Chapter 51: Epilogue

Ximena’s P.O.V

Two lines.

No matter how many times I looked away, blinked and refocused my attention on the damned plastic stick, the result remained the same.

Mierda! This wasn’t supposed to happen. My life had just gotten back to normal and now this. Not that having a child is a curse of anything, but I felt I wasn’t ready to be a mother. And as much as I’d previously emphasized that I wanted 8 children, in hindsight I now see that was a really silly thing to say.

Work was literally stressing me out with the chauvinism I encounter every now and then from clients and some of the people who work in the company and had been used to dad’s way of operation. And as much as I’d like to come of as this bold and confident alpha female, right now I feel like a little toddler lost in the crowd at an amusement park.

How could this have happened. I could have sworn that we used protec-

No, you didn’t. The first time around there was no glove, sweetheart.

Curse that stupid inner voice but the stupid idiot was right. I hadn’t been anticipating to see Adriano that one fateful night and I guess I let my hormones get in the way of my better judgement. In as much as I enjoyed that night, and the many ones to follow, we really weren’t so careful. One of his little swimming friends had definitely swam upstream and hit the target straight on the bullseye.

A knock came to the bathroom door. “Ximena, what are you still doing in there? If you don’t hurry up, we’re both going to be late for work!” Adriano yelled impatiently, causing me to stumble off the toilet seat and haphazardly throw the pregnancy test in the cabinet. Was that a bad hiding spot? Yes. But did I care at the moment? No. I just really didn’t need to be reminded of what I was expecting a couple of months from now.

Pressing the flush button, I went over to the sink and washed my hands with liquid soap. Wiping my hands with a towel, I ruffled my hair around, straightened my shirt and skirt. Once done, I exhaled loudly and opened the door to exit the bathroom.

In the bedroom, Adriano was standing by the bed typing away on his phone, looking as handsome as ever in a white shirt, black tie, black vest, black slacks and pristine Italian dress shoes. He looked so delectable that for a second, I thought about skipping work with another type of physical activity in mind.

Damn these pregnancy hormones! They’re making me become so wanton.

He looked up at me. “Wow, you were in there forever. These bathroom breaks are becoming a little too frequent. Should we visit a doctor?” he asked and I shook my head vehemently. If we did that, they he’d know right away. Call me crazy, but I was absolutely terrified of telling him. Not that he’d be very angry or anything…but I genuinely had no idea if he was ready for this either.

“I-I’m fine. No need to worry,” I replied shakily and he closed the distance between us. He wrapped his one arm around my waist and used the other one to caress my face.

Those bewitching green eyes still made me weak in the knees. That, or the fact that I hadn’t eaten anything since yesterday afternoon. Eating had become so difficult because I lot of things nauseated me and the morning sickness had begun to take its toll on me. At first, I thought it was the anxiety or a stomach cold but after finally using the pregnancy kit Chelsea had advised me to buy yesterday, I found out that it was neither of the two.

He placed a passionate kiss on my lips, making my insides melt. “I will always worry about you. You think I haven’t noticed but something is up with you. You haven’t been eating much and right now you’re behaving a bit jumpy. Tell me, my spoiled little brat, is something bothering you?” he said softly, and my heart hammered. I shook my head once more and he sighed. “If you say so. Let’s get to work now, we’re already running late.”

He released me from his grasp and allowed me to grab my stuff before we both left the room and proceeded to the garage where my Ferrari was parked. It’s still quite surreal that he gifted me his special car. I love that car more than I loved my Lamborghini, and sometimes I question whether I love it more than Adriano as well. I don’t know, only time will tell.

After dropping off Adriano at work, I proceeded to my building. I was greeted by my employees as I passed through the lobby and headed up to the private elevator in order to reach my office. Once there, I shut the door and scrambled over to my desk and rummaged through my handbag for my cellphone. I wasted no time in dialing Chelsea’s number.

She picked up after three rings. “What’s u-,”

I cut her off. “I’m pregnant!” I shrieked into the device and then other went dead silent before Chelsea squealed loudly in excitement. I pretty sure if she had been beside me, she would have tackled me with a hug. Somehow, she had prophesied that out of the two of us, I would be the first to have children and making her become a proud aunt. At the time, I’d called bullcrap because I had lost all hope in ever finding love.

How things have changed…

“I knew it. This is such terrific news. Have you told Adriano yet?” she asked, and I shook my head as if she could see me. Apparently, these pregnancy hormones were making me asinine too.

“No, I haven’t,” I admitted hesitantly.

“And why not? He deserves to know seeing he is going to be a dad and all. Don’t tell me you’re afraid,” I didn’t say anything to that. “Wait, you’re afraid? Why on earth would you be scared?”

I looked at my Manolo Blahnik clad feet. “I don’t know…maybe because I’ve never been pregnant before? We reconciled not too long ago and we were just getting used to being around each other. Now we will have to deal with a child, Chelsea. I love children, especially if they’re other people’s children!” I exclaimed. I know it sounded wrong but it was the truth. Babies are supremely cute when you can give them back to their owners.

Chelsea chortled overzealously. Had she been in front of me, I would have slapped her for mocking me. Oh, add violent to that list of undesirable pregnancy hormones. “Relax, chica. I have no doubt in my mind that you’ll be a great mother and Adriano would be such a great father. That man loves you and I bet he’ll only love you more when you give him a mini–Dos Santos. I want you to think it over how you’ll tell him and make sure to record the damn thing when you do. I’ve got to go; my shoot is in ten. Love ya,” she air kissed me and then ended the call.

I thought talking to her would have made me feel better, but it only accelerated my nervousness. I slammed my phone down in frustration on the desk and plopped down onto the swivel chair. Groaning, I remembered the work pile that was ahead of me seeing that I hadn’t had enough courage to find a new P.A after Dom resigned about four months ago.

It still perplexes me to this date that he was in love with me. I was so oblivious to it and it ended up ruining my relationship with Adriano. I guess that’s another factor as to why I hadn’t hired a new assistant. Also, Dom had been so good at his job, I was skeptical of whether I would find someone as good as him. Once again, only time will tell.

Casting my thoughts aside, I delved into my work. I was busy all through the morning replying emails, booking appointments, reading stocks, making new orders and answering calls. I was working so hard that I hadn’t realized that I’d skipped lunch. It only dawned on me that everything wasn’t too great when my vision began to blur and my heart rate spiked. Dizziness overcame me and I struggled to reach for my phone. Dialing Adriano’s number with much effort, I placed my head on the desk as it rang on loudspeaker.

By the time he answered, I was teetering in and out of consciousness. “Hello, my love,” came his cheery but hazy voice.

“A-driano,” I croaked weakly. “S-something’s wrong.”

I didn’t get to hear what he replied to my words because after those words left my lips, my entire world went black.

***

Adriano’s P.O.V

The last thing I ever want to hear, and I mean ever, is that the love of my life isn’t okay. So, when I received that call and Ximena told me something was wrong, I felt like my heart was going to plummet into my stomach. I fired rapid questions but got no response although the call was ongoing, meaning had blacked out or something along those lines.

Mierda!

I knew something was up with her this morning but she kept on dodging my questions, saying she was fine. The truth is she was far from it. I’d been observing her subtly over the past couple of weeks. Her eating patterns had become irregular. She no longer enjoyed eating the food she used to love so much. She’d been waking up in the morning only to empty her gut into the toilet bowl. She didn’t know that I knew this because she’d mostly do it while I was asleep but I heard her this one time.

Was she terminally ill? The worst scenarios were running through my mind as I sat in the waiting area of the hospital room. I ran out of my office like a bat out of hell and had to use one of the company cars to race against Miami traffic to get to my wife. On the way, I called several of her staff to ask about her wellbeing. To my utter mystification, they all hadn’t talked to her since morning. They said she had asked not to be disturbed.

When I got to the Dos Ramos Shipping HQ, one of them had been wise enough to call an ambulance and to my luck, I’d arrived just as they were about to leave with her. Her eyes were shut and her skin had become paler. My heart constricted whilst looking at her; it reminded me too much off…the accident. The ride to the hospital was complete hell for me because those paramedics kept on speaking in another language of science that I couldn’t understand.

But I knew one thing. She was still alive and that was all that mattered.

I was almost on the point of shooting up from my seat and going to look for the doctor attending to her, when he finally emerged from whatever corner he had been hiding in. The way he casually swaggered over to me made me want to punch the cockiness out of him. My wife is literally somewhere in this freaking place and he had the audacity to be this cavalier?

“Mr. Dos Santos,” he began coolly, and my impatience sky rocketed.

“Is she okay?” I inquired desperately and he nodded grimly. Wait, why had his expression changed all of a sudden. Please don’t tell me she’s terminally ill!

He glanced at his clipboard before looking back to me. “Your wife is stable now. We suspect she lost consciousness due to a drop in blood sugar level perhaps due to lack of proper nutrition and a drop in blood pressure, as a result of recent stress. The baby is fine too-,”

My heart stilled for a second. Baby? What baby was he talking about? “Did you just say baby?” I breathed out and he nodded his head.

“Your wife is approximately 6 weeks pregnant, sir. I’m sorry, were you not aware of this?” he asked and I didn’t respond. I was too damn stunned to say anything. He must have seen my shocked expression and smiled gently at me. “Allow me to say congratulations. As aforementioned, lack of a proper diet and high stress levels are neither good for the mother or the unborn child. I’d like you to make sure Mrs. Dos Santos follows a proper eating regimen that I’ll assign to her and for now, it is advised that she gets more rest and preferably some time away from any strenuous of stressful activities. We’ll keep her a little longer for observation but you’re free to see her now if you’d like.”

Wordlessly, I nodded and let him lead me to the room Ximena was in. She was laying on the bed, fully conscious and twiddling with her fingers. When she sensed my presence, she looked up and we had a bit of an eye contact battle that it until she looked away first. I sighed and slowly approached her until I was only a foot away.

“How are you feeling?” Was all I managed to say. I didn’t want to scare her or pressure her in any way. She had already been through a lot and I by no means wanted her to feel terrible; despite the fact that I was freaking out.

I was going to be a father, dammit. Sure, having kids is nice and all but I wasn’t ready to become one this early. Not only was I not ready, but I felt that I was not capable either. I mean, I had no idea what being a father was about and from my personal experience with Humberto… I was scared witless of becoming a massive douchebag of a father like he was.

Ximena didn’t respond at first but a few seconds later she broke down into tears. “I-I’m scared,” she whispered, a sob escaping her lips. I felt my heart clench, and I moved forward to that I could hold her hands in mine.

“Please don’t cry, my love. I don’t want to see you like this. You’ve been through a lot already as it is and this kind of stress isn’t good for you or the baby,” I cooed at her, wiping away her tears. She bit her lip and then looked down at her intertwined hands.

“I should have told you earlier,” she mumbled sadly.

This made me pause for a second. Okay, so let me get this straight…she knew that she was pregnant? I don’t really know why but that made me kind of angry. I think I at least deserved to know beforehand that my own wife is expecting my child. Hell, had she known for some time now? And why on earth did she feel the need to hide it from me?

“I didn’t say anything because I thought you’d be angry at me, and I was right,” she replied, as though she had read my mind.

My throat constricted with my pent-up emotions. “Well, you were wrong. I’m not angry about that but I am kind of upset that you kept it a secret from me. So, how long have you known?” I asked in a hoarse voice, hoping she’d say about a day or two. Anything above that, and I’d be irrevocably pissed.

She bit her lip once again. That lip bite did wonders for me, but currently I couldn’t afford to let my mind stray in that direction so I kept my eyes focused on her eyes and not her soft, full lips…I need to see a shrink. “I only found out today, I promise. When I took a long time in the bathroom before we left for work, that’s why. I was a bit alarmed and afraid of your reaction so I hid it from you. I know that neither of us is ready to have a child and with everything that was going on at work…I guess I over did it. I’m sorry Adriano,” she said lowly, tears beginning to well in her eyes again.

Damn, I always end up saying the wrong stuff and now she’d about to cry again. Must be the pregnancy hormones that are beginning to kick in already. Exhaling audibly, I brought her hand to my lips and kissed it gently. “Ximena, you’re the love of my life. I’ve already decided to spend the rest of my life with you, and that means I want to have everything with you. Although this is a bit sudden, I am more than ready to start that chapter of my life with you. I couldn’t possibly imagine anybody else who I’d love to have children with. And yes, I’m also scared but as long as you’re by my side, I know we will be alright.”

She smiled slowly, and wiped the last of her tears. “You always know just what to say,” she laughed.

I smiled back at her. “Not always, but I love being the reason why you smile. I hope you realize that it’s officially my turn to take care of you. You’re not just my wife anymore, you’re the mother of my child,” I winked and smirked wickedly at her. Her face rouged so quickly that I couldn’t help but chuckle. I leaned forward and claimed her lips, causing her to cup my face. “I love you, Ximena.”

“I love you too, daddy.”

“Now, that’s something I’d thought I’d never hear coming from these magical lips of yours. I should have gotten you pregnant sooner,” I teased mischievously and she playfully slapped my shoulder.

Ximena brushed her hand through my hair. “Well, get used to it because that’s what I’ll be calling you.”

“Deal.”

____________________

Hey guys! As promised, here is the lengthy epilogue in both their p.o.v's. Hope you loved it? Personally, I enjoyed writing it!

So sorry that it's a bit late but school has been a literal nightmare. My schedule is so tight that I began writing this a few weeks ago and only got to finish it today.

Anyways, depending on how many votes this gets... I'll consider writing another epilogue a bit later into their lives. So you know what to do, Vote!

Pertaining to a sequel, I just don't know if I'm up for it. I feel like I did Ximena and Adriano's love story justice that I'd hate to ruin it.

As for those who requested that Andrea and Omar receive a story of their own...we will see about that 🤫😝😉

This is it for now. My new story will be coming soon enough. It'll under the Creator's programme so keep an eye out for it!

Love you guys always,

Deetronite ❤️