Underneath It All (31 page)

“He’s worth all the pain,” Rogue muttered, hand on her stomach.

“Come with me, Mr. Gates,” the doctor beckoned him to follow her.

“I’m scared, Agata,” Rogue whispered. “Please be with me during the operation.”

“I will.” I leaned into her.

Reeve returned followed by Dr. Rose with a sheet of paper that turned out to be a waiver for his consent.

“Just stay here; I’ll go with her,” I told Reeve. “Your temper will do no good in this situation.”

“Look who’s talking,” he chided.

“I need to go in there with her too,” Mik declared.

Rogue was assisted by another nurse in changing into a patients’ gown and onto a gurney before being wheeled into another room not quite far from the one she had been in.

The anesthesiologist administered regional anesthesia, then looped oxygen prongs under her nose and slipped a covering over her hair. Clear drapes were in place for her view of the birth during Caesarean delivery. The operating room staff inserted a catheter into her bladder and placed sterile drapes over her tummy.

We were outfitted in sterile garb and allowed to stand near her head and hold her hand.

“We’re ready to start. Okay, the fetus is in a good position, so we are going to do a lateral incision,” Dr. Rose informed her team. “You’re going to feel some pulling, but let me know if you feel anything else. Okay?”

“I’m afraid.”

“You’re going to be fine,” Mik kissed her forehead.

Fear, dread, terror, horror. All are such powerful words, yet none of them even comes close to describing what I was feeling as I listened to the doctor giving orders to her team.

Dr. Rose made a small incision in Rogue’s lower abdomen. The amniotic fluid was suctioned out. The surgical team worked quickly, cutting into Rogue as fast as possible to extract the baby, and within minutes, he was pulled out.

“Okay, Rogue, Mikael. Here he comes.”

It was quiet. “Come on, sweetheart,” one of the nurses said to him. “We just need you to cry. Cry for us.”

The baby then let out a throaty shriek followed by a wailing cry that filled the room.

“He’s so cute, Rogue.” I smiled through tears.

After the cord was cut, he was cleaned and whisked away to the NICU.

The surgeon removed her placenta and quickly did a routine check of her reproductive organs.

“Rogue!” Mik called out as the monitor began to beep loudly. “Rogue!” He called out again.

“Her blood pressure’s dropping, doctor,” said one of the nurses.

“Rogue, stay with us! Hang in there, please,” I anxiously called out to her. “Rogue, you hear me?”

“Could someone please get the family out of here?” the doctor ordered.

“No, I’m staying,” Mik insisted.

“Mikael, please we need you out of here now. I’ll fill you in as soon as possible,” Dr. Rose tried to persuade him.

“Let’s go, Mik, let them do their job.”

We stepped out of the operating room and I made my way back to the waiting area while Mik stood outside, pacing frantically.

I saw Reeve in the waiting room, staring blankly at the ground. His eyes were red-rimmed and puffy. His family surrounded him—his parents, his siblings Red and Ramona, his aunt Rita—although their presence seemed to do little to comfort him.

I was met with Reeve’s worried face and unshed tears.

“How are they? What’s going on? Is Rogue okay?” Reeve fired his questions in rapid succession as he rushed over to me.

I took a deep breath, attempting to maintain my composure. “Her blood pressure dropped. They are resuscitating her back—”

Almost instantly, the dam inside of him broke, and he slid down the length of the wall, collapsing onto the floor and burying his face in his hands. The sobs coming from him were those of a man who fears he is about to lose the only thing he had ever held dear.

I knelt down to comfort him. Red helped me tug him up to sit on the bench and I sat beside him, soothing his back.

After a few minutes his sobbing subsided.

“You okay?” I inquired.

“How’s the baby?”

“They took him to NICU. He’s so tiny yet so strong just like his mom.”

“How about our baby?” he suddenly asked.

“Reeve…”

At that point, I was the one who broke down into sobs.

Chapter XXXIV

Never Let Go

I couldn’t believe what I heard out of Reeve’s mouth. I gasped out an involuntary sob. I was sitting on the bench beside him, not moving because I didn’t really know what the proper reaction was. I wanted to discuss the matter with him right then and there, but I knew the timing was off.

I’d tossed aside a brilliant career, my hard earned start-over in life, to come and get him back. Just like that, my dream career as a photographer was gone, but my only thought had been about making sure he was still mine.

I had to believe it wasn’t over for us because without him, without his presence in my life in any way, shape or form, it would never be the same again.

At my dazed, sickened expression, I wondered when he found out about my pregnancy. Reeve knew and he had the nerve to announce on national television that he’s marrying that bitch? That thought of it made me feel like I was about to throw up.

I remained silent. We all remained silent.

Two hours. Two hours of painful waiting. It was almost unbearable.

Reeve would sit down and stand up again just like what all of them were doing. His aunt Rita kept on pacing, sitting down, standing up, pacing again, sat down and stood up. Ramona kept asking if Rogue was all right and I would smile weakly at her, caress her cheek, and nod.

When Reeve sat down and remained seated for a couple of minutes I finally asked, “You knew?”

He didn’t answer right away. He simply stared back before pursing his lips and speaking.

“Yeah…I found—”

The doctor cut him off. “Mr. Gates, follow me please.”

He quickly stood from the bench and followed the doctor.

An exhausted Reeve came back into waiting room after a few minutes. He just stared at us and I was unable to speak or breathe or think.

“Is she okay?” My voice trembled slightly. “You’re okay.” It wasn’t a question, but it demanded confirmation.

“She…she’s fine,” he breathed. “Rogue survived the delivery. She’s alive,” he choked out and nearly collapsed. I was across the room faster than my feet had ever carried me. I held Reeve in my arms; I caressed his hair as he cried on my shoulder, huge sobs of relief.

A small sob escaped from Amanda as she let out a sigh of relief. Rufus tightened his grip on her hand.

“C-can we see her?” Reeve’s father asked the question on everyone’s mind.

“The doctor said she’s still out,” replied Reeve, sniffing. “She’s now in the recovery room with Mikael. After an hour she will be taken to a regular room. It’s better if we take turns, maybe go in pairs, rather than crowd her.”

“Understood,” he nodded. For the moment at least, his family was whole again.

His parents, siblings and his aunt Rita went in to see Rogue first. Not wanting the room to remain silent for too long, I quickly reached a decision about what to say.

“Do you want to go see the baby?” I asked him while waiting for our turn.

He turned to look at me and our eyes locked. I could see he was surprised, but thankful for me being there. He nodded. He took my hand and both of us made our way to the neonatal intensive care unit.

Gladly, the visitation policy in the NICU was family-centered and welcomed parents and relatives as partners with a limit of two at a time.

A nurse on duty pointed him out through the window. Rogue’s baby was right up front where we could see him. The sickest babies were the ones at the front of the room so they could always be watched. He lay with his arms and legs stretched out to his sides.

The nurse allowed us to enter the unit after we went through an automated hand-washing procedure that ensured our hands and forearms were cleaned for a prescribed amount of time. Reeve and I put on sterile gowns, looking at our nephew in an incubator.

Inside the NICU played a soundtrack of low muffled hums of baby cries and whimpers amid beeping monitors. There were no windows, and the lights were normally set low; it was impossible to have any sense of what time of day it is.

We stood beside his incubator. There, he slept in a transparent Isolette, adjacent to the machines that monitored his respiratory rate, his heartbeat, and the saturation of oxygen in his blood. He looked so delicate that I was afraid to even touch him. He was so small, lying there with translucent skin.

He was breathing from a ventilator that temporarily took over the job his underdeveloped lungs weren’t completely capable of doing on their own. His eyes were still shut and he wasn’t moving as he slept.

“Hang in there, baby Miguel. Mama will be here soon,” I murmured as I leaned closer to him.

“He’s so tiny and fragile,” Reeve whispered.

“He is handsome just like his father,” I muttered.

“You mean like his uncle,” he sneered.

“Fine,” I smiled a little.

Baby Miguel stirred suddenly and let a teeny tiny cry. Reeve leaned forward and stuck his hand into the closed incubator. “Hey, little guy, be strong; a real man knows crying is okay, but doesn’t over do it.”

“Reeve,” I softly scoffed at him.

The warm touch of his loving hand and the sound of his voice soothed and calmed baby Miguel.

“He’s doing very well,” the nurse said. “He is one of the strongest preemies we have in here.”

“That’s because he is a Gates,” Reeve said, without taking his eyes off his newborn nephew once.

When visiting hours were up, we reluctantly left the NICU.

“You should go get some sleep,” Reeve told me.

“I’m not gonna get some sleep until we talk,” I managed to voice. “So I was thinking, how did you know I’m pregnant?”

Reeve sat on one of the chairs in the hallway outside the NICU. He slumped down exhausted from the hours of waiting while the doctors worked to save his sister’s and nephew’s lives.

“Come,” he beckoned and gestured for me to sit down beside him.

So I did. “Well?” I was impatiently waiting for him to start.

“When Eve announced her pregnancy, I was really shocked,” Reeve began. “For the love of God, I know I didn’t touch her. Honestly, what I felt was mixed emotions. Disappointed that you dumped me, mad, sad, and surprised and…and…happy that finally this child is for real.”

“You’ve always wanted a baby,” I uttered.

“But not from her.”

“By the time she announced she was two weeks pregnant, I immediately had an inkling you cheated on me when Dr. Cromwell refuted my pregnancy. You ignored me. You disappeared on me,” I spat.

“I know,” he said softly. “I am so, so, so sorry, Agata. I’ve been so stupid. I shouldn’t have drowned myself in alcohol. She found me in a bar and I let her drag me to her apartment. She made me believe something happened between us and she used it against me.” He rubbed his hand over his face and shook his head as if he was disappointed in himself.

“When I didn’t hear from you after a week I decided to come to your house to apologize and fix things between the two of us the night before I flew to L.A. But I caught you with her; she was between your legs, giving you a…blow job,” I couldn’t even finish the sentence without tears threatening to spill.

“I’d been drinking an awful lot since we fought. I was probably shit-faced drunk, Agata, but no matter how drunk I am I know who I’m fucking,” Reeve sputtered and let out a deep sigh.

“So she’s sucking your dick, and you’re not cheating on me?” I snarled, sounding quite sarcastic.

“Eve drugged me; Via confirmed it.”

“Dr. Cromwell?”

He nodded.

That fuckin’ witch.
I cursed in silence.

“A week ago, Eve’s apartment was robbed. She insisted on moving into my house, using the baby as leverage, so I allowed her in. The officers investigating the robbery got a copy of the CCTV footage. The requested copy happened to contain footage back a month ago. There, I saw what happened when Eve took me to her apartment.”

I was holding my breath, bracing myself for what he would say next.

“Nothing happened, Agata,” he blurted. “I saw how much she wanted to do it with me. She sucked me, rode on me, but no, I couldn’t even get an erection. It was limp.”

“So you’ve got whiskey dick?” I couldn’t help but chuckle.

Reeve’s cheeks were red with embarrassment. “I was thankful I got whiskey dick when she took advantage of me, though.” He chuckled too and smiled at me, shaking his head. “Agata, you’re the only one who could make it hard as rock no matter how drunk I am.”

It was my turn to blush.

“So, when I learned about the footage I confronted Via,” he continued. “Eve couldn’t be pregnant.”

“How did you make her confess?”

“Just like what you did to Eve, I strangled her. My fingers flexed against her throat, coaxing the last breaths out of her.”

My eyes went wide.

Reeve laughed at my reaction. “No, I was just kidding.” His laughter whisked me off across the universe as if nothing had happened.

“Reeve!” I cut my eyes on him and lightly punched his arm.

“Okay, seriously, I threatened her with minimal slight force, pretended I knew it off hand and that I would sue her. Her license would be revoked, the organization would kick her out, and she’d be miserable for the rest of her life,” Reeve said squinting his eyes as if trying to remember how he squeezed the truth out of her.

“Now she’s gone. I went to her office but she wasn’t there and she took the only piece of evidence that will prove to you this baby is yours.”

My voice dropped and my eyes averted to the floor. “Reeve, Eve’s pregnancy was a fraud. She’s an opportunist, a skunk, a cow, a bitch—” He cut off my rambling by kissing me.

“You don’t have to prove anything.” He cupped my face and looked me in the eyes. He used his thumbs to wipe away my tears.

“You believe me?” My voice sounded small.

“Of course,” he said, leaning back against the bench.

“Via begged me not to sue her after she confessed everything. I agreed, providing that she left the country and not come anywhere near us again. I also told her not to tell Eve that I already knew everything. I wanted her to pay for what she did.”

Knowing all of this, it made me realize how much I loved this man. I looked up at him and gazed at those blue eyes.

“Then why did you announce on national TV that you’re marrying Eve?”

“Because I wanted you to come back and fight for me.”

I was rendered speechless.

“If I hadn’t fainted when I heard the news, and I hadn’t overheard Caleb’s conversation with Eve over the phone, it would have been too late.”

Reeve’s jaw tightened. “That scumbag. I flew to L.A. and went to your office the moment I found out you left. Your Dad spilled it only when I went on my knees and begged him to tell me where you are.”

“You what?”

“Don’t make me repeat it,” he warned, clearly abashed. “So yeah, your photographer boy toy—”

“He is not my boy toy!”

“Can you let me finish?”

“Whatever,” I rolled my eyes at him. “Go ahead.”

“He denied you were working there with him, so I punched him and left a bruise on his jaw.”

“So you’re the one who was making a scene that time.”

“I wasn’t making a scene.” Reeve frowned. “I was just desperate,” he muttered softly.

My heart broke and at the same time swelled when I heard how desperate he was trying to find me.

“Fortunately Caleb confessed the connivance, or else you’d be married to Eve, my baby would grow up without a father and I’d live my whole li—”

He kissed me to stop from babbling.

“You’re going to make babies and watch them grow and you’re going to die an old lady, warm in your bed.”

I jerked my head up as a creased formed in my forehead. “Jack Dawson?”

Again, he chuckled and it was like music in my ear. A playful look flashed in his face.

He held both of my hands with his and said, “Promise you’ll never let me go again. Promise me now, and never let go of that promise.”

I tagged along with him. “I promise,” I answered.

“Never let go.”

“I promise. I will never let go, Reeve. I’ll never let go.”

Reeve smiled, dispelling any doubt that I loved the man in front of me. He pulled me in against his chest. He kissed my head and hugged me when he whispered in my ear, “I love you.”