I SIT BESIDE JULES on the hospital bed as we wait for her doctor to come in and give her the okay to go home. Although her head injury, the worst of the damage done to her body, wasn’t serious, he still wanted to keep her overnight, especially considering she was just in a seven-year coma due to a head injury not too long ago.
I tighten my arm around her waist and thank God she’s okay for what has to be the thousandth time since she woke up yesterday. I told her she scared the shit out of me. That has to be the biggest understatement in the history of understatements. I was out of my fucking mind, going ballistic with worry. And when I was at the nurses’ station demanding an update, even knowing it was too early for one, and heard her screaming my name, my fear went through the roof.
It took every bit of the three security guards to hold me back, but I still struggled. I wanted at Jules. I needed to be with her. Her heartrending cries were pure torture. It was only one of the guards threatening to toss my ass from the hospital that shut down my battle to get to her. When her eyes, so lost and filled with agony, met mine across the distance separating us, I fucking collapsed, my strength totally gone. I was taken to the waiting room, where thankfully I only had to wait an hour before the doctor came and told me she was okay. It was still the longest hour of my life. I left my mom and dad in the waiting room and followed the doctor to Jules. She woke up after another torturous hour. Her frantic need to be as close to me as she could get, apparent in the way she practically clawed her way into my lap and almost ripped out her IV, eased some of my worry.
It’s been twenty hours since she told me her belief that Aria could be ours. When Kale dropped off the sonogram, which he took from the crime scene because he knew I would want it, I didn’t let my mind wander to what it could mean. My sole focus was Jules and how she was doing. But when she told me about Aria, it took every bit of strength left in me, and then some, to rein in the rage running through my veins. Theo fucked us over more than we thought. My mind has been consumed with the possibilities since then. And the unanswered questions. So many fucking unanswered questions.
“What happened to Theo?” Jules’s quiet question pulls me from my thoughts.
I almost snarl my answer, but barely manage to keep my tone just on this side of a growl. “His face is fucked-up. Broken and fractured bones.” I feel not one ounce of remorse. “But the doctors say he’ll be fine. He’s going to jail as soon as they release him.”
“Good. It’s where he deserves to be.”
I don’t agree, but I keep my opinion to myself. Had it been up to me, he would have been carried out of his house in a body bag. That’s where he deserves to be. Harsh way to think of my brother? My brother died when he first hurt Jules and tried to take her away.
The door whooshing open and the doctor calling Jules’s name has us both getting up from the bed.
“How’s your head?” Dr. Leverton asks.
“The drums have stopped. Now it’s just slightly annoying soft beats.”
His smile is easy. “That’s to be expected. Give it another day and the headache should be gone. We’ll send you home with a prescription as well. The good news is you got your memory back.”
It is good she got her memory back. It just really fucking sucks what she had to go through to make it there.
The smile straightens from Dr. Leverton’s face as he pulls a folder from his clipboard. “I’ve got your medical records here.”
Jules and I both stiffen. I look at the thick stack of papers in the cream folder and wonder if what’s in there will change our lives. My mouth drains of liquid and my throat turns to sandpaper. I’m both anxious and scared, and I know Jules feels the same way.
She’s already plastered to my side, but I still bring her closer until she’s forced to turn toward me. By the look on the doctor’s face, something tells me we’re both going to need the added support of the other.
“Would you like to sit down?”
His question is directed at Jules, and it reminds me I need to be the strong one here. She’s just gone through a traumatic experience, and I need to buck the fuck up and stop being a pussy. But fuck me, the thought of being a dad, one to a child I’ve known since she was only days old, scares me shitless. It also makes me incredibly fucking happy.
“No,” Jules answers, her voice cracking. “Please, just tell us.”
He nods in understanding, opens the folder, and looks down. “When you were admitted into Silver United Memorial in May of 2010, you were four weeks pregnant. On February 1, 2011 at thirty-eight weeks, you delivered, by C-section, a healthy little girl. She weighed six pounds, seven ounces, and was eighteen and a half inches long.”
“Oh, God,” Jules whispers, her legs giving out. I catch her before she hits the floor, but my legs are too weak to hold us up. I manage to ease us both down with her ass in my lap. She’s sobbing, clinging to my shoulders, her head buried in my neck.
I told myself I would be strong no matter what, but that’s out the fucking window with the doctor’s words. I’m a fucking dad. The date the doc just gave us is Aria’s birthday.
Fuck me.
I’m a dad. My niece is actually my baby.
Tears pool in my eyes and trickle down my cheeks, landing in Jules’s hair. So many emotions run through me, one after the other, but there’re two that stand out the most; pure and unadulterated hatred for my brother and absolute love for… my daughter. I’ve always felt a strong bond with Aria, always held an unsurmountable amount of love for her, but that love has multiplied a thousand times over. It’s infinite, has no beginning or no end, and is without reservation.
“It has to be her,” Jules cries in my shoulder. She lifts her head and gazes at me with red eyes. “It has to be her, right?”
My heart squeezes in my chest, because she’s right, I have no doubt in my mind, Aria is the missing baby we created together.
“I’ve placed a copy of the birth certificate in the folder I put together for you,” the doctor speaks quietly. “Both yours and Theodore Hendrix name is on the certificate. Your records do show you were sexually assaulted when you were admitted. Why the police were never notified, I do not know. However, if what you told me is true and Mr. Hendrix was the one to assault you, there’s no way he could be the father, as you were already pregnant.”
She hiccoughs on a sob. “How could he do that to us?” she cries.
“I don’t know, baby.” I kiss her forehead and push her face back into my neck.
I plan to pay Theo a little visit in jail to get some answers. I just hope there will be glass between us, because if he’s made accessible to me, there’s nothing that will hold me back from exacting retribution.
“Is it possible to perform a DNA test to know for sure if Luca is Aria’s father?” Jules asks the doctor.
“Unfortunately, since they’re twins their DNA would match, so the test would be inconclusive.”
Jules nods and burrows deeper against me.
“I’m leaving her records on the bed. A nurse will be in in a few minutes with her release papers. I know this must be hard on you both, so take as much time as you need.”
With a look of sympathy toward Jules’s bent head, he leaves us alone. I don’t know how long we stay on the floor, but it’s a while before I get us both to our feet. I cradle her against me and sit on the bed. I have no idea what to do except sit there and hold her, my own mind racing with thoughts.
“I want her to be ours so much,” Jules says, then lifts her head to peek up at me. “I know it’s going to hurt her, but God, Luca, I want her to belong to us.”
“So do I.”
“You do?” she asks, a look of surprise on her face.
“Yes. I’ve always loved Aria like she was my daughter anyway, so if she is, it’ll make me very fucking happy.”
For the first time today, Jules smiles. It’s a smile I’ll hold as one of my favorites for the rest of my life.