Chapter 14
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Cosette
“We’re going to the hospital,” Lyam says. “Hang in there, baby.”
I hold onto my belly as if somehow, I can keep this baby here with me.
Even though I’m not that far along, I’ve already imagined having a sweet baby of my own…
of our own. I’ve already imagined how it would feel seeing Lyam hold our baby, and how I would be the one to hold and rock and soothe our little one.
Lyam drives fast on a good day. Right now, it feels as if the car has sprouted wings and begun to fly.
But I don’t care. I want to get there as fast as he does.
He’d teleport us if he could but since he can’t, he’s doing the best he can to get me there as fast as humanly possible.
God help any officer who tries to stop him right now.
When I see traffic and brake lights ahead of us at the final turn to get to the hospital, I stifle a sob. I need to get there. The urgency of the moment tells me I need to get there now.
“They have to move,” I cry. “How do we get them to move?”
“I’ve got this.” His hand rests on my thigh. “Trust me.”
I let out a breath I didn’t know I was holding.
With a quick turn of his wrist, determination written in the angles of his face, he cuts the wheel and hops the curb.
I close my eyes. I feel his hand leave my thigh as he continues to drive as if this sidewalk is his own personal lane.
I tune out the sounds of horns blaring and people screaming as he tears down the sidewalk and nearly flips the car over as he makes the turn to get to the hospital.
Several ambulances, lights flashing, sit in the bays at the back of the hospital. Lyam throws the car in Park and runs to my side. Yanks open my door and lifts me out. I’ve never seen him look so wild and afraid. It terrifies me.
A young man in a security uniform steps in front of him. “Sir, this entrance is only for—”
“Stand back.” Lyam’s eyes narrow. He hasn’t bothered to hide his weapons and they all look down immediately. “We’re meeting Dr. Martin. We’ll go in this entrance.”
They mutter to each other as they part to let us in.
“You can’t threaten security guards, Lyam,” I whisper. “You’ll get arrested.”
“I’m getting you in there.”
“You are no good to me if you’re in jail!” I protest.
He grunts in reply.
Two nurses in scrubs see us and usher us down a hall. “This way, Mr. Gerard. Dr. Martin is ready for you.”
I bury my head on his chest as he carries me down the hallway. We’re brought to a room with a hospital bed and monitors.
He lays me down with surprising gentleness.
I watch the nurses eye him like he’s a bomb about to detonate.
Lyam holds my hand when we look at the little wriggling bean on the screen in front of us.
Our baby.
“Some women bleed during pregnancy,” Doctor Martin says reassuringly.
“But everything is fine. You see?” she says, pointing to the screen with her index finger.
“That’s the heartbeat. You’re perfectly healthy.
Your body is shedding excess blood which can be alarming, but in this case doesn’t indicate that anything is wrong. ”
“But I thought she stopped bleeding when she was pregnant,” Lyam says, his voice sounding not unlike a growl.
“Most women do, yes,” Doctor Martin says calmly. “That’s how it normally goes. But some women bleed periodically. This is how some women end up in labor without knowing they were even pregnant. They assume the bleeding is their cycle, when in fact it isn’t at all.”
“So the baby’s okay?” I ask. “That’s what’s most important.”
Dr. Martin smiles. “The baby’s perfect.”
“And Cosette will be okay?” Lyam asks in a tone that dares her to tell him otherwise.
“Of course,” she says. “Though I do recommend bed rest for the next day or two just to ensure she recovers from the trauma. I’ve given her something that will help her sleep for now. Make sure she rests.”
Lyam’s jaw clenches. “Oh, I am fully prepared to do that.”
I sigh. Of course he is. He’d chain me to the bed and stand guard over me until I have this baby if that’s what he had to do.
She clears her throat. “Mr. Gerard. We need to talk. Typically, we frown upon people coming into the hospital with weapons. You cannot come in here and threaten the staff again.”
“I may not?” he challenges, getting to his feet.
“Lyam.” I reach for him, but he shrugs me off.
“My future wife is carrying our child. I needed to make sure she was safe.”
“I understand,” she says. “But I’ll repeat. You cannot come in here and threaten people. They are far less likely to do what you ask if you’re using threats to get what you want, and how much of a help will you be to your wife and child if you’re arrested?”
My thoughts exactly.
They go on arguing while I mull things over.
Wait.
He said wife.
Did he say wife? Of course he did. I’m pregnant with his child, so it stands to reason the next thing he wants to do is put a ring on my finger and make this official.
He could’ve told me that.
Before this happened, I was on the verge of telling him that Montague is my father. I wanted him to know. But right now, I think we need to clear a few things up.
I yawn, exhausted. All I care about is this baby, and sleep.
And maybe getting a proposal? Gah.
I’d never seen Lyam panicked until he saw me bleed.
It unnerves me.
But I rest secure in the knowledge that our baby is safe, tucked away in my womb.
I close my eyes.
The doctor leaves. I don’t even know what they agreed upon, but I know Lyam doesn’t back down, so that was probably an interesting compromise.
“I’m bringing you home,” Lyam finally says. “You’ll rest better there.”
They ask if he wants a wheelchair, but he declines. He’d rather carry me. I close my heavy eyes and hear him mutter an apology to the nurses for scaring them. It isn’t enough, but it’s something.
Ah. So Dr. Martin did get through, at least a little.
He nestles me back in the passenger seat of his car, and this time, the ride home is less frantic. He doesn’t want to jostle me. I close my eyes, half in and half out of sleep, until we get back to Le Marquise and he leads me upstairs.
I fall asleep within seconds of my head hitting the pillow.
When I wake, sunlight streams through the windows and Lyam’s on his phone, his back to me.
“I know,” he says in a hushed whisper. “Motherfucker. We’ll do what we have to.”
I see his shoulders slump, and then he pinches the bridge of his nose. Nausea rolls through my belly. I need food.
When he turns to me, my heart squeezes. He looks haggard and tired, his eyes bloodshot and unfocused.
“Come here,” I say softly. “Lie down.”
He turns his back to me and speaks in a low voice into the phone.
“I gotta go. Cosette’s up.”
He hangs up the phone, tosses it aside, then walks over to me.
“You didn’t sleep last night?” I ask. I reach my hand to him and gently touch his face.
When he reaches over to cradle my head, I close my eyes. Inhale. Exhale.
We’ve been through a lot.
“How are you feeling?” His voice is raspy from lack of sleep.
“Nauseous,” I whisper. “Shaken, but better. You?”
“Yeah. I got you food.”
He helps me sit up and arranges a tray with breakfast on it.
“Don’t you want to lay down? You look so tired. I only want a little to hold me over.” I nibble a croissant, then lay back down on the bed, exhausted.
Wordlessly, he climbs into bed next to me. Takes the croissant from my hand. Feeds me little bits.
“So. You said something about me being your wife last night? Would you care to elaborate on that, Mr. Gerard?”
He looks at me as if I just sprouted a second head. “Of course you’ll marry me,” he says sternly. “You’re having my baby and I love you. Why wouldn’t you marry me?”
He loves me.
“I love you, too,” I say, my voice trembling. “But you didn’t ask me.”
“I need to ask?”
I throw my hands up in the air. “Yes!”
When he shoots me that boyish smirk, my heart turns in my chest. “Cosette. I love you. The best way I know to protect you and care for you and our baby is to marry you. Will you marry me, or do I have to steal you away to Vegas and find an Elvis?”
I smile back. “Yes,” I say tremulously. “No need to pull out the Vegas threat.”
We eat in comfortable silence for a little while until I ask him, “Who was on the phone?” Could be anyone after everything we’ve been through the past few days.
“Thayer.”
“Ah. Did you tell him what happened?”
“Yeah. I did. He and Savannah are still in Paris. She’ll be by to see you soon.”
He’s still distracted. He isn’t really here. Something’s troubling him.
Silence reigns for a minute while he works his jaw. “But that’s not why he called.”
I sip the juice he hands me.
“Why did he call?”
I watch him draw in a deep breath.
Something is wrong. I stare at him.
“Rousseau is dead.”
Rousseau… his informant… is dead.
Yesterday she was alive and breathing and now…
“Dead?” I repeat in a shocked whisper. “How?”
“Suicide, allegedly. Only there was no note, she had plans to go out to dinner with her fiancé that night, and also had plans to meet up again with me. There was a gun placed in her right hand, but she always used her left.”
“My God,” I whisper. The lives they lead, the people they know—they’re dangerous and deadly and walk a razor’s edge between death and life.
And when Lyam knows the truth… when he knows my father is the very politician after his family with the intent to bring them down… what will stop him from leaving me, just like my father did?
He has access to money and people and places I can only dream of.
But he loves me.
Does he, though? Or does he love the idea of a wife and baby?
Do I love him?
I close my eyes as a wave of grief washes over me.
I have to tell him about my father. He has to know. I have to tell him everything and pick up the pieces of where that leaves us.