“You’re always trying to push me away and you seem to want me to end up in the arms of another woman Natasha. What the hell for? Why the fuck can’t you accept that maybe I’ve changed? I don’t want another woman, I only want you.” He felt pain lance through his body again when he realised he had to face the real possibility that she didn’t want him but was too nice to come out and say that to his face. “Is that what you want is it? Do you want me out of your life?” He asked, almost dreading her answer.
She sighed. “No Eric, I don’t, I’m just trying to make it perfectly clear that you can leave anytime you want. I’m not going to use our baby to hold you against your will. I want you to be a part of your child’s life, but I need you to understand that I’m not trying to hold you a prisoner in this relationship or whatever you want to call it.”
His frustration grew. She just wasn’t getting it. He was tired of trying to make her understand. “Fuck it Natasha, I don’t want to go through this shit all the time. I don’t want anyone else, I don’t want to go anywhere, I’m not going to get bored and disappear. I just wish you could believe that. I’m still terrified about becoming a Father, you know why I feel like that but it doesn’t change anything.” He cradled her face between his hands as he leaned in close to her saying softly. “I’m… not… going… anywhere.”
They stared into each other’s eyes for a moment and he tried to show his feelings through his so she would understand but she suddenly ripped free of his grip and bolted off into the ladies room. Fuck this, she had to go home. He wasn’t going to take no for an answer. He propped himself up against the wall, hands in the pockets of his charcoal grey suit and waited for her to come back out. This morning sickness wasn’t fucking morning sickness. It seemed more like all day sickness to him and he tried not to let it affect him that she often got ill when she was around him. “You are such a pussy Rothman.” He whispered. Of course he knew it wasn’t him making her sick. She was sick so often now that it just seemed to work out that she was sick around him a lot but they worked together so they were around one another a lot.
When she finally staggered out of the ladies room he walked over to her. “Come on baby, I’m taking you home.”
“It’s ok Eric, you have work to do and if I go with you then I don’t have my car. I don’t want to leave it here.”
“I’ll drive your car baby and get the limo to follow so I can get back to the office. I’m driving you so don’t argue.” He took her arm and led her to the elevators and once they were down in the office building’s car park, he guided her to where her car was parked.
* * *
A few days later Eric was called away on business and had to fly out to the UK. He wasn’t thrilled about leaving Natasha when she’d been so ill with the morning sickness which was more like any time of the day sickness. She assured him she was ok and that her Mother was keeping an eye on her but he still hated to leave her.
His days in England were filled with conferences, travelling around the three companies he was there to negotiate to buy and taking the time to meet the staff from the companies. He never just went in blind. He didn’t like to buy up companies without seeing how many employees there were, what the outcome could be for them if a company that was going broke was suddenly bought, broken down and sold off. Sometimes he didn’t break them down, sometimes he got experts in to put their heads together and work out what was needed to possibly save the company. He spoke to people, he spoke to employees because one thing he’d learned over the years was the employees were for the most part keen to keep their jobs and were often very good at coming up with ideas or in some cases possible solutions to save the company. In cases like that Eric’s money could finance the changes needed to bring the company back from bankruptcy and that way employees didn’t lose their jobs. Since he hadn’t been born into money, he had a much greater appreciation for the people who worked in the companies and he understood their dedication and desire to help do whatever was necessary to save a company from going under. He knew what drove the employees, he understood that urgency to keep their jobs when everything could crumble for them if they didn’t.
By the fourth day Eric just wanted to get on a plane and head home. He rang Natasha every evening, her time, but she sounded so tired, her voice flat and he was worried about her but he couldn’t get out of the negotiations and meetings that kept him tied up each day.
When he’d finally make it back to his hotel in the evenings, he’d collapse into bed exhausted, his dreams filled with Natasha and end up waking up hard and aching for her. It was becoming a morning ritual to stand in the shower under the warm spray and jerk off with images of her running through his mind until his release would hit and he’d come hard against the tiles of the shower. It gave him some relief but it didn’t leave him feeling satisfied. He just wanted to go home and be with her, hold her and kiss her.
Finally by the sixth day in the UK Eric was done with his business there and it was a relief to be on the company jet and heading home. He couldn’t wait to go and see Natasha, make sure she was ok, just hold her. He had missed her so much and he hoped she’d missed him.
He took advantage of the bedroom in the jet and slept when he could since he fully intended to head straight to Natasha’s place once he landed. He’d duck home first to shower and change then drive to her home. He had to see her. It had been the longest six days of his life and he was desperate to hold her in his arms.
Once the jet landed, he climbed into the limo and headed to his harbour side home. He greeted Alice, took his bags upstairs and started throwing off clothes as he made his way into the bathroom. After his shower he dressed in jeans and a t-shirt, pulled on a pair of shoes, grabbed a jacket since it was starting to cool down a bit in the evenings now and ran back downstairs, his mind filled with images of Natasha. She was all he could think about as he called good night to Alice and headed out to his car.
Once he’d left the exit on the freeway near Gosford, he stopped at a petrol station and grabbed some flowers to take with him to Natasha’s and it was a bit after 7pm when he finally pulled up outside her home.
He knocked at her door impatient to see her but when she opened it and he saw her, despite the smile she attempted to give him, she looked terrible.
“Natasha baby.” He groaned, pulling her into his arms and held her tight. She drooped against him and he was shocked when he felt how thin she’d become. She was little more than bones in his arms. What the fuck was wrong with her?
He set her back so he could take a closer look at her and she stood, almost swaying before him, her face so pale her complexion had a greyish hue to it, dark circles under her eyes and her cheek bones were far more prominent. Fuck, she was wasting away. Fear filled him as he stared at her. What the fuck was wrong?
“Bloody hell baby, you’ve lost weight. That can’t be right. What’s wrong with you? Are you still sick?” Dammit hadn’t her Mother noticed how unwell she was looking? Was this all caused from morning sickness because Natasha was looking really alarmingly sick now.
As he stared at her, his heart racing with fear over her appearance, she suddenly doubled over and vomited on his shoes, the acrid smell of it rising immediately and filling his nostrils. Fuck, but it was nothing but stomach acid, she literally had nothing in her stomach to vomit up anymore. She stared up at him, tears filling her eyes and his heart leapt in his chest at the look on her face. Even those gorgeous blue green eyes of hers appeared dull and lifeless, almost sunken into her head now.
She blinked at him a couple of times, a tiny frown marring her face and when she spoke his name, her voice cracked and she croaked at him from lips he could see were dry and splitting.
“Natasha baby, god what’s wrong, you’re as white as a sheet.” His eyes moved over her, fear settling in his stomach almost causing bile to rise to the back of his throat. Fuck but she needed medical help now. As he stared at
her, she blinked a few more times, her expression showing what looked like confusion and almost like in slow motion, her eyes rolled back and she began to sink down towards the floor.
“FUCK! Natasha, baby!” He lunged and caught her before she could hit the floor, swinging her into his arms. Shit she weighed nothing to him. He was almost afraid to hold her too tight in case he broke something.
Gently he lowered her limp body to the lounge, hastily cleaned the vomit off his shoes and the couple of splatters on his jeans and ripped his mobile phone out of his pocket, dialling triple 0 to get an ambulance out for her. He considered driving her but he was terrified something might happen to her, she needed urgent medical treatment and he wouldn’t be able to drive her fast enough, unlike the ambulance which wasn’t governed by road rules.
While he waited for it, he found Natasha’s bag and dug around looking for her mobile, hoping like hell she didn’t have a lock on it. He needed to call her Mother and let her know what had happened. He looked over at Natasha’s limp body where he’d placed her on the lounge. She was so still and pale, she scared the hell out of him. He couldn’t stand it if anything happened to her. She was everything to him.
Fortunately there was no lock on the mobile and he quickly scrolled through her contacts until he found Kathryn’s number and called her to tell her what had happened to her daughter.
“Oh my god!” Kathryn’s voice was filled with shock when he explained the situation to her. “Why didn’t that silly girl tell me she was so sick? I told her I thought she’d lost weight and she only seemed to pick at her food when we were together. I’m leaving now for the hospital.” She said before hanging up.
Eric didn’t even get a chance to tell her what hospital it would be since he didn’t know himself yet but maybe there was only one hospital she could be taken to. He had no idea, he didn’t live on the Central Coast.
It felt like an eternity before he heard the sound of an approaching siren and before the paramedics could even get to the door, he ripped it open and ushered them inside. It was a flurry of activity after that as they took her vitals and decided she was going to need to be admitted to hospital immediately. “She’s very malnourished and dehydrated.” One paramedic told him.
They placed her on a stretcher and wheeled her out to the ambulance. “I’m coming with her.” Eric told them and they shrugged, stepping back to let him climb into the back with Natasha.
They didn’t bother with the sirens on the drive to the hospital so Eric tried to reassure himself that, that was a good sign. If she’d been really bad they’d have had the siren going surely.
When they arrived at Gosford Hospital Natasha was taken straight in to be examined. Despite Eric not being next of kin he refused to leave the room when asked to do so. “You’re not fucking well pushing me out of here. She’s carrying my baby dammit. I’m not going so deal with it.” He snapped, glaring at anyone who looked remotely like they were going to argue the point with him.
He got out of their way though and leaned against the wall to give them room to work on Natasha. She was hooked up to a heart monitor and the steady beep beep of her heart filled the room. He found his eyes fixed on the line as it blipped its way across the screen, willing it to keep going and barely noticed when they quickly got a drip into her vein and started running much needed fluids into her.
Eric was only just holding it together, fear for her health and even fear for the safety of their baby kept him frozen as he watched everyone doing whatever they could for her. It was only when someone came in and pulled down the sheet they’d covered her with, once they’d undressed her and proceeded to rub some kind of clear gel over her lower stomach, that he leaned forward a bit to see what they were doing.
When the rapid beep of the tiny heartbeat inside her filled the room, almost overshadowing her own heartbeat, tears filled Eric’s eyes but when another tiny heartbeat joined in, he had to grab the wall and hold himself upright before he collapsed on the floor. He had to be hearing things surely? Two heartbeats? Maybe he’d confused Natasha’s heartbeat with the baby’s and he listened harder before accepting that yes there were two other heartbeats that could be heard in the room besides Natasha’s.
One of the doctors came over to him smiling. “You’re expecting twins.” She told him. “Congratulations.”
Eric smiled weakly. “Thanks.” He mumbled. “Is she going to be ok? What happened to her?”
“She’s going to be fine. She’s very weak, extremely dehydrated and suffering from malnutrition but you got her here in time. Unfortunately for her, the morning sickness has been extreme and it doesn’t look like she’s been able to keep anything down for quite a while. Babies are like little parasites though and will keep pulling off the mother regardless of her health. Sometimes it’s more common for women carrying twins to experience more severe morning sickness. She’s going to need full time care for a while. Do you to live together?”
“No, we don’t, but that’s going to change as soon as she’s able to leave the hospital.” Eric told her, as his eyes shifted over to Natasha. “Why isn’t she waking up?”
“She’s so rundown and I suspect she’s been too ill to even sleep. She’s going to get better but we’re getting fluids into her as quickly as possible and medication to settle her nausea.” She put a hand on his arm, smiling up at him. “She’s going to be ok.” She told him softly. Obviously the fear he was feeling was showing on his face for the doctor to go to so much effort to reassure him.
“I’d been out of the fucking country for a week. I spoke to her on the phone every damned night. Why the fuck didn’t she tell me she was so sick?” He snapped, not really directing his anger at the doctor, just more frustrated that he hadn’t realised how ill she’d become. He felt like he’d failed her and he felt guilty that she was even in this position to begin with. It was his fault she was pregnant, his fault she was suffering so badly now. It was proof that everything he’d said to her was true. His babies were products of him, his blood and now they had gone about as fucking close as he ever wanted to go to killing her. Tears welled in his eyes. He just wanted her to wake up. He needed to see for himself that she was ok.
The doctor’s hand on his arm again brought his attention back to her and she was looking at him with an expression of concern. “Please, she’s ok. We’re going to move her to a private ward now. You can come with her if you like.”
If he liked? Of course he liked and even if no one else had have liked that idea, fuck them, no one was telling him he couldn’t stay with her.
* * *
Half an hour later Natasha was in a private room, still hooked up to the heart monitor, the sound of it beeping being the only noise in the room. Why didn’t she wake up? He just wanted to see her eyes looking at him. He needed to see for himself that she was ok but she lay there, so still and pale, her body looking fragile and painfully thin.
There was a knock at the door and Kathryn stuck her head inside. “There you are. They wouldn’t let me in the damned room when she was first admitted. Then I couldn’t find the ward. Someone gave me a bum steer I think.” She bustled into the room and rushed straight to Natasha. “Oh baby girl.” She cried. “What have you done to yourself?” She grinned at Eric. “So twins? Nothing wrong with you two when you come together then is there?”
He found himself blushing at her words, something that was foreign to him before his expression hardened and he turned on her. “How come you didn’t see how sick she was getting?” Eric tried to keep the accusing tone from his voice, but he was frustrated that Natasha’s health had gone downhill so rapidly and no one seemed to have noticed.
“Don’t you even think about trying to blame me for this Eric. I’ve seen Natasha a couple of times when you first went off to the UK on business and she seemed ok. She picked at her food, but she was eating, although when I think about it, she was wearing loose fitting clothing
. Maybe she was trying to hide from all of us how bad it was getting. Foolish, foolish girl trying to get through something like that alone. She’s going to have to be monitored carefully when she gets out of here.”
“She’s not going home Kathryn. I’m moving her into my home. I have full time help there. Even while I’m at work Alice will be there to keep an eye on her until I’m home. Alice is great. She’ll make sure Natasha eats properly, whether she likes it or not. I’m sorry if you don’t like that, but I have to do it for my peace of mind. I can’t lose her.” Those last words came out in a whisper as he turned his gaze back on the woman who meant everything to him.
He missed the smile Kathryn gave him before her eyes also looked over at her sleeping daughter. “I think it’s a brilliant idea Eric. You have my full approval. My baby girl can’t be alone. This pregnancy is going to suck the life out of her if she isn’t taken care of.”
Eric turned on her in surprise. “Really? You’re ok with my suggestion?”
“Of course. I can see you care for my daughter more than she realises I’m sure and I also know how stubborn and pig headed she can be. If she’s on her own and gets sick again, she’s not likely to ask for help. Too damned independent that one.” She straightened. “I need a cup of coffee. Do you want something?”
Eric shook his head. “No thanks.” He sat down by Natasha’s bed and took her hand in his. It felt cold to his touch and he cradled it in his, trying to get some of the warmth from his body into hers.
Once Kathryn had left the room he lifted Natasha’s hand to his lips. “Natasha baby. Wake up, please baby.” He begged. His eyes shot to her face when she groaned suddenly. Her eyes were opening slowly blinking against the harsh lighting over her head. He could see the dazed, confused expression on her face as she blinked and peered around the room squinting as if her eyes were hurting her.
Finally they settled on him and he got to see their gorgeous colour as she stared at him questioningly. “Eric?” Her voice sounded raspy and croaky but he was just so glad to see her awake he gave her a huge smile of relief.
Taming Eric Page 38