by Maya Banks
minutes.”
Chessy closed her eyes in relief and then brought the phone to her side. Her very first instinct had been to call Tate. He was her lifeline. But she wouldn’t do that to him today of all days. She refused to make him choose between her and a potential client who could set his firm up for years to come.
She could do this.
The wait seemed interminable but then she heard the front door fly open and Kylie’s voice on its heels.
“Chessy! Where are you?”
“I’m in the kitchen,” Chessy called out.
Kylie, followed quickly by Jensen, rushed into the kitchen where Chessy still lay on the floor. Jensen crouched down, his eyes full of concern.
“Where do you hurt, honey?”
“I’m not sure,” Chessy admitted. “I tried to get up but it hurt so bad that I just laid back down. I’m so worried about the baby. Kylie, am I bleeding?”
Jensen looked away while Kylie gently pulled Chessy’s pants down to examine her for any bleeding.
“You’re spotting,” Kylie said quietly.
Tears welled in Chessy’s eyes. God, no. Anything but this.
“It’s not a lot,” Kylie soothed. “We’ll take you to the ER and get you checked out. Make sure nothing is broken and that the baby is okay. Have you called Tate?”
Chessy shook her head emphatically. “No. He has a very important presentation today. This could make or break his business. I won’t make him choose between me and such an important meeting.”
Kylie didn’t look placated by her explanation but didn’t argue.
“Okay, honey, I’m going to pick you up. I’ll try not to hurt you,” Jensen said in a gentle voice.
Chessy tensed as Jensen curled his arms underneath her and lifted her effortlessly into his arms. She winced, her back protesting the movement. Jensen looked worried as he carried her outside to his car. He laid her in the backseat with instructions for her not to move. Kylie slid into the passenger seat and Jensen got behind the wheel and immediately pulled out of the drive, accelerating sharply out of the neighborhood.
Oh God, please, please let her baby be okay. In the short time since she’d discovered she was pregnant she’d bonded with her child. It was already a son or a daughter to her and she already dreamed of a future with a toddler running around, making her crazy. And she wanted other children. She didn’t want an only child. She wanted a large family filled with love, all the things she’d never had growing up.
Her children would know how very much they were loved and wanted.
Ten minutes later, Jensen roared up to the ambulance bay at the ER and jumped out, yelling at one of the techs who was taking a smoke break.
“We need a stretcher. She’s pregnant and she’s hurt. I don’t want to jostle her unnecessarily.”
In a few minutes she was carefully loaded onto a stretcher and hustled into a cubicle in the ER where a nurse immediately began to ask her what happened and examined her for possible injuries.
“I’m just a few weeks pregnant,” Chessy said tearfully. “And I’m spotting. Does that mean I’m losing her?”
The nurse patted her hand reassuringly. “Spotting is normal in the first weeks of pregnancy. But we’ll do a sonogram and do blood work to check your HCG levels. I’m sure your baby will be just fine. It’s you we need to worry about. Your left arm looks to be broken or at least severely bruised. We’ll have to take X-rays and of course we’ll take the necessary precautions to protect your baby.”
Chessy heaved a sigh of relief. She didn’t care about herself. She just wanted her baby to be all right.
Kylie and Jensen crowded in on either side of Chessy. Kylie put her hand on Chessy’s shoulder while Jensen held her right hand. Kylie was careful not to touch her left arm.
For the first time, Chessy looked down at her arm and her mouth dropped open. It did indeed look broken. It was swollen and already bruising was evident.
A few minutes later, the tech came in and wheeled her down the hall to the X-ray room. It only took a few moments for him to X-ray her arm, but he also did ones of her ribs and her abdomen.
When he wheeled her back into the room, Joss and Dash were there waiting with Kylie and Jensen. Chessy teared up again. She loved her friends dearly but what she really wanted was her husband. She needed his strength and his reassurance but she couldn’t ask him to sacrifice such an important opportunity for his firm.
“Chessy, oh my God, are you all right?” Joss asked in concern.
“What happened?” Dash asked in a grim voice.
They were interrupted when the sonogram tech came in pushing a portable sonogram machine with a wand attached. Chessy’s eyes widened when they told her they would be doing an internal sonogram since it was so early in her pregnancy.
The fear and anxiety became too much. This was the moment where she’d discover whether or not her baby had survived her stupidity. She’d never forgive herself if she’d caused the death of her child.
She burst into uncontrollable sobs, tears streaking down her cheeks. Her entire body shook and the pain from her arm became unbearable.
To her utter shock, the door flew open and Tate filled the doorway, his gaze immediately seeking Chessy. He looked haggard and worried but relief flooded his features when he saw her.
But as he registered her sobs, his look turned to one of devastation. He flew over to her side, all but pushing the others away.
“Chessy, are you all right?” he demanded. “What happened? Is the baby okay?”
“What are you doing here?” she asked in astonishment, some of her tears abating as she took in the fact that her husband was here. Not at a meeting. He was here with her. “Tate, you can’t miss the presentation today. How did you even know I was here?”
“Dash called me,” Tate said grimly. “But you should have been the one to call me. Chessy, nothing is more important than you. Fuck the presentation. That’s what I have partners for now. If we get it we get it. If not, there will be other opportunities. But my sole priority is you and your safety and our child.”
Chessy burst into tears again and Tate leaned down, carefully pulling her into his arms.
“Don’t cry, baby. Please don’t cry. It’ll be all right. I swear it. If this pregnancy doesn’t work out, we’ll have others. I’ll give you as many babies as you want.”
Her heart filled with love. Her emotions were out of control. Tate had chosen her. She hadn’t asked him to. Hadn’t expected him to leave such an important meeting. But he’d come.
“It breaks my heart that you’re so overwhelmed by the fact that I came,” Tate said, sorrow swamping his face. “But Chessy, I’ll always choose you. I know in the past I haven’t, but from now on, you are my number one priority. You should have called me but I understand why you didn’t. But from now on, I expect you to always tell me what’s going on with you. Especially when you’re hurt and in the hospital and worried that you’ve lost our baby.”
“I love you,” she whispered. “I love you so much.”
“I love you too, baby.”
The sonogram tech cleared his throat. “If you’ll all leave the room I’ll do the sonogram and confirm whether or not the baby is still safely in her mother’s womb.”
“I’m not leaving,” Tate growled.
He positioned himself by Chessy’s side and curled his arm underneath her so he supported her upper body.
Joss, Kylie, Jensen and Dash discreetly left the room and the sonogram tech pulled up the gown they’d changed her into and quietly explained the process of an internal sonogram.
The wand would be inserted into her vagina and the images would show up on the screen of the sonogram machine.
“Let’s hope for the best,” the tech said with a smile. “Your spotting was minimal and it’s quite normal in the early stages of pregnancy. Chances are it had nothing to do with your fall at all.”
Silence descended as the tech began the sonogram. Tate had Chessy firmly
anchored in his arms and he gripped her right hand, squeezing tightly. He was as afraid as she was. She could see the tension in his features, the fear in his eyes. Fear for her and fear for their child.
“There’s the heartbeat! Everything looks good, little mama. Your baby is still right where it needs to be.”
Chessy burst into tears again. Tate touched his forehead to hers, relief etched in every facet of his face.
“Our baby is just fine,” he whispered. “But now we have to take care of you.”
He tenderly wiped her tears away, kissing the damp trails on her cheeks.
“I’m so glad you’re here,” she said brokenly. “I wanted you here so bad but I didn’t want to mess up your presentation.”
“I’ll always be here,” he said gently. “You and our baby come first.”
He’d chosen her.
Joy quickly replaced the sorrow and fear over the thought of losing her baby. She reached up with her uninjured arm and caressed Tate’s face.
“You chose me,” she whispered.
Tears brimmed in Tate’s own eyes.
“I know I can’t erase the past, Chessy, but I can affect the future. And from now on, you come first. Always. I need you to believe that.”
“I do,” she whispered.
“I love you,” he said gravely, sincerity brimming in his tear-filled eyes. “And as soon as they release you, I’m taking you home and you’re not going to lift so much as a finger while you recover. I’m taking the rest of the week off and depending on how you’re doing, I may take off next week as well.”
She was stunned, sure that shock registered on her face.
He caressed her cheek, love and tenderness radiating from his eyes.
“I chose you, Chessy. I’ll always choose you.”
She smiled, ignoring the pain in her arm. She had everything in the world that mattered to her right here and now. Her baby was safe and her husband was here. Everything was good. Finally, she was at peace.
And she did believe Tate. All the doubts of the past, all the betrayals and disappointment melted away, leaving love and trust in their wake.
EPILOGUE
KYLIE decided to wait until after Joss’s and Chessy’s babies were born before she and Jensen married. Joss and Chessy had complained that they could hardly be bridesmaids when they were big as a house. Jensen wasn’t happy with the delay. He wanted Kylie to be legally his as soon as possible and he didn’t care if they had an actual wedding or not. He’d threatened to kidnap Kylie and elope to Vegas but in the end he caved when Kylie told him how important it was that she be surrounded by her “family” on their special day.
Joss gave birth to an eight-pound, nine-ounce baby boy. They named him Carson, in recognition of Joss’s first husband and Dash’s best friend.
Not long after, Chessy delivered a seven-pound, two-ounce baby girl. She smugly told Tate that she’d been right all along and that she knew she was having a daughter. Tate had coddled her the entire time. He’d taken her home from the hospital on that horrible day when she’d feared the worst. Her arm had indeed been broken and she’d worn a cast for two months. Tate hadn’t allowed her to so much as lift a finger, and also true to his word, he’d spent much more time away from work and with her.
When the cast had been removed, and with her having an adorable baby bump, he’d taken her away for an entire week where they’d done nothing more than lounge on a beach and make love in the hotel room. It had been utter perfection.
Two months after Chessy gave birth, Kylie’s wedding day arrived. The weather was perfect, heralding a magnificent day.
“You look beautiful,” Tate said as he watched Chessy put the finishing touches on her makeup.
The bridesmaid dress was gorgeous and to Chessy’s delight she was actually able to fit into the same size she’d worn before her pregnancy. The only problem was that her boobs were huge. Tate wasn’t complaining about that at all.
“You don’t look so shabby yourself,” Chessy said, admiring the black tuxedo he’d donned in order to be one of Jensen’s attendants.
Tate picked up Caroline and when she started to fuss, he reached for her pacifier. Once inserted, Caroline sucked contentedly and immediately settled into sleep in her father’s arms.
It had been decided that Joss and Chessy would carry their babies with them down the aisle to stand for Kylie at her ceremony. Chessy just hoped that neither child started fussing through the service.
She needn’t have worried. The babies were perfectly content in their mothers’ arms. Joss and Chessy watched Kylie and Jensen pledge their love and the start of their lives together as man and wife and they both started crying.
Tate heaved an exasperated sigh and handed over a handkerchief to Chessy.
“And to think we were worried about the babies crying,” Dash muttered.
Rings were exchanged and then the minister pronounced them man and wife. Jensen pulled Kylie into a scorching kiss that made Chessy blush. Tate didn’t know it yet, but tonight was the night she planned to tell him her doctor had told her she was perfectly able to resume sexual activity.
To everyone’s surprise—and delight—Jensen swept Kylie into his arms and carried her down the aisle instead of the traditional side-by-side walk down the aisle after being pronounced man and wife.
The others hurried after them and caught up to them in the vestibule of the church.
Kylie hugged Joss and then Chessy. “Thank you for being here,” she whispered. “It made my wedding so much more special to have the people I love the most around me.”
“I wouldn’t have missed it for the world,” Chessy said. “We love you, Kylie. And I’m so glad you’re happy. You deserve happiness and I think Jensen is perfect for you. I wish for you a long life of love and happiness.”
Tears glistened in Kylie’s eyes. “I don’t know what I’d do without you and Joss. I love you both.”
“I think Jensen is getting a wee bit impatient,” Joss murmured. “He’s ready to take you on your honeymoon!”
Kylie blushed but turned only to be swept into her husband’s arms—again. He carried her to the waiting limo and put her inside. Then he turned with a grin and waved at his group of friends.
“Thank you all for making this so special for Kylie. I know she won’t forget this day and neither will I.”
They all waved as Jensen got into the limo with Kylie, and as they drove away, Tate reached for Caroline and nestled her on his chest so her head rested on his shoulder.
Chessy leaned in close so no one could hear her as she whispered to her husband.
“My OB gave me the green light to resume sexual relations,” she murmured.
Fire blazed in Tate’s eyes, desire and lust brimming. He gave her a predatory look and then glanced ruefully down at their baby.
“I’m going to set a record in getting her down for the night. And then you and I are going to be up a very long time. I may just have to call out of work tomorrow.”
Chessy laughed, the sound joyous and carefree. Everything was simply . . . perfect. She had her husband back, Kylie was happily married and Joss and Dash were new parents. Everyone was . . . happy. What more could she ask for?
