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It was amazing what could be achieved with a little bit of money. Or a lot of money, in this case. She could almost see why her father was so driven to join the elite class and enjoy the fruits of their labor.
Of course, Charity had discovered that it wasn’t really worth the risk. Too little too late, however.
“Ms. Wyatt?” A woman poked her head through one of the doors that partitioned the waiting area off from the patient rooms.
Charity picked up her water bottle and stood, following the woman back to a scale, where her weight was taken, then to a restroom, where a sample was taken. And from there, to one of the little rooms that had a white gown neatly folded on a chair and a large cushioned exam table at the center.
“The doctor will be in to see you shortly. Remove your clothes, and put the gown on,” the woman said.
Charity nodded, feeling slightly numb again. The baby stuff was all fine in theory, but when things got real like this she started to retreat inside herself again.
She went through the motions, removing her clothing, putting the thin nondescript gown on. She sat on the table, her hands folded in her lap, unease pooling in her stomach.
There was a knock on the door. “Come in,” she said.
A smiling woman in a lab coat walked through the door, and Charity smiled back. And then a man followed her, dressed in a perfectly fitted black suit, his black hair combed off his forehead, his dark eyes glittering with some sort of intense emotion she could not readily identify. One she didn’t want to identify. Any more than she wanted to identify the man himself.
Rocco was here. And she felt as though she had been punched.
“Well, now that the father is here, I suppose we’re ready to begin,” the doctor said.
“Such a surprise,” Charity said, her hackles rising. “Rocco,” she said, his first name strange on her lips, “I didn’t expect you.”
“I would imagine not. I didn’t expect me. And yet, here I am.” He didn’t sound very happy about it.
She smoothed the gown down, ensuring that it covered as much of her legs as possible. “I don’t really see how it’s possible for you to surprise yourself.”
She was shocked, but she was doing her best not to let him see it. She promised herself she wouldn’t give him any more of who she was. He didn’t deserve it. A mark never did. And he had already had enough of her.
“We live in strange and interesting times,” he said, taking a seat in one of the chairs that sat opposite the exam table.
The doctor looked from her to Rocco, and back to her.
“Everything is fine,” Rocco said, not bothering to look at Charity. “Just a little spat.”
Charity snorted. “Yes, a lover’s quarrel.” What a joke. She and Rocco could hardly be called lovers. They’d had sex. At its most base level. Love hadn’t come into it. Like hadn’t even been involved. He had used her. Humiliated her.
“So what is it that we are waiting for?” Rocco said, looking around as though he was expecting something grand, as though she was going to deliver the baby here and now.
The doctor blinked, then turned to the computer, entering a password, and bringing up Charity’s chart. “Well, Charity, your weight looks good. And everything was normal with the urine sample.”
Ridiculous, considering Rocco had seen her naked, but the mention of fluids made Charity’s cheeks heat. “Well, that’s good to know.”
“And, now we’re just going to try and see if we can hear a heartbeat. If we can’t get it on the Doppler, it could just be because it’s so early. So there’s no need to be concerned. But it is nice to try and establish viability this way if we can.”
Rocco was staring at her, hard. Maybe this was what he was here for. The chance to hear the heartbeat. To see if she was telling the truth. Though, she would have thought that he might send a lackey to ascertain this sort of information. She could just picture his secretary sitting here, waiting to report back. She would find that less disconcerting.
The doctor stood and put on a pair of rubber gloves. “Could you lie down please?”
Charity shot a look over to Rocco. “Please come and stand up by my shoulders.”
“You did not conceive the baby on your own,” he said, his tone laconic. “We both know I’ve seen it before.”
Even the doctor blinked at him in shock. “You will have to forgive him,” Charity said. “He was raised by wolves. They did a terrible job.”
Rocco shrugged, a rather wolfish smile crossing his features. “The founder of Rome was also raised by wolves. I consider myself in good company.”
Charity rolled her eyes. “Oh, great Caesar, come and stand up by my shoulders.”
She was surprised when he complied. But maybe he was just tired of the delay. He moved up to the head of the exam table, and she lay down. The doctor retrieved a sheet from beneath the cabinet and laid it over Charity’s lap.
The doctor adjusted the gown, then squirted some warm gel onto Charity’s stomach. She took a small wand and placed it over the gel, sliding it around, a strange, watery sound filling the room. She moved it lower, and lower still. And suddenly a pulsing sound rose up over the baseline noise.
“That’s it,” the doctor said, her tone bright. “That’s the baby’s heartbeat.”
Charity looked up at Rocco, then immediately wished she hadn’t. She didn’t care what his reaction was. At least, she shouldn’t care. But truly, she had imagined he would have no reaction at all, and that was clearly not the case.
His face had turned to stone, as hard and immobile as a statue.
He was truly beautiful, and it was an inconvenient moment to think of it. But he was the father of her baby and that realization made her study his features that much more closely. The golden tone to his skin, the hard, angular lines of his cheekbones, his jaw. The sensual curve of his mouth.
Her child would be half of him. Would he have the same sulky expression? Dark straight hair like his father? Or a riot of black curls like her?
Rocco’s frown deepened. “It does not sound like a heartbeat,” he said, the mocking edge smoothed from his voice. He sounded...strange. Uncertain.
“It does to me,” the doctor said, clearly not at all intimidated by Rocco.
There was an odd light in Rocco’s dark eyes, something she couldn’t put a name to. “It’s very fast,” he said, and if Charity wasn’t so cynical about him, she might have thought she heard concern in his voice.
“Normal,” the doctor said. “Strong, and absolutely nothing to worry about.” She directed her focus to Charity.
“She is pregnant,” Rocco said, not a question.
The doctor’s brows shot up again. “Absolutely.”
A deep groove formed between his dark brows. “I see,” he said, his tone stoic now. “And I hear.”
For a while, no one spoke at all. There was only the sound of the baby’s heartbeat, and on the monitor, a wavy line that moved with each beat. A band that seemed to stretch between Rocco and herself, tightening a bond between them she hadn’t realized was there.
Charity wished it would go away.
“Do you have any questions for me?” the doctor asked, breaking into Charity’s internal monologue.
Charity shook her head, suddenly unable to say anything. Unable to think at all.
“Then