SAFEHOUSE

Julien's eyes widened. If I didn't know any better I would've guessed he hadn't thought of this yet. And now the thought was settling deep within him, looking as though it was causing him terrible anxiety. Well, that wasn't exactly what I was setting out to do, but at least he was thinking about it now.

"Looks like I've got my work cut out for me," he replied, his voice dropping to barely above a whisper.

"Julien, I don't want to worry you. But I'm of the firm belief that we shouldn't keep each other's thoughts from one another, right? Isn’t that what we agreed upon?" I reminded him, squeezing his hand gently.

He slowly nodded, but didn't say anything.

I hated that he was all of the sudden stressing out. And maybe this had not been the best moment to bring up, but if not now, when? There really were a lot of things that needed to be put in place after our baby was born, and I didn't want to wait until the very last minute before we set a plan in action.

"Okay! I think we're ready to go, now that I've got everything fixed on the screen. Let's go ahead and see what we can find, shall we?" Dr. Thibodeau interrupted my thoughts, holding up her doppler in her hand.

"Sounds good, doctor. I'm ready when you are."

I nudged Julien to pay attention, hoping he wasn't too far lost in his thoughts. His eyes darted around wildly as he tried to catch up with the conversation, before they landed on mine. He was distressed—even more than I thought he’d be. With everything he had to think about, I shouldn’t have been surprised that he was having a hard time keeping everything straight.

The idea of not thinking into the future of our baby’s life was a concept I just couldn’t understand, but Julien may barely have had much time to think about it. He was more concerned with the here and now. I squeezed his hand again, trying to get him to focus. This was a big moment for us.

"Okay, so there's the baby’s spine, and there's the baby’s head," she began, pointing out the parts of our child on the screen. This hadn't been the first time we’d seen the baby in pretty good detail on the sonogram, but this was the first time that Dr. Thibodeau had specifically pointed out everything for us.

The smile on my face grew larger and larger with every part she pointed out.

Julien's hand slowly stroked at the screen, tracing the outline of the baby’s head and abdomen. "It's so hard to believe that this is our baby," he said in awe. I studied his face, but the traces of hesitation and distress were now gone, having been replaced by curiosity and wonder. I loved it when he got this way.

"What's the baby's heartbeat?" I asked.

"It's 149 bpm," the doctor answered.

I sucked in a breath, trying to see if I could point out any other certain parts of our baby, before she gave us a definite answer.

“Do you see that?” She asked me and Julien, pointing to a spot on the screen.

I strained my eyes, trying to make out something clear from the picture. Julien gasped, obviously getting it before I did.

"Is that… is that what I think it is?" he asked her. His hand went up to graze the side of my belly.

She beamed at him. “It’s a boy.”

"We're having a boy? Is he really a boy?" With each word my voice got higher-pitched.

I had been right! This whole time I was referring to the baby as a he in my head, but I didn't think to actually trust myself with that. The tears were already falling down my cheeks, and Julien leaned over to squeeze me as hard as he could.

"He's our son, sweetheart. We have a son now!" I held onto him for as long as I could, sobbing into his shoulder like the biggest baby ever. Even though we had seen the baby on the sonogram before, this was different. Dr. Thibodeau gave me a big smile and started to pack up her gear.

One of the things people don't tell you about pregnancy is that every day your sense of responsibility grows. My son’s fate was tied to mine, and I would do anything to protect him.

I couldn't have been more excited.

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Chapter 31

"Is all this really necessary, Julien?"

It was hard not to frown and pout about all of this, considering the reason why I had asked for this nice little outing for the two of us was to get away from all the other people in the château. Not ask a whole bunch to tag along with us.

He sighed, obviously fed up with me and my sulking. Maybe he was right. "You know we have to be extra careful. I'm not taking any chances, okay? End of story."

I huffed, but got over it. Maybe he was right, but come on… three bodyguards? I felt like I was the President's daughter or something. Of course I was grateful, but still.