And though I eventually went on to become a doctor, and even managed to disappoint Mama on that front when I decided to take a job at ManU’s Women’s Disability Clinic as their only OB. Never mind that I’m doing good and necessary work for women and teenage girls who come from all over the tri-state area to see me. According to my mother, I’m wasting my pedigree and training on those who “should know better” than to get pregnant in the first place.
If you ask my mother and sister, Garrett is the one and only thing I’ve managed to do right since getting adopted into the Glendaver family.
And even now, there’s more than a dash of “don’t mess this up, dear sister” pepper underlying Skylar’s purposefully sweet tone as she says, “We can’t take our men for granted now, Livvy. That’s how you end up with a ‘first’ before your wife title, like poor Mama.”
Really? Because I could have sworn, the assistant Dad decided to keep for a longer term than his usual habitual affairs was the reason our parents got divorced. Not to mention the fact that they both despised the other for daring to grow old. Which is why I now have to fly down to Kentucky to celebrate Mama’s upcoming nuptials to a personal trainer only a few years older than I am.
But I keep my mouth shut. Skylar loves her attentive wife narrative too much to ever let a pesky thing like reason or actual statistics get in the way of her problematic assumptions about why modern couples break up with each other. I’ve learned the hard way over several tense Thanksgivings to never argue with her, unless I’m just dying to spend the rest of the holiday weekend listening to weak deductions based on internet articles on celebrity divorces. For instance, who knew it was Jennifer Garner’s insistence on having her own career that had driven Ben Affleck to both drink and cheat? I certainly didn’t before the Thanksgiving Dinner of 2016.
“I’m just saying, you don’t want to be ditched at the altar because you’re paying more attention to those down-trodden baby mamas than your husband to be,” Skylar finishes in that sing-song way of hers. Then she asks, “Do you have a wedding date set yet? And just when are you going to quit that awful job of yours? You won’t be able to work once you have children, you know. Not if you want to be a good mother.”
No, of course, I won’t be able to work, Skylar, because no one in the whole wide world has ever managed to hold down a job while raising children. Nine out of ten random internet bloggers agree that it’s physically impossible for anyone on this entire earth to do that and be a good mother, I want to answer. But Skylar tends to get incredibly hurt whenever anyone tries to correct one of her antiquated—and, according to the Black Women’s Studies class I took at Princeton, unbelievably privileged and white notions about motherhood.
And, the last time I tried to point out her biased thinking. Skylar had gone on an “I don’t see your color” tirade so dramatic and tearful, it had ended with our father hugging her tight at the Christmas dinner table. While saying to me, “I know you don’t think the words that come out of your mouth can be hurtful, Olivia, but Skylar is a very sensitive soul.”
And so here I am, the daughter my mother probably would have sent back after her marriage collapsed, if it would have been socially acceptable. Assuring the sister who thinks my job is completely unnecessary. “I’m just finding the gate, Sky. I’ll be there in a few hours. Hold tight and try not to worry too much.”
“I am trying, but she’s just impossible today. She insisted that I plan everything, but with less than twenty-four hours to go, she’s now questioning all of my decisions. She hates the spa I chose and insists I should have booked the Woodhouse because they have better hot stone treatments. But how could I have known that? I’ve never had a hot stone treatment at the Woodhouse! She’s also trying to make me switch caterers because, according to her, the food from Sweet Lace was too salty at the last Glendaver board meeting. But how was I supposed to know that either?”
“She also failed to hire a stripper!” Our sixty-five-year-old mother calls out in the background of Skylar’s call. Her accent is just as lush and full of magnolia as always, but her words are so slurred, I can only imagine how bad she’ll get at tomorrow’s festivities.
“Oh goodness, she’s come downstairs to harass me now,” Skylar whispers as if the Ring spirit has just crawled out of the TV.
“What kind of matron of honor doesn’t hire a stripper?” Our mother demands in the background.
“I’ll be there in just a few hours,” I repeat, feeling genuinely sorry for my sister, despite our many differences.
“Please get here soon. It’s so tough to handle her when she’s like this.”
Yes, which is exactly why I moved as far north as I could get from Kentucky when it came time to escape—I mean go away to college. But Mama does have a point. This spa day followed by a garden party sounds like it’s going to be boring as hello. And I can’t imagine what Skylar was thinking, trying to force her kind of “aren’t we all just pink and perfect” sort of party on a woman who decided to spend her sunset years with her hard-bodied, thirty-six-year-old personal trainer.
I say a quick goodbye to Skylar and almost hope I don’t ever find this mythical Gate A-5. Sorry Skylar darling, I imagine myself calling back to say. I would have come, but I couldn’t find the gate.
But then, like a dream denied, I round the corner, and there’s Gate A-5.
Ah, well then. With a wistful sigh, I resign myself to getting on the plane to hell—I mean Kentucky, only to have a guy in a black suit stop me in my tracks.
Not because he’s cute—though, he is in a big, hulky Italian way—but because he looks just like the man who escorted me into my first home visit with Amber Reynolds. Exactly the same. However, his energy, as our clinic’s homeopathic doctor from California might call it, is utterly different from Luca Ferraro’s assistant. He’s a lot less affable than the man who introduced himself to me as Rock when I arrived at the well-appointed Tribeca high rise. I can tell that much just by the way he watches me approach without any change of expression.
“Dr. Glendaver?” he asks, with a much harsher Jersey accent than the man I met back in November.
“Yes,” I answer nonetheless. “What’s this about? Is Amber okay?”
“Come with me,” he says. “I’ll explain in the car.”
As it turns out, the man isn’t Rock, but his identical twin brother, Stone. And the “come with me” wasn’t a request. Without waiting for my answer, he all but drags me out of the airport, ignoring my many questions. Like, “May I ask how you made it past security and all the way to my gate?” and “How did you even know what flight I was on?” and perhaps most importantly, “Where are you taking me?”
The third one is the only query he ever bothers to address, and even that question doesn’t get answered until we reach a dark car idling outside the terminal’s sliding glass doors, and I tell him, “I refuse to get into this car until you let me know exactly where you’re taking me.”
“Manhattan Mercy,” he bites out before all but shoving me into the car’s back seat. He then crowds in beside me and tells me, “Mrs. Ferraro has gone into labor,” right before the car peels off from the curb.
“Mrs. Ferraro? I thought he and Amber weren’t married…and why didn’t you call the head of Obstetrics? I’m supposed to be on a plane right now!”
“Mr. Ferraro isn’t the type of man to settle for the B-team when his wife wants the A-team.”
I fume as Stone escorts me onto the Labor and Delivery floor at Manhattan Mercy. This is the clinic’s preferred hospital, so I’ve delivered a good number of babies here, but I’ve never seen it like this. The whole floor sits eerily quiet, with not so much as a physician’s assistant in sight.
Oh God, they cleared the floor, I suddenly realize. It’s a practice I’ve heard about but have never seen. And not for the first time, I wonder if the father of Amber’s child is more than an eccentric millionaire CEO with money to blow on things like cutting-edge ultrasound machines and private doct
or visits, so that his partner—now wife, I guess—never has to leave their apartment.
The sound of sobbing rips me out of that speculative thought.
Without thinking, I go into doctor mode, jogging toward the sound of Amber’s cries and bursting through the doors of what turns out to be an extremely swanky birthing suite.
This room is another “heard about but never seen” for me, and it’s just as luxurious as reported. It looks more like an apartment than the usual L&D room, with marble floors, a homey four poster bed, a comfy couch, a separate bed for the father, and even a couple of rocking chairs.
None of which are being used at the moment. Everyone in the room, including Susan, the hospital’s most respected Labor and Delivery RN, and Dr. Acharya, the head of Obstetrics, are gathered around the bed.
It looks like Susan and Acharya are having a tense conversation. But then Susan sees me and says, “Oh, great, you’re here!”
She and Dr. Acharya part like water, unblocking my view of the bed.
“Who’s here?” Amber demands, her voice little more than a croak.
Her back is to me, but I can see she’s on her knees, bent almost to child’s pose with a pillow lodged underneath her chest. There’s a tall, lean man standing right beside the bed, his arms bent as he gently squeezes both her hips, providing counterpressure to what sounds like acutely painful contractions, if Amber’s earlier scream was any indication. Back labor, I guess, even before my quick glance at the chart Susan hands me.
“It’s Dr. Glendaver, Amber,” I call out, handing Susan back the chart. “So sorry for not announcing myself as soon as I came into the room. Susan, could you let any other staff who will be attending to Mom know to announce themselves by name when entering her room?”
“Sure thing,” Susan answers, then she gives me the rundown while I put on gloves. 8 cm dilated, contractions three minutes apart, epidural requested but not administered, she tells me as I come around the bed to perform a vaginal examination.
At least, it’s supposed to be quick. I’m momentarily startled when I get a full gander at Luca Ferraro. I’d only spoken to him on the phone before today, and usually to restate the ins and outs of the HIPAA laws, which didn’t allow me to discuss Amber’s case with him without her written or spoken permission.
From the sound of his accent, I’d been expecting someone on the Jersey Shore end of the attractiveness spectrum. But the guy massaging Amber’s back has to be one of the most beautiful men I’ve ever seen in real life. He has dark wavy hair and a set of pale blue eyes that make me understand the use of “piercing” as a descriptive in so many romance novels when they land on me.
“She’s in a lot of pain, but they’re refusing to give her anything,” he says, his voice as angry and gruff as if he were the one having the contractions.
“Ah…y-yes, I c-an see…see…see that.” I stop, forcing myself to get it together. Yes, this guy is by far the most good-looking father I’ve ever met in a delivery room, and I doubt I’m the first woman to go all a-stutter in his presence. But my primary concern is Amber, and I use that as an excuse to look away from Luca Ferraro’s unearthly beauty.
“Unfortunately, sometimes moms get to a point, where it would be dangerous to administer an epidural because they’re in too much pain to stay still while the anesthesiologist sticks a needle into her spine. And since Amber is so far dilated and her contractions are only coming three minutes apart—”
Amber’s agonized cry disrupts my explanation, her entire body jerks as another back contraction takes over. Make that two minutes now, I think checking my watch.
“Excuse me, Dad,” I say, indicating that he should move his hands away from her hips as I get into position and reach behind her. “Okay, Amber, I’m going to perform a quick vaginal exam.”
Proving why she’s a favorite with the Manhattan Mercy doctors, Susan instinctively starts filling the birthing tub per the birthing plan, while I check to see where Amber’s at…and yep, just like I suspected. “You’re fully dilated. Looks like this baby is ready to come out.”
“It’s too soon, too soon,” Amber gasps.
“Not too soon,” I assure her. “And I assure you NICU is on standby. But we are going to have to get you over to the tub if you still want to fulfill that part of your birthing plan. It might help with the back pain actual—”
“An epidural was in the birthing plan, too” she snaps back viciously.
“Yes, it was, and that goes to show why birthing plans just can’t be set in stone,” I answer, keeping my voice as soothing as hers is angry. “The position you’re in is also just fine for having a baby, especially if you’re in too much pain to get over to the tub.”
Another contraction hits before Amber can answer, and her breath hitches so hard, a lay person would mistake it for choking. This time she doesn’t just cry out, she yowls, tears spilling down her face as the contraction rolls over her.
“Luca!” she calls out when it’s finally done.
He’s beside her in an instant, giving her one hand to grab onto and wrapping the other around her shoulders. “I’m right here, baby. I’m right here,” he murmurs, voice comforting, but eyes glowering.
If Amber’s pain were a living thing, I have no doubt he would have tackled and killed it with his bare hands by now.
“There’s something wrong! There’s something wrong!” she gasps. “It feels like my back is breaking and I think…I think I’m going to shit myself.”
To Luca’s credit, he doesn’t recoil at the possibility of a bowel movement as I’ve seen a couple of fathers do. He stays right where he is, even before I tell her, “That’s most likely the urge to push, Amber. It’s time.”
“No, no,” Amber says, shaking her head, her face a tight grimace of pain and anxiety. “I’ve lost control of my body. I can’t do this. I’m going to hurt the baby. This is all my fault. I’m going to lose him, just like I did the first baby!”
“Ambs, no, no, you can do this,” Luca tells her before I can offer up my usual reassurance. “You’re the strongest women I know.”
Amber shakes her head. “I can’t, I can’t.”
“I know it hurts. Ambs. If I could take on your pain, believe me, I would. And I know you’re scared, baby. I know you are,” Luca murmurs. “But I’m not. Because you’re a fighter and you’re a survivor, and this baby is going to be half of you. You’ve got this.”
“I don’t.” Amber’s sobbing now. “And if I fuck this up I’m never going to forgive myself. I can’t push.”
“Baby, I promise you. You’re not going to fuck this up. You’re going to push this baby out. And even if he has to serve some time in NICU, he’s going to grow up healthy and strong. I promise you…I promise you all of this. All you have to do is push, and we’ll be the family you lost. Just, push, baby, c’mon.”
By the time he’s done talking, Luca’s crying, too, without self-consciousness or apology. And that’s when Amber’s paperwork goes from being just numbers recorded on a page for me. 1 previous pregnancy six years prior this. 0 live births. Without being told, I know that Luca was also the father of that unborn baby. This child is a second chance for this couple.
And that makes my voice even more emphatic as I tell her, “Amber, your body knows what to do. All you need to do is get into position.”
Amber continues to weep silently, because of the pain or because of the baby she lost, I’m not sure. But eventually…eventually…she raises up on her knees and turns into Luca’s arm, holding on to him as she bears down.
For a moment I stare at the two of them, my own eyes shining. Funny, I’d been suspicious about the unseen father of Amber’s baby from the start. Amber never spoke of the man whose assistant had arranged for my home visits. And the birthing plan didn’t include him. Prior to this, I’d wondered if he’d even show up for the labor and delivery. However, I reconsider my original assessment now.
Amber is one of the most independent and strong-minded
women I’ve ever met, but in her rare moment of fragility, she turns to this man. And with love shining brightly in his eyes, he murmurs continuous encouragement in her ear, holding her tight no matter how loud she screams, standing firm, even as she bears down with all her weight.
“I love you, baby. I love you so fucking much,” he says over and over again, displaying more passion for Amber in five minutes than Garrett’s shown me in five years.
Being an OB can be hard. I’ve delivered babies for couples so disconnected in the birthing room, if I weren’t such a polite woman, I’d place a bet on their relationship dissolving within the next five years with the rest of the delivery room staff. A few days ago, I would have made the same bet against this couple. But no, they’re the real deal. I realize that now. Loving, and the kind of adoring you don’t see all that often, inside the birthing room or out.
These two will go the distance. I know that. Even before Amber successfully pushes her baby boy. He’s a little angry about getting squeezed through a birth canal to join his parents in the real world, but other that.
“He’s a healthy baby boy,” I tell Amber as Susan places the crying baby in her arms. “His APGAR score is great, and we’ll watch him tonight, but I don’t think we’ll need to bother with NICU.”
“Thank you,” Amber says.
She’s positively glowing now, and she smiles when the baby instantly falls asleep nuzzled against her breasts. “I’m sorry Luca called you,” she whispers over his soft baby snores. “I didn’t know he was going to do that.”
I raise an eyebrow at Luca because he did a little more than call me.
But Luca just answers Amber unapologetically. “You were scared out of your mind and in a shit ton of pain. You think I was going to let that asshole who wouldn’t give you an epidural anywhere near you? Plus, he kept on yelling at you, like you were deaf, not blind.”
Ruthless Tycoons: The Complete Series (Ruthless Billionaires Book 3) Page 72
