Hotel Vendome

Chapter 23

BY MARCH, BRAD was staying at the hotel with Heloise every night. They weren’t officially living together, but it was working out that way, and her father didn’t object. He was a very nice young man. Heloise’s life was mature beyond her years, but it always had been, growing up in the hotel. She had seen more of life than most girls her age. And she and Brad were a good match. He didn’t complain about her long hours and double shifts. And he was interested in the hotel. He was getting increasingly interested in labor law. Neither of them was afraid of hard work. He studied when she worked, and he was graduating from law school in June. And then he had to pass the bar. He was starting to look for a job.

They went to dinner at the Waverly Inn downtown on a rainy night in March, to take a break from his studies and her work. Natalie was still on bedrest, and Heloise had seen her that afternoon. She tried to drop in as often as possible and brought her all the latest magazines and DVDs. She’d been on bedrest for two months. She was six months pregnant and the babies could survive if they were born now, although they were still very small. Every added week was a help. She was trying to direct her office from her bed, and her assistants were coming to see her every day. It was frustrating for her. But the babies came first.

Heloise was talking to Brad about his job search as their cab approached the hotel, and as soon as it did, she saw a fire department rescue truck parked right outside. She immediately wondered if a guest had had a heart attack, and they both thought of Natalie instantly, as Brad paid the driver and they both jumped out and ran inside. No one had called her on her cell during dinner, so she assumed it was a guest, and as she flew into the lobby, she saw her father going past her on a gurney, surrounded by paramedics with a defibrillator on his chest. She was totally shocked and ran after them and followed them outside. The front desk manager, Bruce, and two security men were following them with a terrified expression, and guests were watching around the lobby. “What happened?” she asked the manager, as the paramedics slid the gurney into the truck.

“I don’t know. He clutched his chest and fell down at the front desk. They just got here. I think he had a heart attack.”

“Why didn’t you call me?” she said with a look of panic as the paramedics talked to her father, and Brad stood next to her.

“We didn’t have time. I was just about to.”

“Does Natalie know?” she asked quickly. He shook his head. “Don’t tell her,” Heloise said firmly, and then jumped into the rescue truck with a last look at Brad before they closed the doors. An instant later, the siren was on and they were speeding to the hospital. Two paramedics were next to Hugues and watching him closely. He was conscious by then and looking at Heloise with a dazed expression.

“What happened?” he asked in a hoarse voice. “I have a terrible pain in my chest.” There were IVs in his arms, and the paramedics told him not to talk. It looked like too much effort, and he was holding Heloise’s hand while she fought back tears and prayed he would be all right.

They rushed him to Coronary ICU and made her wait outside while they examined him, and then they let her come in. They said he had had a mild heart attack. They had done an EKG and were talking about doing an angiogram that night. Heloise gave them his history, and her father looked at her with frightened eyes.

“Don’t tell Natalie,” he whispered. “She’ll lose the babies.”

“I didn’t, and you’re going to be fine,” she said, holding his hand and willing it to be true. She couldn’t imagine her life without him. She needed him too much. She stayed with him until they took him to do the angiogram. And then she called Brad and told him where she was. He had waited in her apartment, and he came immediately, and they sat in the waiting room together for hours.

It was two in the morning when they brought her father back. They had done an angioplasty, and they put him back in ICU so he could be monitored, while she and Brad sat in the waiting room, and she called the front desk at the hotel.

“What did you tell Natalie?” She was worried about that, if he didn’t come up to bed.

“We told her that one of the guests had an accident, and your father went to the hospital with him, and he told her not to wait up,” the assistant manager said.

“Perfect.” Heloise was relieved.

“How is he?” Everyone was worried about him. He had gone down like a rock behind the desk.

“They did an angioplasty, and they said he should be fine. I don’t know how long he’ll be here. He’s still sedated now.”

“Keep us posted.”

“I will.” She turned back to Brad then and nestled into his arms, as they spent the night in the drafty waiting room. She could go in and see her father for ten minutes every hour, but he was sleeping from the sedation and didn’t see her all night. It was morning before he woke up, and Heloise and Brad were there. Bruce had brought them sandwiches at six A.M. and a Thermos of hot coffee that room service had prepared. Heloise couldn’t eat, but Brad was starving and devoured two sandwiches with a sheepish expression by the time Bruce left again.

When Heloise saw her father early that morning, he was groggy and looked like he had aged a decade overnight. There were still monitors all over him, beeping loudly in the frenzied activity of the ICU. They were waiting for the doctor to come, and she went back to wait with Brad, after she kissed her father and told him she’d be back. He was asleep again before she left. And he didn’t look good.

The doctor came to talk to her finally at eight o’clock. He was smiling when he came out of the ICU, which relieved Heloise’s mind enormously as she squeezed Brad’s hand.

“You can go home and get some rest. He’s doing fine. We’re going to keep him for a few days just to keep an eye on him, and then he can go home. I’d like him to rest for a few weeks before he goes back to work, maybe a month. Exercise, diet, he needs to monitor all that. This was a warning shot across his bow, but I think we patched him up pretty well last night. With a few weeks’ rest, he’ll be as good as new.” Heloise smiled at the thought. That would have been hard to believe a few hours ago.

“His wife is having triplets, and she’s on bedrest. I guess we’ll have to keep them in bed together.” She smiled at the doctor, and he laughed.

“As long as he doesn’t get frisky with her, that would be fine. But if she’s on bedrest with triplets, I guess there’s no risk of that.” All three of them laughed at what he said.

“Can I see him again?” she asked.

“He was asleep a few minutes ago,” the doctor said, “but you can check.”

She went in to see her father again then, and he stirred and looked at her and apologized for the trouble he had caused.

“You didn’t cause any trouble, Papa,” she said softly, holding his hand. “But you have to be careful now. You and Natalie are both on bedrest. You have to take it easy, but you can keep her company until the triplets come, and the doctor said you can go for a walk every day. We’ll take care of the hotel.”

“This is so stupid,” he complained. “I don’t know what happened. I’m fine. I must have just been tired or something.”

He looked more awake but still very beaten up, and Heloise didn’t look great either. It had been a long night for both of them. “I can’t let you do all the work,” her father said, looking agitated.

“You’re not coming back to work until the doctor says you can,” Heloise said sternly. “The rest of us can handle whatever comes up. We need you, Papa,” she said softly. “I need you. I’d be lost without you. You’re all I have.” There were tears in her eyes as she said it, and he gently stroked her hair with his hand.

“I’m not going anywhere. Tell Natalie I’m fine, and not to have the babies till I get back.” He smiled at her.

“You’ll be home in a few days. I’ll come back later. Brad is here with me, and he sends his love.”

“I’m glad he’s here with you. Tell Natalie I love her, and I love you too,” he said, smiling weakly at his daughter, and then he turned his head on the pillow and closed his eyes. He drifted off to sleep then, and she quietly left the ICU and went back to Brad in the waiting room, and they walked out in the morning sunshine. She felt like they’d been in the waiting room for a week as Brad hailed a cab and they went back to the hotel. They talked quietly in the back of the cab about what had happened. It had been the most frightening night of her life.

Everyone had a thousand questions when they saw her walk into the lobby. She looked exhausted, but not devastated, and everyone was relieved to hear that her father was doing well and would be home in a few days.

Brad went to her room to shower and change. He had class that morning, and Heloise went straight upstairs to see Natalie in her father’s apartment. She walked into the bedroom, and Natalie was wide awake, watching the morning news on TV. She had the TV on constantly now. She had nothing else to do except eat, watch TV, call her office, and watch her belly grow. And she was huge now with three babies inside her.

“Where’s your father?” she asked immediately with a worried expression. Heloise hadn’t planned to tell her, but there was no way she was going to be able to hide it from her for several days. And Natalie’s radar was telling her that something had happened to her husband.

Heloise sat down on the edge of the bed and smiled at her. “He’s fine. He’s really fine, and he’ll be home in a few days. He gave us a scare last night. He’s at New York Hospital, he had a mild heart attack, they did an angioplasty, and they said he’s going to be good as new. And I’m making him take four weeks off. He can keep you company till the babies are born.” She had told her everything in one fell swoop, and strangely, Natalie looked relieved. She knew something had happened, and she’d been panicked about what it was all night.

“Thank you for telling me the truth,” she said, clinging to Heloise’s hands. “Is he really okay?”

“Yes, he is. I promise.”

“Can I talk to him?”

“He just went back to sleep. He had a long night. You can call him in a couple of hours when he wakes up.” She jotted down the number for her and put it on the pad next to her bed. “I’ll stay here with you while he’s gone,” Heloise offered, and Natalie was relieved. She didn’t want to be alone at night in case she went into labor and couldn’t move, or had the babies right in her bed with no warning. She was terrified that would happen, although it was unlikely to happen that fast. They were planning to do a cesarean when they were ready to be born.

“Thank you,” she said softly. “I wish I could go see him instead of being stuck here like this.” She felt completely helpless and useless lying in bed, unable to do anything, but the stakes were too high. She couldn’t get up, even for Hugues now.

“He’ll be home soon,” Heloise reminded her. And then she went into the living room and lay down on the couch. She woke up two hours later when the phone rang. It was her father calling for his wife. Natalie picked it up and burst into tears when she heard him, she was so relieved. And they talked for a long time.

Heloise ordered lunch for her, and then went down to change into her uniform. She was on duty at three o’clock, but she went back to see her father first. He was out of ICU and in a private room by then, with a nurse, and happy to see his daughter as soon as she walked into the room. He thanked her again for everything she’d done the night before, and for taking care of Natalie while he was gone. Natalie had told him that Heloise was being very sweet.

She spent an hour with her father and then went back to the hotel to take her shift. She was right on time and stayed there until eleven o’clock that night. It was too late to see her father then, and she practically crawled back to her room to get her nightgown and see Brad.

“You look exhausted. Get to bed.” He was worried about her, as she shook her head and picked up her nightgown from the back of the bathroom door.

“I can’t. I have to sleep with Natalie tonight.” He looked genuinely sorry for her, and walked her upstairs to her father’s apartment, and spent a few minutes talking to Natalie before he left and went back downstairs. He was talking about giving up his apartment near Columbia because he was never there anymore. He was always at the hotel with her.

After Brad left, Heloise changed into her nightgown and got into bed with Natalie. They chatted for a few minutes, and Heloise was so tired she was about to drift off to sleep when Natalie took her hand and put it on her belly. There were arms and legs and hands and feet kicking all over the place. It felt like a war going on in a cartoon.

“How do you sleep with all that happening?” Heloise looked at her in amazement, and Natalie smiled at her.

“I don’t. They jump around most of the time.”

“It must feel so weird,” Heloise said sleepily, but she couldn’t keep her eyes open any longer. She had to go to sleep, and a few minutes later she was out like a light, while Natalie stayed up late and watched TV. The days and nights were long, and if she was lucky and they stayed in there, she had three more months to go.

Two days later Heloise’s father came home from the hospital. They brought him home in a wheelchair, but he insisted on walking into the hotel on his own. He looked pale and tired but infinitely better than when he’d left, and he went upstairs to his apartment rapidly, to see his wife. She burst into tears when she saw him, and clung to him when he sat down on the bed. He put his hands on her enormous belly and felt their babies kicking and smiled at her. This was all he had wanted, to stay alive and come home to her. He had too much to live for now to let anything happen to him. He swore she had gotten bigger in the few days he’d been gone, and he got into bed with her a little while later and lay there beside her, grateful to be home.

Heloise visited them as often as possible, but she had taken on extra work while he was gone. She came up to ask his advice and called him frequently on his cell phone, and he was happy to feel connected to the activities and decisions of the hotel. Natalie didn’t like it and was on a vendetta against the hotel now. She thought his work was too stressful, it had almost killed him, and now she wanted him to sell the Vendôme. She wanted him to call the Dutch consortium and accept their offer. It was all she talked about. And when he was in the shower, she called Heloise and told her sternly not to call him so often. It made Heloise worry about him more.

“It’s out of the question,” he said firmly to Natalie about selling. “I can’t do that to Heloise. She loves this place too much.”

“She loves you more,” Natalie insisted. “If we lose you, it will destroy us all. You have to live for her and our babies, and this place will kill you if you don’t slow down.” He didn’t know how to slow down so she wanted him to sell. He was constantly on the phone to Bruce, Jennifer, and the front desk to find out what was going on.

“I’m taking a month off,” he reminded Natalie, hoping to mollify her, but Natalie’s only mantra now was for him to sell the hotel. She didn’t say anything to Heloise about it, but she said it to Hugues constantly, and he told her he wouldn’t, in no uncertain terms. She was stressing him more than the hotel. It was the only argument they had. The rest of the time they enjoyed being together. She loved having him home with her.

He went out for a walk around the reservoir every day, and came back with little treats for her. Four weeks after his heart attack, he looked better than ever, and by then Natalie looked like a woman lying under a mountain. He smiled every time he looked at her. She could hardly move.

The doctor came to visit her on a regular basis, and an OB nurse came to check her every day. It was April by then, and she was having contractions. The obstetrician thought it would be soon, but she was seven months pregnant, and the babies were growing nicely. They could survive if they were born now.

They were watching an old I Love Lucy rerun and eating popcorn one night, when Natalie suddenly made an odd expression and then looked at Hugues, as though she didn’t understand what was happening. She was suddenly lying in a pool of water, which rapidly spread to his side of the bed. He was afraid that she was bleeding, but when he looked at the sheets, he saw it was just water, and then they both realized what had just happened.

“Oh my God, my water just broke,” she said to him with a look of panic. But at seven months the triplets were in much less danger, even though they were small, and all three would almost certainly survive. Hugues called the doctor, and she said to bring Natalie in as quickly as possible. She had no idea how rapidly labor would happen, and she didn’t want to have the babies born at the hotel or in a taxi. Hugues called security and asked them to bring up a wheelchair. They had several of them in the hotel, one of which he’d used to come home from the hospital himself a month before. He was fully recovered, and after his long daily walks, he felt better than ever, and he had been planning to go back to work that week.

Bruce brought the wheelchair up to them in a few minutes, and Hugues helped Natalie get dressed. It was two o’clock in the morning. And he was wondering if their babies would be born that night. It was very exciting. And if so, they knew the babies would have to stay at the hospital for a while, in incubators, depending on how big they were. But in her belly they looked enormous to them.

Once she was dressed, Hugues helped her from the bed to the wheelchair, and she smiled up at him once she sat down.

“It looks like this is showtime,” she said softly. They had waited so long for this. The hormone treatments the previous summer, the IVF, and now seven months of being pregnant, and she had been in bed for nearly four months. She felt ready to face what was coming. She just hoped that their babies were too.

Hugues and Bruce took Natalie down the elevator in the wheelchair. If it had been earlier, he would have called Heloise, but he didn’t want to disturb her and assumed that she was sleeping.

None of the drivers were around at that hour to drive them to the hospital. And it was simpler to take a taxi. The doorman hailed one for them, and Natalie held Hugues’s hand in the cab. It felt so good to be out in the warm spring air and see the city again. She felt like she had been in prison for months.

The doctor was waiting for them at the hospital, and they got Natalie to Labor and Delivery just as the first serious pains started, and she was surprised by how strong they were. But once her water broke, the doctor had told her that she might go into hard labor very quickly, which seemed to be what was happening now. And she was clinging tightly to Hugues’s hand. He was quietly reassuring her and helped her into the bed, where they examined her and she immediately cried out in pain.

“You’re already dilated to eight centimeters,” the doctor explained to her. “You must have been having contractions all night.” They wanted her to have some contractions before the C-section, to get the babies ready to breathe when they were born.

“I’ve had so many lately, and they kick so much, it’s hard to tell,” Natalie said as another pain hit, and the doctor checked her again, and this time she screamed, as Hugues winced, watching her. It looked excruciating to him. Miriam hadn’t let him be there when Heloise was born, so this was the first delivery he’d seen.

“We’re not going to be able to stop it now,” the doctor said to Hugues and Natalie. “With the water broken, there’s a risk of infection, and she dilated too quickly. I’d like to see if we could slow it down a little, so we can get some medicine into you.” They wanted to give her an IV, to protect the babies’ lungs, as they weren’t fully mature. “Let’s see if we can buy a little time.” They wanted to get two bags of IV fluid into her, and the medication for the babies’ lungs. And the doctor explained to Hugues and Natalie that the best way to slow her labor a little bit would be to give her an epidural, if it wasn’t already too late. They would need it for the C-section anyway, since they weren’t going to let her deliver naturally. And if it was too late for the epidural, they’d have to put her out completely, which they didn’t want to do.

They got an anesthesiologist into the room and had him administer the epidural, through a needle in her spine. It was painful for Natalie, but once it was in place, she stopped feeling the contractions, and eventually they slowed down. It was giving them the time they needed to get the babies ready to enter the world.

Natalie was lying on her side, looking exhausted and worried. She had been poked and prodded and examined, and she was worried for their babies. A fetal monitor was reporting all three heartbeats, and Natalie lay quietly, holding Hugues’s hand, as tears slid down her cheeks.

“I’m scared,” she whispered to him, “for them, not for me.”

“It’s going to be fine.” She wanted to believe him, but she didn’t. There was so much that could still go wrong. And by eight in the morning they had gotten everything into her that she and the babies needed, and they lightened up on the epidural, and as soon as they did, Natalie was immediately in pain. There seemed to be no way to get through this easily, and Hugues hated that for her. But the doctor still wanted her to have some more contractions to get the babies’ lungs ready to breathe. She assured them that she wasn’t going to leave her in labor for long, and they would do the C-section soon. Hugues thought it looked like the worst of both worlds, a painful labor and then a cesarean section, which meant major surgery. They examined her again then, which only made it all worse.

“I want to go home,” she said to Hugues as she burst into tears. He wanted to take her home too, but with their babies in their arms, safe and sound. And for now they needed to be here.

Two more doctors entered the room shortly after, and half a dozen nurses. The epidural was stepped up, and things started to move very quickly, as they rolled Natalie onto a gurney between contractions and rolled her down to surgery, with Hugues holding her hand and the whole team following. Because she was having triplets, there was a lot more going on than usual. With hormone treatments and IVF, they were seeing many more multiple births, and three was still a reasonable number. They had delivered quadruplets the day before.

Once they were in the surgical suite, everything moved quickly, too quickly for Natalie to even know what was going on. They turned the epidural up and numbed her completely. Her stomach was being swabbed, three pediatricians came in, three incubators appeared out of nowhere, and a sheet was put up just past her shoulders so she couldn’t see what was going on, and they asked Hugues to stand near her head. Both her arms were strapped onto boards with IVs into them, so he could no longer hold her hand, but he bent to kiss her face, and she smiled up at him through her tears. And then things started moving even faster. One of the heartbeats had become irregular on the monitor, and the doctor in charge of the team told her they were starting the procedure.

Hugues sat down on a stool next to her, and the monitors kept bleeping, and he wasn’t sure, but he thought he could only hear two heartbeats now instead of three, but he didn’t want to ask, and he didn’t want to frighten Natalie, who was terrified enough as it was.

There was a constant exchange between the fleet of doctors, and then suddenly as he pressed his face next to Natalie’s, they both heard a tiny wail coming from the other side of the sheet.

“You have a little boy,” the doctor announced proudly as both Hugues and Natalie burst into a sob at the same time, and a pediatrician whisked him away to examine him and put him in the incubator. And then within seconds there was another tiny wail. This one sounded stronger. “And a baby girl.” Hugues and Natalie were beaming through their tears. Neither of them could hear the monitor then, and Hugues was wondering if they had turned it down, but for a long time there was no third wail. And then there was a rhythmic slapping sound, and stern exchanges between the doctors.

“What’s happening?” Natalie asked in a choked voice. And none of them answered. But without being told, they sensed what was happening. There was still no third wail, and they could hear both of their other babies crying. The doctor came around the sheet then and looked at them both, and the moment they saw her face, they knew.

“We tried to save your second little girl. Her heart gave out. She was just under two pounds. We’ve been trying to revive her… I’m sorry,” she said, looking genuinely distressed, as Natalie broke into wracking sobs, and Hugues gently stroked her face, as his own tears fell onto her cheeks. They had two healthy babies, but they had lost the third. The bittersweetness of life, to receive two enormous gifts and have another taken away.

The team was sewing Natalie up, and the doctor came back to speak to them. “The little girl you lost is beautiful. She’s all cleaned up. Would you like to see her and hold her for a few minutes?” She knew from experience that sometimes people that didn’t imagined all kinds of things, that the baby had been stolen or switched or hideously deformed. Natalie nodded her head in answer to the question, and a few minutes later they freed her arms and brought her the baby that had been stillborn. She had a sweet little face, and black hair like Hugues, and she looked like she was sleeping in her mother’s arms, as Natalie sobbed and Hugues touched the tiny face. And then a nurse gently took her away. And as Natalie lay crying, they brought both of the others and held them up for her to see. Their son was crying lustily with a fuzz of blond hair and looked like his mother, and their little girl had the face of an angel and curly dark hair. Both babies were just over three pounds. And the one that hadn’t made it had been half their size. But even having two was a victory, and the one they lost was a baby who had never been meant to be. The doctor tried to focus their attention on the ones that had lived. They were put in incubators, but the doctor said they could go home when they reached four pounds.

And by then Natalie had been all sewn up. They covered her with a warm blanket, and she had a violent case of the shakes, from the shock, the emotion, and the surgery. She was shaking like a leaf. And Hugues felt as though they had gone over Niagara Falls. He was happy and sad, excited and victorious and heartbroken over the baby they had lost, all at once, and so was Natalie. They kept Natalie in the operating room for an hour and then wheeled her into a room. And the baby that had died had been taken away. The other two were in the neonatal ICU because they had been premature, but both were doing well.

When they got to Natalie’s room, Hugues took her in his arms and told her how proud of her he was, how brave she had been, and how beautiful their babies were, and like the doctor, he tried to remind her how lucky they were to have the two they did. Natalie couldn’t forget the face of the tiny baby girl they’d lost as Hugues spoke to her quietly.

And as soon as she calmed down a little, they called Heloise and told her the news, that she had a brother and a sister, and then she waited, and her father told her that they had lost a little girl. It saddened her too, but she was relieved to hear that Natalie and the other two were okay, especially with the risks involved. She would be coming back to the hotel in four days, and the twins in a few weeks.

“How is Natalie taking it?” she asked her father soberly. Natalie was still shaking too hard to talk.

“She’s fine, and she was very brave. We’re both sad, but we’re very grateful to have the two… and you,” he added with a smile.

“Can I see her?” Heloise asked him, but Natalie was in no shape for visitors yet, especially given what had happened.

“Maybe a little later. I think they want her to sleep for a while.” She was totally overwrought, and completely worn out, and she couldn’t stop crying. One moment they were tears of joy, and the next they were tears of grief. And he felt as though he had been on a roller coaster too.

“Are you okay, Papa?” Heloise worried about him too, especially since his heart attack. This was hard on him as well.

“I’m fine.” But he was worried about his wife. She had been through so much.

“I’ll tell everyone at the hotel.” Jennifer put up pink and blue balloons, and Heloise discreetly told them that they had lost one of the triplets, but the other two were fine, a boy and a girl, and Natalie was doing well.

She worked all day with the concierges, and then she and Brad went to see them that night. They saw the two babies in their incubators, and Heloise said they were gorgeous. And her father told her quietly in the hallway that as soon as Natalie left the hospital, there would be a burial service for the third baby. It made Heloise infinitely sad for them and put a damper on the moment, especially since they couldn’t bring the other two home yet, and she wished they didn’t have to go through it, but as her father said, it was part of life.

Natalie looked so exhausted and was in pain from the cesarean, so they didn’t stay long, and afterward Heloise and Brad went back to the hotel and talked about it. It sounded like she had gone through so much, and her father had too.

“It seems so complicated,” Brad said sadly. He never wanted Heloise to go through anything like it. And they talked about the future now, even though they were both young. It was one of those relationships that happened early and seemed to stay on a straight path. They knew they wanted to be together for a long, long time. And Brad pointed out that his aunt had waited a long time to have babies, and he agreed with Heloise that they were lucky to have the two that had survived. She could have had them earlier in the pregnancy and lost them all. It put it back into perspective, but Brad held her close that night, grateful that they had found each other nine months before. All he wanted was to protect her and take care of her, and he hoped they survived whatever bumps life provided them in the years to come.

Hugues wanted that for his wife as well. He was staying at the hospital with her, and taking care of her through the night, which made Heloise grateful too, that he was well enough to do that. They’d both been through a lot in the past two months, between the heart attack and the babies.

It was a hectic week while Natalie was in the hospital. Everyone wanted to see her and the babies, but she wasn’t up to it yet. And she was still mourning the baby girl that died. And it was a tragic day when they buried the baby girl after Natalie got home. Only she, Hugues, Heloise, and Brad attended the small service, and it tore Heloise’s heart out to see a casket so small. It was white with pink flowers on it, and Natalie sobbed uncontrollably, and then at Hugues’s insistence they stopped at the hospital to see the others, to remind them of what they had. They had named them Stephanie and Julien. And Julien made funny faces at them as they looked at him in the incubator. Stephanie just lay there and looked peaceful and dozed off to sleep as they watched her. They looked like little angels. Brad and Heloise were mesmerized by them, they were so small, and Heloise had forgotten all about feeling displaced. They were part of her family now and had won her heart when they were born. She’d been buying little presents for them all week, and Brad teased her about it.

All four of them went home to the hotel and they had dinner together in Hugues and Natalie’s apartment. It had been another exhausting day, with the burial and all the emotions of that. Natalie went to bed before they finished dinner.

Once Natalie was home from the hospital and settled in, Hugues went back to work in his office for the first time in over a month, and it felt wonderful to him. And they went to the hospital together when Natalie went to feed the twins. Her milk had come in, and she was nursing, and leaving breast milk at the hospital for them. And she was worried about Hugues working too hard. She still wished he’d sell the hotel before it killed him. They were talking about it one night as they lay in bed together.

Natalie shook her head as she looked at him lying next to her. He seemed more content now that he’d gone back to work. “I’m not going to convince you to sell this place, am I?” She felt closer to him than she ever had, after all they’d just been through, and he felt the same way about her.

“Never.” He answered her question with a smile. “I almost made that mistake once. I won’t do it again. One day Heloise will run it, and maybe even Julien and Stephanie. And then you and I will travel the world and have fun.” He made it sound like it was just around the corner, but Natalie knew now that it was years away. She couldn’t even imagine him turning over the reins of the Vendôme. Sharing it with Heloise perhaps, but he wasn’t ready to retire, and she wondered if he ever would be. The hotel he had devoted his life to for twenty years was still his passion, and now so was she.

“All right,” she said with a sigh of resignation. “I concede. You’re all crazy. Heloise works as hard as you do. She was doing double shifts the whole time you were sick.” And she had done it again that week. “Just don’t kill yourself doing it,” she warned him. “I need you for a long, long time, Hugues Martin.”

“I need you too,” he said as he pulled her close to him to kiss her. “You’re the woman I love, and the mother of my children. And one day, I promise you, we’ll get out of here, when Heloise is ready to take it on.” It was a promise she didn’t intend to hold him to, but she had finally understood that he was never going to sell and probably shouldn’t. The Hotel Vendôme was his life.