Page 71 of Marrying My Ex's Boss

“There’s nothing not to like; it’s gorgeous. I’ve just never heard of a birthing palace before. This is just for me, or do you plan on letting other people use it?”

“Nope, this is all yours. All of our children will be born here.”

“You owe me three more pregnancies.”

“What? You said four kids. Can’t you add?”

“That’s not the deal. You had three pregnancies with him; you will have four with me. I don’t care how many kids you have at a time.”

I opened my mouth, but he beat me to it. “And before you give me any bullshit about your body, your choice. It’s my body, and I decided.”

‘Bitch, hurry up and push this batch out; you should give him ten more just for saying that shit. Oh, that was hot. I got the vapors.’

* * *

‘Push bitch.’

“Justice, I’m trying.”

“Justice, leave your sister alone; she’s got enough on her plate as it is.”

Oh shit, I said that out loud. Mom, who was on the other side of me holding my hand, stopped what she was doing to stare at him.

“You, you know about Justice?”

“Of course.” She got this look on her face that made me forget the pain for a second. “Mom, after everything Marcus has done for me, for us, this is what makes you happy?”

“Well, yeah, anyone who accepts Justice is gold in my book. She used to make me set a place for Justice at the table when she was about four or five, so Justice has been part of the family for a while.” She explained to Marcus, but I think she was trying to distract him because his jaw was so tense it looked like it would break.

I’ve been at it for five hours already because this time, I wanted to do it the natural way. And since the doctor wasn’t pushing for a C-section, I didn’t foresee any issues.

“I thought that thing you gave her was supposed to help ease the pain. Why is she still hurting so much?”

‘That’s right, Daddy, slap that bitch 'cause Dag dammit this ain’t it. What you need to do is take that soothing incense shit outta that censer and fill it with weed so I can get a contact high in this bitch. What the fuck?’

“What about if I get in the bed behind her? She likes it when I do that. Would that help?”

“If you’d like, it might help to calm her down, but you’ll get very dirty.”

“Does that even matter?”

He kicked off his shoes and climbed into bed, sitting behind me and massaging my tummy the way I liked, and just in time, too, because a sudden pain racked my body and almost bent me in half.

‘Uh-uh, which level of hell is this? Cut this bitch open and get these fucking crotch goblins the fuck outta here. This ain’t it. Looky here, I didn’t sign up for this shit. Somebody call the police, this is attempted murder.’

I was laughing so hard at Justice’s little meltdown that I pushed my first son out into the world. I felt Marcus tense up at the baby’s first cry before his body relaxed completely. “You wanna go see?” I gritted out the words because the next one was pushing against every organ in my body.

“No, not until you’re done.” He kissed my ear and smoothed the sweat-drenched hair back off my face. I never heard of anyone doing this, but I think they should. It was so comforting being held in his arms like this, with the strength of his chest behind me and the feel of his hands gently caressing as I pushed.

There was some kind of relaxing instrumental music piping through the walls, and the incense, which wasn’t too strong, seemed to have a calming effect as well, so I was in a strange place of pain, relaxation, and excitement. I guess the epi was doing its job after all.

Marcus never stopped whispering in my ear the whole time. No matter what else was going on in the room, his whole focus was on me. He soon got me to concentrate on his voice alone and began to paint a picture with words.

He talked about our girls, that’s what he calls my daughters, ours. I never knew how much that meant to me until he said it time and again and showed it as well with his actions over these last few months.

Right now, they’re out in the Cleopatra room with Monique, Carl, their aunts, uncles, and great-grandparents, along with my dad, waiting for the birth of their siblings. He’d taken time in the last few weeks to spend with each of them separately because he read somewhere that older siblings sometimes hold some form of jealousy when a new child is born into the family, and he was afraid of them feeling slighted in the least.

Now, he was painting a picture of all the fun times we were going to have together as a family. All the places he wanted to share with us, his favorite places from his travels. When our last son came out kicking and screaming, my big, strong husband went limp.

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