Page 43 of The Billionaire's Bad News Baby

It was all a bit of a blur, if he was honest, like he was standing outside of himself, running only on instinct and adrenaline. The rest of the world didn’t exist; it was only Kayla. Her hand in his, his eyes on her face, the sound of her labored breathing in his ear. There was no space for anything else. Gianna fluttered around, urging Kayla to push, while Isabella appeared with towels and blankets and water.

Elio knew his place and it was to be a rock, immovable and steady for Kayla to cling to. When her eyes met his, terrified and in pain, it broke his heart. More accurately, it felt frozen over. His own heartbeat didn’t matter right now. It didn’t matter if he took a breath or not. What mattered was making sure that Kayla knew he was there, that he wasn’t moving, not ever, and that he would never let her go. He mumbled words to that effect, his lips close to her ear as she leaned on his chest for support. He didn’t know if they made sense or not, if she understood his jumbled mix of English and Italian, but he kept talking, telling her that it was okay, that she would be just fine and that he was never ever going to let her come to any harm. As the words slipped out, he knew that he meant every single one of them. His comforting ramblings were as sacred as any vow.

With a final scream and one last push, Kayla fell back in his arms and Gianna raised up a tiny baby, gooey and shining, her little body shuddering as she took her first breaths. Kayla cried as she laid eyes on her, her hand never once leaving Elio’s. When the baby started crying, it was like an electric jolt had been sent down Elio’s spine. His heart jump-started and his lungs went back into action, and as a whole, he didn’t think he’d ever felt so alive. He felt his own tears dripping off his chin, smattering onto his wrist as Gianna, having wrapped the baby in a towel, settled her into Kayla’s arms. With hands shaking, Kayla stroked the baby’s face with her fingertips, so gently that the touch was barely there.

Time had frozen for a moment in that vineyard, and Elio was certain he’d never forget even a fraction of it; Kayla squeezing his hand until his fingers went numb, the feeling of dirt and stone under his knees, the exact shade of pink that the baby, his baby, was now that there was oxygen pumping into her tiny lungs, her little fists pressed to her scrunched up face.

As if to make up for it, time went into overdrive after that. While Gianna made sure that the baby was carried safely to the guest suite, which Isabella was busy getting ready, Elio picked Kayla up with as much care as physically possible and carried her out of the vineyard and into the villa. His stream-of-consciousness reassurances started up again, whispering into the curls above her ear, Kayla’s breathing slowing down to a more peaceful rhythm as he laid her in the bed, the baby back in her arms.

Dr. Albero, upon his arrival, had proudly informed Elio that he had broken several maritime safety laws on his trip to the island, speed walking into the guest suite with his trailer in tow to look after Kayla and the baby. Elio didn’t stay out of the room this time, politely pacing the halls and waiting for news. There was no way he was ever letting Kayla out of his sight again. And besides, his job wasn’t done. Kayla clung to his hand like it was a lifeline. Even as Dr. Albero pronounced her just fine but with a prescription for continued bed rest, she kept hold of his hand, drifting off into a well-deserved sleep.

* * *

Elio had no earthly clue how many hours he spent just staring at the baby.

He couldn’t take his eyes off of her. He’d seen babies before as colleagues over the years had started families, and he’d even met Marc’s kids several times. But Elio was quite certain he’d never seen anything quite so small. Gianna and Isabella had been running around the mainland all afternoon on a mission for supplies now that the baby was here, the deliveries Elio had ordered of no use when they were still in transit. So the baby, his baby, this tiny little thing was wrapped up in a fresh pink blanket as soft as rabbit fur, a knitted hat on her head, sleeping in the bassinet that the cook and housekeeper had managed to find.

Elio could probably sit here forever if he was honest with himself. The way that he had fallen into meditating by watching the horizon over the ocean, that was how he felt now, just watching the baby’s minuscule breaths flare her nostrils in and out, the blanket rising and falling in a steady rhythm. Except this was so much better. So much more perfect.

“She’s not going to vanish.”

Elio looked around and found Kayla watching him from the bed, finally awake after her body had simply run out of fumes from the delivery. She looked tired, and frankly, Elio wasn’t even sure how she was awake right now. But she also looked happy. She looked relieved.

Elio wanted to ask if she was sure that she wouldn’t just vanish, either of them, because suddenly the thought of being without them… His throat closed up at the thought of it, so he pushed that away and asked an entirely different question instead.

“Do you know what you’re going to name her?” he asked, sitting on the edge of the bed, still facing the bassinet.

“I hadn’t really thought about it.”

“Do you ever plan anything in advance?” he asked with an exasperated sigh because of course Kayla hadn’t even thought about what she was going to name her own child. She raised her eyebrow at him, which, right now, seemed like a herculean effort.

“Well, I hadn’t met her yet,” she said dryly. “Seemed rude to assign someone a name when you hadn’t even met them. Besides, don’t you want a say?”

“A say?”

“A say in naming her. She’s yours too.”

Elio felt his eyes grow hot and prickly at that. She was his too. Like always, words seemed to fail him as he looked at the tiny little thing wrapped up in her blankets, sleeping peacefully without a care in the world.

“Elio?”

Kayla was watching him, an unsure expression on her face. He didn’t know what to say, but he was so sick of not knowing what to say, so he decided to just open his mouth and figure it out in real time.

“Stay,” he said, his voice thick and quiet.

Kayla’s expression shifted to a mix of confused and concerned.

“Stay?” she asked, a hand reaching out to his elbow as if she was seeing if he was all right. How ridiculous, even after all of this, that she was still caring about other people first.

“Stay here,” he said, putting his hand over the top of hers simply because he couldn’t bear it if she pulled away. “You and the baby, please stay here with me.”

“Well, I’m not really up to going anywhere right now, Elio. I’ll take care of myself, I promise?—”

“No, I mean stay with me for good. Please. Or I’ll come to America with you, or wherever else you want to go. Just let me stay with both of you.”

Kayla looked at him in blank surprise for a moment, her exhausted brain taking a little extra time to process what he was saying. Elio was scared, downright terrified, that she would say no. That she would go back to living on her own, being the wildly independent free spirit he had started to fall in love with.

But then Kayla’s face crumpled and she tucked her chin to her chest as tears started falling. The only thing that lessened the terror of losing her was the fact that she started nodding her head.

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