Page 25 of Accidental Doctor Daddy

The hallway shrank, my pulse roaring in my ears.

Ella.

The fragile woman on that gurney wasn’t the one who’d teased me over cocktails and kissed me like she’d owned every inch of me. The Ella I remembered had been all heat and hunger, taking everything I gave her—and demanding more.

This Ella was pale. Wrung out. A fighter hanging by a thread.

Andpregnant.

With twins.

She lay on the stretcher, pale and soaked in sweat, her brown hair a tangled mess against the pillow. Her breathing was labored, her hands gripping the blanket as she fought through another contraction.

Vulnerable.

In pain.

Alone?

My voice shook as I asked, “Anyone with the patient?”

“She came from work.”

I blinked, trying to clear her face from the patient’s. But it was still her. There was no mistaking her for someone else. This was Ella, and she’d been at work when preterm hit her, which meant she had been on her feet in a restaurant kitchen until now.

Fuck. No wonder she was in preterm labor.

My mind struggled to catch up with my body. It felt like I was watching a movie where the next scene didn’t make sense.

Ella, here. Pregnant. With twins.

She was supposed to be a memory. Awhat if.A woman I’d let slip away because I’d believed that if it mattered, life would bring her back to me.

And now she was here. Not on a beach. Not sipping a Halekulani and laughing at my jokes. But on a goddamn gurney, in my ED, fighting to live and to bring two lives into the world.

“Dr. Mortoli?” One of the nurses shot me a questioning look. I realized I had frozen—just for a second, but long enough that someone noticed. Not good.

I cleared my throat, forcing the roaring confusion inside me to settle. “She’s in active labor,” I said, my voice steady. “We need to get her to Delivery now.”

Ella’s hazel green eyes fluttered open just for a moment. She gasped, “Dom?”

I gritted my teeth against the ache in my chest. She recognized me. Even through the haze of pain, she knew me. “I’m here,” I told her, gripping the railing of the stretcher. “I’ve got you, Ella. I’m going to take care of everything.”

Her eyes closed again as her blood pressure dropped.

We moved fast. If anyone else had been on the floor to help her, I would have pulled myself from the case. I was too close to the patient. Not close. Not exactly. But I was too confused by the patient. Unfortunately, the only other person who could have taken point was Bowan, and I wasn’t about to let him touch her.

He was a good doctor. I was better. She needed that.

I focused on the medicine, on the job, because that was what I was supposed to do. It was the only thing that could save her. There was a part of me—something deeper, more instinctive—that rebelled against every rule I had sworn to follow.

This was my case, and no matter what else was true, I wasn’t letting anyone else run it.

The twins came fast, tiny but vibrantly alive, their cries thin and determined.

Two girls.

When they screamed in unison, I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding. I wasn’t the only one.

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