He Came Back Running (Maya and Mason) novel Chapter 283

Chapter 283

Maya’s POV

The pain had started three days ago.

My back.

The pressure of increased weight. The gradual adjustment my body was making to a shape it had never held before.

The dizziness had started yesterday.

Not constant.

Intermittent…

I had not told Alex the first day.

I had told him the second.

He had insisted on this morning by the third.

We had barely stepped through the front entrance when the reporters arrived.

Not unexpected…. the coverage of the past week had been extensive. Mason’s warrant. The corporate takeover collapse.

Alex’s assets fully restored following the closure of the credential fraud investigation….

They surrounded us before we reached the car.

Microphones. Cameras…

“Mrs. Voss, your reaction to Mason being placed on the national wanted list….”

“Mr. Voss, comment on the takeover attempt against Hargrove Meridian…”

“Do you believe there’s a connection between the two investigations….”

Alex’s hand found my back.

Steady.

Guiding rather than pulling.

“No comment,” he said.

His voice level.

“We’re allowing the full weight of the law and the ongoing investigation to take its course,” he said. “That’s all I have for you this morning”

He did not stop walking while he said it.

The car door.

Marcus already at the handle, opening it before we reached it, the choreography of a security team that had learned this exact sequence across too many repetitions.

I got in.

Alex followed.

The door closed.

+15 Bonus

The questions continued outside, muffled now, receding as Marcus pulled away from the kerb.

The hospital.

The senior obstetrician met us in the reception area herself rather than sending a nurse…

She took us directly to her office.

Not the ordinary examination room.

Alex sat beside me.

His hand found mine before the doctor had said anything, the automatic gesture that had become as natural to him as breathing

across the months since Paris.

The scan began.

The familiar pressure of the probe. The familiar pause while the image assembled on the screen.

And then…. the sound.

Two heartbeats

Rapid. Present. Unmistakably themselves, in the specific way I had learned to distinguish across the months of listening…. the boy’s, insistent and quick; the girl’s, steadier, arriving a half–beat behind his in the way she always seemed to arrive, considered rather than rushed.

Alex’s hand tightened around mine.

I looked at the screen.

At the two shapes.

Six and a half months.

The doctor moved the probe.

Took her measurements.

“Both babies are measuring well,” she said. “Growth is on track for this stage. Heart rates are strong and within normal range for both.” She looked at the screen. “Based on current measurements, I’d estimate your delivery window to fall within the next eight to nine weeks…”

I let out a breath I had not realised I was holding.

“They’re fine,” I said.

“They’re fine,” she confirmed.

She set the probe aside.

Looked at me directly…

“I do want to talk about you specifically,” she said. “Your blood pressure readings today are elevated beyond what I’d expect at this stage of a healthy twin pregnancy.”

I looked at her.

“How elevated,” I said.

“Not at a level that requires immediate intervention,” she said. “But elevated enough that I want to address it directly rather than wait for it to become something more concerning.”

+15 Bonus

Alex’s hand tightened slightly around mine

“What’s causing it,” he said

The doctor looked between us.

“Stress,” she said. “I don’t say that lightly. Sustained, significant stress affects blood pressure in ways that become physiologically measurable, and everything I understand about the past several months of your life suggests you’ve been operating under exactly that kind of pressure for an extended period without meaningful relief.”

I looked at the screen

At the two shapes, still visible, still and quiet now that the scan had paused.

She was not wrong.

The investigation. The board vote. The frozen accounts. The house. Mason’s warrant. The attempted corporate takeover. The forged signature. The photograph with the scratched face. The diary in my father’s office, and the sentence that had stopped my breath.

None of it had stopped.

Not for a single day since Alex woke up.

“I want you to take this seriously,” the doctor said. “Not as a suggestion…. as a medical instruction. Regular, moderate exercise. The kind that supports circulation and helps prepare your body for delivery, but doesn’t add physical strain on top of what you’re already managing.” She made a note. “And I want you actively reducing the mental load you’re carrying. I understand that may not be entirely within your control given the circumstances, but wherever you have agency to reduce stress, I need you to use it.”

She looked at Alex.

“That includes delegating what can be delegated,” she said. “To him. To your team. To anyone who can absorb some of what you’ve been carrying alone.”

Alex nodded…

“I’ll make sure of it,” he said.

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