Rise of the Formidable Ex-wife (Lucia and Alex) novel Chapter 316

Chapter 316

Chapter 316

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Alexander had been quiet for most of the drive, the stillness he brought to things he was uncertain about, the kind that looked like composure from outside but that Lucia had learned to read differently after years of knowing him. He was composed. He was containing something.

He had been like this since the call from Dr. Reyes’s office the previous night, a brief message saying that after reviewing most recent scan, the doctor would like them to come in as soon as possible.

Lucia hadn’t slept well. She told herself it was precautionary, that doctors reviewed results and found things to discuss, an that finding something to discuss didn’t necessarily mean it was bad. She hadn’t believed it arry of the times she said it to herself in the dark.

Alexander had held her hand through most of the night. Neither of them said much.

Dr. Reyes’s office sat on the third floor. They waited nine minutes before her name was called, and Lucia counted them without meaning to.

Dr. Reyes was a woman in her early forties, reading glasses pushed up onto her forehead when she was thinking and pulled back down when she was looking at something. She was looking at something when they walked in. She stood, gestured to the chairs across from her desk, and sat back down once they had.

Then she set her glasses on the desk, pressed both hands flat against it, and said, “I have to start by apologizing.”

Lucia’s hand found Alexander’s without her deciding to reach for it.

“Please,” Dr. Reyes said quickly. “I’m not apologizing for bad news. I’m apologizing because I should have seen this sooner. and I didn’t, and I’m embarrassed that I missed it.” She took a breath. “Reviewing your scan last night, I went through the sonogram images at a level of detail I should have applied during the appointment itself.” She turned her screen toward them. “I had been looking at the most obvious element of the scan and not carefully enough at what surrounded it

Lucia looked at the screen.

“Mrs. Kane,” Dr. Reyes said, “there are two heartbeats.”

The room didn’t immediately make sense.

“Two,” Alexander said.

“Two,” Dr. Reyes confirmed. “You are carrying twins.”

The sound that came out of Alexander wasn’t a word. It was something held carefully for thirteen hours finally leiting sa a man who had spent that whole time bracing for something terrible and landed instead on the exact opposite of wrible.

He pressed his hand over his mouth, eyes filling, and then the tears came properly, without him making any effort to stop

them.

“Two babies” Lucia said, as if saying it again might help i sente into meaning.

“Two healthy babies, Dr. Reyes said, “I can’t apologize enough for missing this at the flea appointment. The second heartbear was there in the original scati, positioned in a way I should have caught and dulit She look been there. Th very sorry for whateveransety the last day caused you both

Alexander lowered his hand and pulled Lucia reward him, holding her the complete way he had bold her in the hospital his banda in her back, a small shake will moving through how she held out just as highly

“Thank you? hesitate her hatc

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Chapter 316

She pulled back to look at him. “For what?”

He held her eyes a long moment, the kind of look that needed no explanation.

“For making me this happy,” he said. “For making my life this full.”

She pressed her forehead against his. Dr. Reyes, to her credit, found something very interesting to study on her own desk

The drive home felt nothing like the drive there. Alexander kept his hand on Lucia’s the whole way, no longer the stillness containment but the warmth of someone who had gotten more than he’d braced for and wasn’t letting go of it. He started sentences and abandoned them, the overflow of a man who couldn’t find words large enough for what he was carrying

Lucia watched the city pass and felt the strange arithmetic of it. One pregnancy had already changed everything. Now to

The family was in the kitchen when they got home. Ria was cooking something with the help of the maids, Lucas narrating everything she was doing wrong, which she ignored with the practiced ease of someone who’d been ignoring his kitchen opinions for years. Monica sat at the table with her sketchbook. Lena ate something straight out of the fridge, standing over the sink, the way she ate when she wasn’t planning to admit she’d started before dinner.

Alexander took in all of them, then turned to Lucia. “Tell them,” he said, his voice carrying everything the afternoon had lea in it.

“We have something to tell you,” Lucia said.

Monica set down her pencil. Lucas stopped mid sentence.

“The doctor called us in today. She’d missed something at the last appointment.” Lucia paused. “We’re having twins”

Three seconds of total silence.

Then the kitchen wasn’t quiet anymore.

“I need them to be boys,” Lucas said. “Both of them. I need this immediately.”

“One boy and one girl,” Monica said, with the certainty of someone announcing a done deal. That’s exactly what’s happening.”

“Two girls,” Lena said. “I vote two girls.”

“You can’t vote on this.” Lucas said..

“I already did.”

“The universe doesn’t accept your vote.”

“The universe absolutely accepts my vote.

Monica pointed at Lena. “Brother and sister. Finial answer”

Lena pointed bark. Two girls, and we already have a brother in Lucas

“That’s an extremely thin argumeur

Kija Monica appealed, turning to her, “well him

Raa glance between the free of them, litt und am a pepsi shes budget lagi bora sst und habet forsed a single opinion of their own

Tam saying clanplatity out of us shell seng nenappprn down with dog agy melonk unt sõnay

bell made a good

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Chapter 316

decision.

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Lucia watched the argument spread around the table, Lucas’s hands spread in the universal gesture of a man with a reasonable position nobody respected, Monica and Lena in perfect accidental alliance, Ria withdrawn from the whole negotiation with visible peace.

Alexander’s hand found hers.

His face was wet again, and he didn’t look away from the kids even as she turned toward him, his attention full of something/ too large to fit into one word.

She squeezed his hand. He squeezed back.

The argument kept growing instead of resolving, and Lucia and Alexander stood at the edge of the kitchen holding onto each other, saying nothing at all.

Because nothing needed to be said.

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