He kissed my forehead once, quickly. Then he shifted seamlessly into action.
“GCS fifteen,” he told the medics as they knelt beside us. “Premature labor, thirty-five weeks. Water broke less than fifteen minutes ago. Mild spotting. No known placenta issues. Blood pressure ran borderline high last week but stabilized. Group B negative. No preeclampsia symptoms as of forty-eight hours ago.”
The medic at my side looked up sharply. “You memorized her chart?”
Ethan didn’t glance away from me. “Yes.”
Of course he had.
One medic secured a monitor around my abdomen while the other checked vitals. Ethan stayed close enough that my hand could remain locked around his wrist. He let me hold on as tightly as I needed, even when my nails dug hard enough to leave crescents in his skin.
My mother found her voice at last.
“What is happening?”
Ethan lifted his head and turned toward her.
He was not a cruel man. I have seen him show more patience to strangers than most people offer their families. But in that moment whatever he might have said gently had died somewhere above the Atlantic.
“Your daughter asked for help,” he said. “You chose not to give it.”
The words were quiet.
That made them worse.
My mother flushed. “That is not fair. We didn’t know—”
“You were told.” His eyes moved to my father. “Repeatedly.”
My father, stung into anger by being addressed as an equal instead of a superior, drew himself up. “And who exactly do you think you are, landing a helicopter on private property?”
Ethan rose halfway, never releasing my hand.
“The man your daughter should have needed less than her own parents tonight,” he said.
Silence cracked through the room.
Even the medics seemed to feel it.
Then another contraction hit, savage and blinding, and the world narrowed again to pain, breath, Ethan’s hand, Ethan’s voice, Ethan here.
The stretcher clicked open beside me.
“On my count,” one medic said.
Ethan bent close, his forehead almost touching mine. “You’re coming with me now.”
I searched his face. “Don’t leave.”
His expression changed—not softer, exactly, but deeper. Like something sacred had just been placed in his keeping.
“I’m not leaving you,” he said. “Not for a single second.”
They lifted me.