When I managed to escape the shop, Brynne was on the sidewalk watching the foot traffic. She saw me and burst into giggles. I dragged a hand through my hair and sucked in a huge breath of air. Clean fresh, pure, London air. Well, maybe not pure, but at least my eyes weren’t watering anymore. Or maybe they were—my vision was blurry and I craved a smoke.

“Are you okay?” I asked her, wondering if that offensive back in the shop had made her puke.

“Are you?” she laughed up at me.

“Fuck me into next week. By all that’s holy, that was frightening! Tell me that was an incarnation of Satan back there!” I nodded. “Am I right?”

Still laughing, she put her arm through mine and started walking us to the car.

“Poor Ethan got a load of smelly baby,” she giggled.

“Okay, that was not a smelly baby!” More like really f**king effective birth control. “Good God, I don’t think there are adequate words to describe what that was.”

“Aww, you’re scared.” She made a face of fake concern.

“Fuck yes, I’m scared. Why aren’t you?”

Brynne laughed harder.

“Please tell me our little blueberry will never behave like that.”

Shaking with laughter now, she reached up to kiss me, and told me how much she loved me again. “I think I need a picture of this, baby. Smile for me.”

She took out her mobile and snapped a photo, still laughing in her beautiful way that reminded me what a gift I’d been given when she decided to love me back.

12

 Dr. Roswell’s beautiful turquoise fountain pen made the nicest sound in her notebook as she made her notes.

“So the university cannot really alter the program for me. I’ll still have to do the conserving practicum at some point. But they were happy to give me a leave of absence from the Rothvale and have approved my substituting in some research work.”

“And how do you feel about that?” I knew she was going to ask me that.

“Um . . . I’m disappointed, of course, but don’t have a choice about it.” I shrugged. “It’s weird, but even though I am scared to death about having a baby, I’m more afraid of doing something that might hurt my baby.”

Dr. Roswell smiled at me. “You’re going to be a wonderful mother, Brynne.”

Well, that remains to be seen. “I have no idea how to be a mom or how I got into this situation.” I held my hands up. “I don’t even recognize my life compared with what it was two months ago. I don’t know if I’ll be able to ever get the kind of job I’ve trained for all these years. There’s a lot I don’t know.”

“That’s very true, but I can assure you that it’s true for everyone, everywhere.”

I pondered her very wise and eloquent statement. The woman could say so much with such few words. How could any of us predict the future or know what we could or would be doing? It’s impossible to know. “Yeah, I suppose,” I said finally.

“And Ethan? You haven’t said much about what he wants.”

I thought about him and what he might be doing right now. Working hard to keep all those celebrities safe at the Olympics, barking orders in meetings, on conference calls barking more orders, and stressing. I worried about him even though he wouldn’t hear word one from me about it. He just spread himself a little thinner and never complained. But his nightmares keep coming, don’t they?

“Ahh, Ethan is very matter-of-fact about this. He never showed me anything but support from the first moment. He didn’t seemed scared or trapped or . . . anything like that. I’ll be honest, I expected him to feel that way. We haven’t known each other that long, and most men would want to run hard and fast in the other direction when faced with an unplanned pregnancy, but not him.” I shook my head at her. “He was adamant we not terminate. He said he couldn’t do it. That me and our baby are his priority now.”

She smiled again. “He sounds like he’s thrilled, and that must give you some feelings of security.”

“It does. He wants to get married as soon as we can organize it after the Olympics are finished. He really wants an announcement to go out about an engagement.” I looked down at my lap. “I’ve been holding off on that part, and he’s not happy with me about it.”

She wrote something down and asked her next question without looking up. “Why do you think you are resistant to an engagement announcement?”

“Oh, God . . . I don’t know. The only way I can describe it is a feeling of helplessness, a lack of control in my life. It’s like I’m being swept along in a current. I’m not struggling to keep afloat or in danger of drowning, but I cannot get out of it. The current pulls me along and takes me places I never thought I would go.” I started to feel a little emotional and wished I hadn’t said anything to her, but it was too late. The confessions were starting to pour out of me now. “I can’t go back to the beginning. I can only go forward, whether I want to or not.”

“Do you want to get out?” Dr. Roswell offered up options, just like I knew she would. “Because you don’t have to have a baby, or get engaged, or married, or any of it. You know that, Brynne.”

I shook my head, looking down at my belly. I thought about what we had created and felt guilty for even voicing my worries. “I don’t want to get out. I love Ethan. He tells me he loves me all the time. And I need him . . . now.”

“Brynne, do you realize what you just said?”

I looked up into her smiling eyes and knew I was going to spill the rest.

“I need Ethan. I need him for everything. I need him in order to be happy, and to be the father of this baby we made, and to love me and care for me . . .” My voice trailed off to a whimper that sounded so pathetic I loathed myself in that moment.

Dr. Roswell spoke so softly: “That’s very scary, isn’t it?”

The tears started coming and I reached for a tissue. “Yeah,” I sobbed, taking a moment to get the next part out, “I need him so badly . . . and it makes me utterly vulnerable . . . and what will I do if some day he decides he doesn’t want me anymore?”

“It’s called trust, Brynne, and it is by far the hardest gift to give away.”

She was right about that.

 Dinner alone pretty much sucked. I wouldn’t complain to Ethan, though. I understood how busy he was at work and there had been lots of evening events for him lately. I cleaned up from my vegetable soup and French bread dinner, which so far was staying put in my stomach. Thank God for the anti-nausea medication or I was sure I’d be dead by then. The vomiting seemed to be behind me for the most part, if I kept to very simple food and took the meds regularly. Both Freddy and Dr. Burnsley said I had something called hyperemesis gravidarum, or in plain English, severe morning sickness. In my case it started as evening sickness and serious dehydration, and could eventually cause malnutrition if left untreated. Lovely. So suffice it to say, I was trying my best to eat.