Page 78 of Wait for Him

Why won’t they say anything?

“Would one of you please say something?”

Lauren presses her lips together. Samson finally stands.

I've been pacing in intervals this whole time, sitting for two minutes before some restless thing under my skin sends me back to my feet. By the time Samson crosses the room, I've stopped near the window with one arm folded across my stomach and the other hand worrying at my thumbnail.

Then the giant bastard pulls me into a hug.

No warning. Just arms. One massive hand cradles the back of my head against his chest while the other closes around my shoulders, and every muscle in my body locks.

“I'm so sorry this happened to you.”

I hear him. I do.

But my face is pressed against somebody else's heartbeat and my body has already decided we're in danger. The air disappears from my lungs, my chest tightens, and that old wrongness starts climbing up the back of my throat, the one that turns being held into being trapped before my brain can explain the difference.

I don't shove him away.

I want to.

Instead I stand there and force myself through it because these are good people, and more than I need to breathe comfortably for the next thirty seconds, I need them to believe I can hand them a baby without falling apart in their living room.

Samson seems to feel me go rigid, because he lets me go without making a thing of it.

Thank God.

“Tell me the plan,” he says, returning to the sofa and taking Lauren's hand in his.

I pull in a deep breath and straighten my shirt. “Michael can't know. No one outside this room can know, especially not James.”

My hand goes to my stomach because of stupid maternal instinct or whatever. I don’t even notice I’ve done it until they do. Then I drop my arms to my sides.

“I've been able to hide the weight under bigger clothes so far, and Michael bought the thyroid story. I told him I've got surgery coming up to have it removed, which covers the hospital stay, recovery, everything. I can have the adoption paperwork drawn up. I've already spoken to two attorneys and my doctors, quietly, and I know what needs to happen.”

The words come faster now that I'm back in territory I understand.

“I deliver at the hospital. You come and pick him up when he's cleared for discharge. You tell Michael you've adopted a baby. And I...” I clear my throat and swallow once. “I go on with my life.”

Samson watches me for a moment before asking, “James?”

I look at him.

“After your father?”

I nod.

His heavy eyebrows scrunch together as he nods slowly, understanding settling over him.

"If there's anything I can give him in this world," I say, "it's a chance. A chance to be a good person and nothing — nothing — like the man he came from. And I think the way you do that is you put a little of my father in him. A little of you." My voice threatens to go, and I hold it. "Because next to my dad, Samson, you've been everything to us. Everything. So I'd like him to have that name, and I'd like him raised by you. Please."

He and Lauren exchange a look — one of those we're married and we can hold an entire conversation without saying a word looks — and it makes me love them more and want to gag in exactly equal measure.

"You'll want to tell him one day," Lauren begins.

"No. I won't." I cut her off before she can finish. "I promise you I won't. I'll walk away, clean, and I'll stay away."

"Let me finish, Rosie." She lifts a hand, gentle but firm, and waits until I've gone quiet. "You'll want to tell him one day. I can promise you that much — that the wanting will come, whether you act on it or not. But that's not what we're saying." She glances over at Samson, then back to me. "What we're saying is that it's okay. It will always be okay. You'll have as much access to him, or as little, as you choose — for the rest of his life. We will never once keep him from you. We'll give him a good home, a big family, our name, all of it. But make no mistake, Rosalie. He will always be yours."