Page 44 of Accidental Doctor Daddy

It wasn’t an option. I would have to hire someone. A professional. The thought made my stomach churn.

How did people do this? How did single mothers—how didanymothers—go back to work and leave their babies withstrangers? How did you trust anyone enough to hand over the most fragile, most precious thing you had ever known?

“I should let you rest.”

Hearing her kind voice brought me back to the moment. I’d mentally wandered off at some point, and it took her voice to shake me out of it. “Sorry—I think I missed something.”

“Don’t you worry about that.” Mrs. Waverly smiled, giving my arm another soft squeeze. “If you need anything, Ella, you know where I am. I’m always home, and I’m happy to help.”

If I thought I could leave my girls with her and her age wouldn’t have been a factor, I might have taken her up on the offer, just so I could shower or have a nap. But the reality was, I wouldn’t enjoy any of it. I’d be ready and waiting to jump in the second I heard Marissa’s melodic wail or Summer’s rapid-fire cough she did when she really wanted attention.

No rest for the wicked.

I nodded, swallowing around the lump in my throat. “Thank you. Really.”

After she left, I set the biscuits down on the counter, pressing my hands flat against the cool surface. The biscuits smelled like heaven, but I felt like hell. I was in over my head. I hadthoughtI was prepared. I had thought I was tough enough,strongenough, to do this alone.

I slid down onto the kitchen floor, knees pulled to my chest, and let myself fall apart. There on the floor, I wondered if I’d ever stop crying. But a crackle from the baby monitor made me jump to my feet. It always crackled right before the girls?—

Yep. There’s the crying.

I ran into the nursery and found the pair crying in unison.Guess they know how overwhelmed I am, too. Solidarity is a bitch.

Chapter 16

Dom

Ihad always been good at math. Med school required it—dosages, statistics, biostats, even the dreaded calculus. I aced them all.

So, I knew how to calculate a due date, and after working out the math on Ella’s, I couldn’t think of anything else.

For days, I had done nothing but run the numbers in my head, over and over, as if the outcome might somehow change. But it didn’t. It never did. The timeline was too perfect.

The twins were early, but not too early. Backtracking their conception pointed straight to that week on the island with Ella.

And now, nothing else mattered. I had to know.

I sat at my hospital office desk, fingers drumming, coffee cold at my elbow, walls closing in.

What else could I do?

I had already reached out—sent a basket, every luxury a new mom might need. I needed her to know I was thinking of her. Maybe, selfishly, I needed her to think of me.

I had included the plastic mermaid in the basket because I wanted to remind her of what we had. To feel what I felt—that it hadn’t just been some meaningless one-night stand.

But the truth was, I didn’t know what I felt. You don’t develop feelings for a person in one night. That’s not how this works.

I wasn’t a hopeless romantic. Love at first sight didn’t exist—not really. That was chemistry. Lust. A trick of biology.

But Ella? She left a mark. A need that hadn’t faded.

I wasn’t used to being left behind. Women didn’t slip out of my bed without a word. They lingered, hoping for another night, another chance. Ella vanished before the sheets cooled, and that shouldn’t have gotten under my skin.

But it did.

And if this obsession had been just about pride, I would have forgotten her by now.

I grabbed my phone, my fingers moving before I could second-guess myself again.

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