The Billionaire's Big Beautiful Pregnancy: BWWM Romance (Big And Beautiful Book 2)

by J A Fielding

  “Actually, you are still going to be working. You said it yourself. What I mean is, take some actual time off and just relax.”

  “Victoria, I literally came back from a week-long vacation just the other day,” Trina pointed out.

  “And that would have made a lot of sense if you were me. But you are a person carrying two other humans inside you,” Victoria said matter of factly. “You should most definitely just take it a little easy and,” she quickly put a finger up when Trina’s lips parted obviously to object. “I know what you have been doing at home. Rosa told me.”

  Trina frowned.

  “What?” she asked. “What did she say?”

  “That you have been vacuuming and rearranging the furniture all by yourself,” Victoria said. “You really shouldn’t be doing that.”

  “I can’t believe she told on me,” Trina said in a soft voice.

  “Well, she did not really tell me. She just said that she was concerned that someone has been doing her chores for her and since I cannot picture Axel doing something like rearranging furniture, it only made sense to suspect you. And that look in your eyes has just confirmed that.”

  “Bollocks!” Trina said under her breath before Victoria hugged her again.

  “One clean up your language and two, stop talking like an old English man,” she said as Trina walked into the elevator.

  She was still smiling as she rode down to the basement thinking of what Victoria had just told her. She could not help but feel a conviction in what Victoria had just said. It was true that she was exerting herself a little more than she was supposed to but that was how she had always been. She did not know how to simply sit back and let someone else do everything for her. That was not who she was.

  “Maybe I should probably be cleaning less,” she thought as the elevator doors open. “That way Rosa wouldn’t notice…hopefully she has not said anything to Axel…”

  She walked out and began looking inside her bag. She could not get her keys and for a minute there, she could not help but wonder if she had left the keys upstairs.

  She was still trying to get her keys when she thought she heard footsteps in the parking lot which was weird because she had not seen anyone down there. She looked around and felt a chill run down her spine.

  “Why do I feel like someone is watching me?” she wondered as she looked around. “Stop it, you are being ridiculous!”

  She was still looking for her keys as she slowly made her way towards her car when she suddenly felt someone pushing her from behind making her trip on the heel of her shoe causing her to fall. And even though she knew that she was going to fall stomach first, nothing she did was slowing her down…

  Chapter 9

  Trina’s heart was racing but somehow everything seemed to be moving in slow motion. The descent, the whole damn fall, and her landing right on her tummy. She could feel some kind of ringing in her ears as she tried pulling herself up, but the best she could do was crawl up to where her car was and try to sit up…and even that was a struggle.

  She could feel jets of pain shooting in her lower abdomen and she just knew that something was not right. She was trying as hard as she could to pull herself up but the pain was just too much.

  “This is not how I go down,” she thought as she struggled to pull herself closer to where she had dropped her purse. “My babies depend on me. I have to live.”

  She finally got to where she had dropped her purse and reached into it. She pulled out her stun gun and her phone. She was looking around as she dialed the office. Her heart beat just a little faster when she heard footsteps approaching fast. She knew that the same person who had pushed her was probably the same one walking towards her.

  “Hello?” she heard someone on the other end of the line.

  “Hello, this is Trina Crews-Anderson and someone just attacked me in the parking lot…I think they are still here…” She did not have time to hear what the person on the other end was saying. She heard the elevator open and the footsteps scurried away.

  “Hey!” She heard a man’s voice as the footsteps disappeared into the distance.

  “Help me!” she cried out and the man ran up to where she was just as the elevator doors opened again.

  “Trina!”

  She could have recognized Victoria’s voice anywhere.

  “Hello?” This was the same male voice she’d heard out there.

  “I’m here…I’m here…” Trina could feel her head getting lighter and she dropped the phone. There was a warmth…or even heat in between her legs and that coupled with the pain was definitely a red flag.

  “Oh, my God…over here…”

  By that time, she was just hearing a series of voices and everything seemed to be getting dark around her. And even though she was doing her best to hold on to everything, she could not keep awake and the scenes and sounds around her were just getting dull. And then completely dark.

  *****

  Axel walked into his board room and looked at the property developers. He knew two of them because he had worked with them in Europe and on the floating resort in Suriname but the third one was not familiar at all.

  “Good afternoon, gentlemen,” he said, smiling. “I hope I did not keep you too long.”

  “Not at all,” one of the men, Logan started. “This is Jean-Luc Phillipe. He does handcrafted art.”

  Axel sat down.

  “Is he the one who did the…place?” he asked and Logan nodded.

  “You said you wanted to meet the man behind the art and we got him.”

  “It is a real pleasure to meet you, sir. The work you do is sheer perfection,” Axel said, smiling.

  “Thank you.” Jean-Luc was smiling.

  “I was made to understand that you make these beautiful structures on site?” Axel asked and Jean-Luc nodded.

  “That’s right.”

  “Have you ever worked on a Surinamese sculpture? You know, something that reflects the local culture?”

  He shook his head.

  “I have worked on a number of ethnic artefacts from the South American region but never anything from Suriname…” Jean-Luc’s voice trailed off when Axel’s assistant knocked on the door and poked her head in.

  “A minute please…I’m sorry,” Axel said as he got up. He walked up to the door and looked at his assistant. “What’s up?”

  “Victoria just called, there’s been an accident at Trina’s office.”

  He shook his head.

  “What kind of accident? Why didn’t she call me?”

  “They tried your cell and she said it keeps on ringing…”

  Axel felt his pockets and sighed loudly.

  “I left it on my jacket which is in my office.” He shook his head. “What kind of accident?” he asked again.

  She shook her head.

  “She didn’t say. She just asked to meet you at the hospital.”

  He shook his head and tried taking long, deep breaths but nothing was happening. If anything, the long deep breaths he was taking only seemed to make him a little more out of breath.

  “I have to go,” he said, practically running out of the office. He did not even care that he had left halfway through a meeting. All he cared about at that moment was getting to hospital. But he had just stepped into the elevator when he ran back to the office and grabbed his phone and keys.

  “Please be okay,” he thought as he walked back to the elevator. “Please God. Just do this for me.”

  *****

  By the time Axel got to the emergency room, he could barely hear anything. It was like he was in a room and his heart was the only thing playing on an amplified sound system.

  “My wife is here…she is pregnant…she had some kind of accident…”

  “Sir. I am going to need a name,” the woman at the nurse’s station said. But before he could say anything she recognized him. “You came in a few weeks ago. You’re expecting twins.”

  Axel nodded.

  “Yeah
, that’s us. Her name is Trina.”

  The woman nodded and began typing.

  “Yes, she is…it says here that she is in an OR already with Dr. Hahn.”

  “OR?” He shook his head, confused. “Why does she need surgery? What happened?” he asked just as Victoria walked past the desk.

  “Axel?”

  He turned around and looked at her.

  “Vickie, thank God. What’s going on?” he asked.

  Victoria took a long deep breath.

  “There was an incident at the office building,” she said.

  “What kind of incident? What could be so bad that she needed surgery?”

  “She was attacked in the office building parking lot,” she said.

  “What?”

  “There was a lot of bleeding…she went right to the OR when she got here,” Victoria went on.

  “The babies,” he said in a soft voice and Victoria shook her head.

  “We don’t know anything yet. We are just waiting.”

  Axel did not really hear anything else. All he knew was that one minute he was listening to Victoria and the next, he was following her to the waiting area. When he sat down, everything that could go wrong was running through his head. There was fear, worry and all manner of paranoia going on.

  “What if I lose her? What if I lose the kids?” he wondered. “Fuck. What if I lose them all?”

  “You said she was attacked,” he said in a soft voice and Victoria looked at him.

  “What?”

  “Trina. You told me someone attacked her.”

  Victoria nodded.

  “Yeah, but by the time we got there, we didn’t see anyone. She was just on the ground and…” Her voice trailed off and she shook her head. “Security is all over the case checking out the footage.”

  “Do you think it probably has something to do with the case you are working on?” he asked and Victoria shook her head.

  “I don’t know, Axel. I mean, it is a simple lover’s quarrel.”

  “Fuck, fuck, fuck!” Axel said punching the seat next to him causing everyone else around to look at them.

  “Axel, I need you to keep your cool. For Trina and the babies at least,” she said and he buried his face in his hands.

  The next few minutes seemed like a lifetime as they sat there in silence waiting for any news on Trina. But all along, the homicide in him was coming up. He could not help himself but he kept on picturing Trina’s attacker at the end of a shooting range and him standing at the other end emptying magazine after magazine. At some point, he even began shaking. He just couldn’t understand how things had changed so much in just a couple of minutes. After all, he had literally been texting with her just minutes before his assistant got him from the board room. He could not understand what could have happened in the five to eight minutes he spent replying an email and making small talk in the board room.

  It was almost four hours later when Dr. Hahn walked up to them. He got up and looked at him and the look on his face said it all. There was something wrong.

  “Is Trina…” he started before his voice trailed off. He just couldn’t bring himself to say the words mostly because he did not know how to do it. Even the thought alone was killing him.

  Dr. Hahn shook his head.

  “Trina’s fine.”

  “The babies?” he asked and the doctor took a long deep breath. “Dr. Hahn…just tell me. Whatever it is, just tell me.”

  “Trina fell on her stomach and one of the babies…we tried. But we could not do much. There was too much damage. So, we saved one baby and Trina.”

  Axel exhaled loudly and closed his eyes. He felt a tear roll down his cheek.

  “Which twin?” he asked. “Which one did we lose?”

  “The boy,” Dr. Hahn said and Axel felt like a brick had been dropped on his chest.

  “Ethan,” he said in a whisper. “We were going to call him Ethan.”

  “I’m sorry,” Dr. Hahn. “But the good news is that the girl is fine and healthy. And so strong despite everything.”

  “Is she awake?” Victoria asked snapping Axel back to reality.

  “She is in recovery, but she is going to be a little groggy. You can’t have a reasonable conversation with her, but it would be nice for you to just be with her,” Dr. Hahn said and Axel nodded as he stood up.

  “I have to go,” he said as he looked at Victoria. “I want to know who did this to her. Whoever it is, they are not getting away with this.”

  He walked away before giving Victoria a chance to say anything. As he walked down the hall towards Trina’s room, he was trying to figure out what the right words would be but the more he thought about it, the more his mind felt blank. There was no good way of telling someone that they had lost a child they never even got to meet in the first place. It was hard on him and he was not even the one who had gone through the physical trauma and he knew it was going to be a million times worse on Trina.

  When he finally got to her room, he stood out of the door and looked in for a long minute. She looked so peaceful lying there. It was like she was just sleeping there and peacefully too. He pushed the door open and slowly walked in still trying to think of the right words but as he stood in her room, at that very moment, he realized that the biggest burden that came with being a parent was the whole idea of worrying all the time. The constant state of worry he was soon going to be in was not as highly glorified as people made it out to be. The room was so quiet except for the machines in the room. The monitor that showed him Trina’s heart rhythm and the baby’s own little rapid one. The monitor that should have been showing two rhythms rather than just the one.

  “How am I going to tell her?” he wondered. “How am I going to handle this?”

  He slowly walked up to the bed and looked at her for a long minute before he sat down. He felt another tear rolling down his cheek as he reached for her hand and kissed her knuckles softly.

  “God, please help me through this. I don’t know how I will be able to handle it on my own.”

  *****

  Trina’s head felt heavy. Heavier than it had felt in a very long time. Matter of fact, she had not had that feeling since the final year of law school when she drank everything the bar had to offer all in a span of four hours. What she woke up with the following morning was one of the worst hangovers in her life and as she lay there, that was exactly how she felt. Like she had been run over by several trucks.

  As she struggled to open her eyes, she became increasingly aware of the beeping noises in the room. And of the hand that was holding hers.

  “Hey,” she heard a familiar voice. She turned her face and saw Axel smiling down at her.

  “Hey there, stranger.”

  “You okay?” he asked and she took a long deep breath.

  “Where the hell am I?” she asked, looking around.

  “Hospital.”

  It was not until that very moment that every single thing that had happened all came flooding back. The shove. The footsteps that had been in the parking lot and the fall. She gasped.

  “Oh, my God. The fall…”

  She suddenly got aware of the pain in her lower abdomen. Her heart was racing as she looked at Axel.

  “I fell,” she started and he nodded.

  “I know, but you’re okay now.”

  “But the babies? How are they?” she asked and the look in his eyes spoke volumes. He did not even have to say anymore. “No…I lost them. I lost our babies.”

  “No…when you fell, one of the babies…the trauma was too much. But Dr. Hahn and his team were able to get a handle on the situation and we still have Ellie.”

  Trina bit her lip and felt her eyes well up before the warmth of a tear rolling down her cheek made her close her eyes. She put her hand on her tummy and ran her finger tips on the pads that connected her to the fetal monitor.

  “We lost Ethan,” she said in a whisper. “We lost our son.”

  Axel sat on the edge of the bed an
d held her close.

  “I’m sorry,” she said in a whisper. “I’m so sorry.”

  “It’s not your fault. We are going to find whoever did this to you.”

  Trina wiped off her tears and held a fistful of his shirt as she sobbed into his shoulder. She knew from how quiet he was that he was just as speechless as she felt at that moment. He was running his hand up and down her arm.

  “Baby, whatever you need, I am here for you, okay?” he said before he kissed her forehead softly. “Just tell me what to do. And I will do it.”

  She shook her head.

  “I don’t know. I have never really lost a kid before. I don’t know how to feel…I don’t know how to act…” She pulled away. “Is that even a thing? I mean, I never even saw him? I have no idea if he would have had eyes like yours or mine…or if he would have been more into arts or sports…” She shook her head. “I don’t know…” Her voice trailed off and he gently held the side of her face. He wiped off her tears with his thumb and kissed his forehead again.

  His lips parted as he tried putting his thoughts into words but somehow, he just could not bring himself to really say anything. She knew that he felt the same as she did if not worse.

  “It’s going to be all right,” he said when he finally found his words. “It is all going to be fine. Maybe this just wasn’t our time. But on the bright side, we still have our little girl and Dr. Hahn said that she is healthy and strong and every ounce perfect.”

  “But we already bought a twin stroller and matching onesies.”

  He nodded.

  “I know. And we will handle all that when time comes. Right now, I just want to take care of my girls.”

  He put one hand on her tummy and gently rocked her.

  “That’s all I want to do right now,” he said in a soft voice.

  *****

  Over the next few days, Axel was not so sure what he was supposed to do but one thing was for sure: everything that did not have to do with Trina was going to have to take a back seat. He did not care that he had left a meeting halfway through. And he did not care that he needed to have someone running his company. Matter of fact, the only thought that kept on ringing in his head was that if things could not run smoothly in the office in his absence, then he had done a pretty bad job in leadership. He had stayed in hospital with Trina as she recovered over the next six days and when Dr. Hann finally discharged her, he never thought his hardest job was getting her to actually leave the hospital.