The Billionaire's Legacy. Reese Ryan

gaze was drawn to her belly before he raised it to hers again. “Our babies.” He swallowed hard, leaning closer. “Do you mind if... I mean, would it be all right if—”

      Her heart swelled with affection for this man. The sheepish look on his face as he struggled to ask for permission to touch her after the intimacy they’d shared that night was utterly adorable.

      “Give me your hand.” She reached out for his, guiding it to her belly between the two straps from the electronic fetal monitor that crossed her midsection. “Put your hand here.”

      “I don’t feel any—”

      “Shh...” She closed her eyes, her voice lowered. “Just wait.”

      They sat still, his hand on her stomach. The only sound in the room was the intermittent beeping of the IV pump.

      Suddenly one of the babies kicked. Sloane smiled when she opened her eyes and saw the look of amazement on Benji’s face.

      “I can’t believe it. I could really feel that. That’s incredible.” His voice broke slightly. “That’s my...our baby.”

      Her chest tightened at his use of the phrase. She’d only ever thought of the babies as hers.

      “That was your son.” Sloane adjusted her position as the baby kicked again. “I don’t know what my ribs ever did to him, but he’s got it out for them.”

      No longer tentative, Benji pressed more firmly on the area where he’d felt the kick. He jumped, startled as the skin high on her belly shifted. Their baby girl started to roll.

      “It’s okay. The first time I saw that, I was pretty weirded out, too.” She smiled so much her cheeks hurt. “Looked like something straight out of one of your favorite sci-fi movies.”

      That seemed to relax him a little. Benji glided his hand to where her skin stretched and moved. He touched what looked like a tiny little shoulder. It protruded slightly from her belly, then disappeared from sight again.

      He stood, staring at her stomach in awe for a few moments before he met her eyes again.

      “I wasn’t around during most of my sister’s pregnancy, so I didn’t see any of that.” He indicated her belly. “It really is remarkable.”

      “Speaking of remarkable—” she pointed a thumb over her shoulder at the electronic fetal monitor “—I asked Dr. Carroll to turn the sound off before you came in the room. Turn that dial up.”

      Benji went to the machine and turned up the volume. His eyes sparked with recognition as he turned to meet her gaze again. “That’s a heartbeat.” He listened carefully, turning the volume up a little more. “No, it’s two heartbeats.”

      She rubbed her stomach again. “That’s right.”

      Benji dragged a hand over his head and sat beside the bed. His brows furrowed as the pain and disappointment returned to his face, forming hardened lines that weren’t there before. “How could you not tell me?”

      Sloane’s phone rang. She swiped it from the table beside her bed, thankful for a respite from the withering heat of Benji’s stare.

       Mama.

      Sloane hadn’t thought to call her mother. But the last thing she wanted was to give her mom an excuse to come to Nashville and set up camp at her place. With her growing belly and all of the baby things she was collecting in duplicate, the place already felt too small.

      She silenced the phone and turned it facedown. She’d return the call once she was settled in back at her place. No need to worry her mother unnecessarily.

      There was nothing to tell.

      Except that the man her mother still referred to as “little Benji Bennett” was the father of her babies. And that wasn’t a conversation she was prepared to have.

      “Everything okay?” Deep worry lines creased his forehead.

      “Everything’s fine.” She pulled the sheet around her and asked him to turn down the monitor again. “Now, about what you said when Dr. Carroll was in here.”

      “About me not returning to Seattle?” He raised a brow and narrowed his gaze.

      “Yes, that.” She refused to repeat the words that both terrified her and made her hopeful. “That isn’t necessary. As Dr. Carroll explained, there’s nothing wrong with me or the babies.”

      “I missed the first six months of your pregnancy. I’m not missing another minute.”

      It wasn’t a question or even a suggestion.

      “You’ve pretty much gotten the highlights. The first two months, I had no idea I was pregnant. Then there was four months of barfing my brains out before the morning sickness finally subsided.” She settled back against the pillow.

      “The morning sickness was that bad?”

      “It bordered on spectacular. I had acute morning sickness, which, by the way, is a misnomer. There was nothing cute about not being able to hold down anything or work for the past four months.”

      A pained look crimped Benji’s face. “You’ve been out of work for four months? How’ve you been paying your expenses?”

      Sloane’s cheeks stung with embarrassment. Her dire financial situation wasn’t a conversation she wanted to have with the golden boy billionaire. She’d gotten herself into this mess and it was her job to navigate her way out of it. If there was one thing she’d learned in her thirty years, it was that when she got into difficulty, no one was coming to rescue her. She needed to figure this out on her own, just as she’d done her entire life.

      “Sloane?” he prodded.

      “I manage.” She stared down at her ragged fingernails and fought the urge to chew on them.

      Benji spoke after a few moments of awkward silence between them. “When you were filling out the hospital paperwork...I couldn’t help noticing the past-due bills hanging out of your wallet.”

      “You snooped in my purse?” The heat in her cheeks turned to a butane-lighter-charged flame.

      “I wasn’t snooping. I just couldn’t help noticing the words stamped in bold red capital letters.” He raised his hands in self-defense, then sighed. “Sloane, what are you trying to prove? I have all this money. What good is it if I can’t even help the people I care about?”

      “That’s not what you said at the reception.” She folded her arms and glared at him pointedly. “You said you were tired of people treating you differently. Like you were a freakin’ ATM. I couldn’t bear for you, Delia or your parents to ever think I’m no better than the girls who stalked you at the wedding. That I looked at you and got dollar signs in my eyes. That I planned this to ensure I’d get a big ol’ piece of the Benji Bennett pie.”

      “Sloane, no one will think that.”

      “I’ve been taking care of myself since I was sixteen. I worked a job, in addition to my duties on the farm. Paid my own way. I’ve never needed to ask anyone for anything.” Tears formed in her eyes again. She swiped at them, but that didn’t stop fresh tears from falling. “I should be able to take care of myself and the twins. Without help. But my life is falling apart at a time when I should be able to enjoy motherhood.”

      Benji pulled his chair closer to the bed and held one of her hands in his. He lightly kissed the back of it. “You don’t need to do this alone. Accepting help doesn’t make you weak.” He squeezed her hand. “It took two people to make the twins. Stands to reason it’d take both of us to care for them.”

      She leveled her gaze at him. It wasn’t fair. She was emotional and feeling vulnerable. His argument actually made sense.

      “Don’t do this out of a sense of obligation, Benji. If this isn’t what you want, you can walk out of that door