“Of course we do,” I assured her with a smile even as my first tear fell. “You’ve been so worried about finding the right name, you didn’t even realize we had the perfect one all along.”
“No,” she whispered. “I don’t have a clue what to call her.”
I kissed her forehead again. “Yes, you do. You’re just too stubborn to see what I’m talking about.” Her fingers were ice-cold, and I started rubbing them, trying to comfort her and myself.
“Fine, then you name her,” she huffed, then started crying again. “I’m so tired, Luca.” She gasped as if she were in pain, and the doctor called out that it was only going to be another minute before the baby was delivered.
My entire body was shaking with my fear, and I kept touching my lips to her brow. “I know, baby. But you can sleep soon, I promise. As soon as Love Bug is here, you can take a long nap.”
Suddenly, the room filled with an angry cry, and Violet’s gaze caught mine. “She’s here,” she murmured, a smile lifting at her lips.
I kissed my way from her temple to the corner of her mouth then brushed a soft kiss over her sweet lips. “I can’t wait to meet my little princess.”
On the other side of the tent, the doctor handed the baby to someone else, and Mandy followed them to where they were already cleaning the baby off. “Dad, do you want to cut the cord?”
Violet gave a soft, happy laugh. “Go,” she urged. “Cut her cord.”
I kissed her again and then sprinted over to Mandy and the pediatrician. Mandy handed me a pair of weirdly shaped scissors and told me where to cut. My hand shook as I did as I was instructed, then I took a moment to look down at Love Bug.
She had a thin layer of light blond hair on her head and the cutest nose I’d ever seen. Her lips were the perfect Cupid’s bow, just like her momma’s, and there was something about her chin that reminded me of Remington the first time I’d met him. She was pink and squalling, with ten little fingers and ten of the cutest, tiniest toes I’d ever seen in my life.
Unable to tear my eyes off our perfect little princess, I asked Mandy. “Do you think she’s going to have any complications?”
“She’s breathing on her own,” Mandy said, and I could hear a smile in her voice. “Doesn’t seem like she has any issues, Dad.”
Some of the pressure on my chest began to ease, and I reached out, gently rubbing a finger down her soft cheek. “Thank God.”
I started to turn to tell Violet our baby girl was perfect when a loud beeping filled the room and stopped my heart. “We’re losing her,” one of the other nurses said.
“She’s still losing blood,” the doctor barked. “I need to find where it’s coming from. She’s only nineteen. I don’t want to do a hysterectomy on her unless it’s a last resort.”
“Vi?” I choked out and started toward her.
Mandy stepped in front of me. “Don’t get in the way,” she told me in a firm voice. “Stay here with your daughter, or I’ll have to put you in the waiting room.”
The tears I’d been fighting earlier filled my eyes, blinding me as I stood there and watched them working on the woman I loved more than life itself. “Don’t take her from me,” I begged. My legs gave out, and I fell to my knees. “Please, Remington, don’t take her from me.”
Chapter 53
Violet
“And then Daddy rode in on a giant black steed and whisked Mommy to the hospital, where the doctor placed the most beautiful little princess the world had ever seen into Daddy’s arms.”
I frowned at the sound of Luca’s voice and slowly lifted my lashes. The room was dimly lit with only a single lamp on, casting a soft glow around the private and spacious hospital room. I shifted in bed, trying to find a more comfortable position, only to wish I hadn’t when the entire lower half of my body protested.
Holy shit, that hurt. It felt like I’d been cut in half and then sewn back together. But even as that thought filled my head, I realized it was kind of true as the memory of my daughter’s birth floated through my head in slow motion.
“But of course, Mommy was so stubborn, she had to give Daddy a heart attack. The room filled with the sound of Mommy’s heart stopping, and Daddy fell to his knees, praying she wouldn’t be taken from him forever.”
I turned my head and found Luca sitting in a reclining chair beside my bed. In his lap, he held a pink bundle that was my love bug. My heart filled to overflowing as he continued with the story he was telling the baby whose eyes seemed glued to his face.
“He cried, ‘No, don’t take the only woman I’ll ever love. Don’t let her leave me. Take me instead.’ And suddenly, her heart started beating once again.” He lifted his eyes from Love Bug, and I saw they were damp with unshed tears as his gaze locked with mine. “And Daddy told Mommy that if she ever tried to leave him again, he would follow her all the way to heaven just to get her back.”
“Luca?” I breathed, feeling like I’d woken up in some alternate dream world where he was saying the only thing I’d ever wanted to hear.
“About time you opened those gorgeous eyes,” he said with a smile that warmed me like nothing ever had before.
“How long have I been out?” I asked, glancing at the baby again before looking back at him.
“About six hours. You didn’t have a hysterectomy, by the way. The doctor found the source of your bleeding and stopped it before he had to take everything.” He absently played with Love Bug’s hands, but his eyes never once left my face. “I got to feed Love Bug, and I have already learned that changing a real baby’s diaper is nothing like those dolls in childbirth classes they give you to practice on. We both cried through that whole ordeal.”
A small giggle left me before I even realized it. “I’m sorry I missed that.”
“You should be. I seriously nearly died today because of you.” His eyes darkened to that murky brown mud color, telling me he was pissed, but the softness of his voice didn’t change when he spoke again. “You’re not going to fire Jenner, by the way. He told me you were going to leave this morning. Whatever put that idiotic idea in your beautiful head, you better erase it right now. I can’t go anywhere at the moment because of football. So, we’re going to be in Tennessee for a while. I’ll take you to California for the holidays, and your parents, Shaw, or whoever else you wish can come to us whenever you want, but your ass—” He broke off and looked down at the baby before clearing his throat. “Your butt isn’t going anywhere without me. Understand?”
“That depends,” I said, my heart pounding against my rib cage.
“On what?” he gritted out between clenched teeth.
“Does Daddy really love Mommy?” I whispered.
“All his life,” he told me without hesitation.
I didn’t know how to take that. I knew he loved me, but was he in love with me? Had he ever been?
Muttering something under his breath, Luca stood. Carefully, he placed the baby in her bassinet and then turned and trapped me with hazel eyes. I gasped at the pain in their depths, but I was too caught up in the confusion clouding my head to dare reach for him.
In two giant steps, he was leaning over me with his hands braced on either side of my head. “Are you still punishing me, Vi?” he demanded. “Will I never get your love back after what I did?’
“I love you,” I whispered.
“Fuck, I know that. But will you ever be in love with me again?” Tears filled his eyes. “I know I fu—screwed up. But I swear I’ve tried to make up for it. I don’t know what else to do, though. I don’t know how to make you fall back in love with me. I thought I could give you time, but after what happened today, after nearly losing you forever, I don’t know if I can.”
He pressed his forehead to mine, and one of his tears fell onto my cheek, mixing with my own. “All these years, I thought I would die from the pain of not having you beside me, you loving me and me loving you like we always dreamed about. I didn’t know what had kept me alive until Remington showed up, and I
realized that was why I’d been spared. I went through hell for so long because I needed to be here when you and Love Bug needed me most.”
“Luca.”
“Shh,” he growled, as several more of his tears landed on my cheeks. “Just be quiet for a minute.” He kissed me, but it was over before his lips could even fully touch mine. “All these months, helping you get past Remington’s death, I kept telling myself I would wait. If you fell in love with me again in a year, ten, twenty, nothing else mattered. In the meantime, I would still have you and Love Bug at my side. I knew deep down you loved me—I just had to show you I’ve changed and am worthy of your love again. I told myself to be patient and one day you would look at me like you used to.”
“Luca,” I tried again, but he kissed me quiet once more.
“I said hush, woman.” He cupped the side of my face, wiping away our mixed tears. “I told myself so many times that if I told you how much I loved you before you were ready, it would ruin everything. But I can’t be patient anymore. I almost lost you today, and I can’t contain these words, these feelings that have been choking me for months. I love you, Violet. I’m in love with you. I have been my entire life. I’m sorry it took me so long to grow up, to realize what are the most important things in life. I promise you—I’ve grown up now, and I’m finally worthy of you and Love Bug. Please give me a chance. Please…” A sob choked out of him, and he clenched his eyes closed as he pressed his forehead to mine once again. “Please let me love you and Love Bug forever.”
“Luca…”
A knock on the door cut me off, and I nearly growled in frustration as it opened and a woman walked in with a clipboard in her hands. “Knock-knock, Mommy and Daddy,” she said with a smile as she came toward us. “Sorry to bother you, but I promise not to take up too much time. I’m from Vital Records and just need to confirm everything is correct for the baby’s birth certificate.”
“Oh,” I muttered. “I haven’t—”
“Yeah, sure,” Luca said, cutting me off and taking the clipboard from her. “What do you need me to do?”
“Just confirm the spelling is correct, sign off that you are Daddy, and then Mommy can do the same,” she instructed.
“No problem.” He read over everything and then scribbled his name on the paper before handing it to me.
I frowned but slowly took the clipboard from him. But when I saw what was on the paperwork, I gasped. It had Love Bug’s date and time of birth, but it was the names listed that made me blink back tears.
Child’s Name: Remi Sawyer Thornton
Mother’s Name: Violet Hope Stevenson
Father’s Name: Luca Nikolas Thornton
In a daze, I signed my name and then dropped back against the pillows as the woman beamed, congratulated us both, and then told us to have a great night with our new bundle of joy.
“What just happened?” I whispered when the door closed behind her.
“It was just a formality about Love Bug’s name.” He glowered down at me. “Let’s get back to what I was telling you…”
“You told them you are her father,” I interrupted him, and his eyes darkened again.
“Because I am,” he growled. “Don’t ever say I’m not.”
“I wasn’t going to.” Because he was. Maybe not biologically, but he’d already proven to me that he was Love Bug’s daddy in all the ways that counted. In every way he’d promised Remington he would be.
“Good. Because it’s official now. You signed off on it. I’ll be her daddy on her birth certificate, and I’ll never let you change that.” He crossed his arms over his chest, trying to intimidate me.
If I were an offensive player having to face down that look, I probably would have been. But I wasn’t a football player, and I knew this man couldn’t have physically hurt me even if there were a gun to his head.
Grinning up at him, I waved my fingers, urging him to hold my hand. When he caught mine and lifted it to his lips, I melted into the bed. “You were right. That is the absolute perfect name for her. She’s our little Remi.”
“No,” he denied quietly. “She’s our Love Bug. She can be Remi to everyone else.”
Sleepily, I nodded. “Right again.” Content, I felt my eyes begin to close.
“Violet.” He kissed my brow. “Please tell me you’re mine.”
I lifted my lashes. “I’ve always been yours, Luca.”
“Baby…”
“Shh,” I told him with a tired smile. “It’s my turn to talk.”
His lips twitched, and he carefully sat on the edge of my bed.
“I love you.” He swallowed hard, but I didn’t pause. “For my entire life, I’ve loved you. Even when I didn’t want to, I loved you. I just buried it and told myself I didn’t. When I was with Remington, I still loved you. But I loved him too. He… He knew that, even when I didn’t want to admit it to myself. I spent so much time scared he would hate me, that I was being disloyal to him by letting myself love you—when all along, his greatest wish was for me to love you and be happy.”
His thumb rubbed over my ring finger, and it was only then I realized it was bare. I frowned at the absence of my engagement and wedding rings, but before I could mention it, he pulled them from his pocket. “Mandy, one of the nurses who helped take care of you, gave these to me when they brought you in here. Apparently they had to take them off you for the C-section.”
He handed them over, and I just stared down at them in the palm of my hand. I loved those rings, but I couldn’t bring myself to put them back on my hand.
Swallowing hard, I gave them back to Luca. “Will you watch over these for me?”
“With my life,” he promised and returned them to his pocket.
The room filled with silence for a few minutes, both of us lost in our own heads until Luca whispered, “Remington was a good man.”
“I know,” I agreed.
“I promised him I would take care of you, but it was all for selfish reasons, Vi. I think I would have made any promise. To him, to the devil. Anyone—if it meant getting you back.” He took my hand and brought it to his lips, kissing each fingertip. “I love you. I love Love Bug. And a part of me even loves Remington because he not only gave you back to me, he gave me her too.”
“I love you too, Luca.” Saying those words made my heart feel light, as if their absence had been weighing me down, and now that they were back in the universe where they belonged, I could breathe again. “And I know Love Bug loves you.”
“Of course she does.” His voice was so full of confidence, I couldn’t help smiling. “I’m her daddy, and she’s my princess.”
I yawned and started to close my eyes again.
“Your parents will be here soon, so you should rest as much as you can before they arrive. Shaw was in Hawaii for a shoot or something—I didn’t really pay attention to why she said she was there when I called her. But she’ll be here tomorrow because she couldn’t get a flight out any earlier than that. She’s pissed she didn’t get to hold Love Bug first, but she can suck it. She’ll be lucky if I let her near my baby girl, let alone let her hold her.”
“Whatever you say,” I murmured sleepily. “Daddy knows best.”
“Damn—er, dang right, I do.”
Gigging at him continuing to correct his language around our sleeping baby, I fell asleep with him still holding my hand.
Chapter 54
Luca
Violet had to spend three days in the hospital, and when she came home, her parents and mine were both in residence for several weeks. Arella had helped us decorate via Skype before Remi was born, so thankfully, all the bedrooms were complete and I didn’t have people sleeping on my couches every night. My mom and Aunt Harper wanted to make sure Violet was comfortable with the baby before they returned home, but fuck, I was glad to see them go when they did.
I hadn’t been alone with Violet since she first woke up in the hospital after the C-section. Between her dad and mine always under our feet, I
couldn’t relax in my own house because I felt like they were watching to make sure I didn’t fuck anything up. The two of them were doting grandfathers, though, and even though I was uncomfortable, Love Bug seemed to love them both, so I didn’t grumble about them.
At least, not to their faces.
My team’s owner gave me three weeks off for paternity leave, so I got to be with Violet and the baby every day that our parents were there. The four of them helped me learn how to change diapers until neither Love Bug nor I cried when it was my turn to change her. I felt like I was hurting her every time I unsnapped her dirty diapers, but Dad and Uncle Shane showed me like the pros they were, and I began to breathe a little easier whenever she would make her poop face.
Shaw stuck around a little longer than the parentals did, but she had her own house she could go to every night. When I had to start going to practices again, I was glad she was there first thing in the mornings so Violet wouldn’t be alone. Jenner was right next door in the apartment over the garage, and he’d told me more than once if we ever needed him, he would happily babysit for us. But if it came down to it, I would have been more scared of Shaw than Jenner if someone tried to harm my girls.
Having a newborn was an exhausting but amazing experience. It took a little while for me to get the hang of things, but soon I got Love Bug on a routine with me so Violet was able to sleep through the night.
When I got home from practice every evening, I ate dinner with Violet and Shaw and then helped give Love Bug her bath. I would rock her to sleep with a bottle of breast milk Violet had pumped that day, and once she was tucked into her crib, I’d climb into bed with her momma. Love Bug woke up around two every night, so I got up before Violet could hear her. After a diaper change and another bottle, she would fall asleep on my chest, and I’d sleep sitting up in the rocking chair.
Usually Violet would come in around six and take the baby from me, and I would jump in the shower to get ready for practice.
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