Arranged by the Stars (22 page)

Julie Kanna hid her smile
and Ash made a note to ask her why later. Half an hour later she
watched him help his parents to their seats before he came over to
her.

She was shifting
uncomfortably in her chair.

“
Do you want
me to get another chair for you?” he asked.

“
Kieran, I
think I’m in labour,” Ash grabbed hold of his hand and then tried
to breathe through pursed lips.

The music started and the
Dean of the university started with his speech. Ash looked at the
rest of the crowd and realised that having a baby in front of all
these people would not be the worse thing they went
through.

“
Maybe we
should go to the hospital. I know this means a lot to you, but if
the baby is about to be born―” His gaze focused on hers. “You’re
really in labour aren’t you?”

The pain was nothing like
she’d expected. No one warned you about labour. They said pain you
forget as soon as the baby is born. They didn’t say agony or
excruciating or any of the other words that described what she was
going through.

He called his mother
over, although she was getting less frustrated with him, she wished
he hadn’t. “Kieran, I don’t need your mother over here.”

He bent down and placed a
kiss on her lips. “You worked too hard for this. Wait here, I’ll be
back.”

She watched him walk over
to the Dean and then whisper something to him. She waited for
security to come and throw him out, even worse she waited for the
ambulance to come in screeching and lift her off in a
helicopter.

Instead there was more
whispering and more movement from up ahead. Julie was holding
tightly onto her and she smiled. “What is he up to?”

She shrugged and like her
watched Kieran as he helped the people on the podium move things
around. Then when she thought it was over and he was coming back to
take her home, he lifted her into his arms and as they called her
name as a graduate, and took her to get her certificate.

She held on tighter to
him as she awkwardly grabbed the certificate from the Dean’s hand.
As they walked away, she couldn’t stop the tears from streaming
down her cheeks. “How did I get so lucky to have you walk into my
life?”

He smiled and tightened
his grip. “I was just looking for a good cup of coffee and the rest
is history.”

There were still moments
in that delivery room that she’d look over and wonder if this was
real or some dream, after all Kieran wasn’t the man in the stuffy
suit she met all those years ago. As he fed her ice chips she
remembered the man who sat next to her when she was recovering from
the bullet wound, feeding her ice. As he clutched her hand, she
remembered how he held her hand and helped her choose her own
destiny in front of a crowd of people.

Was it possible to have
one man stand by her through all of time?

This time when he
squeezed her hand, he made her focus. “You need to push, as hard as
you can.”

The next moments went so
fast that all she remembered was burning and pushing and screaming.
Then crying, the crying wasn’t her that she knew.

“
It’s a
girl,” the doctor said as he handed the scissors to
Kieran.

Ash sat up. “Be
careful.”

His gaze met hers. “I
think she has your eyes.”

After the cord was cut
her baby was placed on her chest. “I was wrong.”

Kieran covered their
daughter with a blanket and he watched as she tried to nuzzle her
way up to her breast. “Wrong about what?”

Ash looked down at the
fuzzy head that lay between them. “There was a time I thought I had
perfection. I know there is no such thing as perfection, but this
is what perfection should look like. This is what our perfection
should look like.”

Kieran placed a kiss on
her cheek. “I like that. Our perfection.”

THE END

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