Episode 5

Harper gaped at him. "Married?" She choked back a laugh of disbelief. "You’re surely not serious?"

"Of course, I’m serious. I want to provide for my child and the best way to do that is for us to marry."

Harper didn’t get the chance to argue the point, for another contraction took hold as well as the overwhelming desire to push. "Quick—press the buzzer for the midwife. I think the baby’s coming."

Jack reached for the buzzer and the midwife and her assistant came in soon after. He knew his job was to support Harper, so he concentrated on mopping her brow and holding her hand so she could ride out the final contractions. But it was agony to watch her, knowing it was his fault she was pregnant. How on earth had it happened?

He was always so careful. He never had sex without protection. But somehow they had made a baby together and it was about to come into the world. He hadn’t seen a birth before, only an acted one in a movie or television show. Nothing could have prepared him for the reality of childbirth. What a woman had to go through—the torturous pain, the indignity of having her body so open and exposed, and the sheer vulnerability of giving birth astounded him. A flicker of fear lit in his gut and spread like a forest fire. What if things went wrong? Women still occasionally died from complications in childbirth and sometimes so did the baby. What if there was nothing he could do to save either of them? He was useless in his field of knowledge of hotel development. He knew little of medicine other than basic first aid. The sense of powerlessness sent his heart rate soaring and a trickle of sweat to drip down his spine.

"Time to push," Meg the midwife said, coaching Harper in the final stages. "Strip off your gown so we can put baby skin on skin. You too, Jack. Open your shirt so the baby can feel your skin and get to know your smell."

Jack swallowed a boulder of emotion as he helped Harper pull her gown down off her shoulders before he undid his shirt buttons. He wasn’t the sort of guy to cry. He hadn’t even cried at his father’s funeral. But right then, a wave of unexpected emotion swept through him like a tsunami. His chest tightened as if his heart was looking for a room to expand but was held back by the cage of his ribs.

Harper gave a primal cry and bore down, her hand gripping his with pulverizing force.

"You can do it, sweetie. Almost there," he said, glancing at the business end of things where he could see a tiny dark-haired head crowning. It didn’t seem real, it didn’t seem possible he was glimpsing his flesh and blood. His chest swelled, his heart thumped, and his breath stalled at the raw and earthy beauty of seeing his baby come into the world.

Harper gave another cavewoman scream and the baby was expelled from her body. The midwife scooped the little wizened bundle up and laid it on Harper’s ***** chest, umbilical cord still attached. "You have a beautiful daughter. Congratulations."

He had a daughter. The baby gave a loud cry that to Jack was like the sweetest music he had ever heard. He blinked against the sting of tears, his throat so tight he couldn’t speak. The rush of emotion at seeing his daughter for the first time blindsided him as much as Harper’s cryptic pregnancy. The tiny body curled up like a comma on Harper’s chest was his little girl.

His mother would be overjoyed. She had dropped hints for years about grandchildren but he’d always shut her down, telling her not to get her hopes up. Like him, his mother hadn’t had time to prepare for such a momentous event but he knew she would relish every moment now. He whipped out his phone and took a few photos, knowing his mother would never believe what had just happened without photographic evidence. He was having enough trouble believing it himself. A baby girl. His baby girl.

"Would you like to cut the cord?" the midwife asked.

"I... Yes," Jack found himself saying in a trance-like daze. He put his phone down and he did as the midwife instructed and watched as she put a clamp on the cord next to the baby’s little tummy.

Harper was sobbing with relief and joy as she cradled the tiny baby against her breasts. "Oh, Jack, isn’t she beautiful?" The note of wonder in her tone sent another wave of emotion through him. Call him biased, but surely not all babies were as beautiful as his baby?

"She is true." He stroked a soft finger over the baby’s downy head. "She’s so tiny. Like a doll."

Harper gave him a speaking glance. "She didn’t feel too tiny a few minutes ago."

Jack leaned down to press a kiss on Harper’s forehead. "You were amazing. So brave. I’m in awe of what you just did."

Harper looked up at him with shining eyes. "Thanks for being here. I would’ve hated to be alone." She looked down at the baby again, her voice softening to a soothing coo as she said,

"Hey, little one. Sorry, we haven’t got a name for you yet." The baby began nuzzling against Harper’s chest, her tiny, mewling cries making Jack’s heart squeeze as if it were in a vice.

"You can offer her the ******," Meg said. "Were you planning on breastfeeding?"

"I guess so..." Harper said. ‘"It’s best for the baby, isn’t it?"

"We like to encourage mums to try and breastfeed, but if it’s too hard, don’t beat yourself up about using the formula," the midwife assured her.

Harper helped the baby latch onto her ****** and Jack wondered if he’d ever seen such a beautiful sight. A mother and her newborn baby. His baby. His little daughter. It was like a miracle to see her perfectly formed, tiny body. The little starfish's hands, her feet smaller than the length of his thumb, her downy head covered in jet-black hair, the same as his. He blinked and blinked again, fully expecting he would find himself back at his hotel penthouse, waking up from a weird dream. But no, he was in the delivery suite, watching his newborn daughter having her first feed. The emotions he had never felt before flooded through his body. The emotions he had resisted feeling for most of his adult life. The emotions tugged on his chest as if strings were attached to his heart, pulling at the shield of armor he had built around it.

He was a father.

A dad.

His little girl needed him in her life. He had responsibilities now that were so important they surpassed everything he had achieved in his career so far. He would not—could not—allow anyone else to rear his child. It was his responsibility to see she had everything she needed to thrive. He had heard someone say that every childhood lasted a lifetime and it had resonated a little too well with him. There were aspects of his childhood he would do anything to prevent happening to his daughter.

The midwife finished cleaning up, and once the baby had finished feeding, she wrapped her in a soft blanket and left them to continue to bond with her. Jack took some more photos with his phone, still finding it surreal to be a father. Had his father felt this sense of awe and wonder at his birth? Jack had a handful of good memories of his father as a younger man but the slow and painful progression of his father’s Parkinson’s Disease had tainted many others.

Jack had been sent to boarding school to spare him the worst of it. And he had been sent away for holiday camps as well because his father refused to travel. The home had ceased to be home and was more of a hospice. A place of gloom and doom and disappointment. His father’s death when Jack was eighteen had not devastated him, as it had his mother. His emotional response had been relief instead of grief. But now he was a father himself, he couldn’t imagine wanting anything but the best for his daughter. He wanted to be fully present in raising her. He wanted to be there for her for as long as he lived. She would be seen and she would be heard.

The baby soon fell asleep and Harper glanced up at Jack again. "Would you like to hold her?"

Jack couldn’t remember ever holding a baby before, certainly not one so young. What if he didn’t hold her correctly? Wasn’t there something about their necks being fragile and needing proper support? What if the baby began to cry? What if she didn’t recognize him as her father? "I don’t want to wake her. She looks so peaceful."

Disappointment flickered briefly over Harper’s face but then she covered it with bitterness.

"Would you prefer to have a paternity test done first?" Her tone was sharp as a scalpel, her grey-green eyes hard.

Jack had not even thought of asking for a paternity test. He knew most men in his position would do so and would be completely justified in asking for one, except he didn’t for a moment doubt the baby was his. He couldn’t explain why, it wasn’t rational at all, just a feeling. And he wasn’t normally the type of man to rely on feelings. But... that screwed-up little face topped with its liberal dusting of black hair did resemble him as a baby. And he felt connected to her in a way he couldn’t explain. An almost spiritual connection. "Is there any reason I should have one done?" he asked.

***Download NovelToon to enjoy a better reading experience!***