ASHFORD (Gray Wolf Security #5)

by Glenna Sinclair

  “I didn’t—”

  He charged me, dropping the papers to the floor and grabbing my neck. “You have been scheming to take these babies from me from the moment you found out you were pregnant. And when I threatened to cut you out of their lives, you just hatched another scheme, didn’t you?”

  “Nico,” I said, my voice garbled by his grip, “I wouldn’t do that to you.”

  “Wouldn’t you? You ran away. You insisted you wouldn’t let me have the baby. And now this. It adds up pretty quickly, my love.”

  “Think about it, Nico,” I said, tugging at his grip on my throat. “I could have left when you were arrested. You said yourself there was nothing you could do.”

  “But you didn’t know that until it was too late.”

  “That’s not true. You can’t leave the county. I could run away today and you wouldn’t be able to come after me. But I didn’t. I stayed.”

  “So you could conspire with that rich bitch who’s trying to ruin my life.” He stared at me, anger still snapping in his eyes. “I knew I couldn’t trust you.”

  “I didn’t do this. I only wanted to get her to back off of you. I didn’t think she would sue for custody!”

  “Then you did talk to her.”

  And that’s when I knew I’d dug myself a hole. What else was there to say?

  I shook my head, but nothing I said now would get through to him. As if to confirm it, he pushed me back against the bar and let me go, anger like I’d never seen in his eyes.

  “I thought you…” He stopped, unable to finish whatever it was he was about to say. He just turned away.

  “Nico,” I said as pain slashed through my lower back, “please…”

  The pain was not like anything I’d ever felt before. I tried to straighten up, but it was so intense that I screamed. And then I was clutching my belly, the pain slicing around until my belly was as hard as a boulder. I cried out again, more from fright than pain. Nicolas was instantly at my side, his hand on my belly.

  “What? Did I—”

  Adam rushed over—he’d apparently come to inform us his family had arrived—and swung me into his arms, carrying me to the couch. Constance was there, too, a worried frown on her familiar face as pain again traveled from my back to my belly.

  “She’s in labor,” I heard someone say. “Call an ambulance.”

  That was two months ago. On Thanksgiving Day, to be precise.

  I was in labor. The ambulance rushed me to the hospital, Nicolas at my side. The doctors started an IV and put this stuff into it that burned like crazy and gave me one of the worst headache I’d ever had. And, slowly, the pain that radiated from my back to my belly slowly stopped. But, by the time it did, my water had broken. One of the babies was happy and content in his amniotic sac, but the other was sitting in just a puddle.

  “If we deliver baby B, baby A will deliver as well. And neither is really ready to leave the womb. It would be better to keep her here in the hospital and give the babies a little more time.”

  But I couldn’t get out of bed. I had a catheter in my bladder—which was tons of fun, let me tell you—and everyone who came in the room had to put on scrubs and a mask. It was like I was Typhoid Mary or something. I felt like a leper.

  Nicolas looked pretty good in scrubs though. Not that he talked to me when he came to visit. I think he just came into the room to make sure I was still here. He’d sit in a chair, watch the news for about five minutes, then he’d leave with a promise to return. And he always did. Just…not to talk.

  Constance came nearly every day. She’d sneak in little treats to me, like tamales or spice cookies. And Adam was here almost constantly. He was Nicolas’ bodyguard. I guess Nicolas figured it was more important to have him guard me and keep the press away, than it was for him to keep the paparazzi off his car. I’m sure Nicolas had nightmares of the press finding out about me, especially now. His lawyers insisted they were close to getting the charges against Nicolas thrown out of court—I’d heard that on the news—so word that he had some pregnant girl locked up in a local hospital probably wouldn’t play well now that the gossip rags were mostly on his side.

  TMZ seemed to think the charges were bogus and they’d be dropped pretty soon. All the other media feeds seemed to lean that way, too. I hoped they were right. I was almost thirty-four weeks pregnant. These babies would be here very soon, and they would need their daddy.

  That is, of course, as long as Aurora’s mother didn’t get custody.

  Daniel came to see me last week. I was shocked, to say the least. He was Virginia’s stepson and, when I went over there that day, they seemed very close. He snuck into my room when Adam wasn’t here and told me that he hadn’t realized what Virginia would do.

  “When the lawyer called and said that he’d filed paperwork with the family court, I was shocked. I thought she’d sue him in civil court for wrongful death. I never imagined she’d try to take the babies away from him,” he said.

  I’ve always considered myself a pretty good judge of character. I mean, I’ve been burned a few times. I thought Nicolas was a great guy until he kissed me in his living room the night Aurora called me excited because the embryos were viable. But now that I know more about him, I think my initial instincts were pretty much right on the money. So, when my instincts told me that Daniel was being truthful, I believed them.

  I just hoped he could talk Virginia out of taking Nicolas to court.

  I tried to pull myself up a little, but there was only so far you could go when you were supposed to lie flat all the time. One of the babies kicked. I touched my belly just over the kick and smiled as it came again.

  “Soon, little one.”

  I wanted to ask Nicolas if he ever finished the nursery, if he had chosen names. But he was so angry with me over what I’d done by going to Virginia that I was lucky he even remembered my name. I’m sure, as soon as these babies were born, he’d put me on a plane right back to Texas.

  “Moving around a lot today,” the nurse said, as she came into the room, a syringe in her hand.

  “They are. Did they knock the monitor over again?”

  “Either them, or their mommy shifting in bed again.” She winked as she set the syringe on my rollaway tray and adjusted the elastic belts around my growing belly, moving the plastic heart monitors around until a clear beat showed on the machine beside my bed. I smiled as two separate heartbeats appeared, the lines strong and steady.

  Once the monitors were adjusted, she injected the medication into my IV line.

  “Anything I can get you, hon?” she asked.

  “No. I’m okay.”

  “You know, as long as you’ve been here, it’s okay to ask for something every once in a while.”

  “I know. But my friends keep me pretty much covered.”

  “It doesn’t hurt that daddy’s a rich Hollywood type.”

  She winked again as she stepped through the door.

  Everyone seemed to think because Nicolas was the father of these babies, my life was so easy. How little they knew.

  I flipped through the channels on the television for a few minutes, finally settling on a chic flick. I was so bored! Nothing to do all day but watch television might seem like fun to some people, but it was torture to me. I wanted to go outside so badly that I could hardly breathe when I thought about it.

  And then the door opened and I burst into tears.

  Chapter 24

  “Kelly!”

  She rushed to the bed and threw her arms around me, tears streaming down her cheeks just as they were mine. We hugged for a long time. I hadn’t seen Kelly in almost five months. She was in Dubai when Nicolas came and dragged me back to Los Angeles.

  It was so nice to see a friendly face.

  “What are you doing here?”

  She pulled back and picked up the corner of the sheet to wipe the tears from my face. “I had a layover at LAX, so I thought I’d come over and see you in person.”

  “I
’m glad you did.”

  Kelly smiled even as she carefully wiped her own tears away. “You sound so miserable in your texts.”

  “It’s pretty boring just lying around here all the time.”

  “I bet it is.” Kelly touched the top of my swollen belly. One of the babies responded with a strong kick. Kelly’s eyes widened. “Wow. I can’t believe you have two human beings growing inside of you.”

  “Me, either, to be honest. It doesn’t even feel like my body anymore.”

  “I can imagine. How long are they going to keep you in here?”

  I shrugged. “Until the doctor thinks it’s safe to take the babies.”

  “That sucks.” Kelly glanced at my belly again. “But it’s a great deterrent to sex.”

  I laughed. “How did your sex fast go, anyway?”

  Kelly, after yet another bad breakup, had gone on a sex fast. She had gone five months the last time I talked to her, and it was driving her insane. Kelly was nothing like me. Before Nicolas, it’d been much longer than five months for me. In fact, I’d only had one lover before Nicolas. Kelly, on the other hand, looks like a supermodel. She had guys falling out of the woodwork for her. Always has. So, for her to go on a sex fast was a pretty big deal.

  “It’s been incredibly difficult. But…I’m still going.”

  My mouth must have fallen open because she started to laugh.

  “I’m not that bad, am I?”

  “I’ve never known you to go more than a week or two without a guy in your bed.”

  Kelly groaned. “It was that bad, wasn’t it?”

  I touched her hand and started to say something a little comforting, but the door to my room opened. Daniel, his face half covered by a surgical mask, stepped into the room.

  “Sorry,” he said, his eyes moving over Kelly. “I didn’t realize you already had a visitor.”

  Kelly stood, her curves hidden by the scrubs they made everyone wear. She crossed her arms over her chest as she moved between me and him.

  “Who are you?” she demanded.

  “It’s okay, Kel,” I said. “He’s a friend.”

  “I’m Daniel,” he said, stepping up to Kelly with a hand extended.

  She didn’t take his hand. Instead, she just studied him, trying to assess him around the scrubs and the surgical mask. I could feel the tension between them. It made me feel a little uncomfortable, like a fly on the wall, watching a situation I shouldn’t be watching.

  “How do you know Ana?” Kelly demanded.

  Daniel rolled back on his heels a little, his gaze dropping briefly to my face. I could see that he was trying to decide if he should tell the truth, or come up with a quick lie. But he told the truth.

  “I’m Virginia Davis’ stepson. We met at her house.”

  Kelly glanced back at me. “Didn’t you tell me Virginia is suing Nicolas for custody of the twins?”

  “I don’t agree with her decision on that,” Daniel immediately said. “And I’m trying to convince her to back off.”

  Kelly’s eyebrows rose as she stared at me. I offered a slight shrug, a movement just big enough for her to see it. She inclined her head before turning back to him.

  “Well, I guess you can stay if Ana’s okay with it. But you should know, I’m her best friend. I’ll hurt anyone who even thinks about hurting her.”

  Daniel bent at the waist, executing an almost perfect bow. “Understood.”

  I wanted to laugh, the whole scene was that surreal. But it didn’t seem appropriate at that moment, so I just watched as Kelly settled back down on the bed next to me and Daniel crossed to the low chair where Nicolas usually sat when he came to visit. He tugged it closer to the bed and settled down, leaning close to the bed, but not touching me.

  “How are you doing?”

  “Good,” I said.

  “She’s bored out of her mind,” Kelly said.

  Daniel nodded. “Tried to bring her—you—some books and crossword puzzles, but they wouldn’t let me bring them in. Something about germs?”

  “They’re pretty serious about all of that.”

  “Why don’t they just give you antibiotics?” Kelly asked.

  “I’m allergic to penicillin, and I guess whatever else they might have used they can’t because it’s not good for the babies.”

  “That sucks.”

  I touched my belly, my hands skipping over the monitor belts. I glanced at the machine to make sure it was still registering their heartbeats. Sometimes I liked to reach over and turn the sound up so that I could hear them. It was reassuring even though they moved so often that there was no doubt that they were still there. I couldn’t wait until they were born and I could see their precious little faces. But, again, I was frightened that I wouldn’t be able to see them at all, that Nicolas was so angry with me that he wouldn’t hold up his end of our bargain.

  What if he took the babies home, and I was never able to see them? It was that thought that kept me awake at night.

  “Not much longer,” Kelly said, taking my hand.

  I nodded, even as I turned my head away from her. I didn’t want her to see my expression; I didn’t want her to know how frightened I was. I didn’t want her getting on her flight worried about me. I had so few people left in my life right now. The last thing I wanted was to cause any concern.

  But Daniel caught my expression, and I could see his brows knit together as he frowned.

  They left together a few minutes later, both promising to return soon. I hugged Kelly tighter than I probably should have, but it was so nice to have seen her. I didn’t want her to go, but she had a flight to New York to catch. From there, she said she was going to London.

  Sometimes I thought I’d chosen the wrong profession with teaching.

  Chapter 25

  I was dreaming.

  Nicolas pressed me up against the back doors of his living room, the bright, California sunshine making everything seem brighter than it really was. He was saying something, but I couldn’t hear him. At the same time, his hands slid over my ribs and I realized that I was no longer pregnant. My body had returned to the way it’d been before, curvy, but slender. I tried to ask him where the babies were, but my voice didn’t seem capable of sound, either. It was like we were standing in a vacuum that stole every word before it left our lips.

  A pain sliced through my back. I thought that maybe the glass door had shattered, that a piece of glass had pierced my skin. But then the pain let up.

  I touched the side of Nicolas’ face and drew him close to me. Our lips brushed. He stole my breath as he always did whenever he kissed me. And then he stole more than that, the tip of his tongue asking for entrance as he tugged my body closer to his—

  Then the pain was back. This time it sliced through my lower back and then radiated around my belly. I wanted to touch that spot, to see what it was that was causing the pain, but Nicolas grabbed my hand and tugged it back up to his chest.

  I wanted to lose myself in Nicolas. I wanted to enjoy his kiss; I wanted to enjoy the feel of his body against mine; I wanted to anticipate what came next. But that pain…

  I moaned as it came again. The dream began to fade. I whispered his name, “Nico,” as he disappeared and the pain became all I was aware of.

  “I’m here,” his voice whispered, but it wasn’t the dream Nicolas.

  I opened my eyes, and he was sitting in the chair Daniel had vacated hours ago. He leaned forward and brushed a piece of hair out of my face, the first touch he’d offered since Thanksgiving Day.

  And the pain sliced through me again.

  “Oh, God,” I hissed, my hand brushing over my enormously swollen belly.

  “What is it?” Nicolas asked softly.

  “It hurts.”

  He immediately jumped up and grabbed the remote wrapped around the safety bar of my hospital bed and pushed the call button. A nurse’s fuzzy voice answered a second later over the intercom system.

  “How can I help you?”
/>   “She’s in pain.”

  “Okay. Someone will be there in a minute.”

  The pain wrapped around my back again, like a belt that someone had pulled too tight. My belly hardened under my hand, a boulder threatening to suffocate the babies. I whimpered, tears forming in my eyes despite the fact that I really didn’t want to look so weak in front of Nicolas. I wanted him to go away; I wanted him to go back into my dream. I didn’t want him to see me like this.

  But he didn’t. He moved close to me, his face inches from mine as he slid his hand into mine.

  “They’ll be here in a minute.”

  The pain again. I squeezed his hand harder than I’d thought myself capable of. He didn’t flinch, didn’t try to pull away. He squeezed back, as he brushed more hair out of my face with his other hand.

  “You’re okay, baby,” he said. “They’ll be here soon.”

  “It hurts.”

  “I know.” He glanced over at the door, but he didn’t move away. Instead, he slid a little closer to me, so close that his nose was nearly touching mine. “You’re going to be okay. This is going to be over very soon.”

  I barely heard his last words. The pain radiated around my belly again, slicing through me like a Thor’s hammer through a boulder. I cried out, pulling my legs up toward my belly as I instinctively tried to move into a fetal position. Ironic, really. But it didn’t help. It made it worse somehow.

  The door opened and a nurse came over to the bed.

  “What seems to be wrong?”

  I just groaned. I couldn’t even speak.

  “What do you think? She’s in pain!”

  The nurse moved around the bed and glanced at the machine monitoring the babies. I thought for a minute that the monitor belts had shifted again. Or that the heartbeats simply weren’t there. That fear dulled the pain for a brief moment. But then another wave started in my back and flashed around to my belly, drawing a small scream from my lips.

  The nurse mumbled something I didn’t catch. Then she was rushing for the door.

  “Where’s she going?” I mumbled.