by Lia Lee
It didn’t feel like a miracle. Sandra wasn’t an idiot. Having six babies was very dangerous because there wasn’t enough room in there. There was barely enough for three. Her aunt Mabel had almost lost her triplets over fifteen years ago. One of them, Zack, had underdeveloped lungs and still was developmentally delayed. He was on a special track at a local high school back home. And that was just with three. With six…
Sandra stilled. “Are they going to be okay?”
“This is an extraordinary case. You’ll need constant medical attention and supervision. Soon, you’ll have to go on bed rest to prevent problems with blood pressure. We’ll most likely have to plan for a C-section and a team of six of everything—nurses, doctors, surgeons, and anesthesiologists—for the delivery. If we can get you to eight months, it’ll be a miracle.”
“I just can’t believe it,” she said, grabbing her stomach protectively. “What do I have to do to keep them safe?”
“I can go over the protocol with you now, but would you prefer to get some rest and wait until the father can arrive? There are some good facts in your favor, like your youth and relative vitality. Tonya also mentioned that you had multiples in your family?”
“I have some cousins who are triplets and my older sister had twins just last year,” Sandra said, her voice low and defeated.
Oh shit. Maybe I should have seen this coming. No, scratch that. Who sees sextuplets coming?
“Then there’s also the family pattern of dealing with multiple births. Although, of course, a number this large is special.”
“I know,” she said, shaking a little. Hours ago, she’d been worried she was pregnant at all. A few minutes ago, she’d been fretful about twins. Now she had six little lives growing inside of her, and she didn’t know how to help them. Or how to help herself.
Would Xavier even want them?
“If you could give me a few moments to rest? I trust Tonya, and I’m sure you’ve all done the best you can to get word to Xavier in his meeting so that he can get here soon. Whatever we need to know, you’re right, and we need to hear it together. As a family.”
Just let us actually be one. I can’t live if he runs.
The doctor nodded. “Señorita Gaines, trust me. We’ll do everything we can to care for you. This hospital has a glowing reputation in obstetrics, and we’ll work our hardest to make sure you’re protected and cared for.”
She felt the first bit of warmth begin to banish away the goose bumps surging over her skin. It was the only good news she’d heard all day. Then a cruel voice reminded her that if she didn’t have Xavier to help her, there would be no way to afford the medical care she needed.
“Are you sure you’re alright?” Dr. Díaz asked.
Sandra forced herself to smile. “I will be as soon as Tonya slips back in and Xavier is here. Until then, I’m going to just nap.”
Or try to.
“See?” the doctor practically crowed. “You have good maternal instincts already. Nurses, let’s go,” he said, as the women followed him out.
Sandra sighed and leaned back on her pillow. Her eyelids were too heavy to keep open, and she surrendered herself to the encroaching depths of sleep. Even though she’d already passed out earlier that day, all the stress and fear was working its way through her. She couldn’t deal with any of it, and part of her just wanted to go home.
A few minutes later the door creaked open, and she smiled before opening her eyes. The heavy tread of feet told her that it wasn’t Tonya coming back into the room. It had to be Xavier. She had to make him understand that they could make it, that it would be hard, but that they’d be a great family.
“Xav?” she asked and then frowned when she saw it was Javier instead.
His green eyes seemed almost to burn with his anger, and she flinched a little at the way he had his fists balled at his sides. “I wanted to believe in you.”
“I don’t understand,” she started, but he cut her off.
“I think you do. I passed by Tonya in a corner of the hallway. I overheard the conversation she had with your mother. You’ve known Xavier all along for months. Did you plan all of this?”
She shook her head and sat up as best she could, even with the lightheadedness working its way through her system, rendering her weak. “What? No! How do you plan for sextuplets?”
“But you planned to meet him again. To work for him and then get deeper and deeper into his life. To be so enmeshed that you’d be an obvious and eventually legal heir to the Villalobos fortune.”
“Never.”
“Then why did you hide everything, Sandra?” he said, emphasizing her first name and gesturing to the file on the foot of her hospital bed. “You hid so much, so how can Xavier or I know what’s real and what’s a lie?”
“Okay, I did meet him earlier at my old job, but I didn’t know. He said his last name was Clifton. There was no reason for me to think he had anything to do with your company.”
“Perhaps, or perhaps you’re savvy and came up with a plan to get your chunk of a three-billion-dollar fortune.”
“Do you know how crazy that sounds?” she shouted, wincing when her head started to pound.
“No crazier than you hiding who you really were and how you knew my brother. No crazier than what his last long-term girlfriend, Tina, tried to do to this family.” Javier shook his head. “I wanted to believe in happy endings so badly. My brother has been shat on before, kicked so hard that I never thought he’d get back up. For so long he was a semi-recluse, trying to hide himself and stay out of the limelight.”
“That explains a lot.”
“But then you come along and it’s like the light was turned on inside of him again. I had my brother back, and now you’ve turned out to be nothing but a liar.” Javier sighed and raked a hand through his hair. “I’m going to make you a deal.”
“What?”
He pulled a checkbook from his pants pocket. “I’m going to write you a check for six million dollars. It’ll be a great start on caring for your children.”
“They’re your family too!”
“You seduced Xavier under false pretenses. Lied to him for months. The way I see it, Sandra, you’re a gold digger who has anything but his best interest at heart. After Tina, he barely could trust again. When he finds out what you did, he’ll never want to speak to you again. Now, take this money, go home to the States, and lie to some other family. We’re full up here.”
He finished scrawling out the check and set it on her lap. She burst into tears and avoided touching it, as if it were a smoldering coal that would burn her to nothing if she even grazed its surface.
“You have a choice. Be thrown out now or later. But the check’s only good for ten minutes, Sandra. I’d think it over.”
With that, Javier slid back out of the doorway, letting the heavy door slam shut behind him. Sandra shook, letting her body shudder as sobs spilled from her body. She’d been so close to everything, and now?
Now all she wanted was to go home.
Chapter Eight
His heart wouldn’t stop racing, but then again, that matched his thoughts. The meeting with the union had finally resolved the lingering problems that had been plaguing their biggest European factory for months. It should have been a happy moment. When they finally all turned their cells back on, his heart sank. The message hadn’t made sense. Today was supposed to be a good day. He was finally solving huge problems, and Jules had taken Tonya to scout the locations she needed. Everything was great.
Now it wasn’t.
Tonya’s frantic voice on the recording had chilled his blood.
“She passed out and the doctors are doing tests right now. They’re not sure what it is. We’re at the San Domingo Hospital near the Gothic Quarter. Hurry!”
He’d texted Tonya back, but she didn’t answer.
Confused and heartsick, Xavier had jumped in his limo and sped back to the heart of the Catalan province, all the while hoping that his beloved w
as safe. They had to have found out what was wrong with her. It was an excruciating two-hour race back through the mountains from the remote factory to Barcelona, to the hospital that held the woman he loved.
As he rushed down the hall, he was greeted by the sight of his brother, Javi. The man was standing by the nurses’ station with a cell phone to his ear. That wasn’t an unusual image. After all, his brother was an even bigger workaholic than Xavier was. It calmed him somehow, this familiar part of his life. If Javier was calm, then it had to mean Jules was okay, that she’d be fine.
“Hermano,” he said, sweeping his brother into a frantic hug. “Where is she? Is she okay? What’s going on?”
Javier pulled away and patted his shoulders. “You need to calm down. Everything is going to be okay. But you should probably sit down.”
“I don’t understand.”
“She has a gall bladder issue. She’ll need to go home to the States to have some minor surgery. She’ll only be gone a few weeks.”
“But she could have it here, right now.”
“She said she didn’t want to do this without her family, and that she needed some time to recover where her mom could watch her,” Javi continued.
Xavier started to pace. “That doesn’t make any sense. I’d fly her mother and father and anyone else she wanted here in a private jet today. She can have the surgery just as well in Barcelona.”
“Her mother had a connection at Hopkins, and to be frank, this surgery can have some indelicate side effects.” Javier said, his brow furrowed. “I think she didn’t want to be that sick in front of you.”
“I could weather anything with her. If she was a little sick or had bedhead or whatever, I’d understand.”
“You have only been dating for over three months,” Javi pointed out. “You barely know her, realistically speaking. The best thing you can do is accept that there are things she wants, and she’ll call you when she needs to.”
“I do know her. I’ve slept beside her every night for months,” he replied, put off by Javier’s coldness at a time like this.
“You thought that about Tina too. I’m only saying that if she needs boundaries now when she’s ill, then respect that. Send her an e-mail in a week or two when she’s recovered and on her way back.”
“That’s not me, and you know that,” he said. “Can I talk to the doctor?”
“About a patient, probably, but I told you all there is to know. Trust me, you just need to let her and her family handle it at the best hospital on the planet, and then she’ll be back here. Until then, the company will give you more than enough to do,” his brother finished, putting a hand on his back and steering Xavier toward the elevator. “Trust me.”
***
She had another call from Xavier. He’d called her several times a day and e-mailed her more than that. Sandra had screened all of it, too scared to look at everything laid out before her. She knew that Javi must have told Xavier everything, at least his version, and she didn’t know how to hear that same hatred in Xav’s voice that she’d heard from his brother.
Yes, there were reasons for what had happened to her, for what it looked like she’d done. The facts lined up badly, even though everything in Javier’s assumptions was false. The last thing she wanted was to open her over-packed voice mails to tirades from the man she loved about how she’d hurt him.
Or worse.
About how he never wanted to see her again.
The self-imposed exile back home in the spare room of Tonya’s apartment had to be better. At least that’s what she’d told herself over the last two weeks. Besides, her mind had enough to keep her focused on other problems. Six babies. She’d gone to her first OB/GYN appointment yesterday, and now had more supplements and rules to follow than she ever could have imagined. Soon enough, she’d have to head from DC to her mom and dad’s home near Baltimore. They had to know everything that was happening, that she was expecting oh so many children.
Surprise, Mom and Dad, you’re going to be grandparents six times over.
Sandra had no idea how to tell them that, but she was supposed to be going over for dinner with them next weekend. That would be a complete shock for them. Beyond a complete shock. It would probably cause her dad with his weak heart to keel right over.
“What a mess I’ve made.”
Tonya entered the room and set a tray full of oranges, chicken noodle soup and biscuits on the bedside table. “You didn’t make a mess. The only thing you did wrong was come home. I still say who cares what Javier said. He’s not Xav, and he barely likes anyone.”
“But I should have told him about our night in Atlantis from the first day. It does look suspicious, and Javier has already had a chance to talk his ear off and turn him against me.” Tears sprang from her eyes, and she stroked her fingers over her belly. Six little lives were in there that she and Xavier had created together. “I just can’t stand to hear him say he hates me.”
“I understand that, but if you don’t tell him about his kids, he’ll be mad at you.”
“I can’t deal with this. I can’t deal with anything right now. Tonya, he was the one. I loved him so much. Hell, who am I kidding? I still love him. He’s all I can think about.” Sandra sniffled. “Well, I also think about the babies all the time too, but that counts as being about Xav.”
Tonya sat on the bed next to her and stroked Sandra’s hair back from her face. “I can help explain it. He’d understand. You’re so miserable.”
“I’m also sick. The hormones are hitting hard. I’m tired all the time, and I do want to eat, but it’s so hard to keep anything down.” She set her head on her friend’s shoulder. “I’m a complete mess.”
“True, but see this time if you can at least keep some chicken broth down. I have some errands to do, but we’ll talk later. I don’t think you want to turn your back on Xavier like this.” Her friend stood and then patted her shoulder. “Hang in there, hon. You take it little by little and just get the nourishment for the babies. I’ll help you with everything else.”
“Like my own personal nurse?”
“I like to think of it as more like a little fairy godmother.”
Sandra laughed as her friend disappeared out the door. Her eyes grew heavy and she closed them, cuddling against the mattress for a nap. Rubbing her stomach, she added, “Well, gang, I guess it’s just us for a while.”
She dozed for a long time. It was the only time she wasn’t nauseated and when her head didn’t spin. When a faint knocking sounded on the door, Sandra put her head up and noticed the sky was pitch black outside. Picking up her phone, she glanced at the time.
Wow, it’s nine p.m. I’ve slept through everything!
The knock sounded again and she hopped up, glad her body wasn’t that changed yet and she still had some strength to her. Walking over to the door, she flung it open and was expecting it to be Tonya with more soup. Her jaw dropped when she found Xavier on the other side. Instinct took over and she threw her arms over his shoulders, relishing the cinnamon scent that tickled her nose, made her happy.
Made her feel like she was back at home.
How long has it been since I started thinking of Barcelona as home?
She looked up at her lover. No, not just that. He was the father of her children, damn it.
Concern colored his bright green eyes and his face was unshaven, a day’s worth of stubble covering his face. There were dark circles under his eyes, and he was swaying a bit on his feet. Reaching up, she planted the back of her hand against his forehead.
“You look terrible. Are you sick?”
“Only for you,” he said, shutting the door behind him and then leading her to her bed. “Tonya called me over Skype. I was expecting it to be you.”
“She has my password,” Sandra said sheepishly.
“Sandra, I was so worried.”
“I know and…” She blinked back at him. “You said my name.”
“Tonya explained everything. I had no ide
a that you were here because Javier was mean to you. I know you needed space for the gall bladder surgery, but I was so confused when you didn’t answer my calls.”
She stilled. How could he not know? Oh Javi has been busy, hasn’t he?
“I…you know that I’m the same woman from Atlantis?”
“Tonya filled me in on that part. She said that it was her idea to move to maid work, and she badgered you for months to join her. She said you never would have if she hadn’t picked at you.” Xavier raked a hand through his thick, dark hair. “She admitted that the biggest perk for you in moving to our company was that you wouldn’t be hit on nonstop by bar patrons.”
“Well, usually guys who hit on me are obnoxious,” she said, winding her red hair around her finger. “I wasn’t on duty that day. I was so sad. My boyfriend had dumped me. I was a mess, but I don’t regret what happened. I just had no way to explain it. Then there was Lisette throwing glasses at my face, and I figured you hooked up with girls all the time. That I wasn’t special.”
He caressed her cheek with his hand, and she leaned into the gesture, into the sensation of warm, callused hands against her face. “I looked for you. I tried to find you on Facebook and phone books and everywhere. I couldn’t. I promise you, Sandra. I never forgot about you. Maybe that’s why I always felt that connection.”
“Yeah, and I know Javier must have told you it was all some scam, that I’d tracked you down to seduce you, but I swear it was never like that!” she insisted, her voice breaking in its sadness.
He kissed her, his tongue promising her a world of pleasures all over again. Heat flared in her belly, and Sandra realized truly how much she’d missed him, ached for him, over these long weeks.
Xavier pulled back but held her hand as he spoke. “I wasn’t upfront with you either. I wanted to be left alone. When I went out to clubs, I would give my mother’s maiden name. I think we both played a part in all the mixed signals.”
“Why did you lie?” she asked. “We all know why I did.”
“Because I had an ex who almost ruined my life.”
“Tina.”