Danielle Steel: Heartbeat

“Are you going to kick me off the show?” He felt sad for her as he listened. He wasn't that kind of man, and it hurt him that she didn't know that.

“That has nothing to do with this, Sylvia. These are two separate issues.”

“Okay …I'm sorry …I'll be back Sunday night.”

“Have a good time,” he said softly, and hung up. It was over. It should never have started, but it had, because he was lazy and she had been convenient, and so goddam sexy. She was a knockout, there was no denying it, and now she was knocking out someone else. And for a minute, Bill found himself hoping that the man with the gravelly voice made her happier than he had. He had very little to give the women in his life. He had too little time for them, and even less interest in getting hurt, and opening himself up to the kind of pain he'd had when he lost Leslie and his children. These arrangements were always easy, but they usually ended like this, or some similar scene. Someone wanted to move on, and the party ended. And he had known for a while that she had wanted something he couldn't give her. Time. Real devotion. Maybe even love. But all he had to offer was kindness and some fun, while it lasted.

He thought about her for a while, as he stood looking out at the night sky, and then toasted her with a club soda, as he went to bed, thinking about his life. He felt lonely suddenly, and sad that it had ended like this, with a phone call to Las Vegas.

He lay awake for a long time that night, thinking of the women in his life in recent years, of how little they had really meant to him, how uninvolved they all really were, how meaningless their relationships, how casual their sex lives, and as he fell asleep, he found himself thinking longingly of Leslie for the first time in years, and the kind of relationship they had once shared. It seemed like several lifetimes ago, and it was. He doubted if he'd ever have that again. Maybe you only had that once, when you were young. Maybe you never got a second chance at the real thing, and maybe in the end, it didn't matter. He fell asleep finally, thinking not of Sylvia or his ex-wife …but of his boys, Adam and Tommy. In the end, they were all that mattered.

SUNDAY FLEW BY IN A FLURRY OF PREPARATION FOR Steven's trip, interspersed with tennis games, and Adrian never touched the kit that sat hidden in her tote bag. She did his laundry for him, made lunch for him and the three friends he had played doubles with, and she said almost nothing to him, but he seemed not to notice. And that night, they went to a movie. She hardly heard anything that was said, and all she could think about, as they sat in the dark reading the subtitles on the Swedish film, was whether or not she was pregnant. It was crazy, in the past two days it had become an obsession with her, and yet she still wasn't that late. But for some reason, she had an odd premonition. She didn't feel sick and her body didn't seem to have changed, except in the ways it normally did when she expected her period. Her breasts were slightly enlarged, her body a little more bloated, she went to the bathroom a little more frequently, but none of it indicated any dire change. And yet, all she wanted now was for Steven to leave. She wanted him to leave the state so that she could find out in peace. She had to know, but she felt sure that if she did the test while he was around, somehow he would know what had happened. She didn't even dare do it after he had left for the airport on Monday. What if he came back? … if he had forgotten something …there she would be in her bathroom with a test tube full of bright blue water … if she was pregnant.

She still didn't really believe it could have happened to her, they were very careful almost all the time, but there had been one time …one time …almost three weeks before …three weeks …She thought about it all day while she was at work after Steven had left, and she rushed home after the six o'clock news, let herself into the house, ran upstairs, and set the kit up in her bathroom. She did everything it told her to do, and then she sat nervously, watching the alarm clock in her bedroom. She didn't even trust her wristwatch. If it turned blue, it meant …and it was a ten-minute wait …but within three minutes, the guessing game was over.

It was not a question of degree, there was no need to ask herself if the liquid in the vial had changed, if perhaps … or maybe … as she stared at it, it was so dark, and so bright, and so definite an answer that there was no question. She stood totally still, and then she sat down on the toilet lid to stare at the bright blue liquid in the vial. There was no doubt in her mind as she looked, she realized that no matter what Steven had or hadn't wanted, how careful they had been, or what they had said to each other over the years …in spite of all of that, as she sat staring at the vial, her eyes welling up slowly with unshed tears, there wasn't a moment's doubt. She was pregnant.

The only real question in her mind was what Steven was going to say. She was sure he was going to make a fuss, but how big a fuss, and how serious would he be, and would he really mean it? Would he change his mind eventually? Would he readjust to the idea of a child after all? Surely he couldn't have meant all the awful things he had said in the last three years. Surely, one small child couldn't make such a terrible difference. She had known about the pregnancy for five minutes, maybe less, and it was already a baby to her, and she was already arguing for its life, and she was praying that Steven would let her keep it. He couldn't force her to get rid of it, after all. And why would he want her to anyway? He was a reasonable man, and it was his baby. She sat in her bathroom and closed her eyes, as tears of fear rolled slowly down her cheeks. What was she going to do now? She was at the same time happy and sad, and terrified of what to say to her husband. He had always jokingly said that if she ever got pregnant and decided to keep it, he would leave her. But surely he didn't mean it …and if he did? …what would she do? She didn't want to lose him, of course, but how could she give up this baby?

It was a hellish week for her, spent agonizing over what to say to Steven when he got home, and each time he called with more exciting news of his meetings with IMFAC, Adrian sounded more and more confused, more distant, more distracted, until finally on Thursday night, he asked her what was wrong. She was hardly making sense and he was sure she hadn't listened to anything he'd said. The meetings had gone brilliantly, and he was returning to Los Angeles the next day, but he was going back to Chicago the following Tuesday.

“Adrian, are you okay?”

“Why?” Everything stopped as she said the word. What did he mean? Did he know? But how could he?

“I don't know. You've sounded funny all week. Are you feeling okay?”

“I'm fine …no …actually, I've been having terrible headaches. I think it's just stress …from work …” And in fact she had felt queasy once or twice, which she was sure was her imagination. But the pregnancy wasn't. She was sure of that. She had even done the test again, just to be absolutely certain.

Tears stung her eyes as she listened to him. She wanted him to come home now, so she could tell him. She wanted to get it over with, to be honest with him, so he could tell her everything would be okay, and she could relax and have their baby …baby …it was amazing … in a matter of days, her whole life had turned around, and all she could think of was this baby. She had always been perfectly content to give up the prospect of having children, for him, and now suddenly she was willing to turn her whole life upside down for an unknown baby. She was willing to change their apartment, their life-style, her job if need be, give up their den, their quiet nights, their independent freewheeling existence. She was still scared when she thought of it, still worried about what it would be like to finally be a mother, still desperately frightened that somehow she would make a botch of it, and yet in spite of all that, she knew she had to try it.