Chapter 23
879 Words
*Liam's POV*
"Wife?"
He said it like the word had personally offended him. Like it had walked up to him in broad daylight and slapped him across the face and he still couldn't quite believe the audacity of it.
I looked at him steadily.
"Yes," I said. "My lawfully wedded wife."
I felt Elena shift slightly beside me and I glanced at her just for a second. The corner of her mouth had lifted. Small. Almost imperceptible. But it was there, and it did something embarrassing to my chest that I filed away to examine at a later, more appropriate time.
Alexander opened his mouth.
Nothing came out....Shock was written allover his face
He just stood there. The great Alexander Steele, presumably the most powerful man in every room he had ever walked into, standing in a hospital waiting room with his hand still half-raised and his face doing something that looked remarkably like a man watching the entire floor disappear beneath his feet.
I almost felt sorry for him.
Almost.
"What in the world is going on here?"
The voice cut across the waiting room like a blade... it was sharp, loud, and wrapped in the particular brand of entitlement that announces itself before it even arrives.
Andrea of course. I rolled my eyes.
She appeared at my elbow, looked at Alexander, looked at Elena, looked at me, and then put her hands on her hips with the energy of someone who had walked into a situation that inconvenienced her personally and was ready to make that everyone else's problem.
"Excuse me — what is happening?" She looked at Elena. "Do you know them?" She looked at Alexander. "Who are you?" She looked back at Alexander. "Why is everyone just standing here? Can someone please explain...."
Nobody spoke.
The silence lasted exactly four seconds.
And then I heard fast footsteps behind us.
I turned.
A woman was hurrying across the waiting room floor toward us and I felt the moment register before I fully processed it, because the face coming toward me was Elena's face. The same eyes, the same bone structure, the same mouth ,everything identical and yet somehow entirely different in the way it was being worn.
This had to be the twin.
Eliza.
She was looking at Elena with the expression of someone who has been dreading a specific moment for a very long time and has just watched it arrive anyway. Her eyes were wide, her colour was high, and she was moving with the anxious urgency of a person trying to contain a fire that was already spreading.
Andrea turned and stared shockingly.
Turned back to me.
Turned back to Eliza.
"Wait." Her voice had lost all of its sharpness. She pointed.... actually pointed, one finger extended — and looked between Elena and Eliza with her mouth slightly open. "There are two of them??"
I pressed my lips together.
This was not the moment to laugh.
This was absolutely not the moment.
I looked at Elena.
Elena was no longer looking at Andrea. She was no longer looking at Alexander. She was looking at Eliza and every trace of the small smile from a moment ago had gone completely. What replaced it was something much older and much deeper and much quieter than anger. The kind of feeling that doesn't need to be loud because it has been living in you long enough to know it isn't going anywhere.
She turned without a word and walked toward the stairs.
"Elena..." Alexander moved immediately, following, his voice dropping into gently. "Elena, wait. Why are you here? Is everything alright? Is it the baby — is something wrong—"
"Do not," I said.
I stepped forward and put myself between him and the direction Elena had gone. Not aggressively. Not loud. I just made sure I was solid and completely clear.
"Do not follow her," I said. "Do not call her name. Do not ask about our baby." I held his gaze and kept my voice even and quiet so there was no possible misreading of what I was saying. "She is my wife. That child is under my protection. And if you take one more step in her direction I will have you removed from this building and placed somewhere considerably less comfortable. Are we clear?"
Alexander stared at me.
Something moved behind his eyes. It started as disbelief, shifted into something colder, and then — before I could track the full transition — he stepped forward and hit me hard in the chest with one flat palm.
Not a punch. A shove. The kind that meant back off in the most physical language available.
I didn't move.
"Stay out of this," he said, low and furious. "This has nothing to do with you."
"She has everything to do with me."
"That is my child..."
"That is my wife..."
"Liam!"
Elena's voice cut through everything.
I turned.
She had stopped on the third step of the staircase.
"You want to make this physical?" I scoffed
"I will not get physical with you Alexander, and i most certainly will not exchange punches in front of my wife".
"No, you want to fight over her. Let's do it. May the best man win" Alexander roared.
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