We reached a spot where there were a few hallways. I started to follow the group, but Charlie pulled me back.

  “The hair on the back of my neck is standing up. Something is wrong. I’m wearing a vest. Let me go first.” Charlie walked in front of me. I screamed as he got hit in the neck by a bullet. I could see the blood.

  The entire group was being fired upon. They were shouting into their comms, trying to get more guys to come to our location. Nobody had a moment to spare for Charlie. I put my hand against his gunshot wound in order to slow down the flow of blood.

  “I might be dying. I love you, but you deserve better than what I can offer you.”

  Before I could say a word in reply, Charlie passed out.

  HOSPITAL

  Charlie

  I could hear beeping. When my eyes opened, I could see that I was in a single hospital room. The antiseptic smell that lingered in every hospital settled into my nose. Apparently, that gunshot wound hadn’t been able to kill me.

  Brandon cleared his throat. “Kayla just went for some coffee.”

  I turned my head to look at my son-in-law, who had messy hair that I’d never have let him get away with in the military. “What else?”

  “Things were close. If that bullet had been a few inches off and hit your spine, you would have died.”

  I flinched, not wanting to relive the firefight. I was glad that I had gotten shot instead of Selena, who was pregnant with my child. “I’m glad to be alive.” I was wondering where Selena was.

  “Kayla will be back soon. She knows the big picture, but I’ll make it fast so you get the real details. Our contacts arrested Ximena at the scene. Because she was arrested in the United States, she didn’t have the kind of protection she’d get in Ecuador. The scandal has already forced Ximena to step down from her position. She is in jail awaiting indictment. Because Ximena was the only one who wanted to stop Ofelia from advancing, we should all be safe now.”

  I didn’t want to assume anything. Nobody was ever really safe. Safety was an illusion. “Please tell me what else is going on.”

  Brandon filled me in, but my mind was wandering. I wondered if I was on some kind of drugs, but I couldn’t bring myself to care.

  Brandon stopped talking. I asked, “Where are Selena and David?”

  “Selena has camped out in the visitors’ lounge, refusing to leave.” He chuckled. “She’s pretty strong-willed.” He raised his eyebrows at me. “The hospital staff has a policy to only let in family members, so David hasn’t bothered to swing by the hospital yet, saying that he has to keep the business afloat. You can call him at any point. Your cell phone is here; your assistant knows that you’re in the hospital.”

  I thought for a moment. “If Selena is in the visitors’ lounge, I need to go there.” I tried to get out of the hospital bed, which made some stuff disconnect. I grabbed my IV bag. A nurse came in the door, ready to chide me. “What are you doing?” she asked.

  “I need to see Selena.”

  “You are not supposed to leave that bed,” she said, pushing me back. The nurse was really strong. I supposed that she was used to hauling around dead weight.

  “The only way that I’ll be a good patient is if I can see Selena.”

  “Now that you’re awake, I suppose we can make that happen. She can only come in during visiting hours, though.” She hesitated for a moment. “I’ll come back with a menu so you can order a meal. You have a regular diet, but we need to keep you here for observation. The bullet didn’t hit anything vital, but it easily could have. I’ll get Selena.” She made sure all the machines were happy, plugging things back in. She clicked her tongue and left the room.

  “That’s my cue to leave.” Brandon got to his feet. “I’ll make sure that Kayla gives you some privacy, too. I don’t mind drinking a cup of coffee with my wife.” Brandon left the room.

  Soon, Selena came into the room. I felt embarrassed to be clad in only a hospital gown. “Are you okay?” she asked, worry clear in her dark eyes.

  “I’m better now that you’re here.” I looked at her. “We haven’t settled things. We need to talk about the baby and our future.”

  “I don’t know if a hospital room is the right place to make big decisions.”

  “I want to be there for you and our future baby.”

  “When you thought that you might be about to die, you said that I deserved better. I thought that you were trying to get out of your responsibilities. I know how you raised Kayla. I really don’t want it for my own child.”

  I didn’t know how to show her that I was a changed man. I hated that she didn’t trust what I was saying.

  ULTRASOUND

  Selena

  A FEW WEEKS LATER

  Even though I still lived in San Diego, I had scheduled a doctor’s appointment that I invited Charlie to come to during one of our nightly calls. I felt butterflies in my stomach at being so vulnerable, but he had an interest in the baby, too. He had been through this before when Annemarie was pregnant with Kayla. I could use his support.

  He arrived and moved into my apartment for a week. Charlie didn’t have a problem sleeping on a couch in my apartment. Considering that he had seen me naked, I wasn’t worried about being overly intimate with him. We were sharing one bathroom, but we made it work. On the single occasion when I had to go to the bathroom when he was showering, I went down to the ground floor and used the gym bathroom.

  My body was going through changes which were apparently normal for pregnant women. I remembered reading in Charles Duhiggs’ bestselling nonfiction book about certain things that pregnant women bought at different stages of their pregnancies. I guessed that you only bought things when you needed them.

  I had an intense craving for cheesy breadsticks. I could eat them every day. Charlie watched my dairy intake, which was higher than usual, and he made sure that I had food stocked in the fridge that was easy to prep. He gently nudged me about taking my prenatal vitamins, which I didn’t like very much. The pills were huge.

  We were able to get along together well enough. I knew that he could have afforded to check into any hotel he wanted in San Diego. He had chosen to stay with me to keep a closer eye on me and have access to my life. I knew that he hadn’t been that happy when Kayla had gotten involved with Brandon initially, but he had softened up when he realized that Kayla was pregnant. Now that I was also pregnant, I didn’t know how he really felt.

  It worried me that he’d propose for the sake of the baby. I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life in a miserable man who had been coerced into marrying me with my father’s threats. I had seen the tension between them. Dad hadn’t said much to me in the past few weeks, although he had sent me thumbs up emojis in response to my texts, which was pretty normal for him.

  When it was time for me to go to the doctor, Charlie bundled me into the car. He had a list of questions he wanted me to ask the doctor, because apparently he was concerned. I smiled on the inside, gravely taking his list of questions. I scanned them and couldn’t stop a giggle from escaping.

  “You want me to ask about the breadsticks?”

  “It’s a lot of carbs!” he countered.

  “I’m not asking about the breadsticks. If the baby wants a lot of cheese and carbs, that’s what our baby will get.”

  “Fine,” Charlie huffed. He started up the car and got on the road. Soon, we were at the doctor’s office. I signed in, and we filled out some paperwork on a tablet. As soon as we were done, the staff pulled us into the back. A nurse weighed me and asked me a lot of initial questions. I answered everything she threw at me. Charlie was with me the whole time.

  “Are you comfortable with your boyfriend being here?” asked the nurse.

  “Sure,” I told her.

  Charlie rubbed the back of his neck.

  When she left, Charlie asked me, “Am I your boyfriend?”

  “I don’t know if I want to call you anything else right now.”

  Charlie’s face was incredibly uncomfortable. “I’d be your fiancé, if you’d have me.”

  I was a bit of a captive audience right now. I didn’t know what to do or say to him.

  “We’re going to have to talk about it later.” I knew that he was staying in my apartment, so I genuinely couldn’t get away from the conversation.

  To my relief, a doctor and ultrasound tech walked into the room. The doctor was brisk, asking me questions about my pregnancy. The ultrasound tech asked me if it was okay to lift my shirt. I nodded, and she applied cold gel to my tummy. She fiddled with the equipment, and then Charlie and I could both see the little one on the screen.

  “Wow,” said Charlie. He brushed a tear out of his eye.

  I was glad to see the little one. “Is the baby healthy?” I asked.

  “As healthy as can be,” said the doctor, content. “I think you’re doing fine. The pregnancy is progressing normally.” She rattled off a list of reasons to get in contact with her as quickly as possible. “Otherwise, I think you’re good for now. Have a good one.” She swept out of the room.

  The ultrasound tech made sure to give both of us the pictures that had been taken of the baby. She let me clean the gel off of my stomach so it didn’t get all over my clothes. She wrapped up, and then Charlie and I paid at the front desk for the visit.

  I couldn’t stop looking at the sonogram.

  “It brought me right back to the day that I first saw Kayla on the ultrasound, so many years ago. Thank you for giving me a second chance I never though I wanted. I love you.”

  I thought that I loved him back, but I was nineteen. I didn’t know if I wanted to commit to someone with a bad track record as a father. I thought that Charlie meant it. I knew for sure he hadn’t been very present for Kayla. I didn’t want him to be an occasional visitor as he had been for his firstborn. As soon as we got home and parked, I leaned across the console and kissed him. Some hard conversations were going to have to wait for later.

  GESTURES

  Charlie

  Defeated, I slumped on the couch. I had tried so many things to convince Selena that I was serious about her and the baby living with me. I had an interior designer do several calls with her about putting together a nursery. When Kayla was a baby, we hadn’t had the spare money that I had now to put towards Annemarie’s maternal nesting instincts. I thought that the nursery would convince Selena that I cared about her and the baby, but nothing really came of it. We painted the nursery cheery shades of yellow in a paint that didn’t have a lot of fumes. Selena had selected the furniture she wanted. She didn’t seem enthusiastic about raising a child in Los Angeles, even though it was where she had been raised.

  She was still planning on finishing her International Business degree in San Diego. I didn’t know if it meant that I’d be at home with the baby in Los Angeles. I wouldn’t have agreed to it as the hard-charging go-getter I had been in my early twenties when I had Kayla. It had been on Annemarie to take care of the baby. I squirmed now, knowing that society felt a little more enlightened than two decades ago. My expectations of Annemarie and then Annemarie’s mother seemed hopelessly outdated now.

  I felt like I had been given a second chance. I didn’t want to squander it. I had already been working on transitioning some of my duties to newly hired junior executives. It felt good to talk to my employees about my regularly recurring meetings and introduce the new faces to my long-standing business contacts. When I looked at their plates, I saw that I had been working myself too hard for too long. I didn’t mind hiring new grads straight out of business school, because they were hungry to prove themselves and provide value to the company. Some of them would wash out, and I knew it. But people who had spent the time during their school years adding useful skills to their resumes brought something to the table, despite their youth. As long as I kept an eye on what they were doing, probably on a remote basis, I could let them take the lead on a lot of projects that I had going on all over the world.

  It made me question if I could have made these decisions years ago. The pandemic had changed the way that most business meetings included a remote option now. There was definitely an expectation that there would be good conference equipment in the major conference rooms where people gathered. I made sure that all of my junior executives carried around powerful microphones so I could hear what happened in the conference rooms wherever they were sent around the world.

  It was easier than I thought it would be to find new grads who had language skills. Something had happened in the years between when I had been in college and now. Kids tended to learn more languages.

  Despite all the work I had put into training new executives, Selena hadn’t been impressed. I had flown down to San Diego to go shopping with her for baby clothes. I knew that Kayla had outgrown all of her stuff within days. I suggested not using onesies, and Selena agreed, since she wanted to keep things simple. Selena had a good eye for what would work for our baby, whatever happened.

  I was starting to feel like time was running out for Selena to agree to marry me before the baby came out. I didn’t know if we were going to plan the wedding in San Diego or Los Angeles, but, again, it was something that I’d preferred for Annemarie to take point on when I got married the first time. Selena was not convinced the way that Annemarie was, in large part because Selena had seen the way that I’d been absent for Kayla’s life. I had almost two decades to atone for.

  Because I was desperate and out of ideas, I called David.

  “Hey.” David had been divesting some of his duties as well. We’d really had a hiring streak, and we knew that not everyone would work out. Both of us had been creating a lot of documentation with our assistants, who had gotten bonuses for more than usual activity.

  “I need to figure out how Selena will say yes to me. We need to be married before our child is born.”

  David was silent. I knew he still wasn’t thrilled that Selena was pregnant.

  “I have an idea,” David said with great reluctance.

  NEW HOME

  Selena

  Kayla had driven down with Brandon to San Diego to have a girls’ weekend with me. Brandon made himself scarce. We had planned to eat good food and go shopping for our kids. It was nice to be able to kvetch about being pregnant with someone else dealing with it.

  By the end of our first brunch, I felt good about Kayla’s baby and my baby showing up a few months apart. I didn’t know which city I’d be raising my kid in, but I knew that I’d have some family support.

  “You know, my dad really seems to be in love with you. You should give him a chance.”

  “I know what he’s like. I’ve watched how distant he was when you were growing up. My dad was way more present.”

  She stacked the plates on our table. “He’s being sincere about trying to change.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Nothing is guaranteed. Are you using your fears as an excuse to avoid committing to my dad?”

  I was stunned. Maybe I was holding back. I had a history of over-analyzing all the possible paths. Because I knew how Charlie had raised Kayla, I had been guarding my heart.

  “Do you think I’ve been rejecting your dad out of fear and pride, rather than certainty that he’s going to go on the road and leave me alone with the baby?”

  “Maybe.” Kayla was being really polite.

  I thought about what would happen if I would open myself up to being hurt by Charlie. I talked to him very frequently. He had made it clear that he was interested in the baby. He talked about a future together.

  I knew that I wanted to stay in San Diego for the near future.

  After Kayla and I had spent a great day together, I came home with a trunk full of tons of stuff for the baby. When I got into the driveway, I noticed Charlie’s car. There was a car parked on the street. When I got into my home, I saw a woman with platinum blonde hair that was upswept. She was wearing a pant suit. She was wearing lipstick that perfectly fit her complexion. She was also clearly at least in her forties.

  My heart sank. Was Charlie telling me that he was moving on? Was our baby not enough of a tie to ensure that he committed to me? I worried about why Charlie even was interested in me at all. Maybe I had held out for too long.

  “Meet Robyn,” Charlie said. “She’s our realtor.”

  All the tension in my shoulders disappeared.

  “I’m getting rid of my South Dakota residency. I’m getting rid of my place in Los Angeles, even though we have a nursery there. I’m buying a big place in San Diego, so that Kayla and you can raise the new babies here. If Kayla and Brandon want to stay in Los Angeles, they can. If they want to leave their baby with us for a weekend, they’ll be able to.”

  “What about work? How will you work from San Diego?”

  “I’ve gotten rid of just about all of my work that requires me to travel. I’ve trained a lot of people to pick up my duties.”

  “Is my dad doing the same thing?”

  “I don’t know if David wants to live in San Diego, but he has been getting rid of some of his responsibilities, too. We’re getting a second chance with our grandkids that we didn’t take when we had kids. I want you in my home, but I don’t know if you’ll have me as your husband. Will you marry me?”

  I considered it. I had been really scared that he would move on with someone like Robyn.

  “You want to be a dad?”

  “Yes.” Charlie nodded and crossed his arms.

  “I’ll marry you.” The sentence left my mouth, and his mouth came crashing down on mine. I felt like I was in the middle of a hurricane as he tugged all of my clothing off. He pulled me onto his lap, putting my core against the ridge of his erection. I rode him without taking him inside for a while. He was biting my neck, which was making me wet. He stimulated my clit with his hand, which made me feel antsy. I moaned into his mouth, and he connected our bodies.