Page 45 of Surprise Twins for the Mafia Prince
Dr. Warren rises to her feet. “Everything looks good. Are we ready to see the baby?”
“Yes!” I say, excitement bubbling up in my voice. Dr. Warren wheels over a small machine with a screen and a wand. With one hand, she parts the front of my gown to reveal my stomach.
“This will be cold,” she warns, squirting gel right below my belly button.
The wand presses against my skin with more force than I expected, but I barely notice. My eyes are glued to the screen as grainy black and gray blobs come into view. None of it makes sense to me, but Dr. Warren seems to know what she’s looking for as she moves the wand, hunting for something specific.
Dario’s hand slips into mine, squeezing my fingers. When I glance at him, I see a light in his eyes I’ve never witnessed before—something soft and wondering. In this moment, the voice in my head that keeps telling me it’s wrong to care about Dario falls silent. None of the bullshit between our families matters. All that exists is the connection we share. We’re going to be parents.
“Oh.” Dr. Warren’s voice jumps up an octave, and my head whips around so fast I get a crick in my neck.
“What’s wrong?” Dario demands, his voice hard as granite, a stark contrast to the softness I just glimpsed in his eyes.
“Nothing,” Dr. Warren says. “It’s just that there are two amniotic sacs.”
“What does that mean?” I ask when Dario doesn’t speak. He’s gone still and silent, which worries me more than anything else could. He’s been reading obsessively about pregnancy and childbirth. What does he know that’s shaken him like this?
“It means two babies,” Dr. Warren says, flashing her warm smile again. “You’re having twins.”
My heart stutters, then takes off like a racehorse, hammering so hard I swear it might crack a rib.
Twins?
Oh my God. I’m having two babies. How am I going to handle that? I feel like the chances of screwing things up have suddenly doubled.
But at the same time, my heart expands impossibly, and the love I already felt for my child multiplies exponentially, leaving me breathless. Two babies. Two little lives that will depend on me, love me, be my family forever.
Dr. Warren presses a button on the ultrasound machine, and a rapid thumping sound fills the room. My breath catches when I realize what I’m hearing—two heartbeats, slightly out of sync but equally strong.
“Those are healthy heartbeats,” she says, and tears fill my eyes.
My babies are healthy. No matter how terrified I am of raising two kids at once—chasing after rambunctious toddlers and dealing with double the teenage drama—I’m overwhelmed with gratitude that they’re healthy.
“Can you tell when they were conceived?” Dario asks, and I feel like someone’s thrown ice water over me.
I knew he was reluctant to believe me when I first told him I was carrying his baby, but we’ve come so far since then. In a few short weeks, we’ve gotten closer, learned each other’s rhythms. I thought he believed me.
“Just a moment,” Dr. Warren says, and I detect a slight chill in her voice. I pull my hand free from his.
Pressing another button, she freezes the image and uses a cursor to circle two tiny gray smudges. “I know it’s hard to tell at this stage, but these are the fetuses. I can only estimate the date of conception based on the measurements I see here, and twins can throw that off a bit, but I’ve been doing this job a long time. I’d say conception was around nine weeks ago.”
I release the breath I’ve been holding. I’ve known the date all along, of course. Dario is the only man I’ve been with in ages.
Glancing at him, I suppress the urge to say “I told you so.” What would be the point? Now we both know I was telling the truth the entire time. I can sense one of the barriers between uscrumbling into dust, and I reach for his hand again, forgiving him for his doubts as he lets out a shaky exhale.
Now that it’s settled, I go back to staring at my children—little blobs on the screen that have already claimed my heart completely. I have a feeling that once they arrive, life will never be the same again.
20
DARIO
I didn’t givemuch thought to how I’d feel during the ultrasound. When I insisted on attending the appointment, it was purely practical—I wanted to hear the doctor’s assessment of Paige’s condition straight from the source.
I’ve been reading about pregnancy like it’s my goddamn job. Enough to know that morning sickness is common and generally nothing to worry about. But it meant more to hear that coming from Dr. Warren’s mouth instead of some clinical webpage.
The pelvic exam only bothered me because Paige seemed uncomfortable. I’m not some squeamish teenager who can’t handle the realities of the female reproductive system.
My purpose there was simple; support Paige because I know she hasn’t had much of that since her father died.
