I almost cried out of joy, allowing them to help me get settled in the chair.
Every inch of my body hurt, but my heart had the strongest pain out of all.
"Can I hold her?" I asked the nurse.
"For a moment, I'm sure." She replied cheerily, pushing me through the halls as Karina followed.
As we turned the hall into a new room, I saw a lone figure at the end.
His back to me, his once perfectly pressed suit jacket lay tossed on a chair. His body swayed back and forth, every muscle in his strong shoulders rippling slightly beneath his button up shirt.
When he turned, his perfect blue eyes glanced up in surprise.
"You're awake." He said gently, moving towards me with a small pink bundle in his arms.
He knelt down, pressing the child into my arms.
I stared down at her, admiring the perfect curve of her lower lip and the way her nose crinkled.
"She’s beautiful." Sebastian said gently, "Just like her mother."
I glanced at him in disbelief, attention turning back to the baby as she gurgled.
"Do you want to try and feed her?" The nurse asked, "I can help you."
I nodded quickly, glancing up at Karina.
"Why don't we grab some coffee?" My mother in law said to Sebastian, "We'll meet you back in the hospital room."
I nodded, watching their backs fade around the hall.
Feeding that child was way more complicated than I would have believed. It hadn't been easy, and I wasn't sure it'd even been successful. We'd only had a short time before the baby was needed back in the incubator.
Dr. Alvarez was waiting when I was wheeled back into the hospital room.
"Good to see you out and about." She said happily, "I'll be releasing you tomorrow morning. You’re doing great."
"We can go home?" I asked excitedly, "Really?"
"Well, darling," Sebastian began gently, squeezing my shoulder, "You get to go home. The baby needs to stay a bit longer..."
I turned my gaze back to the doctor, almost leaping out of the chair to go bet my baby back, "No. I won't go without her. She needs me."
"She needs you to understand that she needs a little longer to stabilize." Dr. Alvarez said gently, a conversation she had with much routine, "She didn't finish developing, she needs a bit of extra time to get nice, strong lungs."
"I can't abandon her." I whispered, sinking back in the chair as though I were melting away, "I can't leave her."
"She's in the best of care." Sebastian said softly, "We can come see her every day until she comes home."
"Of course you wouldn't care about leaving her." I shot back angrily, "You leave all the time, don't you?"
He cleared his throat, clearly taken aback by the venom on my tongue.
The doctor arched a blond eyebrow, shifting her feet, "Well, okay then, I'm going to make sure the discharge papers are ready for tomorrow morning." She finally said, nodding her head as she escaped the sudden tension between us.
"Now, now." Karina said, holding up her hands, "Is this really the place for such a thing? You two have better things to discuss, like what you’ll name that beautiful little girl."
I allowed Sebastian to help me back in bed, not making eye contact with him as I rolled over.
I was tired, and it was the time for sleep. I didn’t want to talk about names yet, I didn’t want anything but for my baby to be in my arms.
Though, there was one more thing that I did want. I wanted my relationship with my child’s father to make sense for more than five minutes.
By the time we left the next morning after a long goodbye with the newest addition to our family, I had still not said a single word to the man I'd married.
Now that the baby was here, I had to start thinking about our happiness.
Would she be happy growing up in a family where the parents cared so little for each other?
Or would it be best to break away from all that had become my life?
Chapter Eleven
Though the baby had not spent a single second in the giant mansion that we returned to, the home felt so empty without her.
I wanted so much to have her with me. How was it possible to love something so much that you only just met?
Sebastian had set me up in his own room as opposed to mine, as it was a bit more spacious and closer to the stairs.
I lay in the middle of his giant bed, inspecting the paintings that hung on his walls. They were all rather sunny pieces, made of reds and oranges and yellows, and I couldn't help but to wonder if he'd chosen them all himself or if they were chosen by Alissa. She was an interior decorator after all, though I couldn't see her appreciating the artwork either.
To tell the truth, I was bored out of my mind.