves the water bottle and turns his arms into a vise again, Shannon's body heat to my right. The only awareness I have of anything is concentrated entirely between my hipbones.

  It's the center of the universe. Right there.

  In me.

  “You'll be fine,” Shannon whispers in my ear, rubbing the lacrosse ball as hard as she can, digging it deep into the small of my back as the contraction fades. “The anesthesiologist is on his way before they prep you for surgery.”

  “I can't believe this is happening.”

  “I know.”

  “Amanda? Andrew?” Dr. Derjian walks back in, calm and cool, tall and big and warm and–I hope–a skilled surgeon. “We're ready.” He gives Shannon a direct look, but somehow it's caring, too. “Only one support person can be in the OR.”

  “Andrew, of course,” she says, sparing me from having to say it.

  He walks over to her, kisses her on the cheek, and says, “Thank you.”

  Tears well up in my best friend's eyes. “No. Thank you.” She squeezes his shoulders. “Take care of her.” Looking at the doctor, her eyes narrow, mouth set firm. “And you most of all. I hope you're as good in surgery as you were coaching my husband to catch my baby in an elevator.”

  “I'm even better with a scalpel and a plan,” he says with assurance, eyes cutting to Andrew, then me. “It's time.”

  “Can you call my Mom?” I call out to Shannon, who waves near the electric doors.

  “Pam's on her way. Already texted her. I texted my mom, too.”

  “You invited Marie to come?” I gasp, horrified.

  “Invited? God, no. I texted her a warning not to come.” Shannon gives me a careful hug. “Next time I see you, you'll have my twin nephews in your arms. You get to meet your children!”

  We both burst into tears, a quick hug necessary.

  And I’m wheeled away, going through double doors that feel like a birth canal.

  Chapter 21

  Andrew

  For most men, watching your children being born involves staring between your partner's legs.

  For me? It means trying very hard not to stare at a screen displaying her organs, spread out before her like an advanced biology lab project.

  It's not that I'm squeamish. I actually love science, but that's my wife's large intestine on the other side of that screen. If I'm going to be intimately acquainted with a body part of hers, that's not at the top of my list.

  “We're dealing with adhesions,” I hear Dr. Derjian say to someone else in scrubs, then complex language about organs. It's tempting to sit just a little taller on this metal stool and peek over the drape they use as a curtain.

  Too tempting.

  Declan never had to go through this equivalent of the marshmallow test. He may have delivered his child in a broken elevator, but my two children are being cut out of their mother while I keep her company and try not to look at the string of slimy balloon animals that are her intestines.

  Hah. Beat that, bro.

  “Adhesions?” I ask.

  “Nothing's wrong,” he says smoothly. “Sometimes women have tissue, a little scar tissue, that makes this a little more complicated.” He flashes Amanda and me a confident smile. “I've seen it before. Just means we'll be here for a little longer.”

  Amanda made me watch enough videos of c-sections that I understand the basics of what he's doing. Now the placenta needs to be removed. Each baby has a team, and beyond the surgical table I see the babies being lifted up, rubbed with towels, weighed and talked to, thin little cries whinnying out of them.

  In duplicate.

  “I need to see them again,” she whispers to me, as if wanting that isn't okay.

  “Give us five seconds,” Dr. Derjian says, pausing with his hands to give Amanda a compassionate look. “I promise.”

  “Remember that article I told you about, the maternal assisted c-section?” Amanda says to me.

  “The one where the midwife asked the OB to let the mom pull the baby out herself?” Dr. Derjian asks calmly. He moves with coordinated grace, but I can't bring myself to look over the drape.

  “Yes!” Amanda replies.

  He pauses. “Are you asking to do that? Because the babies are already on the–”

  “HELL, NO!”

  He chuckles. “Try not to use your abdominal muscles like that. Message received.”

  “At least she got to hold her baby,” Amanda grouses. Her head is obviously connected to the rest of her, but she feels disembodied, detached. Her lower half is cut open and she's chatting away up here as if blood and organs weren't being rearranged like a game of Three-card Monte a few feet away.

  “Dad! Want to cut the cords?” someone calls out. I stroke Amanda's hair and smile.

  She looks at me, eyes slowly shining as they fill with tears. “Don't you want to?”

  “Want to what?”

  “Cut the umbilical cords?”

  “What? That wasn't me they were asking.”

  “Of course it was,” Dr. Derjian says, happy eyes meeting mine over our surgical masks. “They said Dad. That's you.”

  Amanda nods me on. “Go help them.”

  “William,” one of the nurses says, and I realize that's my child. My child. I have two, both squeaking and crying, sounding like billy goats with muzzles. On legs made of helium and concrete, I move to the staging area where William is screaming, eyes shut tight, arms out, naked and new to the world, the umbilical cord bulging and clamped with two clamps, a two-inch spot centered.

  I'm handed a pair of scissors.

  And I perform the ritual. I'm surprised by the feel of cutting it, how much effort it takes.

  The nurse takes him and rubs him with a blanket, then wraps him like a burrito, another nurse moving me to Charlie, who could not be more different from his brother.

  Brother. Amanda and I made brothers.

  Charlie is calm, almost preternaturally so, staring up at me with dark eyes that take in everything.

  As I reach for the scissors, eyes on him, his hand brushes mine, clinging to my glove-covered pinky.

  “Shhhh, Charlie. Shhhhh.”

  “Daddy's here,” one of the nurses says.

  I've spent the entire labor and birth carefully restraining my inner turmoil, emotions there but pushed off to the side, in a sector with firm boundaries. Saying my son's name, giving him comfort, having him reach out to me like this–it's permission.

  Permission to feel.

  Tears don't come naturally to McCormick men. We're taught from a young age not to show emotion. The tacit message is: Don't express.

  Even better?

  Don't feel at all.

  I'm breaking that cycle right now, letting the tears come, feeling them roll down my cheeks, tears of joy and gratitude, of connection and transition. I'm no longer the keeper of my genes, roaming the Earth as a self-contained entity, my heart lent to Amanda but not passed on to another generation.

  But now? We've created one.

  A new generation who won't just carry on the McCormick name, the McCormick genes, the McCormick business.

  They'll break patterns that need to be shattered, and forge new ones.

  Starting now.

  I clip Charlie's cord, his eyes on mine for a few seconds before they slowly close, then open again, a nurse holding the clamps steady so I can do it one-handed. Then he's rubbed with the towel and burrito-wrapped.

  Both of my sons are placed in my arms, Will still crying, Charlie quietly observing.

  And I bring them to Amanda.

  Hearts, as organs, have finite capacity.

  As instruments of love, they're capable of holding infinite space.

  All four of us fit inside my heart, tucked away in a small, quaint space where we're protected from the rest of the world, living in joy and happiness, our little family all I need.

  Amanda can't move her hands,
so I brush the boys' cheeks against her, tears streaming down her face as we look at each other. My eyes are connected to my heart, too.

  “Thank you,” I choke out. “You did it.”

  “Did what?”

  “You won.”

  Chapter 22

  Amanda

  It's a good thing women have two breasts and I didn't have triplets.

  And it's even better that the hospital has plenty of breastfeeding pillows to prop up the babies, because avoiding the c-section wound is a full-time job.

  Andrew is sitting next to me in a chair, holding Will, who just fed and is sound asleep, swollen eyes showing tiny spikes of lashes. Charlie's still attached like a vacuum cleaner, and I peel my tongue off the roof of my mouth.

  Everything is a haze.

  “What do you need?” Andrew asks in a voice just above silence, his tone so reverential.

  “Water.”

  Moving his knees carefully, Andrew lifts up, the ripple of thigh muscle under his workout pants something I admire.

  Not sexually. Because that layer of hormones is just not present. If I'm sticking something between my thighs right now, it will involve multiple absorbent layers.

  Visually, though, he's fun to watch.

  Especially when he's holding Will.

  “Here,” he says, handing me a stainless steel bottle. “It's the electrolyte solution. Hasn’t been opened before.”

  I drink greedily, to the point where it overflows the corner of my mouth, a drop landing on Charlie's head.

  “Wow. What else do you need?” he asks.

  “Food.”

  Gingerly, he moves across the room, Will in his arms, and I can't stop watching. My husband is holding my baby. Our baby. A baby who was inside my body until a few hours ago.

  A baby who is finally here.

  We're parents.

  I'm a mom.

  “I made sure to bring these,” he says, setting a ziplock bag full of Cheeto marshmallow treats on the tray in front of me, using one hand to awkwardly open the bag.

  My laughter wakes Charlie up. It hurts, too, my ab muscles completely sliced open.

  “Ow. Don't make me laugh,” I groan.

  Tap tap tap

  My mom's face comes into view, her eyes filled with tears, right arm cradling a huge fresh fruit and chocolate basket with two little teddy bears in it.

  “Oh!” is all she says as she walks into the room, puts the basket on the small, circular table by a chair, and comes to me, her hug tentative, her tears wetting my shoulder. She's curled away from me so the baby doesn't get hurt, and as she pulls back, she looks down, hand going to Charlie's head but halting just before touching, hovering.

  “He's–you're–oh, my little Mandy is a mommy.”

  And now I'm crying all over my poor baby.

  “Say hello to your grandsons, Pam. This is Will,” Andrew says, pivoting closer so she can touch his head, too. “William Warrick McCormick.”

  “And I'm feeding Charlie. Charles Warrick McCormick.”

  “Such big–names–” she's sobbing, “–for such little boys!” Mom puts her hand on Andrew's shoulder and stares at Will. “May I?”

  “Of course.”

  Careful and methodical, my mom walks into the bathroom, the sound of the faucet making it clear she's washing her hands before touching the babies.

  It occurs to me that this is part of the delicate work of protecting brand new humans. Mom does it instinctively.

  I need to remember this ritual. This request.

  This demand when someone wants to hold the new life I created.

  The transfer from my husband to my mother is a visual transition, a moving through time that can't be done any other way, one generation handing the new one off to the old. Her smile is incredible, decades peeling off as I see–right here, right now–what my mom must have looked like the day she first held me.

  The day she became a mother.

  “Grandma?” I say aloud, the question only hitting me now. “Do we call you Grandma? Grammy? Something else? We always called your mom Grandma.”

  “That sounds good to me. I'm not fussy. Call me Grandma, Will. I'm so, so happy to finally meet you.”

  Charlie pops off at that exact moment. He hasn't gotten much from me, because colostrum is all I have, but I'm following the lactation consultant's instructions. I make eye contact with Andrew and he comes over, lifts Charlie from me, and gives him to Mom.

  She's full up in the grandchild department.

  “Good thing we have two arms,” Mom jokes, the comment not particularly funny, but so joyful. I grab my phone and start taking photos, texting them to Mom's number so she'll have them to show off.

  Show off.

  My babies aren't just mine anymore. Not just ours. They're out in the world now.

  “William and Charles. Like the royal family?”

  Mom's question makes Andrew and me freeze.

  “Huh?” I ask, perplexed.

  “You know. Prince Charles. Prince William. Did you pick those names on purpose?”

  “God, no,” Andrew says, alarmed. “We wanted to give them old-fashioned, traditional names and...”

  “Oh, no,” I groan. “We didn't connect the two! We're never going to hear the end of this!”

  “I'm sure no one will notice,” Mom says nervously. “I'm a pattern-matcher. Most people aren't.” Mom's phone buzzes in her purse. A weird, guilty look washes over her.

  “What's wrong?”

  “That might be Marie.”

  “Marie?”

  “She's here.”

  “Here?”

  “With Shannon. And Carol.”

  “They're here?”

  “Mmm hmm. Down the hall.” Mom's shifty eyes make it clear she's been holding them at bay.

  Andrew puffs up, hands on his hips. A protective streak that was already strong is gaining power like a Cat 1 storm over warm waters off the Gulf Coast. “We're not dealing with a crowd right now.”

  “Tell that to Marie.” Mom's eyes don't move from the babies.

  “I'm fine with it,” I say, “but only when Mom's done hogging the babies.” I adjust my bra and top, and reach for the giant water bottle Andrew got me. It has a built-in ice section and a huge, easy-to-bend straw.

  “Marie will have to wait a year, then,” Mom murmurs. “Oh my goodness, Will looks just like Andrew, but he has your nose, Amanda.”

  She's back to my full name. Emotions are under control.

  “They're identical, Pam,” Andrew says softly.

  “How do you know the difference?” she asks, eyes immediately going to his feet, which are wrapped in the blanket. “I assume they tag the babies with ankle bracelets?”

  “They do. And Will's hat has a green stripe on it. Charlie is blue.”

  “Ah,” Mom says, her low-grade OCD satisfied. Her shoulders relax. “Then I won't confuse them.”

  I sip, swallow, then add, “So far, the only way I can tell the difference is Charlie is a lazy sucker.”

  That makes Andrew chuckle. “Don't say the word 'lazy' around Dad,” he cracks. “Nothing about his grandsons can be lazy.”

  Mom looks at Andrew and asks, “Has James seen them yet?”

  “No. Dad said he'd wait until we're home.”

  “Then I'm your first grandparent to meet you,” she says to Will.

  A shadow crosses Andrew's face.

  Mine, too, I’m sure, but for a different reason. He's mourning the loss of his mom in a whole new way.

  I'm thinking about my dad, which is a different kind of loss.

  Bzzzz

  Andrew looks over at his jacket, which is buzzing. “Hang on,” he says, looking at his phone's screen. “It's Gina.”

  “Gina? I thought you weren't working!”

  “I'm not. She says Marie has texted her eighteen times and wants help getting in here to see the babies.” He taps quickly on the screen. “Marie's offering free Unicoga classes for life and to tell h
er all of Marie's secret Yankee Swap shopping locations.”

  Mom and I share a shocked look.

  “Hmmm. Might be worth letting her in if she'll spill the tea on her Yankee Swap magic,” I mutter to myself as Mom grins.

  “Hmmph,” Andrew grumps as he thumbs his way through a text.

  “What're you telling her?”

  “I'd rather not repeat it in front of my children.”

  His phone buzzes again. He looks, and smiles.

  “This time it's Shannon. She says she's got Marie under control. Threatened to tell my brother all about Marie's secret thrift shop for that thing you just said. A yankee swap?” Bewildered, he looks to me, then Mom, for help in understanding what Shannon means.

  “Oooooooo,” Mom and I intone in unison.

  “Shannon went there,” I mutter.

  “I still don't understand,” Andrew asks with a smile, “but I'm assuming that means we have privacy?”

  Bzzzzz

  “Mom is offering to go on a coffee run for everyone while we wait,” Andrew reads from his phone. “What do you guys want? From Grind It Fresh! of course.” He looks at his phone with admiration. “Shannon has figured out her mother, hasn't she?”

  “Only took her thirty years,” I say with a laugh.

  “Who wouldn't be impatient to meet these two?” Mom's voice is gooey sweet as she stares at the babies. The problem with holding twins at the same time is that you don't have a free hand.

  Will begins to fuss.

  “Here,” I say, waving toward Andrew, my other hand going to my gown. “I'll nurse him. Mom can have Charlie to herself.” Their handoff is awkward but the goal is finally achieved.

  Will's in my arms, little lips rooting. He attaches, but it takes a few tries.

  Bzzzz

  Andrew's head rears back as he reads his phone. “It's Jason.”

  “Jason? Jason Jacoby?”

  “Yes.”

  “Since when does Shannon's dad text you?”

  “Hardly ever.”

  “What's he saying?”

  “I'm holding her back, but even I have limits.”

  A giggle emerges from Mom. “Marie is a force of nature.”

  “Marie is a pain in the ass,” Andrew corrects her.