His Open Marriage, My Forbidden Secret 의 모든 챕터: 챕터 101 - 챕터 110

He counted the minutes by Elena's breathing.She was against his chest. Wrapped in a blanket, Dr. Patterson had handed him before turning back to Lia. Small and warm and completely unaware that the man holding her was coming apart in slow motion.He kept his eyes on Lia.Dr. Patterson was working quietly. Efficiently. Her voice was low and focused when she spoke to the nurse she'd called in from upstairs. Words that Caspian understood individually but couldn't arrange into meaning right now because his entire brain was locked onto Lia's face.Lia was conscious. That was what he kept coming back to. She was there. Her eyes were open. She looked exhausted and pale in a way that scared him but she was there and she was looking back at him and she gave him a small nod every time his expression got too tight.I'm okay. That was what the nod meant.He wasn't sure he believed her. He wasn't sure she knew yet.Elena shifted against him. Made a small grumbling sound like she had complaints abo

He had not slept for days.This was not unusual for him. He had gone longer without sleep and functioned fine. But this was different from the nights he chose to work through. This was the kind of awakening that came from too much at stake to risk missing anything.The hospital had become a base of operations.Katherine Voss and her team had taken over the family waiting room at the end of the hall. Laptops and files and takeout containers and the particular low-grade intensity of lawyers who smelled a winnable case. Caspian moved between there and Lia's room all night. Signing things. Making calls. Pulling on threads he hadn't needed to pull in years.He had people everywhere in this city. That was the thing about running Silvercrest for twenty years. You collected connections the way other people collected debt. Judges. City officials. Business owners who owed him things they'd never said out loud.He didn't threaten anyone. That was important to him right now and he wasn't entirely

Nobody told her it would be like this.She had read books. She had read articles. She had listened to every piece of advice Isla had collected from every parent she knew. She thought she had a reasonable understanding of what the first two weeks with a newborn would look like.She had understood nothing.Elena did not sleep at night. She slept beautifully during the day, long peaceful stretches where she looked like an angel and Lia would stand over the crib just watching her breathe. Then night came and something switched and Elena became a different person entirely. A very small, very loud, very unreasonable person with strong opinions about being put down.By day four Lia was surviving on forty-minute of sleep and cold coffee and the particular determination of someone who had been through worse and was not going to be defeated by a person who weighed eight pounds.By day six Caspian looked like he'd been in a war.He was taking the 2am shift. This had been his decision and she ha

The doctor said everything looked good.Lia sat on the table in the paper gown that crinkled every time she moved and listened to Dr. Malik go through the checklist. Healing well. Blood pressure is normal. Bleeding resolved. Incision site clean."Physically you're doing great," Dr. Malik said. She closed the folder. Looked at Lia with a slightly different expression that meant the next part was a different kind of conversation. "How are you doing otherwise?""Otherwise?""Sleep. Mood. Anxiety levels. You went through significant trauma during your pregnancy. A kidnapping. A forced procedure. An emergency birth with no hospital access. That doesn't just go away because the baby arrived safely."Lia thought about how to answer that honestly."I have nightmares sometimes," she said. "Not every night. Maybe twice a week. About the basement."Dr. Malik nodded. Writing something."I'm not sad," Lia said. "I want to be clear about that. I'm not depressed. I know what that looks like and this

He was at the beach before the sun was fully up.Elena was against his chest in the carrier Nina had fixed that first week. Three months old now and heavier than she had been, more solid, more present in the world in a way that you could feel when you held her. Her dark hair against his chin. Her breathing is slow and even.She had woken at five and not gone back down and he had made the decision at five forty that fighting her on it was a waste of both their mornings. So he had dressed her in the warmest thing she owned, a yellow suit with ears on the hood that Isla had bought and that made her look aggressively small, and he had carried her down to the car and driven to the lake on the north edge of the city.The same lake his mother had brought him to.He had not planned that. It had just been where his hands drove.The beach was empty at this hour. Grey sand and pale water and the sky going from dark to the particular blue of early morning. Cold enough that he could see his breath