Free Deceitful Vows by A. Mackin Page B

Kayla knew about them. He was always so careful, and they never talked outside of work. Quickly dismissing Monica’s text, he opened the messages from Kayla. It was several of them, but the first one caught his attention and had him racing to get out of the hotel room.
    “What the hell happened?!” she asked out loud as Mark sped by her.
    One minute he was going to the bathroom, the next minute he was throwing his clothes on and running out the door. He didn’t even give an explanation. He just said he would call her later. She lay on the bed and wondered what was going on. The ringing of her cell phone interrupted her thoughts. She thought about not answering, but then decided that maybe the caller could help with her recent thoughts.
    Her suspicions were confirmed when Kayla screamed, “I’m in labor! Please come down here!”
    Rolling her eyes at Kayla’s dramatic yelling, she took her time getting up and showering before heading out of the hotel. She was in no rush to get to Kayla, but at least she knew where Mark rushed off to.
     
     
     
     
     
     

Chapter 11
    Screaming was all you could hear as Mark stepped off the elevators at Mercy Hospital. The messages from Kayla caught him off guard completely. She was only seven and a half months, so the baby wasn’t due yet. To the best of his knowledge, she wasn’t being induced, and the pregnancy was normal, so he couldn’t understand how or why she was in labor. The fact that she had been trying to reach him for hours was unnerving. He had no business being in that hotel room with Stephanie and to know that he was there with her while Kayla was having his son made him feel horrible. If anything happened to either one of them, he would never forgive himself.
    Making his way to the nurse’s station, he couldn’t control his sweating or his hands from shaking. He was not only nervous about the delivery, but also about becoming a father and what would happen to his marriage. The walls were closing in on him, and he didn’t know which way to go. After getting directions from the nurse and being escorted to a scrubbing area, he cleaned himself up, according to the directions he was given, and was escorted into the room just in time to see his son come into the world. Kayla was crowning when he walked in according to the nurse. There was so much commotion in the room that nobody seemed to notice his presence. Kayla was laid back on the bed with a nurse holding her hand while another one was wiping the sweat from her forehead and a slew of doctors and nurses standing by calling out numbers and directions. Mark’s feet were glued to the floor and he had no idea what to do or say. In a matter of minutes, he began to see his son’s body slide out of Kayla while she was screaming bloody murder. He wondered if she had gotten that epidural thing he’d heard women talk about. The way she was screaming was as if she was going cold turkey. The second Mark Anthony Barnes Jr. was out of her womb, the doctors started yelling things that he had no idea what it meant. All he noticed was that baby Mark was blue and something wasn’t right. Parental instinct guided Mark, as his otherwise glued feet sprang into action and he was rushing to the doctors and nurses who were ushering his son out the room. Desperate for someone to say something, he grabbed the arm of the doctor who performed the delivery and asked what was wrong with his son.
    “I’m sorry, sir, but he’s crashing. We have to get him into emergency surgery.”
    And just like that the doctor rushed out the room leaving Mark behind.
     

***
    Kayla didn’t know what to do or say. There she was lying in a hospital bed after she’d just given birth to her son almost two months early. She went to see Dr. Gallant as scheduled, with thoughts of Mark’s affair on her mind still. After examining her, Dr. Gallant informed her that her blood pressure was too high and the baby was in distress. She told Kayla that she had to