บททั้งหมดของ Priced By My Billionaire Nemesis: บทที่ 161 - บทที่ 170

The shaking did not stop. It changed.At first Adrian assumed it was adrenaline running its course. The body’s natural response to survival. But as the RV moved farther from the mountain and snow turned to cold rain against the windshield, he felt something wrong in the pattern.The tremors did not gradually fade. They tightened.Her breathing shortened again, not from crying, but from something internal.Lena shifted slightly and her hand moved instinctively to her abdomen.“It’s fine,” she said too quickly.It was not fine.Her skin had drained of color beneath the flush of cold. A thin sheen of sweat clung to her temples. Her lips had lost their warmth.He adjusted his position so he could see her face clearly.“Where does it hurt?”“It doesn’t,” she said, but her jaw tightened as she answered.Boone glanced at them in the rearview mirror.“We good back there?”Adrian did not answer immediately.Lena’s breathing grew shallower. Her shoulders tightened again and she inhaled sharpl

The next contraction began before Lena had fully caught her breath from the last one. It did not build gently or allow space for adjustment. Her abdomen hardened under Adrian’s palm in a tight, deliberate arc that felt organized rather than chaotic. Her thighs trembled and her jaw locked before any sound left her mouth. She folded forward slowly, as though the weight inside her pelvis had become something gravitational, something pulling her downward from the inside.“Ninety seconds,” one of the men said quietly after glancing at Adrian’s watch.The number no longer sounded abstract. It sounded like acceleration.Adrian felt the shift inside himself. He had already moved her into the rear bedroom of the RV for privacy, propping her on her left side with pillows and folded towels. The narrow bed was bolted to the wall, the cabinets rattling faintly above them with each turn Boone forced through the rain-slick descent. The small overhead light cast a warm but unstable glow as the vehicl

The RV leveled for a fraction of a second before plunging into another steep decline, and the sudden shift in gravity drove the contraction deeper through Lena’s body. She cried out as the motion amplified what was already tearing through her from the inside. The narrow bedroom seemed to tilt around them as cabinets rattled and the thin mattress shifted beneath her hips despite the towels bracing her. Rain struck the roof in relentless bursts, each impact vibrating through the metal frame and into bone.The baby’s bottom delivered slowly, purple and compressed from pressure, emerging in deliberate, relentless stages as the contraction held. The tissue stretched around the rounded curve with painful inevitability, the skin taut and shining under the unstable overhead light. It was not dramatic and it was not cinematic. It was mechanical and unstoppable, driven by the unyielding force of her body doing exactly what it was designed to do at the worst possible time.“Support,” Dr. Imani’s

The cry slowly softened into uneven, offended little noises against my skin, as if he was still protesting the world he had just been dragged into. The RV no longer felt like it was tipping over the edge of something. It still swayed, but the movement seemed gentler now, less violent, or maybe my body had simply stopped caring. I lay there with him against my chest, stunned by the warmth and the weight and the impossible fact that he had been inside me minutes ago and now he was here, breathing.“Adrian,” Dr. Imani’s voice came through the speaker, calmer now, steadier. “When the cord stops pulsing, you may clamp and cut. Make sure he remains warm. Lena, how are you feeling?”I swallowed. My throat felt scraped raw. “Tired,” I managed. It sounded inadequate for what had just happened.“That is expected,” she replied. “You did very well.”The cord still lay between us, thick and bluish, faintly alive. Adrian glanced at it, then at me. His hands, which had been so controlled minutes ago

The baby sighed in his sleep, his mouth relaxing further. A faint smear of dried milk still clung near the corner of his lips. His lashes were dark, clumped slightly, and his cheeks were still puffy from the work of being born. He did not look like a fighter, but I knew better now. He had fought in the only way a newborn can. By surviving.Adrian swallowed. His throat moved like he was holding something back. The restraint in him looked painful now. During the delivery, that control had been strength. Now it looked like punishment. Like he was forcing himself to stay upright because collapsing would feel like theft, as if he did not deserve relief.In the corridor, boots shifted again. Boone remained at the wheel, steady as the spine of the RV. Eli hovered closest to the doorway, broad shoulders angled so he could glance in without actually looking at my body. Marcus moved between the galley and the narrow hallway, hands always busy, eyes always alert, as if danger might still slip un