Chapter 14: Everything But

Elsie got as far as the sink before her hands began to shake.

She turned on the tap and held a glass under it.

Darius took the glass out of her hand and turned off the water.

"She called me love," Elsie said. "She called me love right up until she walked out."

"I know."

"I fed her tart. I told her about the twins' first fever."

"Elsie."

"Don't say it wasn't my fault."

"I wasn't going to." His voice was low. "I was going to say you were right to leave the cameras on."

She laughed, and it broke in the middle.

Nora woke and began to cry, thin and furious.

Elsie crossed the room and picked her up before she had time to think.

She sat on the bed and nursed her.

Darius stood at the end of the bed for a moment, looking at the floor.

Then he lifted Wyatt, who had started up in sympathy.

He walked him up and down the studio with one broad hand across his back.

Both babies were asleep within twenty minutes.

Darius laid his down in the crib very slowly, with both hands.

Elsie laid Nora beside her brother and straightened up.

The studio was very quiet.

"I should go," Darius said.

"No."

He turned.

She stood by the cribs in his old gray T-shirt, with her hair coming down and her eyes swollen.

"I don't want to be alone in here," she said. "And I don't want you folded up in that cheap chair by the stove."

"Then what do you want?"

She crossed the floor and took his face in both her hands.

"This," she said, and she kissed him.

He made a rough sound against her mouth.

His hands came up and held her ribs, carefully, and then not carefully.

He backed her to the bed, and she sat on the edge of it and pulled him in by the shirt.

"Elsie. The doctor said six weeks."

"I know what the doctor said."

"Then we stop at the line."

"There's a lot before the line," she said.

His breath went out of him.

She pulled the gray shirt off over her head and sat there in a nursing bra.

Her stomach was soft and marked, and her breasts were heavy and sore.

Keep reading free with an account. Start Jilted Wife Returns As A Billionaire Heiress from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.