Page 73 of Filthy Business

“Sir, if you could just—”

“I cannot sit. We need your best delivery team. She is crowning. Possibly. I don’t know. But she said something about pressure and then growled at me.”

I leaned against the wall, half amused, half contracting.

“She’s not crowning,” I called.“I still have my pants on.”

Magnus spun.“That means nothing in your world.”

“Sir,” the younger nurse said gently,“please bring her over here so we can assess her.”

“She can’t walk, she’s in labour! I carried her across a beach once—I’ll do it again!”

“Magnus, if you pick me up, I swear to God I’ll go back to the car and give birth in the footwell.”

That slowed him down.

He looked back at the nurse.“Do you have a wheelchair with… shock absorption?”

“Just sit her down, sir.”

He turned, eyeing the bench like it might bite me.

“Iris, breathe deeply. Let’s visualise something. A calm lake. A gentle breeze. Your cervix opening like—”

“Do not say‘lotus flower.’”

He paled.“I was going to say‘garage door.’”

I snorted mid-contraction. The nurse came at me with a clipboard. Daddy took it like it was a bomb.

“My birthing plan is in my bag,” I said sweetly.

“Name?” the nurse asked.

“Magnus Trentham,” he said.“Age: ageless. Occupation: full-time father in training. Emergency contact: Warren, my lawyer.”

“Your wife’s name, sir?”

“Oh. Right. She’s Iris Dalton-Trentham. She’s having my child and I am being incredibly brave about it.”

The nurse gave him a smile that said we’ve got a whole wing for men like you.

???

I could laugh about it now, but at the time, Daddy completely lost the plot. At one point, he swore—loudly, and in front of two midwives—that he was only having anal sex from now on. Then he launched into a full-blown rant about the underrated joys of ass sex.“No babies, less mess, tighter squeeze, everyone wins!” he shouted while white-knuckling the bed rail like he was in labour.

I’d never seen him so panicked. So completely, comically unhinged. The man who negotiated multimillion-pound mergers with a straight face was now arguing with a nurse over the existence of mucus plugs.

It wasn’t until he held our son for the first time—silent, awestruck, trembling—that he finally looked at me and said the words he’d been choking on the whole time.

“I thought I was going to lose you.”

And just like that, all the madness made sense.

I couldn’t help it. He was so serious, pacing the corner of the hospital room like he was preparing to give birth himself.

“You know,” I murmured, shifting carefully with the baby nestled against my chest,“you caused more drama than I did.”