LITMIR.BIZ

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think I might be going to lose the baby.”

      She was trembling. Bleak fear spread through his chest. The intensity could have buckled his legs. He fought it. He needed to take care of Maggie. He found a shop assistant and took her down to the ground floor in an elevator normally reserved for merchandise. Leaving the store discreetly by a side door, he flagged down a taxi and gently bundled her in as if she’d been covered in the store’s white sticky tape with “fragile” printed on it in big red letters. From the taxi he called the nearest hospital with an early-pregnancy unit and told them that he was bringing her in. Reeling at the sadness in her eyes, he realized grimly that he couldn’t be more devastated for her.

      At the hospital they seemed to wait forever. Finally she was taken away and interviewed by a nurse. He waited, stupidly, helplessly, and surrounded by carrier bags dumped on the grey linoleum. Maggie had been right. He could change his appearance, get a cool new look, but it wouldn’t change what mattered, who he was on the inside. His heart twisted. Choked-up emotion erupted inside him. He suppressed it. Maggie had come so far since he’d gone and become famous and dropped her like a hot potato. Unlike him she’d done it all on her own – not thanks to a famous name, the way he had. He admired her. She was proud of her life and excited to be having a baby. His heart cracked, hoping against hope that everything would be fine.

      Pallid, she reappeared in the waiting room and sat gingerly in the chair next him. “Well?” He grated out the only word he could manage.

      “They’re going to do an ultrasound,” she whispered. “Check for a heartbeat.” She looked at the floor, drawing his eyes back to the jumble of bags.

      Had he wanted a makeover? Really? Or had he just wanted to see her, be with her? He’d figured that if he could lose Jago and start again with a clean slate, he could become the actor he aspired to be, earn his father’s approbation. Sitting next to Maggie, waiting, he didn’t give a monkey’s about Drake’s approval. She was all he cared about. Drake wasn’t his biological father, but that wasn’t what made him a bad dad. He’d messed up. He hadn’t taken care of Cassandra’s heart, and he’d been careless with his sons’ feelings. All through his teenage years, his father had sniped at his mother via the press, and been photographed with serial generically glamorous girlfriends. Some role model!

      “Mrs. Plumtree?” The nurse’s voice jolted through him. She eyed him sympathetically as Maggie stood up.

      “Aren’t you coming with us, Mr. Plumtree?” she asked.

      “Oh, he’s not the dad.” Maggie swept a dismissive hand through the air. She shook her head. “He’s just a friend.”

      Alex remained seated, feeling like an idiot. Smoldering under his TV front was an easy out when he didn’t want to confront real feelings. He’d been so completely stuck in his belief that it was impossible to have a relationship – to get to know someone properly – without his fame intruding on some level, that he’d failed to recognize his superlative arrogance, imagining that just about everyone on the planet knew who he was.

      The nurse, fortyish in navy scrubs, looked him over shrewdly. “Well, whoever you are, you’re here now and I’m sure your friend would appreciate some moral support.”

      Her composure transparently fragile, Maggie frowned. “Hold my hand?” How could he refuse? Her uneasy suggestion sounded half-plaintive, half-hopeful. A deeply entrenched memory of his mother’s isolation and dismay in the time after his father left them lanced him. Time splintered, and a powerful emotion burst through him. His heart ached to do something, anything, to make everything alright for Maggie.

      “This way, please,” the nurse instructed. “You can leave Ms. Plumtree’s shopping with the receptionist. She’ll keep an eye on it.”

      A bemused smile briefly wiped away Maggie’s worried frown as Alex scrambled to round up the bags. He deposited them at the desk and the bespectacled receptionist, who’d been handing notes to a deceptively scatty-looking junior doctor, removed the pencil that was jammed between her teeth and murmured dreamily, “Is that who I think it is? I wouldn’t object if he held my hand.”

      “It’s all looking tickety-boo.” The sonographer slid the ultra-sound thingy through the blue-tinted gel on Maggie’s belly. “Nothing whatsoever to worry about.”

      “Wow.” She stared at the screen, awed at the notion of seeing the new life beginning inside her. The close-to-retirement-age woman sent her a kind smile. Her reading glasses dangled on a chain around her neck. The specs must have had an accident because one arm was held on with a sticking plaster. She calmly went on clicking, measuring, and recording. “This is my first,” Maggie said. She squinted at the grey image struggling to pick out a recognizable form. What should I see? A peanut-sized baby? “You must have seen hundreds of these.”

      “Indeed. But it’s not every day I see two at once.”

      Disbelief gripped Maggie. “Two?”

      “I believe so. You’re expecting twins. If you’ll excuse me a minute I’d like to see if the consultant’s free to come in and take a look.”

      Reeling from the news that she was expecting two babies, Maggie didn’t know if she was thrilled or terrified. Instant family. It was everything she’d dreamed of. But two?

      “Oh. My. Giddy. Aunt.”

      “Twins!” Alex’s hold on her hand tightened. “Awesome.”

      Everything whirred into a bit of a blur after that. The consultant arrived and explained that breakthrough bleeding was fairly common in early pregnancy, and that everything looked fine. She told Alex to bring Maggie back in if she experienced heavier bleeding or pain. Weary of explaining that he wasn’t the father, and utterly relieved that nothing was wrong, she nodded and agreed. So did he.

      Together on the pavement, outside the hospital, she pushed down the rising sense of panic that simmered beneath her upbeat surface. In silence, she zoned out to process the fact that she was having two babies. She’d gone into meltdown.

      A London bus whooshed by with a mugshot of Ella Swift on its side. In the genes lottery she’d got eyes of two different colors. With one blue eye and one brown she was the poster girl for unique. She’d started out in modeling, done runway, been on the cover of countless glossy mags, and played the werewolf’s sister in Mercy of the Vampires. She’d just made the jump from TV to movies, and on top of all that Maggie had heard in New York that she was the new face of a cosmetic brand. “Wow. Look at Ella! Now she’s someone who got lucky with her genes.”

      Not caring what direction she was headed, Maggie started to walk.

      “Sure,” Alex agreed softly. Questioning concern shadowed his face. “Amazing looks are just a part of what makes her special, though. Right?”

      “Absolutely. But people like to know who they get their family resemblances from. What if my children resent the fact that I can’t tell them that stuff?

      What if Donor Guy lied on his details form? Or worse,” she gabbled. “What if there was a mix-up at the clinic and I didn’t get the guy’s sperm I chose? My babies could have got some other random donor’s DNA by mistake.”

      “Maggie.” He dropped his carrier bags on the wet pavement and gripped her upper arms gently, turning her to face him. “Look at me.” She avoided his face. “It’s too late for what-ifs. Genetics is a random business, whatever way it happens. You said so yourself. A genetic lottery? Isn’t that what you called it? The reason you were okay with this in the first place was because your own dad was pretty much a sperm donor. Remember?”

      She locked eyes with him. “What if I was wrong?”

      “Take it from me,” he insisted. “It takes more than an ejaculation to make a real dad.”

      “I’ve been fixated on needing to be the perfect mother and now I’m having two babies, and I don’t know who their dad is, and one day they’re going ask me where they got their eyes and their nose and their

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