Claire: The Forced Virgin Of The Billionaire
Chapter 158 – Epilogue

“I wanted to be a man that made my Uncle proud.” His voice was ice-cold.

I hated making the warmth disappear. I regretted my words. But, I’d already asked, so might as well continue.

“Before that? What did you dream of?” I tried.

“That’s it. Since I could walk, earliest memories, being told I’d be king of the kingdom someday.”

“What about now? What’s your dream now?”

“Happily ever after with my ice cream parlor maid.” He squeezed my butt and I smiled. I’d told him about the job I’d previously had uptil the age of 16.

“I was more than the job I used to do. And so are you.”

He went quiet and so I did, too, thinking over how hard it must be for him to have no idea what would be next.

Well, I didn’t know, either. My plans a few months back of my own apartment, of going to college for higher studies, all that had changed, too. All I knew about my future was that I’d be his wife.

But, right then, that was enough. We had time to figure it all out.

And little did I know that figure it out we would.

Epilogue

A LITTLE OVER 8 MONTHS AFTER THE WEDDING (The wedding scene was in episode 153)

Claire’s POV

I gently jiggled his shoulder. “Azriel.”

He stirred. “Hey, baby girl.”

“Azriel, I think my water broke.”

“What? It’s not due for two weeks.”

“Try telling this baby that,” I said with humor in my shaky voice.

Okay, so I was officially terrified. I woke up feeling like I had to pee, which was not new since it’d been at least three times a night of peeing the past few weeks.

And I thought it felt damp between my legs but figured I was maybe just sweaty. I’d been like an oven all the time I’d been incubating our little baby. I waddled to the bathroom to go pee and when I stood up afterwards, fluid was running down my legs.

***

Thirty-eight weeks is considered full term, sir. Not to worry.”

The doctor was trying to put my very anxious husband at ease. My hubby was acting like I was the first woman in the history of women to give birth and that the two-week early thing was either dangerous or very f*****g inconvenient.

We didn’t know the gender of the baby. I’d wanted it to be a surprise. It was something we argued about, because he wanted to know, but I won the argument. I won a fair few arguments while pregnant. I wouldn’t say (not by any stretch of the imagination) that I had tamed my dominating husband, but we were compromising, both of us, on a regular basis.

“I have no pain or anything,” I said.

“That’s a sign we may need to get some help to move things along. Now, do you want an epidural?”

“Don’t you guys have this s**t on file?” Azriel snapped. Our doctor was on vacation. Inconvenient. Azriel was pissed about it.

“I want to try to do it naturally.”

“So,” the doctor said, “we are going to induce, since your water broke but you’re not dilated past a centimeter and haven’t had contractions. It could be a long haul. An epidural would help.”

“She’ll take it,” Azriel answered.

“Azriel…”

“Take the pain killers, baby. Don’t try to be a hero.”

“I don’t want the baby to be born stoned.”

“Not to worry, Mrs. Clarke. It’s considered very safe. But, it is up to you.” The doctor was not impressed with my overbearing husband’s attitude.

“Take it, Claire,” Azriel urged.

Luc and Tess both made Azriel turn green when they talked about how much childbirth hurt at my surprise co-ed baby shower.

Yeah. Co-ed baby showers did not mix with Clarke men. Drake was a good sport (One night Azriel had broken down sobbing in our bed a few days after our wedding and ended up telling me about his tragic childhood with Drake, his b***d brother who’d ended up replacing Dario in the family business after showing up a few aways after the wedding. I was kept in the dark about most of the matter but nevermind) but Azriel tried to escape three times. It was especially funny when they outfitted him with the paper plate “bra” covered in bows and ribbon. I printed the picture and put it on our fridge with a magnet.

He threw it in the garbage.

I dug it out.

He threw it in the fireplace.

“I can print more,” I taunted.

“After this baby comes, you got about ten different spankings owed, baby girl.”

I stuck out my tongue. “Is that eleven now? Because bring it on, Clarke!”

I was so horny throughout my pregnancy.

“Doctor? Did we bring on early water breaking by having too much s*x?”

The doctor looked surprised.

Azriel face-palmed with embarrassment, I think, but then his face went horrified.

“Oh God, did we do something bad?” I felt the tears welling up.

“You weren’t given any orders to refrain, Mrs. Clarke, so you did nothing wrong. Thirty-eight weeks is considered full term. She won’t be a preemie. Everything looks good with vitals. We just need to get you dilating since your water broke. We don’t leave it too long otherwise you’re at risk for infection.”

“Infection?” Azriel snapped.

I gasped. “She? You said she. We didn’t wanna know the gender!”

“It’s a girl? A f*****g girl? f**k my motherfucking life.” Azriel put his head down, looking like he was gonna puke.

The doctor didn’t flinch. “Did I say she? I didn’t check the gender here.”

“What’s wrong with it being a girl?” I asked.

Azriel had his head in his hands. He sat down on a chair and didn’t answer me.

“Azriel? What’s wrong with a girl?” I kind of shrieked that part. “You think you’re not man enough if our firstborn isn’t a boy?”

“Mr. and Mrs. Clarke…” the doctor spoke but I shouted over him.

“Really f*****g nice, Azriel.”

I felt the water continue to leak out of me. I was wearing a hospital diaper. It wasn’t bad enough to be sitting here in a hospital diaper with amniotic fluid leaking out of me, now my husband was upset that it was a girl.

“This was why I didn’t want to know the gender. If your first born wasn’t a boy I figured you’d go all alpha male and be pissed off. But when you see the baby and replace out when you see it, you wouldn’t care. f**k my life.” I was bawling.

“I spoke out of turn, Mrs. Clarke. I haven’t checked the gender.”

This doctor was lying. The file was in his hand and I’d watched him look all through it.

I folded my arms across my chest. Azriel was still leaned forward with his head in his hands.

“Doctor?” A nurse poked her head in. “Can I have a word?”

“Be back. Do I get that epidural ready?” he asked.

“Do it,” Azriel answered without looking up.

The doctor’s eyes stayed on me.

I nodded.

The doctor left.

“You’re a f*****g a*****e,” I muttered.

His eyes rose to meet mine and he had a look in his eyes that I’d never ever seen. My husband looked absolutely terrified.

My heart sank. I swallowed.

He swallowed, too, and got to his feet and then moved to me.

I was frozen, in shock at the look on his face.

“Baby girl. My baby girl is giving me a baby girl. Claire, I am over the fuckin’ moon, all right? And scared out of my goddamn f*****g mind. You’re early. That scares me. I hear infection. That scares me. And I don’t want to see you in pain.”

I burst into sobs and he wrapped his arms around me.

“I love you,” I said into his shoulder.

“I love you more,” he said.

“No way.”

“Yeah way.”

“Shut up,” I muttered.

He started to laugh. “Make me.”

His eyes looked a little moist.

Awe. I grabbed his jaw with both hands and kissed him.

A throat clearing sound interrupted. The doctor was back, smiling, and with a nurse. “We ready to get this little boy or girl here?”

I rolled my eyes. It was so a girl.

“You’re on a blind date,” the nurse said. “And as much as you love one another, you’re both about to meet the true love of your lives. He or she will bring you two even closer. Let’s do this!”

***

Our nurse rocked. She was awesome. She took great care of me.

Azriel’s siblings filed in to see me about an hour later, giving well-wishes and trying to bring me food, but that got shut down by the nurses. Azriel refused to eat since I couldn’t eat. He earned definite brownie points for that!

***

It was five o’clock and I’d been induced for eight hours with very little progress. I was glad for the epidural. I was also a little bit crabby, because I’d had about a dozen people looking under my hospital gown and prodding me down there to see if I’d dilated further.

Azriel looked about ready to blow his top, because at this stage, everyone was putting their hands on me down there without him even leaving the room.

“She’s only three centimeters,” the nurse said. “We’ve been upping her Pitocin constantly. If she doesn’t progress, it might mean a section.”

“The f**k is a section?” Azriel asked.

“Azriel. Language,” I reprimanded.

“A cesarean. C-section,” the nurse said.

Azriel went white. He looked at me. “No. f**k, no.”

I was feeling sick. Scared. I didn’t wanna be cut open.

“You are not f*****g filleting my wife!” Azriel snapped.

At that verbiage, I heaved. The nurse moved to me with a puke basin and just in time.

When I stopped barfing, she was scolding him.

“Mr. Clarke, you need to dig deep and compose yourself. You’re upsetting your wife. Maybe in situations like these, we oughta go back to the days when daddies waited in the wings ready to hand out cigars, oblivious to what really happens here.”

She rubbed my back.

“No. Azriel, don’t go!” I was bawling.

Azriel was suddenly there, at my bedside. “Out of my way, lady. Baby?”

I looked up. His hand came to my jaw. He was oblivious to the death glares my nurse was giving him.

“Sorry, baby girl. I’ll be better. You’re gonna be okay.”

“I don’t want to do this. I wanna go home.”

“Baby, I’ve got you. We’re gonna get through this.”

“You’re gonna meet him tonight, either way,” the nurse said.

“Him?” I asked.

She smiled and shrugged. “Or her.”

I smiled.

“Or him?” she said again.

“You’re trying to cover for that doctor telling us the gender by mistake. It’s totally a girl.” I wiped my eyes.

“Fifty per cent chance.” She shrugged and then headed toward the door and shot Azriel a dirty look before she left, pointing her two fingers at her eyes and then pointing them at him.

I busted up laughing.

Azriel grinded his teeth.

He put his forehead to mine. “Sorry to scare you, baby.”

“You’re scared, too. It’s okay.” I rubbed his jaw.

“What can I do. You want a foot rub? A back rub?”

“Did you read the baby books?” I smiled. I’d told him to read them but didn’t think he did.

“I read a chapter. The chapter about helping you through this part.”

Awe.

I smiled. “I can’t really feel my feet much, so the foot rub idea is probably a waste. But, a backrub would not be unappreciated.”

Tess peeked in. “How’s it going?”

I scrunched my face up. “I might have to have a c-section.”

She smiled. “That’s okay. It’s routine nowadays. And you’re all frozen so it won’t hurt, you won’t have to push for two hours, and your vajayjay won’t be ripped from one end to the other.”

“Yeah,” I grumbled. “But a scar and longer recovery.”

Azriel was on the edge of my hospital bed, flexing his jaw.

He did not like the idea of surgery. I think he preferred someone else give birth to this baby for me. If he could’ve paid someone to do it, I bet he would.

“And you. Behave!” Tess pointed.

“What?” Azriel bit off.

“The nurses are talking about you out there. I heard that one nurse say she wanted to stick you by accident with a sedative.” Tess put air quotes around “by accident”.

Azriel’s POV

“I can’t feel my legs! Put me to sleep.”

She was freaking out.

“I can’t handle this, Azriel. Make them put me to sleep. I can’t feel my motherfucking legs!”

I had to keep my cool. That cunt of a nurse warned me twice already that she would have security remove me. But, they weren’t f*****g doing anything for her when her epidural wore off at seven o’clock, so she’d been in pain for hours. They couldn’t get her a new one and now it was midnight and Claire had been given a spinal block and they were about to cut her open. I was in scrubs, sitting on a stool beside her head, holding her hand. They should’ve lifted the f*****g curtain over her bottom half before blocking her sensation in her legs, because she was trying to move her legs and couldn’t. And now she was out of her mind in a flip-out.

“If they put you out, you’ll miss the baby’s first moments, honey. Calm down. Do your job, Daddy. Her heartrate is spiking.”

The cunt nurse was talking to me and she was giving me a look. She’d already told me when she got me in scrubs and supervised me washing my hands that I needed to do my best to be Claire’s calm in a storm. I’d rolled my eyes at her in there then and resisted the urge to tell her to f**k herself.

But, here, I knew, as much as she rubbed me the wrong way, she was actually a good nurse. She was right.

“Baby girl, eyes on me.”

Claire looked at me. She looked so f*****g scared. It was killing me.

“I’m not gonna let anything go wrong. I’m here. I have you. Forget your legs and think about names. What are we naming him?”

“Her. This is definitely a girl. I feel it.”

“I feel like it’s maybe a boy,” I said. “It would be karmic justice if I had to have a beautiful baby girl to worry about for the next fifty years. Do you really think I deserve that?”

Claire laughed while crying. “This is so definitely a girl.”

I wiped her eyes.

The nurse winked at me as she stepped past me. “Good job, Daddy.”

Daddy. f**k. I totally had this karma coming to me.

Carina was born a half an hour later. Beautiful. Tiny. Perfect. The most beautiful baby girl ever born.

***

I stepped out of the room begrudgingly to stretch, at Rosita’s insistence, leaving her and Luciana with them for a minute.

The smell of hospitals made my gut feel sour.

I took the elevator down and stepped outside to get some air.

I had a lot of sleepless nights and grey hairs coming. And I deserved every one of them.

I did not fuckin’ deserve Claire Dawson, now Clarke.

“She’s yours if you want her.” I heard my Uncle’s voice in my head that night as I slept sitting up in a chair in the hospital room with my wife and daughter. “Yeah. Yours. For whatever.”

I looked up at the sky. It was a grey morning, but the sun was peeking through with five long rays reaching down toward me, like fingers through the clouds.

I let the sight soak in for a minute.

“Thanks, Uncle,” I said.