CHAPTER ELEVEN
HOWCOULDEMMIE have made such a mistake?
How could she have put their baby at risk?
“All right, Mrs. Katrakis.” Dr. Hwang’s cool eyes focused on hers, as Emmie lay on a towel over the leather sofa on their private jet now on descent into a New York airport. Standing up, the doctor washed her hands in the small galley sink. “You’re only three centimeters dilated. We’ll get you to the hospital on time.”
“Do you—promise?” Emmie panted, as another contraction contorted her body.
“I don’t make promises, but it’s very likely.” The gray-haired doctor glanced at the flight attendant. “You had the pilot relay the emergency?”
“An ambulance will be waiting when we land,” the young woman replied, looking relieved that Emmie wasn’t going to give birth on the plane.
Emmie couldn’t blame her. She could hardly believe they’d cut it so close.
Her due date was still a week away, and everyone said first babies always arrived late. Emmie had thought she’d have plenty of time to set up the penthouse nursery before she went into labor, upon which she’d serenely grab a prepared overnight bag and Theo would escort her to the Manhattan hospital they’d chosen. She’d get an epidural for the pain, the labor would be hard but endurable, then afterward she’d introduce her baby to family and friends in a comfortable, spacious hospital room filled with flowers.
But Pierre Harcourt had strung them along until that very morning, when after three weeks of asking several developers for modifications and revisions of their bids, he’d finally signed a binding contract with Katrakis Enterprises. Theo had been right. They’d won. But she’d been right, too. It had all taken longer than they’d hoped.
To be fair, Theo had told her more than once that she should return to New York without him. But she hadn’t. Even that morning, as they’d been packing for the plane, he’d asked her if it wouldn’t be better for them to just stay in Paris until the baby was born. She’d shot down that idea, too.
She’d wanted to prove their marriage could still work. That she could love him and he could totally not love her but they could still succeed together as a couple. As a family.
And this was the result.
“We’ll make it to the hospital,” Emmie said, forcing her cheeks into a cheerful smile. “That’s a relief, isn’t it?”
“A relief,” Theo agreed, but his handsome face was pale beneath his tan. Going to the galley, he returned with a bottle of cool water and handed it to her as she smoothed her sundress back over her knees, sitting up on the leather sofa.
“Thanks.” She drank the water in gulps. “It’ll be a funny story to tell our son someday. That we went into labor halfway over the Atlantic.”
“Funny,” he said, but he didn’t meet her eyes.
An ambulance was waiting on the tarmac when they landed at Teterboro thirty minutes later. Emmie was whisked off the plane on a stretcher and placed in the back of the ambulance as the concierge doctor spoke quietly to the paramedics, handing over care.
“Come with me,” Emmie called to Theo, who was lingering behind, his shoulders hunched, his handsome face stricken.
“Not enough room. He’ll have to follow us, ma’am,” one of the paramedics said and closed the ambulance door.
By the time Emmie arrived at the Midtown hospital, the one closest to their house and where she’d planned to give birth, her body was racked with increasing pain. She’d turned in the paperwork weeks before, so was quickly wheeled to a private room in the maternity ward on the tenth floor. By then, the contractions were so bad she couldn’t breathe. She nearly threw up from the pain.
“Epidural,” she croaked when she saw her obstetrician in the door.
After checking her, the doctor shook her head. “Sorry, Mrs. Katrakis.” Nurses came closer, putting monitoring equipment on her belly to check the baby’s heart, and on Emmie’s finger to check her oxygen levels. “It’s far too late for that. You’re at nine centimeters. It’s almost time to push.”
“No—it can’t be already—” Emmie couldn’t go into labor now, not yet. Not without her husband.
Where was he?
Even without the flashing lights and siren of a speeding ambulance, the drive from Teterboro should have taken forty-five minutes, an hour in bad traffic. Where was he?
“Now, Mrs. Katrakis,” her obstetrician said and positioned herself between her knees, “push!”
Emmie gasped for breath and cried and retched, and she pushed. She pushed most of all, bearing down with all her strength, until she thought she might pass out or die and wasn’t even sure that would be a bad thing—except her baby...her baby had to live.
When it was finally over, she took a full gasping breath as the doctor turned away with the precious bundle. Emmie craned her head around the doctor, but she couldn’t see her baby. Why was it so quiet? What was happening?
“My baby... Why isn’t he crying? What’s wrong?” She turned, sweaty and crying. “Theo.”
But it wasn’t her husband she’d heard coming through the door, just a nurse to begin the afterbirth protocols. Emmie turned back to the doctor.
“Give me my baby. Now or I’ll...”
A sudden small cry, weak at first, then louder and heartier. The obstetrician turned back toward her, holding a tiny baby wrapped in a clean towel.
“Mrs. Katrakis,” she said gently, “I’d like you to meet your son.”
The tiny newborn was placed in Emmie’s arms, against her bare skin, and she felt a rush of joy she’d never known. The baby blinked in confusion, yawning, looking up at her sleepily with dark eyes. But as their eyes met, Emmie felt a strange recognition. Her son. Hers.
She caressed the baby’s cheek, marveling. “And he’s all right? He’s okay?”
“He took a minute to decide to breathe, but yes. He’s fine. Seven pounds, six ounces. A healthy baby boy.”
“Thank you, Dr. Sanchez.” Her son was born. And he was healthy. He was fine.
But Emmie had given birth alone. Her husband had never arrived. He’d missed the whole thing.
The kindly nurse helped Emmie wash up, helping her into a clean hospital gown. As she was checked by the obstetrician, a different nurse washed her baby, before he was placed back in Emmie’s arms.
For long moments, as nurses and doctors buzzed around them in the room, Emmie just sat in the bed holding her baby, wondering at his beauty, touching his skin, holding him close. When he started to whimper, with the nurse’s encouragement Emmie tentatively placed her baby to her breast. As he instinctively started to suckle, she watched his tiny face turn blissful and felt relief that was like joy.
But where was Theo?
The sun started to lower behind Manhattan’s skyscrapers, and she grew increasingly worried. Had he been in an accident? Was he hurt, dying, his car smashed up on the I-95 freeway?
When the baby slept, she called his phone.
There was no answer. She left a message, then another.
Finally, she phoned Honora, her father, and her brothers, to tell them her baby news. Honora was elated and promised to come at once. Her father and brothers, busy with a big emergency plumbing job, shouted with joy. They promised to come in the morning.
She checked the news anxiously, but there was no mention of a massive pileup on the highway. She left Theo more messages. She received her dinner delivered on a tray and was thinking about calling the police when Honora appeared in the door with her oldest child.
As Emmie’s best friend oohed and aahed over Emmie’s new baby, Honora’s three-year-old, Kara, was less impressed.
“I already have one,” the little girl archly informed Emmie, as if to warn her against trying to pawn off the baby on Kara’s family. Emmie laughed, but it was strained in her growing anxiety. Where was Theo? Why wasn’t he here?
“Adorable.” Honora sat on the edge of the bed, glowing but still slender, just recently pregnant herself with her third child. “What are you going to name him? Did you decide?”
“We haven’t had a chance...” For all his determination to marry her and secure his heir, Theo never seemed comfortable talking about their baby’s future. When Emmie had suggested possible names, he’d always said there was no rush, then changed the subject.
“Really? After two long months of marriage?” Honora said teasingly, then looked around the hospital room. “Where is Theo, anyway? Did he sneak off for some personal time with his laptop? Off making a super-important phone call?”
Licking her cracked lips, Emmie said slowly, “I... I don’t know.”
Her friend frowned. “What do you mean?”
“He was supposed to follow my ambulance in his car. But I haven’t...” She covered her eyes with her hand, overwhelmed. “That was hours ago. He’s not answering his phone. I’m scared he was in an accident.”
“Oh, Emmie,” Honora said softly. She patted her shoulder. “Don’t worry. I’m sure there’s a good explanation.” She gave a rueful laugh. “If you only knew half of what Nico put me through back in the day...” Whipping out her phone, she placed a call. “Hey, babe,” she said cheerfully. “Can you do me a favor?”
Theo was in hell.
From the moment they’d left Paris, he’d felt a rising sense of dread making his body tense and belly churn for reasons he didn’t understand.
After all, he’d won the Harcourt prize, just as he’d hoped. Pierre Harcourt had accepted his final bid, and Celine had even congratulated him with kind words, “The best man won,” before rushing out of the boardroom to meet up with her new boyfriend.
Assuming the legal paperwork went smoothly, Theo expected to break ground soon. If everything went according to schedule, his new Paris development—a gorgeous mix of retail, office and housing surrounded by dramatic, environmentally friendly gardens—would be finished in two years. It was thrilling.
And yet he’d left it all behind. Abandoned the project at the starting gate. For Emmie.
He’d promised his wife they could live in Manhattan. It was the least he could do. A consolation prize he could give her, he thought bitterly, in lieu of loving her.
Emmie and his son deserved better.
“I’m in love with you, Theo.”
Remembering her luminous face as she’d spoken those words still made him feel sick inside.
How long would it be before Emmie realized that Theo, with his cold heart, wasn’t good enough for her? Before his son realized it, too?
He’d sent her to the hospital alone. Because he was scared. Because he couldn’t bear to see her pain. If that didn’t make her love evaporate, nothing would.
He swallowed hard. The truth was, all he could offer anyone was wealth and a job in real-estate development—neither of which Emmie cared about. He’d offered her palaces and gold, when what she wanted, what she needed, was his love...
Standing in the grass, Theo leaned his head against the fence, feeling the hard surface against his clammy forehead. Exhaling, he lifted his gaze and looked out at Manhattan’s skyline across the Hudson. As sunset fell behind him, the last red rays shimmered over the gleaming steel and glass skyscrapers across the dark river.
When Emmie had gone into labor on the plane halfway over the Atlantic—too late to return to Paris—he’d wanted to flee, to cover his eyes and run. But there was no escaping a plane, not unless one wanted to jump out at twenty thousand feet. Seeing his wife’s pain, he’d been overwhelmed with panic and fear. What if he lost Emmie? What if they lost their baby? It would be his fault, for keeping them in Paris so long. Theo had paced in agony, even as he’d tried to look strong and reassuring. But he’d never felt so useless, so helpless, not since—
Not since—
Was Emmie still in labor? Had his son already been born?
Theo had meant to follow her to the hospital, honest to God. But as he’d collapsed into the sports car waiting for him at the airport, he hadn’t even driven the short distance to the Lincoln Tunnel before his vision closed in, creating a tunnel all its own.
So he’d veered off into a small park in Weehawken overlooking the river. Parking the car in the half-empty lot, he’d leaned his head against the steering wheel, feeling like he was going to die.
“Theo, what have you done?”The shriek of his mother’s voice over the crackle of the fire. “You’ve killed him!”
Pushing the memory away, Theo had stumbled out of the car into the small park, trying to catch his breath.
The August evening was sticky and hot. Leaning against the fence on the edge of the river, he could almost see his breath in the thick humid air, puffs of smoke like the ghosts of those he’d lost. The father he’d never known. The emotionally distant uncle who’d given him a home.
His mother. His stepfather.
Your fault, a dark voice whispered. You killed them both.
Now, Theo stared across the water, watching the shimmering glass skyscrapers on the horizon turn orange, then red, then finally violet, as the sun set slowly behind him.
It would be easy, he thought, just to drive back to the airport, and disappear—to Singapore or Dubai or anywhere. People might despise him for abandoning his wife and son.
Only Theo would know the truth: they’d be better-off without him.
Emmie was good and pure, his baby son an innocent soul. What happiness could a man like Theo possibly bring them? What could he do except cause them pain?
“There you are.”
Turning, Theo was astonished to see Nico Ferraro crossing the grass. He almost rubbed his eyes, just to be sure Nico, too, wasn’t a ghost. His friend smiled.
“My wife called. Said you were having a little trouble finding your way to the hospital.” Glancing back, he looked at Theo’s parked Maserati with the door still hanging open. “Car trouble?”
“How did you find me—” Then he remembered how last year, after his Lamborghini was stolen, he’d angrily told Nico he was going to put a GPS tracker in every car. His company’s head of security would be able to monitor his cars’ locations, under strict orders never to share the information with any woman, be she secretary, girlfriend, or wife who might invade Theo’s privacy. Emmie had no idea.
“Right,” Nico said, nodding with a grin. “I convinced Carter you might be in danger. He’s right over there, in fact, with a couple guys just in case.” He waved vaguely toward a black van on the far edge of the parking lot. Theo’s head of security nodded in return. “So,” Nico turned back, “what the hell are you doing here?”
“Nothing much,” Theo said tightly.
Snorting, Nico gestured to the van, and his head of security drove away. His friend faced Theo with a sigh. “So you’re just hanging out in a park. While your wife just went through labor alone and is now worried your mangled body is going to appear in the morgue. Which made my wife send me all over town looking for you, then drive to Jersey in traffic. Thanks for that, by the way.” He tilted his head. “What’s really going on?”
“I told you. Nothing.”
“Uh-huh.” Nico looked him over, then shook his head with a low laugh. “Look, I get it. I’ve been there. But my wife asked me to find you. So you have two choices. Either you phone Emmie and explain the truth about your little park excursion or...”
“Or?”
Nico’s dark eyes met his. “Or you come to the hospital with me right now. And I’ll explain about your car trouble.”
Theo felt trapped in a corner. His hands tightened, and for a moment, he actually considered a third option: punching his way out. Then he looked at his friend’s sympathetic but firm expression.
“Fine,” he growled.
So Nico drove him to the hospital, arranging for an employee to pick up the Maserati. Walking through the hospital’s revolving door, Theo felt numb. He followed Nico onto the tenth floor, past the nurses’ desk.
“It’s a little late for visiting,” a nurse objected as they walked past.
“Not at all. He’s the happy father of room 1035,” Nico said, pushing him forward.
Theo felt like he was walking through water, or in a nightmare blurry as a Renoir painting, as they rounded the corner into Emmie’s room. He saw Honora trying to entertain her toddler with a coloring book. Vases of colorful flowers beneath the hospital’s fluorescent light.
Outside, the night was now dark. The window’s glass reflected the image of an exhausted woman in the bed smiling down beatifically at the baby in her arms. And Theo saw himself, a dark-haired man standing at a distance like a stranger.
“Look what I found,” Nico said, and both women turned to them with a sob of relief.
“Uncle Theo!” little Kara cried, flinging herself around his legs. He looked down at her.
“Hello, sugarplum.”
“Theo.” Emmie wiped her eyes with a visibly shaking hand. “I was afraid something terrible had happened.”
It had, Theo thought. Long, long ago. And it meant he could never be the man she wanted him to be. With a deep breath, he forced himself to smile. “Here I am.”
“But where have you been? I left so many messages—”
“Car trouble,” Nico said succinctly. “His engine stopped.”
It was technically true.
“Uncle Theo, look at my drawing! Look!” Three-year-old Kara waggled her page covered with squiggles.
“It’s...nice,” he said, unable to manage his usual charm that had made him a favorite with the toddler. His eyes met Emmie’s, and suddenly his heart was in his throat.
“We should go,” Nico said.
“It’s past Kara’s bedtime.” Meeting her husband’s eyes, Honora quickly gathered up her daughter’s crayons. “Granddad will be wondering where we are.”
“And so will his wife, since she’s been watching him and the baby.” Nico scooped up Kara, ignoring her protests. The family abruptly disappeared, leaving Theo alone with his wife and newborn son in the hospital room.
Emmie looked at him.
“You missed everything,” she said, her voice strained.
“I’m sorry.”
“Well.” Her expression relented. “You’re here now. Come meet your son.”
His throat was tight as he inched forward to Emmie and the baby cuddled together. “He’s healthy? You’re both all right?”
“Fine. Come see him.” Looking at the sleeping baby dreamily, she patted the side of her hospital bed.
Awkwardly, he sat down on the very edge. His gaze fell on some flowers on her nightstand, with a visible card.
You’re a brave lady. Best of luck with him.
Carlos Mondragón
Looking around at all the flowers filling the hospital room, in red, purple, yellow, pink and blue, blue most of all, it struck Theo how long he’d been missing. Long enough for Emmie to give birth and his acquaintances to hear about it. Long enough for them to send flowers.
Theo really was a selfish bastard. He looked down at his rough, dry hands and repeated helplessly, “I’m sorry.”
“No, stop. It’s not your fault you had car trouble.” But there was something stiff in her voice, as if she didn’t believe her own words. As the baby woke and started to fuss, Emmie forced a smile. “Come hold him.”
Theo looked nervously at the unhappy baby. “I don’t know if...”
“Take off your shirt.”
“What?”
“Just do it.” Reluctantly, he obeyed, dropping it to the linoleum floor. She lifted her free hand. “Now hold your arms like this.”
Jaw tight, he held out his arms. His wife gently lifted the squirming infant, who wore only a diaper, against Theo’s bare chest.
Cuddled against his father, skin to skin, the baby gave a little hiccup, then soothed by the rise and fall of Theo’s breath, his eyelids grew heavy. His tiny body relaxed back into sleep.
“Good job,” she said softly. “Isn’t he beautiful?”
Theo looked down at his newborn son. An innocent child who’d depend on him for everything. Not just for his home and education but to show him the meaning of a good life. To teach him how to be a man.
Theo felt something twist his heart, squeezing until it pulled the blood from his veins, choking oxygen from his brain.
Leaning over the bed, Emmie wrapped her arm around Theo’s shoulders and looked down at the baby dreamily. “What should we name him?” She gave a light laugh. “Theo Junior?”
He sucked in his breath. Wrap Theo’s name, with all its horrifying baggage, around their baby’s neck like an anchor?
“Call him what you want,” Theo said tightly. “Just don’t name him after me.”
She turned, clearly mystified. “Why?”
Theo looked into her violet eyes and suddenly knew she needed a better man than he could be. If he stayed, if he was true to his vows, then not just his son but his wife, too, would be sucked dry, giving him love he didn’t deserve. They’d give him everything and finally drown beneath the weight of Theo’s dark, unredeemable soul.
“I didn’t have car trouble.” He took a deep breath and told her the truth. “I just didn’t want to be here.”