Page 124 of Possessive Mafia Vows

My phone vibrates with call-waiting. I don’t even say goodbye to Victoria.

“Kyle?”

“No, it’s Emily. Guess what, Sienna, I got married!” She squeals at me from the other end of the call.

My next contraction sucks the impact of her announcement out of me before I can even begin to process it.

“Sienna?” Her voice buzzes at me through the speaker. “Sienna, what’s wrong? Oh no. Oh no, no, no, no. You can’t be having the baby. Not today. Please tell me you’re not in labor.”

“I’m in labor,” I pant into the phone.

“Is Kyle home?” Pause. “He’s not back yet, is he?”

“Emily…” The contractions are so close together now that I can barely stop and think between them. “I’ve got to go.”

“Sienna, wait?—”

My fingers are slow and clumsy. I log into the maternity app, locate the number for the maternity unit, and press the green button.

I’m still on the phone, talking to a softly spoken midwife called Frances who is timing my contractions and talking me through what will happen when I arrive at the hospital, when someone opens the kitchen door at the back of the house and calls out my name.

“Sienna?” A ginger-haired man appears in the bedroom doorway looking sheepish. I recognize him from the security team’s cottage; he stands out front every morning with a giant mug of coffee and stares at the sea. “I’m Paddy. Victoria called me. I’m going to take you to the hospital.”

I’m in too much pain to argue.

He carries my bags and links his arm with mine to help me into his car, then he goes back to the cottage and locks up for me.

The journey passes in a haze of pain and panting.

By the time I’m admitted to the maternity unit and taken straight through to a delivery room, I feel as though I need to push.

“Just pant through this next contraction.” Frances has a cloud of fine blond hair secured into a ponytail at the nape of her neck, plump rosy cheeks, and a permanent smile. She looks exactly how she sounded on the phone. “I need to see what’s going on before we meet your baby.”

“My husband…”

“Is he on his way?” Frances rests a warm hand on my belly as it grows solid again.

Inhale… Exhale…

I didn’t even tell Kyle that I’m in labor.

“You’re doing really well, Sienna.” Frances drapes a cool cloth across my forehead. “The difficult part is done. We’re ready to get this baby out now.”

I experience a fleeting pang of sadness that Kyle is going to miss the most special moment of our lives, but then I’m riding the wave of the next pain, and Frances is telling me to push while another midwife grips my hand firmly.

Everything else is a blur.

With each pain, I squeeze my eyes shut and push. It’s all I can think about. Even when Frances tells me that she can see the head, it barely registers that she’s talking about our baby.

Then, I hear a familiar voice.

The door to the delivery suite opens, and Kyle is there. He comes over, kisses my forehead, and squeezes my hand. “I got here as soon as I could.”

“Just in time, Dad.” Frances smiles. “Ready, Sienna?”

Kyle sits beside my bed, cradling our baby in his arms.

Our son is cocooned inside a pale-blue baby blanket sleeping soundly. He looks just like his father, and I can already picture Kyle cheering him on from the sidelines at football practice when he’s older.

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