by Holly Rayner
“Perhaps,” Akim said. “But we have private jets that are beyond comfortable. Your accommodations would be more than agreeable, and we could set up a nursery in a private plane just for you and the child. You could travel the world in comfort. Many celebrities and singers do just that when they have children.”
“Is that so?” Maddy said, her tone distracted.
She could hardly believe the conversation they were having. He wanted to drag her and her baby around the world to show them off like show ponies, just to sell their drug and make a profit. How many times would she have to remind herself that that was his end of the bargain, anyway? Her takeaway was the child she had always wanted, his was profit.
That was the end of it, clearly.
The car pulled into the parking garage adjacent to the Akhemical laboratories, sliding into Akim’s personal parking space at the front. Very few other cars were in the garage, as it was still extremely early.
“I figured it would be best to get here early, so no one would see us arriving in the same car. Don’t you agree?”
“Of course,” Maddy said.
It made sense. It was a rational thought, and one that was meant to protect her reputation within the company. But if that were the case, why not just let her go home first? Why bring her here?
Akim opened the door, but before he exited, he turned to her. “What would you say to meeting next weekend, my place again?”
Maddy nearly snorted. “I’m afraid that won’t be necessary. I’ll need to be on the treatment for four weeks before it will have any effect. Then we can meet up again.”
Akim looked as though he was going to say something, but then changed his mind. “Fair enough. Feel free to stop by my office closer to the time and we’ll start working something out. Good luck, Maddy.”
And without another word, he was gone. His driver kept his view to the front, not bothering to glance back or say anything, and Maddy slid out of the car on her own before heading to the female locker area.
Like many Akhemical employees, Maddy thankfully had a spare set of clothes at the lab. Often they worked long hours or worked out at the provided gym area, and employees could use a locker to change and get straight to work. Being one of the few women there, Maddy had the entire locker room to herself. She grabbed a bottle of water from the provided fridge and took a deep drink until the whole thing was empty.
Then she cried.
There was no reason for it, her logical mind told her. Akim had given her every opportunity to back out. He had asked her if she wanted to stay, and every fiber of her being had. Of course, that was when he was kind and open and full of charm. The man she had met with in the morning might as well have been a stranger.
Maddy rubbed at her cheeks and turned on the shower, washing the night away with a good scrub. She almost hoped that one night would have been enough to plant a child in her womb, but she knew better than that. There might be many more nights like this.
In the beginning, it had seemed like a great idea, but in practice, it was much more difficult than she had anticipated. Why did Akim have to be so handsome?
Maddy forced the image of his face from her mind, instead focusing on the miracle baby she hoped might get some of his features—like that dimple, for example, before pulling herself together, getting dressed, and heading straight to the lab.
NINE
Maddy stared at the ultrasound, her eyes filling with tears.
“It’s a boy,” the technician announced, and Maddy’s tears fell freely over her cheeks. She squeezed a hand, and glanced over to see Akim crying, too.
“A son,” he breathed, his voice filled with wonder.
Together they stared at the fuzzy image of their perfect, healthy little boy. Akim pulled his chair closer to Maddy and put his arm around her, supporting her.
“He’s beautiful, and so are you,” he whispered into her ear, and Maddy shivered.
His breath smelled of red wine.
Finding this curious, she turned to look at him, but he was gone. She was alone. The technician held out the images for Maddy to take before walking out, leaving her confused and afraid. She glanced at the ultrasound picture and placed a hand to her belly.
How would she raise the child by herself?
Maddy woke up crying, her tears having dampened her pillow.
Sitting up, she turned on the light and looked at the clock. It was three in the morning; the sky still black outside her window. Knowing she wouldn’t be able to fall asleep again, she crawled out of bet and put the kettle on, preparing a cup of hot tea for herself.
It had been several weeks since her rendezvous with Akim, and they had been very long weeks, filled with silence from his end. Still, she had continued on with her treatment in spite of the gnawing emotions that tore at her sanity. On one hand, she could be calm and rational and see things as they were: an opportunity for her research to pay off, and for her to have the baby she’d always craved. On the other hand, she couldn’t stop dreaming about Akim. His face haunted her dreams every night, and whether they we making love or buying baby clothes together, it always ended the same: with the scent of red wine and abandonment. She didn’t need Jungian philosophy to tell her what the dream meant. She simply needed to find a way to get her brain to shut up about him so she could quietly move on, as he had.
The tea kettle began to whistle, and Maddy walked over to turn off the heat and pour herself a steaming mug, determined to get over her dream and get back to feeling human again. She was going to have to get over it, because the four weeks were nearly up, and it would soon be time to see Akim again. She wasn’t sure she would be able to do it again, simply to become distant strangers the next morning. The least he could do was act like a friend, even. To go from aloof boss to passionate lover to distant boss again so quickly was unnerving.
Maddy stared into space for another hour or so, trying not to think about Akim and then thinking about nothing else until the sun began to peep over the horizon. It was finally a justifiable time to head to work, and she got ready and went downstairs, stepping into the early morning light and hailing herself a cab.
She walked into the lab with no expectations of seeing Akim, though with the four-week timeline quickly arriving, she had been wondering if she would see his head popping in through the door again.
Maddy didn’t want to admit to herself that every time the door opened, her head shot up looking for him.
When she did enter the lab, she was surprised to see Yousef there at his microscope.
Hearing her come in, he glanced up. “Aha! Have I done the impossible and beaten you into work today?”
Maddy’s smile was wry. “I’m impressed, why are you here so early?”
Yousef waved her over, and Maddy blinked a few times to focus her sleepy eyes before glancing into her coworker’s microscope.
“What am I looking at here?”
“Well,” Yousef said, “If I’m correct in my calculations, this might be the foundation of a new treatment for Alzheimer’s.”
Maddy stared at the microscope for a moment longer, then looked up at Yousef. “That really is quite the claim.”
He nodded. “It is. And not only that, we could begin trials today, so long as we have permission.”
Yousef’s meaning was clear. There was no point in putting all this work into breakthrough discoveries if they would never be able to help anyone.
Maddy sighed. “I’ll check with the Sheikh and see if there have been any changes to the political situation, though I’m afraid the answer might be the same until after the election.”
“Well then perhaps he can let us know who to vote for, so that we can go back to doing our jobs.”
“Perhaps he can,” Maddy agreed.
As she stood up from the microscope, she felt a wave a nausea roll through her stomach, and she bent down, using a chair to support her.
“Maddy! Are you all right?”
Maddy took several breaths, prayi
ng that she wasn’t about to vomit in the lab, of all places.
After a moment, the feeling passed, and she wiped a small bit of sweat from her brow. Looking into Yousef’s worried eyes, she gave him a reassuring smile.
“It’s nothing. I just didn’t sleep too well and I haven’t had anything to eat. I’ll wait for the nausea to die down and then make myself some toast.”
Yousef frowned. “Make sure you do,” he said.
Maddy nodded and turned away.
“Maddy?”
She looked back at Yousef. He was looking at her with a deeply furrowed brow.
“You haven’t done anything foolish with Chlomerol, have you?”
Maddy laughed it off. She had prepared herself for these kinds of questions. Her team knew the reason she was so passionate about the Chlomerol project, and she could see why presenting with pregnancy symptoms might look suspicious.
“Don’t be silly, Yousef. I’m just going to go get some toast now. I’ll be back in a minute.”
“All right,” he said, his tone full of doubt.
Once Maddy was out of sight, she pressed her back against the wall and took a series of deep breaths. She was fully aware of what morning sickness was, and this certainly felt like it—but there was no way she could be pregnant already, right?
She decided to get a cab to the nearest drug store and buy a pregnancy test on her lunch break, mostly to prove her crazy assumptions wrong; she didn’t want to get her hopes up over nothing.
TEN
Maddy sat on the ladies’ room bench, staring at the pregnancy test sitting on the bathroom counter across the room.
There was no way she could be pregnant. There simply wasn’t. The likely scenario was that she was experiencing nausea as a side effect of the drug; after all, she was tricking her body into becoming pregnant. Of course it was going to react this way.
Still, as she stared at the piece of plastic, sitting on the counter, waiting to be read, she couldn’t tell if she was more excited or scared. If the result was a positive, all of her dreams, everything she had worked for, would be validated in that instant. On the other hand, she would also be having Akim’s child. It would no longer be just an idea. It would be a reality she couldn’t come back from.
Maddy placed her elbows on her knees and bent over, taking deep breaths. There was no turning back now.
Slowly, she stood and walked, zombielike, toward the test on the counter, her gaze fixed on her own reflection in the mirror. When she reached the counter, she stopped and made a deal with herself as she stared into her own blue eyes.
No matter what the test said, she would be okay. She was a survivor. She was smart. She’d made it through every trial she’d ever faced, and would do it again, no matter what. Then she looked down.
It was positive.
Maddy was going to have a baby.
Unexpected tears burst from Maddy’s eyes and she broke into sobs, though whether they were happy or not, she couldn’t really tell. All she knew was that an intensely strong emotion was pulsing through her as she placed a hand on her abdomen.
There was a baby in there. She had never believed it would happen for her. She had figured she would try and get frustrated and then eventually give up, but she had never in a million years really believed that she would get the chance to be a mother.
Apparently, she had been mistaken.
Maddy thought furiously, trying to make sense of that little pink plus sign. How could it have happened so fast? Was one dose before intercourse so potent as to be effective?
Evidently so.
Maddy stared at the test for quite some time, shaking it as though there was some kind of error. She ended up taking two more, both of which were positive, confirming the original’s response. There was nothing else to do now than the inevitable.
She would have to tell Akim, immediately.
Steeling her nerves, Maddy squared her shoulders and wiped at her tear-stained face before she walked down the long, carpeted hallway to Akim’s office. When she got there, she could see him working at his desk through a side window. She knocked gently.
“Come in,” he said, not looking up from his screen.
Maddy opened the door and closed it quietly, and Akim looked up. His eyes widened in surprise at the sight of her, but that was his only tell. His eyebrows quickly lowered, and he wore an expression of polite, mild interest.
“Maddy, how are you?”
Maddy took a breath. She couldn’t think of a way to deliver the news that would be cute or charming, so instead she simply blurted it out.
“I’m pregnant.”
That certainly got his attention. Akim rose from his chair and approached her, reaching out a hand as though to touch her belly before he pulled it back, clearly thinking better of it.
“Are…are you sure?”
“I just took three tests.”
Akim shook his head in wonder. “But how is that possible? We haven’t even… It hasn’t been four weeks yet.”
Maddy shrugged, quite bewildered herself. “Apparently starting the drug on the same night…” she said, unable to finish that statement.
What could she have said? On the same night he basically turned her into a one-night stand? The night he cooked her a delicious dessert feast and treated her like a princess only to turn back into a frog the morning after?
Akim stared at her for a moment with wide eyes, which darted to her belly before searching her face once more. His lips stretched in a toothy smile as he scooped her up and twirled her around. Maddy clung to his shoulders and couldn’t help but laugh as he finished his circle and set her down, his lips awkwardly missing hers and bouncing off her cheek as he pulled away from their embrace.
“Maddy, you’ve done it! You’ve created a treatment that is so effective it works with just one dose. You’re amazing!”
Maddy blushed at the praise as Akim turned toward the window, pacing intensely.
“This is absolutely fantastic news, Maddy. It’s really a reality now, isn’t it? Don’t you think we should do a commercial, with the child, once he or she comes? I can just see it now: the CEO and the head of lab research, forced by a corrupt government to test a scientific breakthrough in secret, on their own. The result is one of the greatest fertility treatments in the history of science. People will be beating down our door for the treatment!”
Maddy stared at him, bewildered. Here she was, pregnant with his child, and all he could think about was how to use them both for capital gain. There was no way they could live a life like that. Against her will, her mother’s words began pouring into her ears—about how the baby was a human life, and not a simple marketing ploy.
“Akim,” she said.
He ignored her, continuing on with his speech about profit margins and marketability of a boy versus a girl.
“Akim…”
On and on he went, in a one-person conversation about his own success, adding her name in for good measure.
“Akim!”
Maddy had to shout for him to finally turn around and look at her. She crossed her arms and glared. “Has it not occurred to you that this child isn’t simply an advertisement you have paid for?”
Akim frowned at her accusatory tone. “Of course I don’t think that. Be rational, Maddy. This is going to change our lives forever.”
Her frown deepened. Yes, it would change their lives forever, but not simply because they would be making money or making a name for themselves in the scientific community.
“You’re about to be a father,” she said.
“Yes, I thought that was the point.”
In that moment, Akim’s phone rang, and he turned from her to answer it.
“Yes? Ah, Bailesh. No, I’m free. Just one moment.”
He placed a hand over the receiver and looked up to face Maddy’s stricken expression. He didn’t seem to notice that she was upset. Perhaps, Maddy thought fretfully, she had gotten too good at hiding her emotions.
“Was there anything else, Maddy? I’m quite excited about all this, and I’m very appreciative of your efforts for the sake of the company. Really, you deserve a raise. I’ll look into it.”
“I’ll keep you updated,” Maddy choked.
“See that you do,” he replied, nodding to her one last time before placing the phone back against his ear.
Maddy couldn’t get out of the Sheikh’s office quick enough. She ran back into the bathroom and began to sob, hysterical tears streaking down her cheeks.
