Rachel's Accident (20 page)

When we were finished unpacking the most important things we sat down together and started brainstorming. The nursery had to be as close to our room as possible and there were three alternatives, the two rooms on either side of ours or the one on the opposite side of the hallway.

I would have preferred to have the twins close to me at all times, but we only had the one big crib for them. I hadn’t thought about the fact that this house was huge and I would spend a lot of time downstairs, where I had to run up the stairs if anything happened.

“We need a few more cribs,” Ethan announced after a while of discussing.

I looked at him. I could swear he had read my thoughts.

He looked back at me. “We can’t keep them locked up in their room the whole time. Not to mention that we would have to come running there from wherever we are in this big house. We should have places near where we spend most of our time to lay them down for naps. What do you think?”

“I…I don’t want to spend too much money. We could just get one portable crib that we could take around.”

“Don’t be silly,” Ethan reprimanded me. “I have
so much money I couldn’t even spend it in one lifetime. Let me spend it on my children.”

He had a point there. “Fine,” I gave in. “But don’t spoil them with too much toys and stuff.” I was really trying to draw a line here, but it was really difficult not to give in to his adorable look.

But he seemed happy with just that concession. “Okay,” he perked up.

We planned for a crib in the den next to kitchen and one in his office, where he spent almost all day working. I doubted we would really need that second crib, but relented to his wishes. If he wanted to have the twins in his sacred space, I definitely wouldn’t say no; as long as he was there when they needed him.

We decided to make the room across the hall from ours into their nursery, so that we just had to run straight through, if they started crying. We had yet to decide how to decorate, though. We didn’t really know the gender of the twins since they wouldn’t allow a peek to be taken through the ultrasounds. But we didn’t really care about that.

Right now the room was in sedate browns and beiges
, earthy colors. We wanted it to be more cheerful and invigorating. So, we had to get the furniture out and get the new one in. Jess and I wanted to paint a beautiful scene on the wall and we had to buy the paint for that.

We made plans for the whole room to be ready when we started the next day. It had become evening while we had been sitting there discussing, so I decided to cook us all a good dinner.

Unfortunately, no one had thought about buying any groceries. I stood in front of the fridge, looking at all the things that had long since expired. I think they were still the things I had bought a few months back before I ran from the Ethan.

I looked over my shoulder at him. He was watching the floor in embarrassment. He was just so adorable I had to smile. At a glance into the freezer I found his usual frozen food supply. I sighed and recruited Jess to clean out and scrub the fridge while Ethan and I went grocery shopping.

Before we went out the front doors I stopped him and turned him to face me. I lifted onto my toes and kissed him on the cheek.

“I’m sorry for
running away from you like that back then,” I whispered.

The fridge had brought that home. He hadn’t done anything, but
look
for me and worry about me, reverting back to living off of frozen stuff. I had left him when he hadn’t really done anything wrong in that sense of the word.

But on my request he had done everything in his power to change what had driven me away from him in the first place. I couldn’t ask for a more loving and dedicated man. He smiled at me and kissed me on the lips.

“It’s okay. It’s in the past.” He took my hand and pulled me toward my car. “Come on, we need to go shopping.”

I smiled at him as he pulled open the passenger door for
me and helped me into the seat.
“Why, thank you kind sir.” I grinned.

He grinned back at me
and gave me another quick peck.
“Anytime, honey.”

Quickly, he walked around the front and got into the driver’s seat
and started the engine. It was strange to see him in this car. I was so used to him in his little Porsche sports car.

“What are you thinking about?”
He
asked as he pulled out of the driveway onto the fairly busy street.

“I’m thinking how strange it is to have you in this cheap car. And that you haven’t said a word about me trading it in for the mustang you gave me.”

“I don’t really care what you do with the mustang. I just wanted you to have a car, so you didn’t have to take the bus for hours to get to my place and back. I am glad, though, that you decided to take a family car instead of completely selling it.” He looked over at me, smiled and took my hand before placing a gentle kiss to the back of it.

I let out the breath I seemed to have been holding for days. I hadn’t known how he would react to the car when he first saw it, but I hadn’t expected him to completely ignore it. That had made me tense, thinking that he was just keeping his anger hidden from me. But I was so damn relieved now that I had actually asked him about it. I could feel all the tension leave my body and I slumped back into the seat.

“Has this been weighing on you
this
much?”
He
asked incredulously.

“Well, yeah. I didn’t know if you would be furious with me when you realized that I had exchanged the brand new mustang you had bought me for this piece of junk.”

He laughed at that.

But I continued, “And then you didn’t say anything, not even a single word. So, I got worried that you were just keeping the anger bottled up inside.
So…yeah.”
I shrugged, not knowing what else to say.

“I would never be angry with you over such a silly reason. I don’t care about money. If you ask me, you can spend it all. I would gladly give it to you as long as you just don’t leave me again.” I could hear getting a bit choked up at the end there.

“I’m sorry,” I said around the lump in my throat.

Unwillingly, a tear slipped down my cheek and I quickly wiped it away, but Ethan had seen it and heard how I had choked up, too.

“I’m sorry, baby. I didn’t mean to make you cry.” He quickly pulled into the parking lot at the
24 hour grocery store and picked the next available parking space.

He put the car into park and shut off the engine. Then I had his full attention. His hands gently wiped away the tears that had spilled over
and he kissed me on the lips. Then h
e rested his forehead against mine in a calming gesture.

“Please, don’t cry,” he pleaded with me.

I let out a shaky laugh. “It’s those stupid hormones. Absolutely everything makes me cry even if I don’t want to.”

He pulled back and smiled at me. “Everything’s okay?”
He
asked, still unsure.

“Yeah, fine,” I said as I smiled back.

“Come on then. Let’s go shopping. This is so exciting. I have never really been shopping before.”

I laughed as he got excited like a small child going to a toy store. He got out of the car and went over to my side to get my door and help me out. I quickly wiped the remainder of my tears away and took his hand to step out of the car.

We made our way into the store with a cart to hold our groceries. We would need loads of it now that I was going to cook for five people if you were being exact. The babies were two entities that consumed in a week almost double the money I earned when I was working for Ethan in a single month. Not to mention that we had to start from zero all over again. And I would not eat anything frozen.

We got everything we would need for the next week and had to get a second cart when the first one started overflowing.
I was extremely uncomfortable that he was spending so much money, but we did have to eat something. I became even more uncomfortable when he started browsing through the women’s clothing section. That was when I just ignored him and pushed our carts to the register.

I wasn’t easy to maneuver both carts and my big belly around, but somehow I managed without causing any accidents in the hygiene aisle. At the register I started unloading the first cart. The yawning clerk just looked at me as if I had lost some brain cells along the way
while getting myself pregnant. He explicitly glanced at my belly as if to say exactly that. I just glared at him and kept unloading.

Finally, Ethan came along with ten summer dresses slung over his arm.

“No!” I warned him.

“Oh, come on. Why can’t we buy you something nice to wear?”
He
protested.

“I have nice things to wear.”

“But you could have some more.”

“Take them back.”

“Oh, please,
”
he begged.

“I swear
I’ll
start balling my eyes out right here if you don’t take them back right now,” I threatened him.

That made him listen
to me. I knew he couldn’t stand to see me cry.

“Okay,” he said obediently and turned around to bring the dresses back where he bought them.

I looked over at the clerk, who had been watching our exchange avidly. “I’m sorry about that,” I said awkwardly.

“That’s okay,” he said. “I certainly don’t get much entertainment here. So, things like these help keep awake when I’m about to keel over.”

I gave him an awkward smile and continued simultaneously unloading from the carts and packing the groceries into bags at the other side of the register. Ethan was taking him damn time, too. How long did it take for someone to take a few dresses back
?

I put the bags back into the carts when the clerk was finished
scanning the groceries and
pulling the
m
over the counter
.

“When he comes back here tell him to pay for our things, please,” I told the clerk.

He nodded at me.
“Sure, no problem.
Have a good evening.” He sounded so cheery after witnessing out little fight back there. Before we came he
had been
practically falling asleep on his feet.

“You, too,” I mumbled back and
pushed my full carts out the door toward my car.

As I arrived at the car I realized that I didn’t have the car keys either.
Great.
Just perfect.

Suddenly something cold and hard pressed into my lower back.

“Give me all your money,” someone growled into my ear.

Terror seized me and my body was completely tensed up. I couldn’t move even a single muscle.

“I said give me your money,” he screamed into my ear, making me jump.

Tears were now streaming down my face. I was so damn scared.
Not only for my own life, but my precious twins too.

“I don’t have any money,” I whispered, barely able to force the words past the lump in my throat.

“Of course, you have money. Your man’s a fucking billionaire.
Don’t fucking lie, you stupid bitch.
”

A hand closed around my throat.
I let out a frightened squeak in response, resulting in him squeezing a bit tighter.
I could barely breathe through his tight hold. How did he know I was with a billionaire?
Was he a stalker?

“Please,” I
wheezed
. “Let me go, please. I don’t have any money on me right now. You can have the groceries, though, if you need them
.”

“I don’t want your fucking vegetables,” he growled. “I want the money.”

“But I don’t have any on me,” I cried desperately. I had my arms protectively wrapped around my belly.

“Then we’ll just have to compromise, won’t we?”
He
whispered suggestively
, his voice dripping heavily with innuendo.

I shivered in revulsion. “Please, let me go.”

“You don’t
got
no fucking money, you don’t got no fucking say
!
”
He
screamed as he pulled away.

I was so relieved he let me go I sagged against the car in front of me. All of a sudden a loud shot rang out and I jumped in shock. I cowered down nex
t to the car to avoid being hit. Trying to make my body as small as possible I curled into a ball, which was actually quite a feat, considering my big belly.
When I
flexed my muscles
I could feel a sting in my lower leg. I looked down and saw blood oozing out of a circular wound
in my calf
. He had shot at me. That bastard had shot at a pregnant woman.

I was still full of terror
and didn't dare to make a move
beyond that
. I didn't know if he was still standing there just waiting for me to look up and watch him shoot me. I could feel my body shaking
in shock
. My leg stung now even worse and threatened to give in under me.

When a hand touched my shoulder I
let out another terrified squeak around the lump in my throat
.

"Hey, hey, it's me," Ethan's voice sounded from above me. "It's just me."

I sagged to the ground in relieve. Ethan was here.