Page 85 of Filthy Rich Daddies

My heart nearly stops at the sight of it.

“Hey,” she murmurs, voice still a little rough.

I move to her bedside. The chair is too far, so I stand beside the bed and take her hand, bringing it to my lips.

“You scared me,” I say.

“I scared myself.”

“You’re not allowed to say that until I stop seeing that image—of you going white in the face, of your knees giving out.”

“I’m fine,” she says again. “Big twins, big uterus, small girl. That’s what the doctor said.”

I sit, finally. Just watch her for a second.

“Guess we have to stay on top of our hydration,” Colin teases. But it’s only half a joke. He was petrified too.

“I’ll set timers on both your phones to keep you regulated,” Dean offers.

There are lines on her forehead that weren’t there yesterday. I hate that I couldn’t take the pain from her, the risk. That I still can’t. My voice is quiet. “I thought I lost you.”

Her eyes go soft. “You didn’t.”

“No,” I say, “but I could have.”

There’s so much I want to tell her, but I don’t know how. I’ve carried silence for so long it’s become muscle memory. But now, looking at her—pale and alive, I realize I don’t want to carry it anymore. I open my mouth.

And she beats me to it. “I love you.”

I stare at her and laugh.

She looks surprised at herself. Like the words leapt out before she could catch them. Her eyes widen slightly. “Wait, I didn’t mean to say that. I mean—I did. I do. But also I think I’m a little high on fluids and adrenaline and that weird Jello they brought me?—”

“I love you too,” I say. “I was just about to say it, but then you said it first.”

She stops talking. Her lips part, but nothing comes out. “Atticus.”

“I haven’t said that to anyone since Serena,” I admit. “I didn’t think I’d ever say it again.”

“Serena?” she asks.

Hell. I never told her. Neither did my brothers. “My wife. She died due to complications from childbirth. Bled out.”

“Oh,” the word comes out like a breath she’d been holding. “You must have thought… Oh, Tic, I’m so sorry. This must have scared the hell out of you.”

I kiss her forehead. “Yes. But I’m better now that you’re better.”

“How long ago?”

Grief blurs time. But not enough not to feel it. “Just over ten years ago.”

She searches my face, her expression unreadable at first. Then something eases in her. “You haven’t said ‘I love you’ in ten years? You’ve been alone that long?”

“There’ve been others I dated. It was never serious. So, no. Not until now.”

She smiles. “So you’re saying…I’m worth breaking your emotional constipation?”

I laugh. Loudly. The kind that feels like it lifts something from my chest.