Angel sat in the chair on the right side of Layla’s bed, holding her hand and talking quietly to her. “Your boys are so beautiful, Layla. They look so much like Jesse right now. All bald and angry looking. They don’t keep their eyes open for very long, so I can’t tell if they have your eyes or their daddy’s. I’m so jealous that you have boys. I wouldn’t change having this girl for anything, but it makes me want a son too.”

I stood behind her, aching to hold her and take all of the heartache she was feeling away. But I was powerless to do that. I had barely been able to convince her to go home each night so that she could get a little rest, and only then because I had to remind her that our daughter needed the rest more than she did. So I just stood there, watching Layla’s chest rise and fall with each breath she took.

She was pale, her hair limp around her shoulders. The skin on her left hand, where the IV was, had bruises because her last two IV sites had collapsed. The constant beep-beep-beep of the heart monitor was both soothing and annoying in the same instant.

“You know, there’s a nurse in the NICU who has been watching Jesse closely.” Angel’s statement had me turning my gaze from Layla to her. I raised a brow but she ignored me. Something she had been doing a lot of the last day. Damn it! “She’s blonde and all kinds of happy. Especially when your husband goes in to see your boys. You’d better wake the fuck up, sis, and tell her to keep her eyes to herself.”

“What are you doing?” I demanded quietly.

“Giving her a reason to wake up,” Angel said with a shrug. “We’ve just been coddling her for the last two days. Maybe if we piss her off she will wake up and take charge of her life again.”

As ideas went it wasn’t the worst one I had heard. Actually, it was the only one anyone had offered in the last forty-eight hours. Sighing, I leaned back against the wall and let Angel continue to talk to her sister without interrupting again.

She was pissed off at me and I still wasn’t completely sure why. Cole, her father, had called to check up on her and Layla as well as the babies. Cole Steel was trying to be the man he should have been over twenty years ago. He and Lana had a decent relationship now, and the fact that he was going to be a grandfather had humbled him… A little.

The call had also revealed that the meeting with Bethany, the producer’s assistant who had texted me about it last week, was also a hoax. Angel was convinced that the woman was trying to seduce me, but I wasn’t so sure. Everyone at work knew that my wife was it for me and I didn’t even look at other women. Ever. Fuck, I barely knew what this Bethany even looked like.

My protesting that Bethany was harmless had pushed a stressed out Angel over the edge and she had been pissed at me ever since. She didn’t talk to me unless she had to. Thankfully she didn’t push me away when I tried to touch her, though. If she had started doing that I might have actually found a bar and been two bottles in by now.

A few minutes later the door opened and a nurse stuck her head around it. “Visiting hours are over for now, Mrs. Stevenson. You can come back in a few hours.”

I held out my hand to help Angel up. She slipped hers into mine without hesitation and I pulled her up beside me before brushing a kiss over her lips. “Don’t be mad at me,” I whispered.

“Don’t defend stupid bitches,” she whispered back, but there was a small smile teasing at her lips. “I love you, dummy.”

Some of my tension eased. “Love you more.”

Layla

There was a beep-beep-beep sound that was annoying the hell out of me.

I moaned, not wanting to wake up, and reached out to nudge Jesse’s shoulder. He needed to turn that stupid alarm off or I was going to punch him. But I couldn’t feel Jesse beside me and reluctantly opened my eyes.

I blinked as I focused on the room around me. I was in a bed that wasn’t nearly as comfortable as the one we slept in at home. There were rails up on either side. Beside the bed was a machine that was producing the beeping noise that was still irritating me. I shifted to get a better look at it only to have my entire body explode in pain.

My abdomen felt as if it had been split open and I had this sudden empty feeling where I should have felt stretched and full. My hands went to my stomach and a cry of distress that had nothing to do with pain filled the room. Where were my babies?

“Jesse?” I called, but he wasn’t in the room. Where the fuck was Jesse? “JESSE!”

The door across the room opened and a woman with her dark hair pulled into a ponytail stuck her head around the door. “You’re awake,” she said with a smile. “Welcome back,” she greeted as she walked into the room.

“Where’s my husband?” I demanded. “Where are my babies?”

“Hubby is out in the waiting room where he has been since you were brought in. Those babies of yours are doing remarkably well and might even be moved down to the nursery this evening.” The nurse was cheerful and that just made me want to punch her in the face.

I was in pain and she was all smiles? I was freaking out but she was more interested in checking my blood pressure. “I want my husband. Now.”

“Of course. You can see him in just a few minutes. First I have to get your vitals. Are you thirsty? I’ll get you some ice water. Or would you rather have something else? Sprite maybe?”

“I don’t fucking care! I. Want. My. Husband. NOW!” I shouldn’t have yelled. It only made me hurt worse, but I was desperate to see Jesse. I needed him and he had to be going out of his mind with worry over me.

My yelling caused the door to open again and another nurse stuck her head in. “Everything okay in here, Mrs. Thorton?”

“She wants her husband, Vanessa,” my nurse told her. “If you could peek your head out and let him know she’s awake?”

“Sure… It’s good to see you awake, Mrs. Thorton,” the other nurse commented. “You had us all worried for a minute there.”

I frowned after the woman. “What’s she talking about?”

“You had an unusual reaction to the anesthesia that they had to give you,” my nurse informed me. “You’ve been asleep for a while… About two days now.” She wrinkled her nose. “How are you feeling on a scale of one to ten, ten being the worst?”

“What?” I demanded, dazed by her statement that I had been out for two days and then quickly followed by my pain level. “I’m in some pain.” More like I was in agony, but that didn’t matter at the moment. If I told this perky girl that I was barely able to see through the haze of pain she would drug my ass up and I wouldn’t be able to see Jesse right away.