The Consequence (The Evolution of Sin 3)

“I’m about to see my baby for the first time.”

“Damn,” Cage said. “You’re a lucky man.”

I got up and followed the woman into the hallway. “Trust me, I know.”

When I entered the small room, Giselle was reclined with her legs propped up and open over stirrups, and covered modestly in a blue blanket. Her eyes were wide with nerves and excitement as they caught on mine. Wordlessly and instantaneously, she reached out her hand to me.

I tried once again to force that stone out of my throat and made my way to her side, linking our fingers.

“Mr. Sinclair, I’m Dr. Madison Adams,” the older woman situated between Elle’s legs smiled kindly at me after I sat down. “The physical examination showed that Giselle is approximately nine weeks along but we will be better able to determine the exact date of conception with the ultrasound.”

“Excellent,” I said, giving Elle’s hand a squeeze.

She was fidgeting in her seat, uncomfortable with her exposed position and very nervous. It was her nerves that concerned me. I’d been fairly certain that she was happy about the pregnancy, despite the shock of it, but seeing her now seemed to contradict that.

Before I could ask her, the doctor was gently telling us about how she was going to proceed. She lubricated the end of a vaginal ultrasound and disappeared under the blanket. Giselle squirmed against the intrusion, her fingers cold between my own.

I leaned forward to press a kiss against her hair and she immediately turned her face into it, searching for more comfort.

Two seconds later, a percussion noise echoed throughout the room. I watched Giselle look at the monitor beside the doctor, wanting to see her reaction before I looked myself. I was thrilled that I did. Softness descended over her features, smoothing the frown from her brow and setting her lips into a trembling smile.

“Sin,” she breathed. “Look at our baby.”

My heart was beating so hard that I thought I might die, but I did what she asked and looked at our baby.

It was just a little thing, etched like a pencil drawing in black and white. I had been expecting it to look like a little peanut, not really human, but there was a little head, tiny fisted hands and two little feet curled up underneath it.

“It looks just like you,” Giselle decided firmly.

I blinked then threw my head back to laugh.

When I settled down a bit, my siren was smiling softly at me, awe in her eyes and love tucked into every curve of her beautiful face.

“I’m serious,” she said.

“Okay,” I agreed, because she was being ridiculous but I was ridiculously happy so it seemed fitting.

“It looks like you are eight weeks and four days, which puts the date of conception at November 26th.” She smiled kindly at us. “Any special significance for you?”

“Yes,” I said.

The good doctor frowned at me and I realized I might have snapped at her. Giselle gave me a squeeze because she understood my gruffness was a product of emotion, fucking great emotion, and not anger.

“It was the first night we officially got together,” she explained softly.

Dr. Adams beamed at us.

She was a nice enough woman and the best damn woman’s doctor in the city, but I was done sharing the moment with her.

“Is it possible to have a moment alone?” I asked, even though it was stated more as a demand.

I’d found people reacted positively to thinly veiled orders. The trick was to underlay the suggestion with casual authority so that they responded automatically, before ego kicked in and they remembered to argue with you.

It worked beautifully on Dr. Adams who smiled again at Giselle before moving swiftly out the door with a murmur that she would be back in a moment.

As soon as the door was closed, I moved into Elle. I pressed my forehead to hers, sinking one hand in all that red hair at the back of her neck so that I was cupping her to me. The other hand, I pressed gently but firmly on the minuscule swell of her abdomen.

“I never wanted my own family,” I began, working the words through my irritatingly tight throat. “After my parents died and I went to the orphanage, I met Cage, we become brothers, but I knew in my heart that I would never have a real family again. Not even for an instant when Willa and Mortimer adopted me, did I think we were a family. They were good to me, they liked my looks, my intelligence, but they eschewed Cage, fostering him for years with their housekeeper in Paris instead of keeping him with us.”

They had been lonely years, that handful of years I had spent studying hard at Trinity’s to make up for my deplorable lack of early education, trying so hard to impress my new guardians. I’d always been a fairly serious child but Cage had brought levity to my world, reminded me to relax and smile. With him gone, I realized now, I’d begun the slow but sure process of becoming the man Elena had met and loved, an automaton replica of the man I wanted to be.