Page 57 of Modern Romance July 2025 #4-8

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

T HEO SAT WITH his father’s words. His father’s apology . He could not fight it off. And worse, the thing that had once haunted his father, as his death flashed before his eyes.

If he died, would anyone care?

Rebecca would.

Or would the month away have cured her of her love for him? Had he ruined it? Had he used his father’s own methods and stopped the potential for hurt and ruined everything ?

No. No, he did not give up. He did not. He would not. If he had ruined things, he would fix them. He always fixed them. Right steps, and she…

God, Rebecca was right. Everything about her. Everything she said. She was the rightest thing he’d ever known, and to keep his distance from that wasn’t just wrong… It had been cowardly.

He would not be a coward for his son. For Rebecca. And maybe even…for himself. The boy who had learned to be careful in the shadow of his father’s carelessness.

Theo lifted his phone from his desk, but before he could dial the number to order his plane to be readied, the phone trilled, actually startling him.

But not as much as the caller. It was Rebecca’s name. He answered, words tumbling about in his head, so many things to tell her, but he could only manage her name.

“Theo, this is Sharon.”

Sharon. Calling from Rebecca’s phone. His heart sank like a heavy stone. “What’s happened?”

There was a pause. “Rebecca has gone into early labor. We are at the hospital now. Your son is in the NICU, but he is doing well.”

Your son. NICU. He’d read about the NICU. Something about premature babies and… “He’s…here. Now?”

“Yes. If you come to the hospital, you may see him.”

“What about Rebecca?”

“What about her?”

“What caused this? Is she all right? I want to see her. Never mind. I will see her.” He tossed the phone aside, half out of his mind with terror. He yelled for his assistant. When she asked what hospital, he realized he hadn’t asked for details.

But his assistant must have recognized his panic, because she took care of everything. Got him into a car with a driver who seemed to know where he was going. He was dropped off in front of a hospital and heard nothing, saw nothing, thought of nothing, except finding her.

He went to the first desk he saw. “You will tell me where Rebecca Murphy is.”

The nurse raised an eyebrow at him. “I beg your pardon.”

“Rebecca Murphy. Where is she? What room? Do not make me tear this hospital apart of find her.”

The nurse sighed, almost bored. She moved to a computer, typed a few things. Then shook her head. “We don’t have a Rebecca Murphy. Are you certain—”

Even though he wasn’t certain at all, he needed her to be here. Needed it. “Yes, you do. Do not lie to me. I—”

“Theo.”

He whirled toward the Irish accent, half believing it would be Rebecca. But it was Sharon who stood there. He crossed to her in two long strides.

“Where is she?” he demanded.

Mrs. Murphy lifted her chin, so much like her daughter his knees almost gave out.

“She will see you, but you must be calm or I will not take you to her.”

“I am calm.”

“Son, you aren’t even breathing.”

It was the son . The accent. Rebecca so near and so far from him. His son. His son . Everything crashing together at once. How did he hold it all?

“Inhale,” Sharon said gently, placing her hand on his shoulder. “Then exhale.”

He followed instructions because he didn’t know what else to do. Everything whirled inside him. He was going to lose it all. Everything. Because who was he to have it all?

“Both are well,” Sharon said in her calm way. She began to lead him down a hall. “The babe will have to stay in the hospital for a bit, but the prognosis is good.”

Prognosis. A prognosis meant there was a problem to be solved.

Sharon stopped at a door. “She has been through a lot today. You will be calm, or I will drag you out myself.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he rasped, feeling like a child again. She opened the door and Theo stepped in.

Rebecca sat in the hospital bed. She looked pale. Her eyes red-rimmed as though she’d been crying. Exhausted, clearly. But she sat there and met his gaze, chin raised.

“The baby is in the NICU,” she said, reciting facts. “You will have to have a chat with the nurse before you can see him.”

Him. Baby. Son. Her. Her. Her.

“Rebecca.” He crossed to her bed. He had no words. He had nothing. She had done this without him.

And he’d deserved that.

“Rebecca,” he said again. “I… You should have called.”

“No, Theo. You should have been there.”

Yes. He should have been. He never should have left her. But how could he face it? All this love? All this need? Everything she brought out in him was something he had learned not to trust.

Except he trusted her. “Rebecca, please…”

She shook her head, cutting him off, which was good since he didn’t know what he’d been about to say.

“I don’t need your change of heart. You don’t love me, Theo. You’re just scared of losing me and the perfect image of family you think will protect you from hurt. It won’t.”

It mirrored, in many ways, what his father had said. Would he be receptive if his father hadn’t been in his office this morning?

Or should he take this as a sign? A sign that it was time to do some of the healing and growth his father was trying to find?

Because, of course, he loved her. It terrified him how much. How easy it was to lose. How fickle everyone was. How love had upended his life more than it had ever stabilized it.

Except when it came to her. She had swept into his life and upended it, but that had made it better . He was miserable without her. He wanted her.

He loved her, and she didn’t think he did or could. So he would have to find words. Somehow. He let panic and fear and the last month of misery drive him.

“I love the way you look in the morning, before you open your eyes. I love the way you take my hand, place it against your stomach and watch me. Your love of horses, and the courage it took to build a new life for yourself after your dreams were unfairly taken away from you, simply from an accident.”

She had stilled, her eyes going wide. But he couldn’t stop the torrent of words.

“The courage it took to go to that stupid wedding when you felt your heart was broken. Your pride. But it isn’t like mine. It doesn’t…isolate you. It gets you through the hard things.”

“No, Theo, love has gotten me through the hard things. All pride did was…” She shook her head. Her face was clouded with pain, and it was lowering to realize there was nothing he could do to fix that. “I guess it kept me putting one foot in front of the other sometimes.”

“I love that about you, too. I have been miserable. Loving you and not wanting to.”

Her face hardened.

“I need you, Rebecca. Not for a perfect life, a stable, right life for our child, but for me. I have taught myself not to need. It feels terrible to need. But I love you. I need you. Please, Rebecca. Don’t walk away from me.

I do not know how to love. I do not know how to be anything other than what is right , which seems less than you and our son deserve. ”

“It is, Theo.” She touched him, finally. Just her fingertips to his cheek. But it was enough. “So why not try to be what we deserve?”

The NICU was a startling reminder in just how lucky she was. They were. Theo James needed very little intervention. A little machine to make it easier to breathe, and a tube for vitamins and food until he gained a few more pounds.

There were many little bundles here connected to machines, tinier than even TJ, as they walked toward his corner of the NICU. They came to a stop on either side of his little crib. Inside, their tiny baby slept.

“He is too small,” Theo said roughly.

“He will grow.” Rebecca said it as much for herself as for him.

Then she watched as his gaze snagged on the nameplate above the baby’s head on the outside of the crib. He frowned. “Rebecca.”

It read Theodorou James Nikolaou .

She shrugged. “It is what is right. You can’t get mad at me deciding when it is right.”

For a few silent moments, he just stared at her. So many emotions warring there in his gaze. “How do you know it is right?”

Her mouth curved ever so slightly. “Look at him, Theo. His little patch of dark hair. Even though his eyes are kind of blue like all babies are when they’re born, they’re a very deep blue. I think it will turn brown. He is yours.”

“He is ours.”

“Yes. Ours. And he shares his name with two very good men. Come. Sit. You can hold him. I’ve had the honors already.”

She got him settled in the chair. Since she was still shaky from labor, and connected to an IV, the nurse came over and lifted TJ out of his bassinette and handed him over to Theo.

TJ was just shy of four pounds, the tiniest bundle she’d ever seen before the NICU, but he looked even tinier lying on Theo’s broad chest.

Theo closed his eyes. The strain of it all sat on his face, but she watched as he just sat there and absorbed the steady rise and fall of their son’s breathing against his own. As his big hands spanned almost the entire baby with a gentleness that spoke of deep, abiding love.

The kind she understood because of TJ. The kind that allowed her to forgive. Because this… This was the future they could have. Parents. Love. Family.

A tear slid down her cheek. She would have this moment forever. This memory. Father and son. These two men she loved so much.

When Theo opened his eyes, they were dark, shiny almost. His voice was rough.

“I do not know how to love, but I do know that is what this is inside of me. This overwhelming loss of control, and the warmth and joy that fills in that empty space. It is terrifying and wonderful, and I love you both. I will always, always love you both.”

She swallowed, more tears following as she crossed to him, bent down to press a kiss to his cheek. “We will all always love each other.”