One Night Stand, Eight Surprises: Pampered by My CEO Husband --- - Chapter 124: Chapter 124

Damien sat alone at the dining table long after everyone had gone to bed. The house, finally quiet, exhaled around him—settling walls, ticking clocks, the soft hum of the baby monitor glowing beside his journal. His fingers hovered over the pen, hesitant.
The pages before him were worn already—ink bleeding into the margins, a few smudges from tiny fingers who’d mistaken it for a drawing pad. It was supposed to be just a place to track milestones. Feedings. Sleep schedules. But it had become more than that.
It had become a mirror.
He opened to a fresh page, dated it, and began to write.
Dear Arielle,
You don’t know I’m doing this. Not yet. Maybe someday I’ll show you. Maybe I won’t. I’m not even sure why I started. Maybe because there are things I want to say that feel too big for spoken words. Things I don’t want to burden you with. Things I don’t want to forget.
Like the way you looked the first time you held her. Not just relieved or overwhelmed, but changed. You were reborn that day. And yet, so was I.
I thought I was strong. I thought I could protect you from anything. But watching them wheel you away, blood trailing behind, I realized I’m nothing without you. That image—it’s etched into me. A scar deeper than anything you’ve stitched shut.
And since then, I’ve tried to hold it all together. The house. The kids. You. But I feel like I’m taping together glass with trembling fingers.
Damien paused, heart thudding. He could hear the faint cry of the newborn through the monitor, but it was quickly replaced by Arielle’s soft shushing. Her lullaby, barely audible, floated into the quiet.
He continued writing.
You’re the bravest person I’ve ever known.
Even now, recovering, you smile through pain, you kiss foreheads while your body screams beneath you. You soothe chaos with one look. I see it in the kids too—they orbit you. You are their gravity.
And me? I keep trying to be your strength. But some days, I feel like I’m just pretending.
I burned the baby bottle again today. Left it on the warmer too long. The twins ate peanut butter out of the jar. Zoe caught them and lectured them for seven full minutes. You slept through it, thank God.
I cleaned the kitchen three times. It still looks like a hurricane had lunch here. And I lost your heating pad. Again.
But the worst part?
I keep thinking about tomorrow.
He set the pen down, leaning back. The doctor’s appointment—the one neither of them had dared discuss aloud—loomed like a shadow.
Damien had Googled it, of course. Every keyword in the test results. Every rare hormone disorder that could be linked to trauma. The autoimmune symptoms. He knew enough now to be dangerous to himself.
And terrified.
He picked the pen back up.
I’m scared. More than I want to admit. Not of the diagnosis, but of what it will take from you. Of what it might ask us to sacrifice. You’ve already given so much. How much more can your body bear?
And still… I know you. You’ll smile through it. You’ll tell me it’s okay. You’ll worry more about me than yourself.
That’s what terrifies me most.
Because you shouldn’t have to carry us all. Not anymore. Not alone.
So this is my promise, right here in these pages.
No matter what happens tomorrow. No matter what word the doctor says. No matter how long the road becomes.
I will be here.
Even when I’m afraid. Even when I don’t have the answers. Even when the weight feels too much.
I will choose you.
Over and over.
Because love isn’t just vows in a church or kisses in the dark. It’s late-night bottles and swollen ankles. It’s holding your hand when you can’t lift your head. It’s watching you break and not looking away.
It’s us. Always.
He closed the journal gently and placed it in the drawer beside his side of the bed. The soft shuffle of footsteps behind him told him she was awake.
Arielle appeared in the kitchen doorway, robe pulled tight around her middle. She looked exhausted, but her eyes sparkled in the low light.
“Couldn’t sleep?” she asked.
He smiled. “Just thinking.”
She joined him, curling up on his lap like she had so many times before the kids, before the chaos.
“What were you thinking about?”
He kissed the top of her head.
“About how lucky I am. And how much I don’t deserve you.”
She chuckled. “You’re not getting out of diaper duty with flattery.”
“I’m serious.”
She looked up at him then, and whatever joke had been sitting on her lips faded.
“I’m scared too, Damien.”
He held her tighter.
“Then we’ll be scared together.”
She nodded. “But not tonight.”
“No. Not tonight.”
They sat there, tangled in quiet, as the baby monitor glowed beside them. And even as the world spun madly on, Damien’s journal lay safe in the drawer—a quiet testament of love, fear, and devotion.
A secret prayer.
A daddy’s diary.