Pregnant and Spoiled by the Billionaire – Episode 44
Amelia reached Benjamin’s bedside while the surgical team prepared transport. The neonatologist explained that a section of intestine might have become damaged, a complication seen in extremely premature infants. Medication alone was no longer safe.
The consent form listed bleeding, infection, loss of bowel, and death. Amelia read every line despite wanting to sign without seeing the words. She asked whether Benjamin might need an ostomy, how pain would be managed, and when they would know if the remaining intestine functioned. Understanding risk was part of protecting him, even when knowledge offered no power to remove it.
Leo signed beside her. Neither asked the other to carry the decision alone. They authorized surgery because waiting presented the greater danger, then stood together as the incubator moved toward an operating room designed for infants.
Benjamin’s four brothers remained in intensive care, unaware that one place in their row stood empty. Amelia visited each of them before settling in the surgical waiting area. Caring for the others while fearing Benjamin felt disloyal until a nurse reminded her that love did not require choosing one child at a time.
Matilda arrived with coffee and no optimistic predictions. Claire joined by video because her counselor advised against leaving treatment during a difficult week. She read Benjamin’s name from the knitted cap waiting beside her, giving the family something gentle to hear.
The surgery lasted ninety minutes. Every time the waiting-room door opened, Amelia lifted her head before realizing the person belonged to another family. The pediatric surgeon finally explained that a small perforation had been found and a limited damaged section removed. Benjamin remained unstable but had tolerated the procedure better than feared, and the amount of healthy bowel preserved was encouraging.
Relief came carefully. The next forty-eight hours carried risks of infection and further injury. Benjamin returned to intensive care surrounded by more equipment than before, his abdomen covered by a dressing almost as wide as his body.
Amelia stood beside him and felt anger rise beneath sorrow. She had followed every instruction, endured hospitalization, and agreed to delivery only when her life became endangered, yet her son still suffered. The old instinct searched for someone to blame—the doctors, her body, the people whose attacks filled the pregnancy with stress. Blame promised a target when reality offered only a fragile infant and uncertain healing.
The surgeon did not offer a moral explanation. Premature tissue was fragile, and complications occurred even under excellent care. Accepting randomness felt less satisfying than blame but protected Amelia from turning grief against herself.
Leo spent the first night near Benjamin while Amelia slept. He learned to moisten the baby’s lips with a sterile swab and read aloud from financial reports until a nurse suggested something less likely to cause distress.
He chose Amelia’s first article instead. The questions she asked him months earlier sounded both innocent and fearless. Benjamin’s heart rate remained steady while Leo read the passage about renewable energy and responsibility.
In the morning, Amelia found Leo asleep beside the incubator with the article open on his phone. She covered his shoulders and understood how completely the distant billionaire had disappeared. Fatherhood had not softened his strength; it had taught him where strength belonged.
Benjamin showed no signs of spreading infection after the first day. His blood pressure improved, and the surgeon expressed cautious satisfaction. The word cautious had become the family’s preferred form of hope.
Meanwhile, Daniel graduated from invasive ventilation to gentler support. Ethan gained enough weight for longer skin-to-skin sessions, and Adam began tolerating larger feedings. Caleb remained small but stable.
Amelia struggled to celebrate one child’s progress beside another’s pain. The social worker helped her create separate journal pages for each son, preventing their stories from collapsing into a single competition.
She wrote Benjamin’s surgery without allowing it to define him. Beneath the medical facts, she added that he calmed when Leo read boring business language. The detail made her laugh for the first time in days.
Outside the hospital, a photographer attempted to enter the neonatal floor wearing a stolen visitor badge. Security stopped him at the locked unit, but he carried a camera and a list of the babies’ aliases.
Derek traced the list to an employee of the streaming company that had offered Amelia an exclusive contract. The company denied authorization, calling the photographer an independent contractor. Amelia recognized the familiar strategy of profiting from violations while distancing executives from the act.
She asked the hospital to prosecute trespassing and identity theft rather than quietly remove him. Protecting other families mattered as much as guarding the Preston children. The hospital announced a review of visitor systems without naming any patient.
That evening, Benjamin’s monitor signaled a sudden fever. Blood tests suggested infection despite surgery and antibiotics. As clinicians drew cultures and changed medication, the neonatologist warned Amelia that the next twelve hours could determine whether her son recovered.