Chapter 3
Grant didn't just lift me; he swept me up against his chest as if I weighed nothing at all. But his entire body was rigid with a shock so profound it bordered on paralysis. He laid me on the emerald velvet sofa, his eyes burning into mine, searching every line of my exhausted face.
"How far along is she?" Grant's voice was barely a whisper, yet it vibrated with terrifying intensity.
"Sixteen weeks," Dr. Parker replied smoothly as she unbuttoned my loose sweater, peeling back my camisole to expose my lower abdomen.
There, soft and undeniable, was the gentle curve of a pregnancy that had outgrown secrecy.
Grant stared at it. His breath caught in his throat. A strange, shattered sound escaped his lips—half gasp, half groan.
"You were going to sign an annulment," he whispered, looking up at me, his gray-blue eyes suddenly bloodshot and filled with an unbearable agony. "The third page... 'no genuine marital relationship'... you were going to sign that while carrying my child?"
"It wasn't your child," I choked out, tears finally breaking free and spilling down my temples into my hair. "In your world, children aren't people, Grant. They're assets. Succession plans. I saw the protocol! I saw your initials!"
Dr. Parker pulled out a portable doppler from her bag and squeezed a cold dab of blue gel onto my skin. "Both of you, stop shouting. Nora's heart rate is spiking, and that is the last thing this pregnancy needs."
She placed the probe against my belly and flicked the switch.
Static hissed into the quiet room.
Grant took a step back, as though struck, then stepped forward again, unable to tear himself away. He watched the small plastic wand glide across my stomach with the look of a man watching the universe unfold before him.
Then, the rhythm came through the speaker.
Thump-thump, thump-thump, thump-thump.
Rapid, wild, perfectly ferocious.
Grant closed his eyes, a single shudder rippling through his broad shoulders. "Is that...?"
"That's the heartbeat," Dr. Parker murmured, moving the wand slightly to the left.
Suddenly, an echo joined it. A second cadence, slightly offset, creating an intricate, double-time syncopation in the room.
Thump-thump-thump-thump, thump-thump-thump-thump.
Dr. Parker froze. A slow smile spread across her weathered face, and she looked up straight into Grant Hale’s haunted eyes.
She whispered four words:
"There are two heartbeats."
Silence fell over the library, broken only by the galloping miracle of two tiny lives beating together against the roar of the Hudson River rain.