CHAPTER TEN
T HEY DID SPEND much of their honeymoon in bed. At least, Lexi did. Magnus had always been a high-energy person so he went a little stir-crazy.
He swam a lot of laps while Lexi snoozed in their room at the spa, but it turned out to be a good choice. It was exclusive enough that the privacy expectations were already high. They mingled among the other guests and everyone was very respectful, but Lexi could only go in the cooler pools and she was never in them long anyway.
They made love a lot, usually with her on top which drove Magnus crazy in the best possible way. He wanted her to be comfortable and he wanted to be gentle, which meant it was slow and lazy and so delicious he nearly passed out from erotic joy.
They returned to the news that she had developed a small blood sugar issue. It wasn’t severe enough to alarm the doctors, but they were adjusting her diet and were agreeing with Magnus’s prediction that the baby would be big.
What the hell was it with people who wanted to touch her belly, though? After their honeymoon, they attended their first official function at a summit in Brussels. They were at a dinner and, in the middle of introducing her to an ambassador, the man bracketed her belly with both his hands as if he had every right to touch her!
Magnus nearly caused an international incident.
Lexi confided afterward that it wasn’t the first time. “The irony is, I thought being married and very pregnant would put a stop to the groping. Joke’s on me.”
Magnus instructed their bodyguards to step in if he wasn’t there to do it himself, but she only attended two more events before she begged to stay home.
She was still three weeks from her due date, but Magnus had an important presentation to offer at a climate conference in Dubai. He would only be gone a few days, but he was reluctant to leave her.
Her physician assured him everything was fine: her blood pressure was good, her glucose levels were under control, and her iron was exactly where it should be.
“If her body is telling her to rest then she should listen to it,” the doctor said. “She might be experiencing an urge to nest, which could account for her desire to stay home. That’s very normal, too.”
Nest? They had staff to scrub baseboards and set up the nursery, but if she wanted to refold all the towels, he supposed he should get out of her way.
He left the following morning, but he was immediately discontent. Dubai was hot and dry and going back to his suite after his first meeting annoyed him. The rooms weren’t empty. They were never empty. He was never alone, but the place felt empty. He much preferred when he could walk into a room and find Lexi reading a book or doing her stretches. She would tell him why the book she was reading would make a good movie or ask his opinion on the list of names she was compiling. He would rub her feet and that would turn into fooling around. And even though she was up constantly through the night, disturbing him every time, he preferred to sleep with her than have the bed to himself.
He missed her. There. He had admitted it.
Now what? he thought with disgust.
He was accepting his second cup of coffee the following morning, glancing over the notes for his presentation, when she called him.
He frowned. It was only 4:00 a.m. at home.
“It’s early,” he said in lieu of a greeting. “Are you all right?”
“I think I’m in labor.”
“Also early.” That’s why he’d been persuaded to keep this commitment. The guideline was that she could deliver two weeks on either side of her due date, but that window didn’t open for another week. “Have you spoken to the doctor?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because I wasn’t sure if that’s what it was. Besides, what can he do about it?”
“Help you prepare to deliver the baby?” Magnus suggested. He snapped his fingers at Ulmer. “Lexi thinks she’s in labor. Get hold of the palace and—”
Ulmer was already nodding and walking away with his own phone pressed to his ear.
“The doctor will be there shortly,” Magnus assured her. “How long have you been having contractions?”
“On and off all night. They kept going away so I kept trying to go back to sleep. My water hasn’t broken and it’s not that bad—” She drew a small breath.
“Is that a pain? Ulmer!” he shouted.
“The physician is on his way to her room,” Ulmer said, peeking around the door. “I’m speaking to the pilot.”
“I don’t want to have the baby if you’re not here,” Lexi’s small voice said in his ear.
“Is that why you didn’t call the doctor? Lex, I don’t want that, either, but I don’t think that’s up to us. If it happens, it happens.”
“I know, but...” She took a shaken breath that almost sounded as though she was fighting tears. “It’s fine. I’ll figure it out.”
He suddenly recalled her saying Everyone I’ve ever known has let me down .
“Lex, I’m leaving right now,” Magnus told her, impatiently waving at Ulmer who was trying to direct staff to pack. He didn’t need his damned toothbrush! “I’ll be home before—” He couldn’t lie to her, much as he wanted to. “Before dinner.”
Would the baby arrive by then? Would she have to deliver alone?
“I’m sorry,” she murmured.
“Don’t be sorry. I shouldn’t have left.”
“But that presentation—”
“Will be given by someone else. I’ll see you soon.” He kept the phone to his ear while Ulmer helped him with his jacket.
There was a long space of dead air, the kind that another couple would have filled with words like I love you .
That infernal buzz, the one that warned him of an upheaval arriving in his life, started to coalesce, but it was cut off as she spoke.
“I think the doctor is here.”
“Can you get up to let him in or—”
“He came in. Hi. I’m sorry to bother you,” he heard her say before she added, “Bye, Magnus.”
“I’ll be there soon,” he promised, but she had ended the call.
He received updates every hour. She was definitely in labor. A midwife was staying with her and keeping her comfortable. Katla checked on her, but things were progressing slowly. Lexi’s water broke so she had a shower. She was taken to the hospital.
It was excruciating and he wasn’t the one in labor!
Finally, the plane landed and they sped through the streets to get to the hospital. Magnus hurried to the maternity wing where the palace physician gave him a worried look.
“Her labor isn’t progressing. She’s been stuck at three centimeters since she arrived. We’re monitoring the fetus for stress. The baby is fine, but I’m concerned about the princess. She’s hasn’t accepted any pain relief, only the TENS and she abandoned it because it wasn’t helping. She hasn’t slept or eaten since last night.”
“Then feed her.”
“But if surgery becomes necessary—”
“Why would she need that?” he asked with alarm.
“The baby is larger than average. She would have struggled regardless, but when it comes time to push, I’m not sure she’ll have the strength, now that she’s distressed and exhausted.”
“Let me talk to her.”
Magnus walked into a darkened room that was a little too warm for comfort. Lexi wore a cotton nightgown rucked up to her thighs. She sat on an oversize ball, leaning forward, keening softly. The midwife sat in a chair before her, offering her arms to stabilize her.
“Lex, I’m here,” he said softly.
He waited until Lexi quieted and started to sit up. Then he jerked his head to dismiss the midwife and took the seat. He cupped Lexi’s elbows and set his feet on either side of the ball to keep it steady.
“What time is it?” she asked distractedly.
“They said you’re not taking anything for the pain? Why not?”
“Because I need to stay sober, so I know what’s going on.” She clamped her hands around his forearms and winced. “These things are constant. Why aren’t they working ?”
She keened softly again, for a solid minute.
He waited, breath backed up in his lungs until she relaxed and panted.
“We talked about pain relief in birthing class. Remember? Let them give you something.”
“I just told you.” She squeezed his arms so hard it pinched. “They’ll make me sick or stupid. I won’t be able to walk. Walking is supposed to— Argh! ”
Her cry was as much frustration as pain and it cut through him like a knife.
“Lexi.” He tried to smooth her hair from falling over her eye, but she knocked his hand away. “Listen to me,” he insisted. “They’re worried. They want you to agree to surgery.”
“They said the baby is fine.” She touched the belt on her bump and snapped a look to the monitor.
“ You are not. You’re exhausted. You didn’t sleep last night. You can’t keep on like this.”
“You don’t know what I can do!” she cried. “You sure as hell aren’t going to do it, are you? I have to do this myself. Oh my God.” She folded forward.
He caught her before her knees hit the floor and gathered her into his lap. Her fist pressed into his shoulder in resistance even as she muffled her moan of agony in his chest.
“I don’t know what to do,” she said piteously, shoulders shuddering. “What if the baby needs me? I’ll be unconscious. What if... I can’t give up, Magnus?”
Give up control, she meant. She couldn’t trust that she would be taken care of. That their baby would be.
“Lexi... s?ta .” The endearment was one his father had used for his mother all through his childhood. Sweetie. It bordered on innocuous, but it wasn’t something he threw around. He’d never called anyone that.
He had to wait while another paroxysm gripped her. He didn’t know how else to soothe her except to hold her and try to absorb her pain and whisper, “I’m worried about you , s?ta .”
Finally, she relaxed and panted, trying to recover before the next wave arrived.
“I’ll be there the whole time, Lex. The baby will be safe and so will you. I promise you. I promise .”
It wasn’t something he could promise. He wasn’t a surgeon. Things went wrong with childbirth. They’d made that clear in the classes.
She knew it, too. She lifted her head enough to give him a look of weary disillusionment, then her expression crumpled and she caught fistfuls of his shirt and groaned.
The urge to just give the order and make it happen was so strong, he had to lock his throat against it. She would never forgive him if he took this choice from her. Never.
So he waited until the contraction eased and she panted once again. Then he petted her sweaty hair and said, “Please, s?ta . Trust me. I know that’s hard, but I won’t let anything bad happen to you or the baby. We’ll both be here when you wake up. I swear on my life. Trust me .”
When the next contraction hit, she didn’t stiffen. She collapsed into weeping.
“Okay,” she sobbed.
“I can order the surgery?” He made her look at him.
Her eyes were streaming, her mouth trembling. She nodded, then ducked her head in defeat.
“It will be okay, s?ta . I swear it.” God, he hoped he was telling her the truth.
He called out and the midwife hurried in.
Moments later, they had her on the bed and began preparing her.
“I feel like I’m failing,” she said miserably.
“Don’t you dare.” Magnus braced himself over her. This beautiful fighter had waited for him. He knew that, deep in his heart. It humbled him. He swooped to give her one kiss before he was asked to step back and suit up in scrubs. Then he held her hand, walking beside the gurney as they wheeled her into the theater.
She didn’t want the spinal block. She chose full anesthetic, but he was allowed to stay with her because he had damned well promised her he would. They would have to tranquilize him to get him to let go of her hand.
When it went limp in his, his breaths turned shallow. The next forty-eight minutes were the longest of his life.
He didn’t watch the procedure. He watched her still face, torn between relief that she was no longer in pain and anguish over what she was going through. Because of him.
Then a squawk sounded behind the drape.
“A boy, Your Highness. A big one,” the doctor said with a chuckle of wonder. “Do you want to cut the cord?”
His hand shook. The angry face of his son squinted at him. Magnus’s vision blurred.
“Put him here. She wanted skin contact,” Magnus insisted in an unsteady voice. He unbuttoned the top of her nightgown enough that the infant could rest on her chest while the midwife covered the baby in a warmed towel and gently dried him.
Magnus only realized he had picked up Lexi’s hand again when the midwife asked if he wanted to hold his son.
The baby complained when he was taken from Lexi and loosely swaddled. He didn’t want to be separated from his mama, but as Magnus took him into the crook of his arm, the buzzing arrived in his ears again.
“Is Lexi okay?” Magnus asked, mind split in two directions.
“It’s going very well, sir. We’re finishing up.”
Magnus could hardly hear him, the buzz in his ears was so deafening. It filled him with a vibration that made him afraid he would drop this creature who blinked and looked so earnestly into his eyes. For some reason, Magnus wanted to laugh. It was an urge the likes of which he hadn’t experienced since childhood.
“If you let me weigh him, sir, he can go with you into recovery with the princess.”
“I don’t want to let him go,” he admitted. But he let the midwife take the baby and he picked up Lexi’s hand again, holding on to her while he watched over her and their son.
Lexi slowly became aware of Magnus’s voice. He was talking to someone in Isleifisch. He sounded...
She turned her head, still foggy.
“Why are you talking to a towel?” she asked.
“You see?” He tilted the rolled towel. “I told you she would wake soon.”
“Oh,” she sighed. One clumsy hand went to the bandage on her abdomen, where she felt weak and sore and empty. The other lifted, trying to reach the ruddy face scowling from the swaddle.
“Look at this young man you made.” Magnus settled the baby half on her chest, so she could secure him with her arm and see his face. “Ten pounds, ten ounces. I made them convert it so you would know how big he was.”
“Hello, Rolf,” she said, smiling and touching his round little cheek.
Magnus gave a small exhale of exasperation and set his hand on the top of her head. His thumb caressed her brow.
“Since I witnessed what you had to endure, I will allow you to call our son Rolf Thorolf. But his given name will be Eryk and that is the name we will tell the queen.” He kissed her brow. “I’m hoping you’re still goofy from the anesthetic and won’t remember I said that.”
Maybe she was goofy from the anesthetic because she said, “I was afraid someone would take him while I was asleep, and he wouldn’t be here when I woke up.”
Magnus flinched and covered the hand that cradled their son. “I know. But I promised you that we would both be here, Lex, and I meant it. You can trust me now. Hmm?”
She nodded, starting to believe it.