Which explained Alexander’s willingness, though he did make Dr. Reinhardt interview with us three times before he gave him the position as the Duchess of Greythorn’s doctor.
“I’m ready,” I told him, my smile twisted like hot metal on my face.
My entire body felt like an overloaded electrical wire ready to explode. I was desperate to push and release the tension even though the pain as I bore down was nearly unbearable.
“I love you, my beauty, my topolina, my duchess,” Alexander chanted as he propped my back against his torso and held both my hands so I could squeeze them hard enough to break them as I struggled to push our child into the world. “You are my greatest treasure.”
I tilted my head back, muscles strained tight enough to pop and let the scream boiling in my throat erupt into the air.
A moment later, a piercing wail underscored the last notes of my scream.
I blinked slowly through my sweat-stung eyes, trying to focus beyond the pain as I’d become so adept at doing so that I could focus on the being Dr. Reinhardt held aloft in his hands.
“My God,” Alexander’s voice broke as he smoothed my wet hair away from my forehead and then softly laid me back down on the bed so that he could accept the clippers from the doctor and cut the umbilical cord. “My good God.”
My eyes burned, and my body felt like a deflated balloon, incapable of animation as I gave in to the impulse to close my lids and rest for a moment.
“My beauty,” Alexander’s soft voice pulled me gently from slumber. “It’s time to meet your son.”
Instantly, adrenaline coursed through my body, and my eyes snapped open, my vision clear and brilliant as I locked eyes on a pair of silver-blue irises I knew would turn into Alexander’s grey with time.
Our baby.
A sob lodged itself in my throat as my heart pounded hard and heavy in my chest. I felt swollen to bursting with love, overripe and vulnerable.
Baby Davenport was eight pounds, eleven ounces with a thick thatch of black hair and a perfectly formed bow-shaped mouth that was puckered as he fussed slightly in his daddy’s arms.
He was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen in my life.
I looked up at Alexander through my tear slicked eyes and saw in his expression the same prodigious tenderness that had overtaken me.
He sat on the edge of the bed and moved the baby so he could lay on my naked chest. The room was cleared, obviously ordered so by my domineering duke, so we could both watch in awe as the baby snuggled into my swollen breast and curled a fist over my heart.
“I never thought in all my life to dream this kind of dream,” Alexander murmured softly, aware of the sweet, secure cocoon we were enrobed in. “I never believed I would be free of my demons, let alone at liberty to share my life with a woman like you at my side, with beautiful children at our feet. Even if I was free from those chains that bound me, I never would have thought I would be worthy of such a future as this.”
The sob stuck in my throat fell from my lips as I turned my head into his shoulders and let my tears of gratitude anoint his black button-up.
He let me cry even though I know it pained him to watch me. His hand was in my hair, stroking it back from my hot, damp face in a way that soothed me to my ragged core.
I shifted my head back to press a kiss to the strong, steady pulse in his throat and then turned again to look down at the sweet bundle on my chest.
He was warm and quiet, sleeping against me as if he knew just how safe he was in my arms with both of us in the arms of his father.
Alexander would never let anything bad happen to either of us. We were bringing our child into a world without the Order, without Noel Davenport, and without the threat of the mafia hanging over us.
“This is our era of happiness,” I reminded Alexander as I placed a kiss gentle as a butterfly against our son’s soft head. “All he will ever know is joy and light.”
“Yes,” Alexander promised, one of his thick, long fingers uncurled against the baby’s plump cheek. “Though, your family is undoubtedly crazy, bella, so I hesitate to say it will be without drama.”
I let out a watery laugh as I ran my nose over the top of the baby’s head so I could drag in some of his sweet infant scent.
“Do we have a name for our future duke?” Alexander asked.
The pregnancy hadn’t been an easy one for either of us emotionally. Even though Noel was gone, he still haunted Pearl Hall and our memories of my truncated first pregnancy like a hellish spectre. Alexander was overbearing and viciously protective the entire nine months, barely letting me out of the house, let alone out of the country to visit my family or work out my existing contracts. I was just as loathe to be parted from our home and my husband. It had been two years since the end of our horrors, but it still felt as though no time had passed since I’d been back home at Pearl Hall as its mistress, and I wasn’t ready to be away from them for any real length of time.