Thankfully, getting up that morning wasn’t too difficult. I showered and got dressed, heading out to the kitchen when I was ready.
Amy was at the table, her laptop open and a box of a dozen donuts open in front of her. She had one chocolate-covered on her plate and was picking at it slowly as she scrolled through her social media.
“Morning, preggers,” she said, flashing me a half-smile.
I’d told Amy about everything that had happened and like everyone else in my life—aside from Jordan, that is—she’d been more than supportive, helping me out with this and that whenever I needed her.
“Morning, not preggers,” I said, scrunching up my nose. “Ugh, you know I hate that word.”
“I know you do,” she said. “Why do you think I always say it?”
I gave her a playful swat on the arm as I walked past her toward the coffee maker. I had enough time for a cup of decaf, so I poured myself one and took a seat at the table.
“How’s the internet?” I asked, my eyes drifting toward the donuts.
“Same old,” she said. Then she flashed me a coy glance. “But let’s see if everything’s ‘same old’ with little Mr. King?”
“Oh, no-no-no,” I said. “Don’t need to know about any of that. As far as I’m concerned, he doesn’t exist.”
Really, though, I was curious. Amy typed his name into SplitShot, the picture site, and began to scroll through.
“Oh, lots of partying,” she said, going through picture after picture of Jordan at one club or another. “Looks like he’s living it up in the Big Apple. Not a damn care in the world.”
I wanted to turn away from the photos, but I kept looking. Strangely, I didn’t see one of him with a girl; all were with friends. If there were girls, they were off to the side, away from him.
“Must be nice to be so carefree,” I said.
Amy closed out the window and turned the computer back around.
“Are you still not planning on telling him?” she asked. “I mean, he really could help out with all that money of his.”
“His father’s,” I corrected. “And no, I’m not going to tell him. He’s made it more than apparent that he’s not ready for this, so I’m going to keep him as far away from this whole situation as possible.”
“Your call,” she said. “Want a donut?”
She turned the box of colorful donuts toward me. The only one missing was the one on her plate, which she had barely touched.
“Why did you get so many?” I asked. “You’re barely finishing one.”
“I went down to Gino’s Coffee this morning, totally craving one. And when I got there, I saw that they had a special for a dozen for five dollars. I figured I could snack on them all day.”
“Breakfast, lunch, and dinner of champions,” I said with a grin.
Amy laughed. “I know you’re Ms. Food Snob, but I figured I’d ask.”
Normally, she’d be right. If I wanted a dessert, I’d make some crème brûlée or maybe some ice cream. But right at that moment, for some reason, I couldn’t take my eyes off of the damn things.
“Okay, maybe one,” I said.
Amy raised her eyebrows in surprise. “Help yourself,” she said, turning her eyes back to her computer.
I waggled my fingers in anticipation, each of the donuts looking so good I could hardly stand it. Finally, I snatched up a Boston cream, shoving it down in no more than three bites. Once that was down the hatch, I grabbed a cruller, eating that just as fast. Next was a chocolate donut covered in sprinkles. After this one, I poured myself a tall glass of whole milk, took down half of it in one gulp, and started in on a glazed.
“Holy crap, girl,” said Amy, watching me polish off my next donut. “You’re out of control.”
“It has to be the baby,” I said. “I’d never eat like this normally.”
“Well, you are eating for two,” she said. “Or three, or four…”
“Oh, my God,” I said. “Don’t even joke about that. I’m going crazy with stress just thinking about the one kid.”
“Just save some for me, okay?” Amy said with a smile.
“I think five’s my limit,” I said before finishing the rest of the glass of milk. “Okay, I need to get to this appointment. Thanks for the grub.”
“No problem,” she said. “Good luck with everything.”
I thanked her again for letting me pig out before snatching up my keys and heading out the door.
As I drove, I couldn’t help but think about how ravenous my appetite had been. I knew that eating, and lots of it, was part of being pregnant. But this was crazy. Maybe I was lacking in some vitamins or something.
The clinic was lovely, a modern building that I was only able to afford thanks to Mr. King’s benefits. Once inside, I checked in and was soon seated in a small office. I barely had to wait much time at all before a short, middle-aged woman with large purple-rimmed glasses entered the room.
“Good morning, Chloe,” she said, extending her hand. “I’m Dr. Haverford.”
“Nice to meet you,” I said.
“Likewise,” she said, lifting a tablet and giving it a few swipes. “Okay, I see that you’re here for your first prenatal exam.”
“That’s right,” I said.
“Well, first of all, congratulations. And I have to ask—is the father in the picture?”
“He’s…not,” I said.
The doctor nodded slowly while looking at her charts. She didn’t say anything and was very professional about it. I doubted I was the first single mother that she’d encountered in her line of work.
“Raising a child alone can be tricky, but there are lots of resources available to you in San Bravado. I’d be more than happy to discuss them after the test if you’d like.”
Honestly, I didn’t know whether or not to take her up on it. On the one hand, they might really come in handy. On the other, that would mean I was a single mother on state support. Was this the life I’d envisioned for myself when I graduated from high school?
I put the matter out of my mind, coming back to the present moment.
“I’ll think about it,” I said.
“Of course,” she said. “Okay, first I’d like to ask you if you’ve been going through anything out of the ordinary since you found out that you were pregnant. I understand that this is all very new, what with you being a first-time mother. What I’m looking for is anything that may have struck you as odd.”
I thought the question over for a few moments.
“Well, like you said, I don’t really know what’s ‘normal’ with being pregnant, except what I’ve seen on TV, and stuff. But it seems like everything that I’ve been going through has been, I don’t know, pregnancy times ten.”
Dr. Haverford cocked her head to the side slightly.
“What do you mean?”
“My nausea has been absolutely terrible. And there have been days when I’ve had no energy at all, like I have mono or something. My appetite has been crazy, too. I’ve been eating everything in sight, and things that I’ve never craved before like meat and sugary junk foods.”
“Hmm,” she said. “Your body’s craving protein and calories—and a lot of them.”
“Right,” I said. “Sometimes it doesn’t feel like I’m feeding another mouth—it feels like I’m feeding an army.”
Dr. Haverford gave me one more quizzical expression.
“It does sound like things are a little worse than normal for a first-time pregnancy—”
“Worse?” I said, the word blurting out of my mouth.
She raised her hand in a calming gesture.
“Worse is the wrong word. Just more intense. That can mean a lot of things.”
My heart began to beat faster as my mind raced with the possibilities of what could be amiss.
“Let’s grab the fetal Doppler and check things out. We can get a good sense of how things are coming along. Just sit tight for a moment.”
A sick feeling spread
through my belly—not the normal nausea, but a feeling of total dread. Before I had too long to stew in my stress, however, Dr. Haverford returned with the fetal Doppler, a small piece of equipment that was attached to something that looked like a microphone.
“Now,” she said. “I don’t know if you’ve ever seen this done before, but it’s a totally non-invasive process. I’m going to have you lie back, and then I’m going to run this little wand over your belly. I’ll be able to hear the heartbeat, and in my experience, hearing a healthy heartbeat goes a long way toward putting first-time mothers at ease.”
“That would make me feel better,” I said.
She gave me a warm smile.
“Go ahead and lie back,” she said. “This will only take a few seconds.”
I complied, and once I was on my back, Dr. Haverford pulled my shirt up enough to expose my belly. The small baby bump was still such a strange sight to me.
“Now, I’m going to apply a little gel here.”
She squirted some clear gel from a tube and rubbed it onto a small patch on my belly. I shivered at her touch, the gel surprisingly cool.
“Now, like I said, I’m going to press the wand here, and we should be able to hear some little baby heartbeats.”
She placed the end of the wand onto the gel-covered patch of skin and applied a bit of pressure.
“I’m going to turn on the speaker so you can hear. Ready?”
Dr. Haverford’s professional calm had done a lot to push aside my fear. Now I was more excited than anything.
“Ready,” I said.
She nodded and flicked the Doppler on. The speaker put out a crackling noise, along with a soft, pulsing “whomp” sound.
“Now,” she said. “We need to distinguish your heartbeats from the baby’s.”
She moved the wand around a bit, applying pressure here and there, the gel spreading on the end of the wand.
Suddenly, the gentle pulsing noise grew in volume and speed. What at first sounded like one noise was now replaced by several, all of them overlapping one another. A surprised expression quickly formed on Dr. Haverford’s face as she pulled the wand away.
“What?” I asked, fear rising in me. “Is something wrong?”
“Just…something I want to be certain about,” she said.
She placed the wand back on my stomach, the cacophony of noises returning. Dr. Haverford slowly twisted the volume knob on the device, the sounds growing louder. And as she did, I could see her lips moving. I wasn’t certain, but it looked like she was counting—one, two, three…
She nodded one last time, took the wand away, and turned off the device.
“What is it?” I asked. “Is the baby okay?”
“Not only is the baby okay,” she said through a smile, “they’re all okay.”
I didn’t know what to make of her words. It was like she’d said something in a foreign language.
“What?” I asked. “What are you talking about?”
“Well, normally when we use a fetal Doppler, you’ll hear two of those sounds, one faint and one loud—the baby’s heartbeat and yours. But what we heard was…many heartbeats.”
What she said next hit me like a train.
“Four of them, to be exact.”
I sat back, trying to process what she’d said.
“You don’t mean…you can’t mean.”
“That’s right, Ms. Sanderson—you’re pregnant with quadruplets!”
The room spun around me, and my breathing increased in speed.
“Four?” I asked. “Four babies?”
“Four babies,” she said. “And from what I heard, all with healthy, strong heartbeats.”
She packed the Doppler away and turned toward the door.
“Okay, now I need you to answer some questions about your pregnancy so far so that I can have them for my records the next time you come in. I’m going to send in a nurse to take care of all that, but please, if you have any questions for me, tell her, and I’ll be right in to answer them.”
I nodded, still in the middle of a daze. Dr. Haverford congratulated me one more time before departing. Moments later, a slender, middle-aged nurse dressed in pink scrubs entered the room.
“My name’s Kelly,” she said.
“Chloe,” I said, my eyes fixed forward.
“I heard about the big news!” she said, her voice chipper. “Congratulations!”
“Thanks,” I said.
“Four babies,” she said, shaking her head. “You almost only ever see that many babies with couples that are using fertility drugs. For you to be having so many kids like that right out of the gate…”
She shook her head in wonder.
“It’s like a miracle, right?”
“Right now, I’m trying to process it all,” I said. “It’s…a lot to take in.”
“Oh, I bet,” said the nurse. “Well, I hope you have a lot of extra pairs of hands around the house to help out!”
All I could do was laugh nervously. That was the last thing I wanted to think about at that moment.
The nurse ran through some basic questions about my medical history, as well as that of my parents, and soon I was out of there. I spent the rest of the drive back trying to process what I’d learned. My life had already taken a turn for the complicated, and now everything felt like it was going off the rails.
Amy was out when I got back, and I was glad to have the place all to myself. I went back into my room, shut the door, and fell onto my bed. The nurse’s words about “extra pairs of hands” played in my mind over and over, reminding me that Jordan wasn’t going to be a part of all this.
Did he have a right to know? I knew that he did. As much of an asshole as he’d been, he was about to be the father of not only one child, but four.
Four children.
The words bounced around in my mind, overlapping on top of one another like the four heartbeats I’d heard.
Everything was about to change, and in ways I could only guess.
Chapter 17
Chloe
It was a few days after my appointment, and as I pulled up to the King mansion, I was more than ready to throw myself into my work. My creativity was in overdrive, my mind racing with all sorts of ideas for what I could prepare for the evening.
Steak sounded nice. Mr. King was always in the mood for something simple and nourishing, and there were more than a few choice cuts of meat in the freezer. Or I could go crazy, maybe make something trendy, and really knock his socks off. I’d spent the last few days ruminating about my pregnancy, and today I finally felt ready to put it aside, even if only for a little while.
When I stepped into the mansion, I knew right away that something was wrong. The place was eerily quiet, as though I’d entered some ancient, abandoned estate. None of the usual bustle of the other staff could be heard, and lights were off in every room I could see.
I walked further into the mansion, my feet echoing against the marble floor. I wondered if I’d missed something—if some text had gone out letting everyone know but me that Alfred wasn’t going to be in tonight. I considered how it’d be a shame if that was the case. I was ready to get to work.
Then I heard a soft sound off in the distance. At first, it sounded like laughter, the kind you’d hear if someone was reading or watching something funny on their phone by themselves. But the closer I moved to the noise, the more I realized that it wasn’t laughter at all.
It was sobbing.
My pace picked up, and I hurried toward the kitchen, where the crying seemed to be coming from. Once I stepped into the spacious room, I spotted the source: Luz. She was seated on one of the stools at the kitchen island, her face in her hands as her body shook with sobs.
“Luz?” I asked.
She jolted up, turning in her seat and giving me her attention. Sure enough, her eyes were puffy, her face was a deep red, and her cheeks were wet with tears.
“What’s going on?” I asked. “Are you okay?”
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She took a deep breath, trying to compose herself. After this, she took a tissue from the box in front of her and quickly dabbed her eyes.
“Oh, baby,” she said. “You didn’t hear?”
“Hear what?” I asked, my tone now one of worry. “What’s going on?”
She patted the seat next to her, and I quickly moved onto it. Luz glanced away for a long moment as if trying to figure out where to begin.
Did Luz have some sort of family tragedy? That was the first thought that occurred to me. But it didn’t explain why the house was so eerie and quiet. No, it was something else.
“It’s…Mr. King.”
“What happened?”
“He’s…no longer with us.”
“What do you mean?” I asked, realizing instantly how silly the question sounded. I knew exactly what it meant.
“He passed away,” she said. “Last night.”
“Oh, no! Luz, what happened?”
I’d worked last night, and Mr. King had seemed no different than any other day. He was in good spirits and seemed to be in good health. Something had happened clear out of the blue.
“Last night,” she repeated, “after most of us left for the evening, he had a stroke. I don’t know all the details, but it came out of nowhere. One of the cleaning crew, Melinda, I think, had been around working late, and happened to have a question for Mr. King about something. She knocked on his study door and didn’t hear anything, and when she went in, she saw him there, sprawled over his desk unconscious.”
I leaned in as she spoke, everything in the world blotted out except for Luz.
“She called an ambulance, and they came as quickly as they could. But this place is so far out of town that it took them a while. But he was still alive when they arrived. They airlifted him to the nearest hospital and confirmed that it was a stroke.
“At first, it seemed like everything was going to be okay. The stroke wasn’t all that severe, his condition had stabilized, and he was in the hands of some of the best doctors in the country. Mr. King had even come out of unconsciousness and was able to talk a bit.”
Four Secret Babies - A Second Chance Billionaire Romance (San Bravado Billionaires' Club Book 7) Page 11
