48. Ethan
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
Ethan
Addy goes into labor during breakfast.
Because of course she does.
One minute, she’s sitting at the kitchen island in one of my shirts, eating toast with strawberry jam and glaring at Captain.
The next, she freezes.
Every instinct in my body comes alive. “Addy?”
She blinks once.
Then looks down.
Then back up at me.
“I think,” she says carefully, “your children have decided to make their entrance.”
My heart stops.
Oliver gasps from his stool, spoon halfway to his mouth. “Now?”
Addy exhales shakily, one hand braced beneath her stomach. “Apparently.”
Captain barks.
“Not helpful,” I tell him.
Then I move.
I have handled emergency landings. Board crises, federal investigations, media fires, software failures capable of destroying billion-dollar contracts. I’ve stood in front of investigators and explained how the worst day of my life was built by another man’s arrogance.
None of that prepares me for Addy Clarke calmly announcing that our triplets are coming while wearing fuzzy socks with jam on her thumb.
“Hospital bag,” I say.
Addy squints at me. “Ethan.”
“Car. Claire. Dr. Hernandez. Sara can clear my schedule. Jeffrey can—”
“Ethan.”
I stop.
She reaches for me, and I’m there instantly, taking her hand.
Her fingers squeeze mine.
“I’m scared,” she whispers.
Everything in me changes. The orders vanish, the plan narrows, the entire world reduces to her face.
“I know.” I bring her hand to my mouth and kiss her knuckles. “I’ve got you.”
Her eyes shine. “You better.”
A rough laugh breaks out of me. “Always.”
Oliver slides off his stool. “Do I get shoes?”
“Yes,” I say.
“Both feet?”
“Preferably. You need to go to Diane.”
He nods solemnly and runs.
Addy makes a sound that is half laugh, half pain, and my chest goes tight.
“Okay,” I murmur, one hand at her waist, the other holding hers. “We’re doing this.”
She looks up at me, exhausted and beautiful and impossible. “We’re having three babies.”
“Yes.”
Within ten minutes, Oliver is wearing mismatched shoes, Captain has stolen a baby hat from the hospital bag, Luci is called and answers with, “Are the rich babies launching?” before screaming so loudly I have to hold the phone away from my ear.
Diane appears to grab Oliver. Claire talks calmly through contractions while I help Addy into the elevator.
Addy grips my arm as the doors close.
Her face goes pale.
“Talk to me,” I say.
“I hate elevators.”
“You live in a penthouse.”
“I hate them now.”
“Fair.”
She squeezes her eyes shut. “I can’t believe this is happening.”
I touch her cheek. “Look at me.”
She does.
For months, I’ve watched her change. Watched her body carry our children. Watched her become softer in some ways, sharper in others. Watched her cry over commercials, threaten my nutritionist, fall asleep mid-sentence, and love Oliver with a ferocity that still humbles me.
I’ve watched her build a home inside my life without asking permission.
And now she’s giving me more than I ever believed I was allowed to have.
“You’re not alone,” I tell her.
Her mouth trembles. “I know.”
At the hospital, everything happens too quickly and too slowly at once.
There are monitors. Voices. Nurses. Doctors. Paperwork I sign without reading because my eyes keep finding Addy. She’s brave in a way that makes me feel useless. Furious at pain. Terrified beneath it. Cracking jokes between contractions because apparently sarcasm is her birth plan.
At one point, she grabs my collar and hisses, “If you ever look at me romantically again, I’ll throw you into Lake Michigan.”
“You said that last month.”
“I mean it more now.”
“I love you.”
“I love you too, but shut up.”
Dr. Hernandez hides a smile.
Hours blur.
Then the room changes.
The energy shifts.
A nurse says something gentle. Dr. Hernandez moves with calm precision. Addy’s hand tightens around mine until I’m certain she’s breaking bones.
And then…
A cry.
My vision blurs before I understand I’m crying.
A nurse lifts the tiniest baby I have ever seen, impossibly furious at the world, and Addy sobs.
“Baby A,” Dr. Hernandez says warmly. “A girl.”
A daughter.
My daughter.
I press my forehead to Addy’s temple, unable to breathe properly. “She’s here.”
Addy laughs through tears. “She sounds mad.”
“She’s yours.”
“Rude.”
Then another cry comes.
Baby B.
A boy.
Then Baby C.
Another girl.
Three cries. Three lives. Three impossible miracles filling a room that once held every fear I had left.
I lose any remaining illusion of control.
I cry openly.
Addy sees it and starts crying harder. “Oh, Ethan.”
“I’m fine.”
“You aren’t fine.”
“No.”
A nurse places the first baby against Addy’s chest. Then the second. Then the third, carefully, gently, with help and wires and blankets and practiced hands.
They are tiny. Too tiny. Perfect.
Addy looks down at them as if her whole soul has left her body and returned multiplied.
I stand beside her, one hand cupping the back of her head, the other touching the smallest foot I have ever seen.
“They’re okay?” Addy asks.
Dr. Hernandez smiles. “They’re early, but they’re strong. NICU team will monitor them closely, but they’re doing beautifully.”
Strong.
The word hits me straight in the chest.
Addy looks up at me. “Names.”
I nod, though my throat barely works.
We argued about names for months.
Addy vetoed anything “too billionaire.” Luci suggested names exclusively based on pop stars and Greek disasters. Oliver wanted to name one of them Jetpack. I almost considered it, which Addy said was proof I needed sleep.
But in the end, we knew.
I brush my thumb over our first daughter’s blanket. “Ava Lucille Strong.”
Addy smiles through tears. “For Luci.”
“She’ll be unbearable.”
“She already is.”
The tiny boy lets out a disgruntled squeak. I touch his little hand. “Miles Ethan Strong.”
Addy looks at me softly. “You sure?”
“Yes.”
“And Baby C?” the nurse asks.
I look at Addy. Her face changes. We discussed this one the most. The name that was grief and healing braided together. We never wanted Megan’s name to feel like a replacement or an obligation. We wanted it to feel like love carried forward instead of trapped in grief.
A tribute.
A door opening instead of closing.
Addy nods.
My voice is rough. “Megan Rose Strong.”
The room goes quiet inside me.
For years, Megan’s name was pain, a wound, a locked room. Now it rests here, soft and new, held in Addy’s arms beside our other children. Not replacing the past. Honoring it.
Addy reaches for me. “She would’ve loved them.”
My chest breaks open. “She would’ve loved you.”
Addy cries again, and I kiss her forehead, her temple, her hair, anywhere I can reach.
“I love you,” I whisper.
“I love you too.”
The triplets are taken for monitoring after that, and I go with them because Addy insists.
“They need one of us,” she says, exhausted but stubborn.
“You need me.”
“They need you too.”
So I go.
I stand behind glass and watch my children become real under soft lights and careful hands.
Ava Lucille.
Miles Ethan.
Megan Rose.
Three heartbeats I once feared. Three futures I almost let fear steal from me.
When I return to Addy’s room, she’s asleep. I just stand there. Her hair is messy, her face is pale, and she looks exhausted down to her bones. She has never been more beautiful.
I sit beside her and take her hand carefully.
Her eyes flutter open. “Babies?”
“Perfect.”
“Me?”
“Also perfect.”
“Liar.”
“Occasionally.”
She smiles faintly. “Oliver?”
“On his way with Luci. She got here as quickly as she could. Diane is apparently bringing balloons despite being told not to.”
“Captain?”
“Has been banned from the maternity ward.”
“Tragic.”
“Deeply.”
Her fingers shift weakly against mine. “You okay?”
No one has ever asked me that at the right moments the way Addy does.
I look at her. At the woman who fell apart in an airport and rebuilt my life in the wreckage. The woman who loved my son before she had to, who stayed when running would have been easier, who gave me back a future I thought grief had permanently taken.
I reach into my pocket.
Addy’s eyes narrow immediately. “What are you doing?”
“Something I should’ve done before there were three witnesses in incubators.”
“Ethan.”
I stand.
Then I lower myself beside her bed, not quite on one knee because hospital furniture is designed by sadists, but close enough.
Her mouth falls open. “Oh wow.”
“I had a plan,” I say.
She starts crying instantly.
“I had several plans, actually. Millennium Park. The balcony. The lakefront. Oliver was going to hold a sign, but his spelling is unpredictable under pressure.”
She laughs and sobs at once.
“But then you went into labor during breakfast.”
“Sorry for ruining your billionaire choreography.”
“You improved it.”
Her face crumples.
I open the small velvet box.
The ring catches the hospital light. Simple by my standards, because Addy threatened violence if I bought something “visible from space.” Elegant. Vintage inspired. A soft oval diamond with tiny stones on either side.
Her hand covers her mouth.
“Addy Clarke,” I say, and my voice breaks on her name. “I spent years thinking my life was behind me. That love was something I had already had, already lost, and had no right to ask for again.”
Her tears fall silently.
“Then you insulted me in first class.”
A wet laugh escapes her.
“You came into my home and loved my son. You argued with my dog. You challenged me, terrified me, healed parts of me I didn’t know could still feel anything. You made me want a life that wasn’t just controlled. You made me want messy, loud, impossible.”
“That’s me,” she whispers.
“That’s you.” I take her hand. “You’re not my second chance because someone else is gone. You’re my choice. My future. My home.”
Her lips tremble.
“I love you. I love our children. I love the family we’ve made, and I want all of it. The chaos. The fear. The bad singing. The orange juice that costs too much. Oliver’s runway emergencies. Captain’s crimes. Every impossible day.”
She’s crying too hard to answer.
So I ask anyway. “Marry me.”
Addy stares at me for one breath. Then she nods so hard I panic slightly.
“Yes,” she sobs. “Yes, obviously, yes.”
Relief hits me so hard I almost laugh.
I slide the ring onto her finger.
It fits.
Thank goodness.
Then I kiss her. Carefully, because she’s exhausted and sore and terrifyingly fragile in this hospital bed. But she grabs my shirt and pulls me closer anyway.
“That was a good proposal,” she whispers against my mouth.
“I’m glad it met your standards.”
“Very emotionally competent.”
“I’ve been practicing.”
I laugh, and she smiles, and for one perfect second, there is no grief in the room.
Only us.