14. Petra #2
I looked past them, meeting Bastien’s dark gaze near the door. He stood still, silently watching their charade. I let go of the hospital blanket.
“Thank you,” I said, offering them an exhausted smile. “She’s everything I ever wanted.”
The small wheels of a clear plastic bassinet squeaked against the sterile linoleum.
Nurse Chloe pushed the cart past Bastien, interrupting the stifling huddle Tobias and Lavinia had formed at the side of my bed.
I pressed my shoulders hard against the damp mattress, my empty hands curling into tight fists.
“I’m sorry to interrupt, but I need to take little Petra down to the postnatal ward for her weight and footprints,” Chloe said.
Tobias adjusted his grip on the newborn, pulling Petra tighter against his chest. The protective, fatherly gesture made my skin crawl.
“I should walk down with you,” Tobias said. He offered the nurse an executive smile. “I don’t want her out of my sight.”
“It’s just standard procedure, sir,” Chloe replied, keeping her tone light. “She won’t be gone long.”
“Nonsense, Tobias is absolutely right,” Lavinia declared, adjusting the strap of her designer purse. “We simply can’t leave the child unattended in a hospital corridor.”
My grip slipped from the cotton blanket.
The thought of Tobias carrying my daughter out of my line of sight terrified me, and my damp hands flexed uselessly against the sheets.
He was establishing control. He was playing the doting patriarch for the medical staff.
Before I could invent an excuse to keep the baby in the room, Bastien stepped forward.
“My men have the postnatal corridor locked down, Mr. Stanton,” Bastien said.
His deep voice rumbled over the low hum of the ventilation system, projecting absolute, rigid authority.
“Two guards will shadow the nurse the entire time,” Bastien continued. “The baby is completely secure.”
Tobias paused at the intervention. His posture shifted. Bastien wasn’t challenging him; Bastien was deferring to his authority. The idea of having private, armed guards escorting his newborn through a public hospital fed his ego.
“Excellent,” Tobias said. “Thank you, Kavanagh. Go ahead, Nurse.”
Tobias turned toward the cart. He leaned over the plastic lip and deposited Petra onto the small mattress.
Chloe tucked a fresh blanket around her shoulders and gripped the metal handle of the bassinet.
She pushed the cart out of the suite, the wheels rattling over the threshold.
The stifling tension broke, leaving me still against the pillows as my daughter was taken from the room.
Tobias patted his pockets, pulling out his sleek smartphone. His gaze drifted away from the hallway where Chloe had vanished, the act dropping the second the audience was gone. He swiped the screen, the blue light illuminating his features.
“I need to make a few calls,” Tobias said, not bothering to look at me. “The partners at the firm will want to know the heir has arrived.”
Lavinia smoothed the front of her coat. She pulled her own phone from her purse, her thumbs hovering over the keypad.
“I’ll call Margaret and the girls,” Lavinia added, her voice adopting a practiced, theatrical lilt. “We must manage appearances before the country club starts gossiping. Rest up, darling.”
They stepped out of the suite without a backward glance. Bastien moved before they even cleared the doorway. He pushed the heavy oak door, the hinges gliding in silence until the latch engaged with a solid click.
Through the thick glass pane, the sound of their gloating blurred into an indistinct hum. I let my head sink into the pillows, the quiet of the room finally replacing the chaos of their intrusion.
Bastien reached up to his lapel. He pressed the button on his radio mic, his gaze fixed on the corridor outside.
“Marcus, confirm visual on the postnatal wing,” Bastien said.
A burst of static crackled from the small speaker on his lapel. “Visual confirmed, Boss. We hold the doors. Nobody gets in without your say-so.”
Bastien released the button. He turned away from the glass, the overhead lights catching the faint scar cutting through his eyebrow. He walked to the edge of the mattress and stopped, anchoring his hands on the metal footboard.
“She’s safe, Cecilia,” Bastien said. “My men won’t let him anywhere near the baby.”
My empty arms ached. The space against my collarbone where Petra had rested was bare. Bastien had used Tobias’s own ego against him, creating an impenetrable wall around my daughter.
“He didn’t even look back at me,” I whispered, the sheer effort of speaking leaving me breathless.
“He got what he wanted,” Bastien replied, his expression hardening.
I stared at the acoustic tiles on the ceiling. The legal document locked inside Helen Caldwell’s vault was no longer a piece of paper. The birth of my child had transformed it into a loaded weapon, aimed directly at my husband.
“I know,” I said, blinking against the harsh overhead lights. “The trust is active now. He’ll make his move soon.”
Bastien studied the exhausted lines of my face. He frowned, his grip tightening on the metal rail. He hated the waiting, the forced inaction of our plan.
“You need to recover first,” Bastien said. “We hold the line until you are discharged and back at the house.”
I pushed myself up an inch against the mattress. I was physically drained, but the trap was set. The months of feigning weakness, of choking down my disgust, were coming to an end.
“They’ll wait until we are back under that roof and settled into a routine,” I said. “The second they think I’m vulnerable, they’ll strike. And we’ll be ready.”