“Women have babies all the time, with much less support,” Rodrigo reminded him. “We’re just here as a precaution. Minnow could have had the baby at home with a midwife, but you decided it was too far from the hospital, remember?”
They’d wanted to do this at Rodrigo’s house, but it was a fifteen-minute drive from the hospital, and if there was traffic...
He’d read the statistics about women dying in childbirth. Why would anyone choose to take this kind of risk with their woman?
And they were forgetting. He fell in love with Minnow and lost Sutton. He didn’t get extra people. When this baby came, he’d lose someone, and he was terrified it would be someone he couldn’t live without. But hey, no one had asked him. Now he just got to live with the fallout. Some kid he’d never asked for was a threat to everything that made his life worthwhile. The kid was going to be just as messed up as him and Loïc. Endangering someone as perfect as Minnow to bring a flawed child into the world was a ridiculous risk.
“Come here,” Minnow said, holding out a hand to him.
“I’m fine here.”
“If you’re staying in the room, I would like you over here please, Mister Leduc.”
He stalked over, hovering near the bed but not touching her outstretched hand.
“If you die, wife, I’m burning all of your shit.”
She gave a half-hearted laugh, and her eyes shone with tears. “You love me enough to do that?”
“I’ll burn down the whole goddamned house.”
“No.”
“With me in it.”
“No. Bad,” she growled, eyes narrowed. If only she’d talk to her silly dogs that sternly once in a while. “You’d have to live so you could help Rodrigo take care of the baby.” She dropped her hand, apparently giving up on him taking it.
He shouldn’t have passed up the opportunity to have her touch him. Remorseful, he crouched beside the bed and grabbed the hand she’d offered. He pressed her palm against his face, holding it there, and kissing it but not letting go. One of her fingertips was almost in his eye and he didn’t care.
“I’m fine,” she reassured him. “I said until death do we part, remember? You’re not getting away with such a short commitment. Now stop being a weirdo.” She pulled her hand away and stroked his hair back from his face.
He grumbled, “I’m trying.”
“Go for a walk. Clear your head.”
“No.” He kept holding her hand and pulled a chair over with his foot, then sat and did his best to copy what Rodrigo was doing.
Another contraction came. This was so stupid. Why were women designed to feel this much pain while they did what their bodies were designed to do? How were there so many people in the world if women had to do this to make every one of them? He’d pushed for a planned C-section, but Minnow had refused. Her body was his, and yet it in this he didn’t get to make the decisions. He wanted her pumped full of drugs, but she wouldn’t take a thing. Stubborn little shit.
“Breathe,” Rodrigo said. He was looking at Severin rather than Minnow. “Her contraction is over for now, Sev. You need to relax.”
Rodrigo came to his side of the bed and kissed him, but Severin pushed him away.
“We’re supposed to be helping her. I’m not the one in labor.”
“She’s managing better than you are.” His dark eyes gleamed with humor. Trying to tease him out of his foul mood again?
“Watch it, puppy.”
Rodrigo bit back a laugh and got closer again, looking for another kiss.
“Go help our wife!”
“Mrs. Solis-Leduc is more than happy to be distracted by hot guys making out right about now.”
“See? We’re helping.” Rodrigo brushed a kiss over his lips and Severin took control of it, splaying a hand over the back of Ro’s head to hold him still as he coaxed him into taking his tongue.
“Oh!”