Total pages in book: 101
Estimated words: 94436 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 472(@200wpm)___ 378(@250wpm)___ 315(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 94436 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 472(@200wpm)___ 378(@250wpm)___ 315(@300wpm)
I did not get out of what happened unscathed.
I woke in a cold sweat often, and tonight was no different. Jay was always there.
“A nightmare,” Jay told me, his hands holding my wrists above my head. I must’ve been fighting him in my sleep. It was something I did now.
“You’re safe,” he murmured into my neck, transferring his grip of my wrists to one hand, the other cradling the swell of my stomach. Which he was doing more often now. Cradling my growing stomach. Laying his lips gently against it. Murmuring things to our baby when he thought I was sleeping.
“You are both safe,” he promised.
Then his hand moved lower. Low enough that I gasped.
“You are mine,” he moved his finger inside of me. “Till death.”
Then he removed his finger and fucked me until I passed out. I had no more nightmares that night.
Eventually, I had none at all.
Five Months Later
Ruby Grace Helmick came into the world with purpose. The first person she saw, with her wide blue gaze, was her father, since he was the one who delivered her.
We didn’t have time to get to the hospital, the best one in the city. The one that Jay had made sure always had a birthing suite available one week on either side of my due date. Our doctor had assured us that first children always come late. Our doctor had not taken in to account that Ruby took after her father and was not going to let anyone tell her what to do.
At three in the morning, two weeks before my due date, I woke up to contractions. I’d felt off the entire day before that, so I’d dismissed them as Braxton Hicks. Jay, who was hyperaware of my every movement these days, woke immediately. I’d told him all I needed was a cup of tea and maybe some pork rinds—I was a fucking fiend for them—but then my water broke.
Jay, for his part, did not panic. Not even the slightest. Not even when it became very apparent that we would not make it to the hospital to deliver our daughter. Jay, of course, acted like he delivered babies every day, not commanding the criminal underworld. He played Debussy. He coached me through the contractions, let me scream and try to break his fingers in my grip, let me curse him to high hell. He did that all with an aura of control, one that made me feel safe, comfortable, protected. When I wasn’t telling him what a fucking asshole he was for not knowing how to administer an epidural, that was.
And then Ruby came.
Jay cradled her in his arms, cutting the cord and cleaning her with the upmost care and tenderness. “A girl,” he rasped, tearing his eyes from her to me. Tears ran down his cheeks. “We have a daughter.”
“Ruby,” I whispered weakly as he placed her on my chest. The whole world on my chest.
“Ruby,” he agreed, holding us both close.
Ruby had a lot of people ready to welcome her into the world on her birthday. My father, who I’d called at four in the morning, exhausted in my bed, holding our baby girl—once my doctor had made a house call, checking the both of us over thoroughly. We were both fine. Well, I was not fine. I had given birth in my bathroom, with my husband seeing the entire process without drugs. I was in a lot of fucking pain, though it didn’t much matter with my daughter in my husband’s arms, sleeping soundly against his bare chest, looking like she didn’t have a care in the world.
Jay was gazing down at her like he had all the cares in the world. All the love, devotion and worship in the world. It seemed he had a new church. And I was totally fucking okay with that. Because he was back. Entirely. The moment our daughter fell into his arms—even in my pain drenched haze—I saw him, the last piece of him, come back to me.
Once my father had heard about it all, he decided to get in his car, at four in the morning, and drive all the way to L.A. No way was he waiting for a flight to meet his granddaughter. He hadn’t needed to since Jay had already sent the jet for him. It said something that my father didn’t even argue or grumble over it. He just got on. He wanted to see his grandchild.
Everyone wanted to see our Ruby.
Wren, Zoe and Yasmin were permanent fixtures, of course, showering their niece with gifts, making it so she was barely in her crib, always in someone’s arms. Though they were mostly Jay’s. He was loath to let his daughter go and scowled at anyone who had her in their arms a moment too long. Except me, of course.