Authors: Chantal Fernando
Untitled Book 2 (33 page)
Shayla
Five months later
“O
H
my god, she was right; it's like knives!” I yell, closing my eyes and trying to manage the pain.
Holy fuck.
It hurt so badly.
I want to scream.
I open my eyes and glare at Vinnie, who is holding my hand and telling me to breathe. “I don't want to breathe!” I yell at him. “Why don't you try and breathe through getting stabbed?”
“Do all women get this mean?” he asks the nurse, whose expression doesn't change at his question.
“For the most part.”
“I don't know why you're yelling at me,” he says, staying completely calm. “You're the one who didn't want the epidural, trying to be some kind of warrior woman.”
The nurse hands me some gas, I suck it like it's going to save my life, which I'm kind of hoping it will. Yes, I fucked up by saying that I didn't want an epidural, but he didn't need to keep
reminding me of it. Now it was too late to have one, as the baby was almost crowning, or so the nurse keeps telling me.
“Fuck!” I yell as another contraction hits me. I want to cry, but it won't help, so there's no fucking point.
Finally, the midwife tells me it's time to push. I don't really want to, but I want this over with, so I push, through all the pain, I push.
“The head's out,” Vinnie says, eyes wide as saucers. I don't know when he moved to the other end, right in front of my vagina, but I'm pretty sure I told him not to look down there.
“Don't look!” I all but beg, only to be ignored, again. Even I don't want to look, and I'd rather he remember what my vagina was like beforeânot when it's stretched out with a giant baby head coming through it.
“Vinnie, stand by my head!” I growl, then start whimpering. They keep on telling me to push, so I keep pushing.
“Almost there,” the midwife tells me, acting all calm. How is she so calm? I feel like punching her based on that alone. I close my eyes, block out Vinnie, still standing where he isn't supposed to be, and the midwife telling me to keep pushing, and I just push. With everything I have, I push.
And then, something amazing happensâthe pain stops. I hear a baby crying, and I feel nothing but relief.
“We have a daughter,” Vinnie says in awe. The nurse asks if he wants to cut the umbilical cord, and he does. I start crying. They place our little girl on my chest and she stops crying. She has a thick head of silky, dark hair, which I know she got from me, but when she opens her eyes, all I see is Vinnie.
“She's perfect,” I say, tears running down my face.
After a little while, the nurse takes her from me, cleans her
up and wraps her. The nurse then hands her to Vinnie, who holds her awkwardly, but without complaint. He sits down, and just stares into her eyes.
When a tear drops from his own, I know that Faye's words were true.
AUTHOR PHOTOGRAPH BY KRYSTA GUILLE
CHANTAL FERNANDO
is the
New York Times
bestselling author of the novel
Maybe This Time
, the Resisting Love series, and eight Wind Dragons MC novels and novellas. She lives in Western Australia and can be followed on Twitter and Facebook, or visit her website at
authorchantalfernando.com
.
FOR MORE ON THIS AUTHOR:
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Gallery Books
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author's imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2016 by Chantal Fernando
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First Gallery Books trade paperback edition August 2016
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Cover design by Patrick Kang
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.
ISBN 978-1-5011-3957-4
ISBN 978-1-5011-3960-4 (ebook)