103

EPILOGUE: ADRIANNE
Eight Months Later
The twinges started in my lower back as my “glam team” was curling my hair. Quick, sharp pain that would disappear before I really had time to worry about it. Considering the Braxton Hicks contractions I’d been having for the last month, I wasn’t worried at the time.
Stepping onto the red carpet, though, the pains were coming pretty regularly. One was sharp enough that I had to excuse myself from the interview I was giving to clutch at my back and breathe.
“Uhm . . . are you okay?” the young-seriously, this kid had to be twenty years old-reporter asked me.
I held up a hand and took a few breaths to steady myself. “I’m . . . ” The word fine was on the tip of my tongue, but I wasn’t fine. “I think I’m in labor,” I said and hiccupped out a laugh.
The poor kid looked terrified. “Oh, my God! For real?”
Another contraction hit, and I nearly buckled in my way too tall heels. “Yeah,” I said. “Yeah, for real.”
Callan appeared at my side, looking amazing in his tux. “Is it time?” he asked, completely ignoring the reporter, who looked like he was stuck between throwing up and fainting.
I nodded. “I guess we’ll have to see the movie another time.”
“They’ll live.” He put a hand on my lower back and steered me off the red carpet. Foster and Ethan were there to meet us.
“Where are you going?” It was Lee. He was marching off the carpet after me. “You’d better have a damn good exc-”
Foster stepped between the two of us. “Respectfully, Mr. Wynn,” he said, “you need to back off.” Ever since Australia, Foster had been my fiercest champion. He would be the first to step into a fray if need be.
Ethan put a hand on his arm, drawing him back. “Adrianne’s in labor,” he said. “She can either have the baby in the middle of the movie theatre, or we can take her to the hospital.”
Lee paled. “Oh, I didn’t . . .” he spluttered and then looked at me. “Go, go! We can do a private screening when you’re up to it, all right?”
I smiled at him, wincing as another contraction tightened my back. “Thanks, Lee.”
My men steered me to where limos were letting out celebrities. Ethan caught the door of one that had just let out some big-wig producer. “You mind if we borrow your ride?” he asked. “We’ve got a woman in labor, and our car has been parked by the valet.”
The producer was poised to say no-I could see it-until he got a look at me. “Adrianne Montoya! Oh, of course! You just go right on. Bryant will be happy to take you wherever you need to go.”
“Thank you!”
We all clambered into the back of the limo. “Mount Sinai, please,” Foster said to the driver. The limo inched its way through the premiere traffic, and I tried not to cry when another contraction seized my muscles.
Ethan rubbed at my back, murmuring soft words of encouragement to me, while Foster called the hospital to let them know we were on our way. We’d pre-registered and had the staff sign a hefty NDA so that all three of my men could be in the room while I delivered.
The limo got us to Mt. Sinai a short while later, and two nurses met us in the ambulance bay with a wheelchair. “I can walk perfectly fine,” I started to say, but a contraction, worse than all the others so far, hit, and I let Foster and Callan maneuver me into the chair.
The nurse didn’t take us through the ER, but instead, we went down a private hallway and up an elevator that was off the beaten path to the labor and delivery floor. “Everything’s been made ready for you, Ms. Montoya,” she said soothingly. “Just as you requested, you will have total privacy for you and your . . . family.”
While I heard the judgment in her voice, I chose to keep composed. “Thank you.”
She wheeled me into a large birthing suite and helped me onto the bed. My men had to stay back as she hooked me to a blood pressure cuff and a baby monitor that looked at the baby’s heart rate as I contracted. “We’ll be back in to check to see if you’re dilated, and then we can talk about pain management options.” Then, she swept out of the room, leaving us alone.
“Are you okay?” Callan asked.
“I’m fine,” I said, but a contraction seized my hamstring, and I wailed in pain. Callan’s eyes grew wide. Ethan planted himself by the side of the bed and took my hand.
“Foster, take Cal and find some ice chips,” Ethan barked.
The two jumped to do just that, needing to be helpful. In moments of stress, whenever Ethan took charge, it actually helped everyone to focus because they knew he had it covered. Ethan brought my hand up to his lips and kissed my knuckles. “You are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen,” he said.
I rolled my eyes. “I look and sound like a beached whale.” Ethan shook his head. “Not at all, Princess. You’re gorgeous.”
Foster and Callan came back with a cup heaped with ice and a different nurse. “Do you want the gentlemen to step into the hall while I check your cervix?” she asked.
There was absolutely no way that was going to happen. All three of them had been as high-strung as I’d ever seen them in the last few weeks. They were bound and determined to see me through this delivery every step of the way.
“They can stay,” I said.
This nurse knew to keep her face a little more neutral. She simply nodded. “Go ahead and bring your knees up, and then let them fall open with your feet together for me, okay?” It was a position I had grown much accustomed to at the OB’s office, and I copied it now, unabashed that I was on display for everyone to see. The nurse very gently checked me, and I did my best not to look so wholly uncomfortable. It wasn’t necessarily a painful sensation, but it wasn’t pleasant . . . and I didn’t want to worry my men. The nurse was smiling, though.
“You’re around six centimeters already,” she said. “It won’t be too long now. How are we feeling about an epidural?”
We all nodded our heads. “I would like one, yes.”
“Please,” Callan added, and if I weren’t in pain, I would have giggled. Callan was normally so laidback. He was my jokester, the one to make me laugh when I didn’t want to, and to see him so frazzled was almost funny.
The nurse promised that they would get the anesthesiologist to come by as soon as possible. Foster parked himself on the opposite side of my bed and held up a spoonful of ice chips. I took the bite and let the ice melt on my tongue. It was a soothing feeling. “Thank you for getting these,” I said.
Callan gave me a shaky smile, but he began to pace and couldn’t seem to stop. Poor love, I thought. “He doesn’t like seeing you in pain,” Foster said. “None of us do.”
“Once I get the epidural, I’ll be fine.” Another contraction gripped me, and I squeezed down on Ethan’s hand. Good man that he was, he barely reacted, although I could feel the bones of his hand squeezing together. “Sorry,” I mumbled to him once the contraction eased.
“I’m made of sturdy stuff,” he said with a little wink. “I’ll be just fine.”
I couldn’t tell whether he was just being a man about things or not, but I appreciated his resolve to take as much of my pain as he could. Ethan may have started out wary about the whole pregnancy, but I had seen a shift in him. He was still scared about fatherhood-I didn’t think that was likely to go away anytime soon-but he wasn’t backing down from it, either.
I’d asked whether they wanted a paternity test to know which of the men was the “biological” father, but they’d all waved that off as unimportant. They would all be this child’s-and any other children we might happen to have-fathers. To be loved equally and unconditionally by all. I’d fallen in love with them all a little more that day.
Callan paced for the twenty minutes it took the anesthesiologist to make his way to my room. Foster fed me ice chips when I wanted them, and Ethan took the brunt of the hand-holding during contractions. “Okay, I’m going to need two of you to go out into the hallway,” the anesthesiologist, an older man with the tag that read Dr. Greene, announced as he walked into the room. “One of you can stay to hold her hands, but I can’t have you all passing out on me.”
“Passing out?” Ethan all but rolled his eyes. “Sir, we were all Navy SEALs at one point in our lives. I promise you that we can handle just about anything.”
Dr. Greene sighed. “I’m about to put a nearly five-inch long, flexible needle into this woman’s spine.” I must have jumped because he looked at
me and smiled. He suddenly looked like a kind grandfather from a television show. “You are a rockstar. You’ve been dealing with a pain that no man could withstand, understand? This needle is going to feel like nothing compared to those contractions.” He turned back, stern once more, to Callan, Foster, and Ethan. “I’ve seen the biggest and baddest of men throw up all over my floor while I’ve administered an epidural, and I won’t have it happen now. Figure out who stays and who goes, gentlemen.”
Callan put a hand on Ethan’s shoulder. “I’ll stay,” he said. “You and Foster have been doing everything. Let me do this.”
Foster and Ethan shared a look, but ultimately, they moved out into the hallway to wait. Callan helped Dr. Greene sit me up, and I turned so that my feet hung over the side of the bed. “It’s not comfortable, but I need you to sit as far forward as you can,” Dr. Greene said.
Callan helped me to lean forward and kept hold of my hands. “You okay?” he asked.
“It’s a little hard to breathe like this.”
“This will only take a moment,” Dr. Greene assured me. “Let me know if anything feels painful or if you get lightheaded at all. Once I hit your spine, you shouldn’t feel anything, but sometimes the medicine can lower your blood pressure.”
There was a small stick as he numbed my back as best he could for inserting the epidural itself. Callan glanced over my shoulder, and I could see the color draining from his face. I grabbed his hands and squeezed. “Look at my face, okay? I need you not to faint on me.”
Callan nodded, and his eyes found mine. “Hey, Princess,” he said and smiled that million-watt smile that made me melt.
I felt a pressure in my back, and then I felt cold. “It’s cold,” I said. “Whatever you just hit.”
“Yes, it can feel that way.”
The feeling started to spread, and I gripped Callan’s hands all the tighter. “Are you okay?” he asked.
I shivered, and for the first time, what was happening hit me. “I’m scared, Cal,” I said softly, pitched just for him. “We’re going to be parents.” Callan laughed. “That’s the part I’m not scared about at all,” he said.
“You’re going to be an amazing mother.” He kissed my forehead.
My legs were starting to feel heavy at this point. “I think it’s working.”
Dr. Green taped something down against my skin and helped me to lie back. “Your nurse will be in shortly to put in a foley catheter. You won’t be able to get up for several hours.”
The pressure of a contraction hit, but none of the pain came with it. “That is amazing,” I said with a sigh. Callan’s shoulders relaxed. “Thank you, Dr. Greene.”
The older man laughed. “All soon-to-be mothers thank me,” he said. “Congratulations. I’m sure you two will have a beautiful baby.”
He left before either Callan or I could react. “Does it bother you that one of you will always be assumed to be the father and not all of you?” I asked.
Callan shrugged. “Maybe a little, but we’ll all know the truth, which is all that matters.”
It bothered me a little bit that we couldn’t just be open about our relationship, but unless I wanted to quit Hollywood altogether, that just couldn’t happen. Ethan, Foster, and Callan were better about it than I was, and they had offered several times for one of them to step to the front and become my “official” boyfriend. This had become a topic of argument, actually, because of the baby. The press had been hounding me about the baby’s father, and so far, I had done a good job of avoiding the question.
Ethan wanted me to allow one of them to step forward, but I wanted to avoid the microscope that we were under in Australia. Having a public partner would most certainly do that. Foster and Callan were more neutral about the whole subject and were content to let us duke it out. So far, I was winning . . . but the baby could change that.
There was a knock at the door, and then Ethan poked his head in. “Did Callan pass out on you?”
“Fuck off, Merc.”
Foster pushed the door open, and they both came in. “I’ll take that as a ‘no’,” Ethan said with a grin. “How’s our princess doing?”
“I am numb from the waist down,” I said. “I’m good.”
Foster sat in the chair beside me. “Don’t make us leave the room again,” he said. “Ethan was a nervous wreck.”
“Liar,” Ethan shot at him, but I just laughed. It would be just like our fearless leader to hide how scared he was from me. “Seriously, Adrianne, Foster was the one freaking out. I’m fine.”
Foster shook his head. “She already knows that I’m freaking out. I don’t have to hide out in the hall to do it.”
I touched his cheek, bringing his eyes to mine. “You don’t have to be scared, love,” I said. “I’m going to be just fine.”
“I know,” he said. “It’s still . . . terrifying.” Callan and Ethan echoed that sentiment, and my heart thumped against my ribs. There were moments when I wasn’t sure that I could love these men more than I already did, and then they showed me a side of them that I hadn’t seen before, and I fell even deeper.
The nurse came in and tried to chase them all out, but I refused. “They can stay,” I said. “They’re about to watch a birth. I think they can handle a catheter.”
She wasn’t thrilled about that, but they all got to stay-at a distance- while she inserted the catheter. “This will come out in the morning. You won’t feel it tonight, but it may be uncomfortable when you wake up.”
Three hours later, we welcomed Adelaide Montoya to the world. She was tiny and perfect, and I loved her from the moment the doctor plopped her, covered in goo, on my chest. After she was checked out-passed with flying colors-and got her first bath, she was brought back to our room, and Ethan was the first to scoop her up.
He stared at the tiny bundle with a look of absolute wonder. “She looks like you,” he told me. “A perfect likeness.”
Callan and Foster gathered near and studied her with that same look of amazement. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen something so small,” Foster said. Ethan offered the baby to him, and he took her and cradled her in the crook of his arm. He bent his head and pressed a kiss to her nose. “I would literally burn the world down for you, little girl.”
Foster offered the baby to Callan, and for all of his fear before, it was gone now. Callan took her and bounced her gently, as if he’d been doing it all his life. “We are going to have so much fun,” he told her, humming slightly. “Daddy Cal’s got a million stories to tell you-”
“That she’ll hear when she’s eighteen and not a day before,” Ethan said. I watched them with tears slipping down my cheeks. It was the most perfect moment that I could imagine. I cleared my throat and held out my
arms. “Can I have my daughter, please?”
Callan immediately brought her to me. “Addie, you have the best mother in the whole world,” he announced. “She’s completely won our hearts, but I’m sure she won’t mind sharing us with you.”
I looked down at the girl in my arms, and Ethan was right. She had my nose and the curve of my lips. “Don’t worry, Addie,” I said, running the tip of my finger down the bridge of her nose. “Those men are totally wrapped around our fingers.”
Ethan snorted. “You got that right.”
A short while later, Ethan and Foster were passed out on the room’s small loveseat, both seated with their arms crossed over their chests, and Callan was seated beside me with his head on his arms on the bed. It was just me and my girl.
“We are so lucky, little one,” I said. She opened her eyes, dark like mine, and we stared at one another. “We stumbled into a family that we didn’t even know we needed. Your daddies will make you the center of their very world, just like they did with me . . . and it’s the best place you could ever possibly be.”
I looked around the room and felt my heart swell. Addie squeaked, as if reprimanding me for looking away from her for even a second. I chuckled. “Mama’s here, Princess,” I said, soothing her.
“What will we call you now?” Callan asked sleepily. “If she’s our princess?”
I chuckled and nudged him with my leg. “Obviously, I’m your queen.”
He looked up at me, smiling. “Obviously.” Callan settled back onto his arms, content. I looked back down at our daughter, and I’d never felt luckier than I did in that moment, surrounded by the people who loved me and whom I loved best.