Chapter 8

EIGHT

T hirty minutes and one flustered car ride across the river later, I was safely checked into the third-floor office of my OB in the East Village.

Xavier had initially tried to get me to switch to a new doctor—someone profiled in New York Magazine who catered to the penthouse dwellers of Manhattan. But keeping my doctor was a hard line for me. Dr. Kyler had delivered Sofia and saw both of us through her considerable complications at birth.

At the mention of that, Xavier shut right up. After all, he couldn’t argue when he wasn’t there in the first place.

Maybe that was why he blustered into the tiny ultrasound room with all the grace of a windstorm. He was making up for lost time.

“Jeez!” I cried, clutching for the thin paper draped over my spread legs as the sudden door opening sent a breeze through the room that would have blown it right off had I not kept it in place. “What are you doing here?”

“You didn’t think I was going to sit in the waiting room, did you?” Xavier smirked through the darkened room. “It’s nothing I haven’t already seen, babe. And become well acquainted with. This place is a cupboard, isn’t it?”

He peered around the tiny room, located a stool that he could sit on to my left, and proceeded to cram his over-large body onto it in a way that still made him look like he was taking up approximately half the space. His whole being vibrated with the kind of nervous energy I usually saw in children on their first day of school.

I just closed my legs and glared at him. “I told you this wasn’t necessary. The tech is just going to check for the heartbeat and take a few quick measurements. The real scan isn’t for several more weeks.”

“And I told you , I’m not missing any of them,” Xavier informed me as he tried and failed to make himself comfortable.

I opened my mouth to argue but found I couldn’t.

The truth was, I wasn’t totally disappointed he was here. Just like I wasn’t mad he had showed up at my doorstep. This was the Xavier I’d been missing all summer. The one who barged in with the grace of a bull, maybe, but whose loyalty to those he loved was never in doubt.

The question was, what had changed?

And would it change again?

We sat together silently, clearly unsure of what to say to each other. Xavier was chewing on his bottom lip while he studied the bulky ultrasound machine, then gazed around the rest of the room, which had been painted dark blue. Maybe to calm terrified expectant mothers like me. Or jittery fathers-to-be like him.

Without thinking, I reached out and set a hand on his knee, which was wriggling like a toddler in a bathtub.

Immediately, Xavier froze, looked down at my hand, then back up at me. The utter vulnerability there was as vivid as a summer sky.

“It’s going to be okay,” I told him. “It’s just a scan.”

“Sure, but—” he cut himself off with a sigh. “All right. Yeah. I know.”

“Thank you for what you said back there,” I whispered as I drew my hand away. “To my mom, I mean.”

Xavier just looked down at me, attention pulled from his obvious worries. “You don’t have to thank me for that, of all things. She had it coming and a lot more.”

I frowned. “Well, I’m grateful.”

He blinked. “It’s what I should have done all along.”

Before I could respond to that, the door opened, and the doctor came in.

Wait, what?

“Dr. Kyler?” I asked as my actual OB-GYN entered the room instead of the tech I was expecting. I didn’t think a doctor had performed a single one of my ultrasounds throughout my pregnancy with Sofia.

“Hello, Frankie,” she said in a calm, direct voice. It was a tone of mild irritation, I thought, but also competence, which was something I valued in a healthcare provider.

“I thought—” I glanced back and forth between her and Xavier, who didn’t seem the slightest bit surprised to see her. But then, why would he? “Doesn’t a tech usually do this?”

“They do, yes,” she agreed as she took a seat on the stool next to the ultrasound machine. “But while my time is expensive, Mr. Parker here was willing to pay for it and then some.”

No, I definitely did not imagine the irritation this time.

“The hospital board is also very happy for your donation.” Dr. Kyler’s brow furrowed suddenly. “Or should it be Lord something? I’m sorry, we’re not very familiar with how to address men of your, er, stature around here.”

Donation?

Xavier just quirked a funny smile, assiduously avoiding my inquiring gaze. “Xavier’s fine. I think we’re more interested in what’s going to be on that screen than titles no one cares about.”

“I should think so,” Dr. Kyler replied. “Well, let’s get this show on the road. Frankie, if you don’t mind…”

She gestured toward my legs, which were covered by the paper sheet and my tunic. Obediently, I placed my feet into the stirrups and spread my knee while she turned to the machine and applied a condom and some lubricant to a large wand.

Xavier’s eyes grew about the size of hubcaps. “Is that—where is that— what are you doing ?”

I started to giggle as Dr. Kyler moved to a seat between my legs, then sucked in a breath as she inserted the wand between them. “Yes, it’s going where you think it is,” I said. “And Xavi, do not go down there to look.”

“At this point in the pregnancy, the fetus is usually too small to detect with an abdominal ultrasound, so we do the first ones transvaginally,” Dr. Kyler said in a tone that told me Xavier wasn’t the first man who had ever been shocked by the, well, phallic shape of the instrument. It did look like a really big dildo.

“Doesn’t it—doesn’t that hurt ?” Xavier looked like he was going to keel over.

I snorted. “How do you think it felt when you put the baby in there, Xavi?”

Dr. Kyler chuckled. Xavier looked even more shocked.

“I—Christ.”

“Not showing yet,” the doctor remarked, nodding at my still-flat stomach as she started to move the wand around a little. “To be expected.”

I flinched, watching a screen full of what looked like static. It didn’t hurt exactly. But it was…intrusive.

“Is that bad?” Xavier asked, eyes now glued to the screen as well.

“Sofia was the same,” I told him. “Started small too. Don’t worry. In another month or two, I’m going to look like I swallowed a basketball.”

“Not quite that big,” Dr. Kyler said with a distracted smile. “More like a grapefruit. You didn’t really pop until almost the third trimester, if I remember correctly.”

“Well, my boobs certainly have. They already look like I’m breastfeeding,” I joked.

Xavier’s eyes darted briefly to my chest before moving back to the screen as Dr. Kyler focused more on what she was doing.

I giggled, earning another flash of humor and a crooked smirk from Xavier that warmed something deep in my chest. He still didn’t smile much and hadn’t at all since we broke up. It was kind of funny seeing him so tied up in his emotions, overwhelmed and in the dark, and slightly turned on all at once. It was basically how I felt around him always, so it was about time we were even.

“There we are,” said Dr. Kyler, as she finally held the wand still. “Let’s see…yep, there’s your little peanut, growing like a weed.”

She pointed a finger toward the screen, and Xavier and I both followed, riveted by the flickering image. In the middle was a black triangular area, and within that were the clear, discernible shapes of a head and body. It wasn’t much, but it was moving. And almost certainly alive.

“One second…” Dr. Kyler murmured as she moved the wand around again. “Yes, there it is.”

She pressed a few buttons on the machine, and a rushing sound filled the room, something like wind whispering through cattails on a windy day in Central Park. The even, hushed call of a fetal heartbeat.

Beside me, Xavier stiffened as if he’d iced over.

“You okay?” I asked quietly.

Without thinking, I offered my left hand to Xavier, which he swept between his in an iron-tight grip. I squeezed his fingers, but he didn’t move his gaze from the screen as we listened to the heartbeat and watched Dr. Kyler take a few measurements.

“My God,” he finally managed. “It’s—there it is. It’s—she’s—he’s—fuck, the baby is really coming, isn’t it?”

I could understand his shock, if that’s what you could call it. It was an intense experience, hearing the heartbeat for the first time. When I heard Sofia’s, I almost fainted. It made her a fact in my life, rather than a dream. Something very real. And very scary.

“Yeah, hon, it’s real,” I told him with a smile. “And in about seven more months, they’ll be the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen in your life.”

He looked down at me then. “I doubt it.”

I ignored the way the warmth in my chest bloomed into a heated ember. Honestly, when Xavier Parker flashed his baby blues that way, a dead woman would have blushed. It really wasn’t fair, pulling bedroom eyes on a pregnant woman pumped with hormones.

Xavier turned back to the screen, as rapt as a fortune teller looking at a crystal ball. “Can you—could you tell the sex already? Is it a boy? Is that it’s—Christ, he’s really packing, isn’t he?”

“Oh my God,” I said. “Could you be more of a man right now?”

“That’s the beginning of a leg,” the doctor said with the dry patience of someone who has explained that difference at least a thousand different times to a thousand different fathers. “We won’t be able to determine the sex for another ten weeks or so.”

Xavier offered us both a lopsided smile that made my heart squeeze. “Ah. Well, can’t blame a bloke for wishful thinking, can you?”

“Do you want a boy?” I wondered, although I wasn’t sure I wanted to know.

For some reason, the idea that he would prefer a son bothered me. Maybe it was the fact that as a duke working hard to protect his estate, he would need a male heir to carry on the title under the laws of primogeniture.

Of course, that would require us to be married too, which, at this point, was completely out of the question. Xavier hadn’t mentioned the big pink ring once since I’d turned him down, and I’d pretended that horrible proposal hadn’t even happened.

I also pretended the idea of it never happening didn’t render me nauseous in a different way than morning sickness.

Xavier seemed to notice something amiss in my tone. He turned back to me, then brought my hand, still clasped between his, up to his mouth and pressed a firm kiss to my fingers.

“The only thing I want is you and the baby, healthy and happy,” he said solemnly. “Boy, girl, I don’t care. Whatever they are, they’ll be a gift. Just like the daughter we already have.”

It was a very, very good answer. Just like the hope that shone from his expression.

I swallowed hard.

“Heartbeat sounds good and strong,” Dr. Kyler said as she clicked over the image, taking a few other measurements. “I’d say you’re nine and a half weeks along, based on these measurements. Which puts conception right at the beginning of August.” She turned to us triumphantly. “About what you thought?”

Xavier’s gaze flickered over me, but I couldn’t bring myself to meet it. I couldn’t even answer her question, flooded as I was with sudden emotion. The beginning of August…well, it wasn’t the start of summer, when London had felt like a magical place full of possibility and love. August was the beginning of the end for us. It was when we’d left London for Kendal. When Xavier had transformed from the handsome, impetuous chef I’d fallen in love with into the cold, reserved duke who’d broken my heart.

August meant it could have been either version of this man who had overcome such banal things like birth control pills to knock me up a second time. It might have been the one who swept me into my bedroom and promised me the world when he finally came down from his office…or it was the man who took me hard against stable walls out of frustration, anger, and passion.

God knew I loved them both.

But only one had really loved me back.

I sniffed as tears sprang to my eyes. “I—yes, um. That sounds right.”

“Yeah,” Xavier said quietly. “The first nights in Kendal.”

He sounded so forlorn—could he have been thinking the same as me? Could he feel as hopeless and despondent over what that period meant to us then…and how it shut down our future now?

I couldn’t bear to see it on his face if he were.

The doctor pressed a few more buttons, then removed the wand while the machine printed out a series of images. I pressed my legs together, suddenly feeling self-conscious.

“Everything looks good and normal,” she reiterated. “But I’d like you to schedule an echocardiogram just to be safe.”

Xavier and I both swung around as though we were puppets on strings. An echocardiogram was definitely not normal. I hadn’t had to do that with Sofia at all.

“Why?” I asked. “Is there something wrong with the baby’s heart?”

Just like that, all the lingering warmth in my chest froze into pure terror.

Xavier’s hand in mine had turned to ice.

“Nothing to be alarmed about,” Dr. Kyler said warmly as she shut down the machine and cleaned off the wand. “I just hear a slight murmur, so I want them to check it out. It’s probably nothing. Totally normal.”

There was that word again. Normal. For something that seemed to me to be very outside the norm.

“Are you sure?” Xavier asked. “We can take the truth.”

“I’m sure,” Dr. Kyler said, though she was facing the machine, preventing either of us from reading her face. “It’s just a precaution.”

“Do you hear that?” Xavier asked me. “She’s fine. The baby’s fine, all right? We’re just going to be safe, babe. Just breathe.”

He took both of my hands in his large, warm ones and held them tight until I stopped shaking. I didn’t correct him on calling me babe or pull away. Right then, I didn’t care about making him remember that we weren’t together. I just needed to feel safe, like he said. And Xavier was the only one who could make me do that.

I followed his instructions, taking several deep breaths until my own heartbeat returned to normal.

“Okay,” I replied at last with a weak smile. “We’re going to be okay.”

“You’re brilliant,” Xavier said softly.

When I met his adoring gaze, my heart nearly stopped again, but for entirely different reasons.

Dr. Kyler handed me a cloth to clean myself up, then turned to give us a moment while she flipped on the lights and shut off the ultrasound machine. I cleared my throat, sitting up and dropping my feet from the stirrups while I pulled the paper sheet back over my knees. I was grateful for something to do other than meeting the sharp blue gaze of the man next to me.

I didn’t think I could bear it if I saw the same thoughts running through my mind in those eyes.

Thoughts like, I miss you.

I need you .

I still love you.

Dammit.

“You can take these home with you,” Dr. Kyler said briskly as she handed Xavier the pictures.

Then she smiled warmly at me, as if she could see the new tension in my shoulders, though likely misreading it as a pregnant woman’s natural fear rather than the fact that I was completely and utterly pining for the father of this pending baby, whom I had absolutely no business being with. Not anymore.

“They’ll take care of you up front after you’re dressed,” she said. “We’ll still need to have the radiologist look over the images, but you can schedule that echo as soon as fourteen weeks. I’ll see you then for your next checkup too, and the one after that will be the big scan.” She glanced at Xavier. “I assume you’ll be paying for my services again, Pops?”

Xavier smarted. “Damn right, I will. Only the best for these two.”

Dr. Kyler rolled her eyes and shook her head. “Well, then I’ll be seeing you too. Take care, Frankie.”

And with that, she left us in the tiny blue room together. Still wondering if an entire ocean of hurt lay between us, but sitting very, very close.