by Holly Rayner
her period in weeks, but that often happened due to stress. And she hadn’t been sleeping. Perhaps she could go to the doctor and get a prescription for anti-stress medication. Xanax, maybe? One of her girlfriends had been on it the previous year. She’d reported feeling as if she were floating on a cloud for hours at a time, before returning to the mania of normal life.
She hung her head as she returned to her seat, gathering her things. She hadn’t left work early in years. But it was true, what Flora said. She’d hit a wall, and she needed rest. She put Mark in charge of her afternoon meeting and coughed falsely, alerting the team that “things weren’t right.”
She grabbed her things, donning her sunglasses, and headed toward the door. Around her, the room spun. She blinked and saw bright dots. And in a moment, she felt her knees falter to the floor, sending panic through the office.
Mark reached her first, bringing his knee beneath her head. He was calling her name. Finally, she answered.
“Ah, what happened?” she murmured, her voice lost within her. “What happened?”
“Amity! Amity!” Mark was holding a glass of water toward her lips. She was shocked to see it there, realizing that she’d lost so much time. “You have to drink this. You fainted.”
Amity frowned, the wrinkles marching in a line on her forehead. “That can’t be,” she whispered.
She accepted the water gratefully, her heart lulling in her chest. She felt as if her fingers, her toes, her limbs were made of goop. She’d never felt so weak in her life.
“Mark, what happened?” she asked, regaining traction in her voice. “Did you go to the meeting?”
“Always thinking of work,” Mark said, rolling his free hand through his hipster beard. “We called your doctor, and someone’s calling you an Uber to take you over there now. We don’t think you should drive in this condition.”
Amity nodded and leaned heavy against her elbow, blinking around. She understood that this, above anything, was a time to pay attention to someone else’s logic. She was still on the ground. Her skin felt the rough texture of the carpet beneath her.
“Okay,” she whispered. “I think maybe—this time—you’re right.”
“But only this time, eh, boss?” Mark laughed.
“That’s right. And don’t forget your notes for the meeting.”
“Let’s get you up.”
“I’m serious, Mark. Don’t forget.” Her voice was meek, tired.
“Don’t worry, we’ve got this.”
Mark led her outside into the bleaching light and ensured she sat softly, easily in the back of the cab. He blinked at her with kind eyes. Amity was mortified, knowing he’d never seen her like this before.
“You’re going to be okay. You just work too hard,” he said, his voice jovial. “See you tomorrow. Or the next day! Come back when you feel better. We’ve got this, Amity.”
“Yeah, right,” Amity said. She gave him a wink as he shut the door, and the Uber moved from the curb. She raised her hand to him, feeling both grateful to her coworkers and irritated at herself. She’d never allowed herself to be seen so out of sorts. Except, she thought fleetingly, by the Sheikh. He’d seen her at her most unfit: completely unprofessional and lost in his eyes.
Just focus on getting well, she thought to herself. Just focus.
FOURTEEN
Amity sat across the room from her doctor, who looked like blonde and busty Flora, only twenty years older, with more assurance across her face (and, ultimately, much more knowledge, Amity reminded herself). The woman was writing something on Amity’s files. It was clear her brain was calculating what Amity had told her about her health the previous few months, combined with the information from the tests they’d taken that afternoon. Amity shifted in her seat, nervous. She didn’t take kindly to being analyzed.
The doctor looked up at her, then, stitching her glasses from her face. She tapped them against her cheek. “And there’s absolutely no way you’re pregnant, you’re saying?” she asked.
Amity frowned. This had been one of the first questions the doctor had asked her when she’d arrived at the office. She brought her fingers over her abdomen, her mind racing. “Absolutely not. I mean, you have to have unprotected sex to be pregnant. You have to have sex, period.”
“And did you?” the doctor asked her. “Even once?”
Amity closed her eyes, feeling her lashes against her cheeks. She remembered the smell of Aziz’s skin. It coursed through her mind, making her crave him. “I mean, there was one time.”
“And you used protection?”
“Of course!” Amity said, her eyes snapping back open. “Of course.” Every day of her life, she’d been careful. Her career was always on the line.
“Well. I think we have to assume that your protection, in this case, didn’t work. Lethargy. No periods. And a positive pregnancy test,” the doctor said. “I’m here to inform you, you’re going to be a mother.”
Amity felt her heart drop into her stomach. She gasped, sensing the tension grow in the room. “That can’t be,” she scoffed. “It’s absolutely—”
“Trust me, I couldn’t be more certain,” the doctor said, slipping her glasses back on. “Now, we can schedule a follow-up appointment to go over your options. Amity, you’re twenty-seven, and you have all the options in the world.” She drew her eyes upward, to link with Amity’s. “Know that this isn’t the end.”
Amity swallowed harshly. “Could I see for myself?”
“You mean you want a visual? An ultrasound?” the doctor asked.
“Please,” Amity said. “If you could get me in right away.”
The doctor paused for a moment before reaching for the office phone. She dialed three numbers, sending beeps into the air. “Hello, Monica. I was wondering if we might get an appointment for an emergency client. Yes, we can hold.”
As the doctor arranged the screening, Amity turned her attention to her fingers, to her nails. She remembered hearing that after three months, the baby’s fingernails were developed. She assessed the tiny bulge that had grown in her business skirt. She’d thought, stupidly, that she just didn’t have time to exercise like she used to. She’d thought she was just getting a little bit fat.
Finally, the doctor hung up the phone. “You have an appointment in forty-five minutes on the fourth floor,” she said. “After your screening, if you so choose, you will have the option to speak with our in-house psychologist.”
Amity thanked her, feeling shaky. She rose from her seat and accepted the small slip which told her the screening room number. She thanked the doctor softly, hardly able to hear her words herself. Before she left the room, the doctor wished her good luck. “You might need it,” she said.
All the way up to the screening room, Amity felt as if she was walking through water. She couldn’t feel her legs, her arms, her face. She draped her fingers over her abdomen, imagining bouncing a child on her legs, holding a crying baby deep into the night—the countless ways in which she would show love to this human.
The technician’s fingers clumped up the “goop” for the screening. “Could you please lift your shirt?” she asked, her voice accented and lilting.
“Sure,” Amity whispered.
The goop was chilled, making her skin tense. She watched as the woman splayed it tenderly over her, over her pregnant belly. Turning on the machine, the woman placed the monitor over her, gliding over the goop, revealing a very human life on the screen before her.
Amity frowned, trying to make sense of the image. The lines were squirming, almost like a baby kicking in the life-fluid inside her. “Is that her?” she whispered.
But the technician didn’t speak for a moment. She cocked her head, holding the monitor over the span of her belly.
After several beats, Amity felt as if she was going to scream. “What is it?” she asked, her voice suddenly harsh. “Why won’t you tell me what’s going on?”
Finally, the woman turned her head slowly, her eyes brigh
t with humor. “Miss,” she said, giving her a wide smile. “What a wonderful day this is. You’re going to be a mother—”
“Yes, yes, I know,” Amity said, rolling her eyes. Surely the technician saw babies on that monitor all day every day? What was she getting at? “I know I am. Does the baby look okay?”
“You’re going to be a mother,” the woman said again, “of three babies. You’re expecting triplets.”
Amity whipped her head back. She felt like all the air had been sucked from her. Her breath was caught in her throat. “I’m—I’m sorry?” she stammered. “Triplets?”
The woman nodded, maintaining that insane grin. “Three babies. Three babies at once.” She placed the monitor over Amity’s belly once more and pointed at the screen, showing the indentations in the darkness, the one-two-three. “Can you see?”
“I think I want a second opinion,” Amity murmured. Three babies. It was impossible. This woman was clearly insane. “Yes, I really do want a second opinion.”
But the woman shook her head, removing the monitor and beginning to sponge off the belly goop.
“Please. I want someone else to examine me.”
“I’m sorry, Miss Winters, but we’re on a tight schedule here. If you want a second opinion, you’ll have to book another appointment.”
Amity spun her legs to one side of the chair, leaning heavily downward, looking at her shoes. Inside her, three babies squirmed. She felt like she was going to throw up. She slid onto the floor, hoping she could trust her feet.
“I’m not sure what to say,” she whispered.
“I would recommend having a chat with our in-house psychologist,” the woman said gently. She opened the door, whisking her arm into the hallway. “I’m sorry, but I really must prepare for my next patient.”
Amity felt like she was being dumped. She marched into the hallway, all of a sudden feeling like the loneliest person in the world. All she wanted, in that moment, was to call Aziz—to tell him that she hadn’t been able to quit thinking about him; to tell him that she was pregnant with not one, but three of his heirs. She wanted to explain that she hadn’t tried to trap or hoax him; it was a beautiful, wretched, life-changing, amazing mistake.
Amity opted out of meeting with the psychologist, choosing instead to rush back down to the street and hail a cab. All she wanted was to curl up in her apartment, cinched off from the rest of the world, to abandon herself to her reckless thoughts. She bit her fingernails as the cab whizzed through the city, finally coming to a halt in front of her apartment building. Imagine raising three children here, she thought grimly.
She felt outside of her body as she mounted the steps and entered, seeing every square inch of the well-lit, shabby place with new eyes. Besides her own, her bed hadn’t featured another human life form in something like three years. She slid her fingers over the sheets before faltering into bed, feeling chilled to the bone.
As she lay, she reached into her purse and drew out her phone. She had to tell someone, anyone. She thought about her friends, her loved ones back home in Minnesota. But none of them knew Aziz. None of them could understand the incredible world she’d lived in, if only for a moment, back in Al-Mabbar. None of them, except for Flora.
Okay, she thought, stabbing her palm against her forehead. She inhaled slowly, knowing Flora was the only person who wouldn’t judge her for this. In fact, she could imagine the girl congratulating her, telling her something like: “I didn’t think you had the ability to have fun anymore. Kudos. You did it!”
She typed out the email, then, watching in disbelief as her thumbs formed the words:
Flora—hey!
I promise this isn’t about work. For the first time in a long time, I have news of my own life to share. You see, when we were in Al-Mabbar, you weren’t the only one getting involved with someone. I don’t know if you knew this already, but I slept with the Sheikh. And I’ve just found out that I’m pregnant.
Yep. Pregnant. With royal blood, no less. Whoever said my life wasn’t exciting?
