Natalia had also worked hard to overcome her personal demons and had undergone a successful transplant almost a year ago.
She felt a jerk in her stomach and groaned out loud.
‘What’s wrong?’ Odir asked, concern building in his eyes in a second.
She laughed. ‘Nothing. Just hiccups.’ She took his hand and laid his palm over her stomach. ‘I think it was all that running.’
Odir’s hand jumped as another hiccup vibrated through her frame. And love, so pure and so strong, filled his gaze.
‘Have I told you how much I love you?’ he asked.
‘Only yesterday. And the day before that. And the day before that. And all the days—’
Odir smothered his wife’s response with the kind of passion-fuelled kiss he knew his wife craved more than any of the bizarre food she had desired during this pregnancy.
She pulled away from his kiss, leaning her head against the wall, eyeing him with a seriousness he had not seen for some time.
‘Odir, I have a confession to make.’
His stomach clenched as he waited for his wife to continue.
‘I have been keeping a secret from you.’
He waited, knowing that whatever she felt her secret was they would survive it, they would face it together. For there was nothing his amazing wife couldn’t tell him. Nothing that would make him feel anything other than love for her.
‘It’s a girl.’
The smile that lit his wife’s eyes wrapped itself around his heart, and in that moment Odir honestly couldn’t want for anything more.
He leaned in close to his wife’s ear and whispered his love for her over and over again. His heart only settled when she turned and told him the same. Truth and love was all they had ever needed and all they ever would.
* * * * *