by Jennie Lucas
“Ah... Her.” The nurse looked up at him with pity in her eyes. “I’m sorry, monsieur,” she said quietly. “You’re too late.”
CHAPTER NINE
“TOO LATE?” A man’s voice roared suddenly behind Kassius in French. “You tell him this in the hallway?”
Kassius whirled around and saw his father, who must have broken speed records to follow him to the hospital, standing furiously beside him.
The nurse stiffened. “Monsieur?”
Boris had fury in his dark eyes. “Are my daughter-in-law and grandson dead?”
“Lower your voice, this isn’t—”
“They were brought here. You either let my son see his wife or get a doctor out here to explain—now!”
Scowling, the nurse retreated to the desk and checked her computer. Kassius waited, breathless with hope that she’d say it had all been a mistake. She’d tell him that Laney was absolutely fine, and the baby doing perfectly well, and Benito had simply made a mistake...
But the woman’s eyes only clouded as she saw something on her computer that made her give a brisk nod. “It is just as I thought.” Looking at them, she hesitated, biting her lip. “If you please, messieurs, go wait in the waiting room, and I will get a doctor to discuss—”
If Kassius had to wait another second to hear if Laney and his child lived or died, he thought he would collapse. He already felt like he was on a thin margin. To his surprise, he felt his father’s hand on his shoulder, giving him strength.
“We’re not moving until we know where she is,” Boris said forcefully.
The nurse glanced around as if she wished desperately there was someone else they could speak to. Then she sighed. “Your wife is in surgery,” she said reluctantly. “That is why I told you it was too late. They are performing a caesarean in an attempt to save the baby...”
An attempt? Just an attempt? “Then she is—”
“That is all I can tell you. Now go—” She pointed firmly toward the large nearby room filled with plain white plastic chairs and televisions blaring the news from Paris. “I will send the doctor to speak with you.”
Waiting in the Princess Florestine Hospital waiting room, waiting to hear if his wife and child would live or die, felt like the most agonizing hell of Kassius’s life. As he sat down heavily in a flimsy plastic chair, questions pounded through his head.
How badly had Laney and his son been injured? Were they dying? Could his wife already be dead?
They are performing a caesarean in an attempt to save the baby.
In an attempt.
Leaning forward in his chair, Kassius put his elbows on his knees. He folded forward in his grief and fear, covering his face with his hands.
“She’s a fighter, son.” He felt his father’s hand rest comfortingly on his shoulder. “She loves you with all her heart. She’ll fight to stay with you.”
“Why would she?” Pain gripped Kassius’s heart. “I told her I never wanted to see her again. I was so angry with her for talking to you. I saw it as a betrayal. I told her I was divorcing her and sending them away.” He looked at Boris bleakly. “You heard me.”
He heard his father’s ragged intake of breath. “You were angry. She knew you didn’t mean it.”
“She knew I did.” Misery swamped through him, shame and anguished grief. He’d threatened to abandon her and the baby and start a new family. Oh, my God! He clawed back his dark hair. In this moment, he would have given every penny of his fortune to know they were safe. He would have given his life to be able to hold her in his arms and tell her he loved her!
He...
He loved her.
Kassius’s lips parted silently. His heart was beating so fast it felt like it was rattling inside his rib cage. He loved her. And it was only now, when he was so close to losing her, that he realized it. He loved her...
His father’s hand tightened on his shoulder. “We all make mistakes we regret. She will forgive, and you can spend the rest of your life making it up to her...”
If she lives. It was the unspoken thought that hung over everything. If she lived. If his baby lived. And Kassius had so casually thrown them away! After she’d disobeyed him, he’d thought he had no choice—as if holding firm to prideful, petulant promises were the true mark of a man!
Loving his wife. Loving his child. Those values were the true mark of a man.
But the realization might have come too late. His relationship with Laney had begun with a car accident. Now, it seemed, a car accident would end it. He’d thought he had eternity to play with. He’d never imagined eternity would end so soon. A memory of his father’s voice came back to him.
She was the only woman I ever loved. I always meant to go back to her. I just thought I would have more time...
Kassius looked at his father, whom he’d judged so harshly. He’d spent over half of his life determined to destroy him, but instead of punishing Boris for his crimes, maybe he should have taken a hard look at his own.
“Thank you,” Kassius said thickly. “For being here.”
“Oh, my boy,” his father choked out, “there’s nowhere else on earth I could be.”
“Monsieur Black?”
The doctor had come in. They both rose to their feet. Kassius felt the floor trembling beneath his shoes. The verdict he was about to get from the doctor would determine if he would live or die. Because his family was his life now.
“Your wife...” The doctor suddenly smiled. “She is out of danger. She’s stabilized, but still under anesthesia. She broke multiple bones, including ribs. She couldn’t breathe well and lost so much blood. It was touch and go. If the impact had been a little to the right, or it had taken longer for the paramedics to arrive, we might have lost them both.”
Grateful tears rose to Kassius’s eyes. His heart was in his throat. Wiping his eyes hard, he said hoarsely, “And my son? Is he all right?”
The doctor’s smile widened. “Would you like to see him?”
* * *
Laney’s eyelids fluttered. She woke in a dream.
Golden sunshine was shimmering through tall windows. She was stretched out in a comfortable bed. And there, like a miracle, sleeping in a hard chair beside her, she saw Kassius. His handsome face looked weary, as if he’d had very little rest that night.
“Kassius,” she croaked out through dry lips.
His eyes flew open. Leaning forward, he gently took her hand. In spite of the dark circles beneath his eyes and the scruff on his jawline, his handsome face glowed with joyful tenderness she’d never seen there before.
“You’re awake,” he whispered, gently brushing back a tendril of her hair. “Thank God.” He gave a rueful laugh. “It was quite a night.”
For a moment, she wondered what he was talking about. She just felt happy to see him. Then realization slowly crept in that she was in a hospital room, wearing a plain hospital gown. Wires were hooked onto her arms. She heard the slow beep of machines nearby. Parts of her body had been immobilized, other parts covered in bandages. Her brain felt strangely fuzzy.
“What happened?” she said slowly.
His dark eyes searched hers. “Don’t you remember?”
Laney started to shake her head, but it hurt too much, made the whole room twirl.
“You’re still on a lot of painkillers.”
Laney licked her lips. “I...”
She suddenly had a dim, chaotic memory of seeing a semitruck skidding across the road, coming straight toward their car. She remembered seeing it bounce off another car and head straight for her side of the limo, where she was carefully buckled in. She remembered the loud squeal of brakes and the angry blare of a horn. She remembered dropping her cell phone and wrapping her arms protectively around her belly, turning away with her eyes squeezed shut as she heard the sickening crunch of metal on metal and felt the impact.
After that, her memory was jumbled. She remembered crying her mother’s name, and Kassius’s, begging them to help her. She ha
d a strange memory of the thwup-thwup noise of a helicopter and paramedics shouting in French and loading her onto a stretcher before the pain was too great. The last thing she remembered was putting her hands on her belly and whimpering, “Please, you have to save my baby...”
With a gasp, Laney put her hands on her belly now. She looked up at Kassius in horror.
“Where’s my baby?” she cried.
“Shh...it’s all right.” Rising from the chair, he went to the bassinet across the room and lifted out a tiny swaddled form. “He’s here. Right here.”
Returning to the bed, Kassius placed the bundle gently in her arms, on the side of her body that wasn’t broken. He kept his hand on the other side of the baby, supporting his weight, protecting them both.
Laney looked down in awe at her sleeping newborn son, swaddled and wearing a little cap to keep his head warm. Tears rose in her eyes as she marveled at his precious little face. “He’s all right?”
“Six pounds, four ounces—almost three kilograms,” Kassius said proudly. His dark eyes were tender as he gently stroked his sleeping son’s cheek. “For a preemie, he’s a bruiser.”
“Preemie.” She looked up in a panic. “He came too early!”
“He’s fine,” he said soothingly. “His lungs are developed enough he doesn’t need any extra medical care. The nurses and doctors were amazed. But I wasn’t. He has his mother’s spirit.” He looked at her, and his eyes glistened suspiciously as he glanced at her injured body in the hospital bed. “I know even this won’t keep you down for long. We were lucky.” Lowering his head, he softly kissed the top of Laney’s head, and whispered, “I was lucky. To get another chance.”
She looked up at him, her heart in her throat. “So you—forgive me? For what I did?”
“What you did?” Kassius repeated. For a moment, fear gripped her heart.
Then, keeping one hand on the baby, he fell to his knees next to the hospital bed in front of her astonished eyes. His handsome face was anguished.
“You were right about everything, Laney,” he said in a low voice. “Everything. And the way I treated you for trying so hard to save my useless soul...” Reaching for her hand, he kissed it, then pressed his forehead against it fervently, like a prayer. “Forgive me. I almost threw you and the baby away for the sake of my own foolish pride...” He took a shuddering breath, and his voice was ragged, barely above a whisper. “When I said I would get a new wife, a new child...”
“You were angry,” she said in a small voice. “I betrayed you.”
“You, betray me? Never. You saved me. You were right about my father. I spent a long time talking to him last night, in the waiting room...”
“He’s here?”
“He didn’t want me to suffer alone,” Kassius said. “All these years, he hated himself for lying to my mother. He was haunted, wondering what happened to me.”
“Do you forgive him?”
“I would have once thought it impossible.” He looked up at her, his dark eyes shining with tears. “But now...how can I not? He made a ghastly, unforgivable mistake. But so did I. Treating you so badly... Can you ever forgive me? Will you?”
“Oh, my love,” she whispered. She tugged weakly on his hand. “Yes.”
He rose to his feet, then leaned forward over the bed, supporting their sleeping baby with one hand, cupping her face with the other.
“I love you, Laney. I never knew what those words meant before, but now I do. I love you.”
Her heart skittered as she heard him speak the words she’d feared he would never say.
Straightening, he stood tall and powerful and proud beside the bed.
“And I make you a promise. One I will never break. When I thought I’d lost you, I wanted to die. I knew then that I’d gladly die for you, and our baby. But now I know you’re alive...” He put one hand gently on her shoulder as the other rested on the downy head of his sleeping son. He said softly, “For the rest of my life, I will live for you.”
“I love you,” she whispered, tears in her eyes, turning her face toward his. And he kissed her.
EPILOGUE
FOUR MONTHS LATER, Christmas had come to the French Riviera with a burst of sunlight and color. And family, Laney thought. Family above all.
They were all there, celebrating the holiday at Boris’s redecorated pink villa on Cap Ferrat. Even Laney’s grandmother had interrupted her world tour for a weeklong holiday visit, with her current boyfriend in tow. For much of the last year, Yvonne had traveled the world with a backpack, a floppy hat and a total fearlessness that still left Laney in awe.
“My boyfriend is great, isn’t he?” her grandmother said archly as the two of them cooked in the huge, bright kitchen.
“Very,” Laney agreed. “Everyone likes Ove.”
“Handsome. Athletic, too. Energetic. I had to beat back the other ladies on the ship with a stick. But I got him,” Yvonne crowed as she stirred the gumbo.
When her grandmother had visited here last month, the Henry women had announced that both Kassius and Boris must give their household staff Christmas off, as Laney and Yvonne would be making Christmas dinner personally.
Kassius had looked overjoyed, then doubtful. “Are you sure you want to take the trouble, Laney? It’s a holiday. You’ve only just fully recovered. A month ago you were walking with a cane. You should just relax and let someone else work.”
“I’m fine now,” Laney had protested.
“Let someone else cook for Christmas!” Yvonne said indignantly. “Are you crazy? What kind of fool idea is that?”
So Kassius hadn’t tried to put up any more of a fight. He’d just wiped tears of joy from his eyes. He’d been looking forward to Christmas ever since, as eagerly as any child counting down the days until the magical morning.
Thinking about it, Laney gave a low laugh. Her husband appreciated their cooking, that was for sure. Only a few hours now till Christmas dinner, and he still anxiously stuck his head into the kitchen every few minutes, as if that would make the time fly by faster. She’d finally had to banish him from the kitchen when she’d discovered him sneaking in surreptitiously with a spoon.
“What?” he protested as she pointed firmly at the door. “Just trying to help with quality control!”
Still smiling, Laney checked on the cinnamon swirl king cake now in the oven. It was baking nicely. She also had the tiny plastic baby figurine ready to stick into the cake after it cooled, for one of the guests to find over dessert. That person would then be allowed the privilege of choosing where they hosted family Christmas next year. That had been her father’s idea.
“It’s really the only way to be fair about it,” he’d explained, glancing at his girlfriend, who lived in Atlanta. That was true, since their family now lived all over the world.
Hearing her four-month-old baby coo, Laney lifted him from his baby seat and twirled him around the kitchen until he giggled and squealed, the best sound in the world. He was a brilliant baby, and very good at grabbing his own feet. Clearly, she thought proudly, a baby genius.
“And how is Henry Clark?” her grandmother said fondly.
“He loves Christmas. Don’t you, Henry,” she cooed, and he giggled back at her.
“Can’t believe that husband of yours bought him a puppy for Christmas. A puppy for a baby!”
“I’m suspicious about who the puppy is really for.” Laney grinned. “Kassius can’t wait until he’s delivered tomorrow. Says this is the best Christmas ever!”
“Wait until he experiences Christmas in New Orleans.” Yvonne sighed. “It’s been lovely to travel, but after all these months, I’ve seen enough of the world. I’m ready to go home.”
The grand new house on St. Charles Avenue had just been finished and was ready for Yvonne and Clark to move in, with a dedicated guest wing for Kassius, Laney and baby Henry to visit. Although there was still some question if Clark ever meant to return.
After months spent at the top medical clinic in Atlan
ta, cutting-edge medical treatments had partially restored his vision. Laney had wept openly when she’d first tucked her baby into her father’s arms and he’d been able to see the color of his grandson’s hair, the boy named in part after him. There was some hope he’d eventually gain complete vision in his left eye. He’d never looked better, Laney had thought. He’d looked positively muscular as he rolled his new wheelchair around the Christmas tree that morning, a gift from his daughter and son-in-law, which had made him exclaim over the “kick-ass rims.”
Clark had brought his new girlfriend, Jeanie, a nurse from the clinic, for Christmas, too. The plump and pretty divorcée, with two grown children and a grandchild of her own—all of whom were spending the holiday with her ex this year—kissed him affectionately as they finally sat down to Christmas dinner.
Laney looked at her family around the big table spread with Cajun Christmas cheer, mixed with some French breads and wine and even some Russian borscht and vodka, thanks to Boris, and felt tears in her eyes. After so many years of despair, they were all happy. They were together. A Christmas miracle.
Even Kassius’s father looked fifteen years younger. His son had insisted he continue to keep this as his home, and all the sold-off furniture had been replaced and, except for Mimi, all his laid-off employees rehired. His oil company had been folded into Kassius’s worldwide portfolio as a loosely held subsidiary, and with the influx of new investment and technological innovations, there was hope for the company’s future.
But Boris was happy for his son to run it now. All he wanted, all he’d ever wanted, it seemed, was his son, and to be part of his family.
“Aha!” Yvonne said, holding something up triumphantly. It was the tiny baby figurine. “Next year, Christmas in New Orleans!”
Everyone looked at her suspiciously.
She widened her eyes, the picture of innocence. “What?”
“Sabotage!” Boris cried, waving a jar of hot-pepper sauce. “That’s what!”
“It was pure luck!” she protested.
No one believed her, but they just laughed. Everyone was happy, and it was impossible to hide it.
