Chapter 16: Double Heartbeat Revelation
The silence in the medical suite felt different now—charged, brittle. The confirmation of the pregnancy had made the air heavier, thick with unsaid things. Stephanie sat on the edge of the padded examination table, her feet dangling, the paper gown rustling with every shallow breath. Veronica stood sentinel by the door, her arms crossed, a statue of troubled power.
Reyna hadn’t moved from her chair in the corner. She’d been studying Stephanie with an intensity that made the girl want to fold into herself. Finally, Reyna leaned forward, her emerald silk sighing.
“Child,” she said, and the word wasn’t gentle. It was probing. “Look at me.”
Stephanie lifted her head.
“That first night. With my daughter.” Reyna’s gaze was unblinking. “Did you even know anything about sex before it happened? How it works? What it meant?”
The question was so blunt, so utterly naked, it stole the air from Stephanie’s lungs. Her eyes darted to Veronica, a reflex, seeking rescue. Her cheeks burned. She shook her head, just a tiny, ashamed movement. “My parents… they did not speak of such things,” she whispered. “It was not proper.”
The reaction in the room was immediate and electric.
Jacqueline closed her eyes, letting out a slow breath through her nose. Jace looked at the floor, his earlier joy dimmed by a shadow of understanding. Veronica’s posture stiffened, a flicker of something like guilt passing over her features before it was locked away.
But Reyna moved.
She was across the room in a fluid, furious motion. The crack of her palm against Veronica’s cheek was a sound like breaking ice. Stephanie flinched so hard the paper beneath her tore.
“You fucked this child,” Reyna hissed, her voice trembling with a rage so cold it burned, “and she didn’t know a damn thing? Not about protection? Not about her own body? Nothing?”
Veronica didn’t touch her stinging face. She held her mother’s fiery gaze, her own green eyes blazing. “It was not like that.”
“Then what was it like, Veronica? Enlighten me!” Reyna’s voice climbed. “You took her innocence and you gave her a life sentence in this world in exchange! That is why she is pregnant now! Not fate, not bad luck. Your fucking negligence!”
“She wanted it,” Veronica ground out, but the defense sounded hollow, even to her.
“She wanted you!” Reyna shot back, gesturing wildly at Stephanie, who was crying silently, tears cutting tracks through her pale makeup. “She is a dove who saw a storm and thought it was beautiful. You should have known to shelter her, not pull her into the center of it!”
The truth of it hung in the antiseptic air, ugly and inescapable. Jacqueline finally spoke, her voice cutting through the tension. “The ‘how’ doesn’t matter now. The ‘what next’ does. We’re wasting time. Veronica, you need to return to New York and manage the perception. The rumors will start the second you’re seen absent. Stephanie comes with us to the Geneva house. It’s more secure than the chateau.”
“No.” Veronica’s voice was final. “She stays with me.”
“Are you insane?” Reyna barked.
“She is terrified of being left!” Veronica roared, the control finally snapping. She turned to Stephanie, her expression fracturing. “You think I don’t see it? You think I don’t know that being passed between my family feels like being given back to them?”
Stephanie’s choked sob was answer enough. The thought of being separated from Veronica, in this strange, terrifying new reality, was a panic worse than the pregnancy itself.
Jace spoke into the turmoil, his voice the anchor it had always been. “Then she goes with you. But the security is doubled. Triple. Malik goes everywhere with her. Not just you. Her.”
Veronica gave a sharp, grateful nod. “Done.”
New York was a cannon blast of noise and grit after the hushed opulence of the estate. Stephanie stayed close to Veronica’s side, Malik a silent, mountainous shadow a step behind them. The city felt different now—not a playground, but a labyrinth of potential threats.
The doctor’s office was on Park Avenue, discreet, funded by anonymous Barlowe trusts. The room was dim, lit only by the glow of the ultrasound monitor. Stephanie lay on the table, her belly exposed, cold gel smeared across her skin. Veronica held her hand, her thumb making slow, relentless circles on her knuckles.
The technician was a middle-aged woman with a kind, bored face. She moved the transducer, the room filling with the static whoosh of amniotic fluid. Then, a rapid, galloping rhythm. Thump-thump-thump-thump.
“There’s the heartbeat,” the technician said, smiling slightly. “Nice and strong.”
Stephanie’s breath caught. That sound. It was real. It was alive. A fresh wave of tears, these less frightened, more awestruck, welled in her eyes. Veronica’s grip tightened, her own gaze locked on the grey, shifting screen.
The technician moved the wand, paused, adjusted. Her brows furrowed just a fraction. She pushed a little deeper. The static whooshes shifted, multiplied.
“Well,” she said, her tone shifting to careful professionalism. “Let’s just take another look here.”
Veronica stiffened. “What is it?”
The technician didn’t answer immediately. She focused, clicking buttons, taking measurements. The screen seemed to split, to echo. Then, she found a second rhythm. A second frantic, tiny pulse, syncing slightly out of phase with the first.
Thump-thump-thump-thump… thump-thump-thump-thump…
A slow smile spread across the technician’s face. “Congratulations. You’re going to need a bigger nursery.”
Stephanie blinked. “Pardon?”
Veronica froze, comprehension dawning. “Two?”
“Two,” the technician confirmed, turning the screen toward them. She pointed with the cursor. “There’s Baby A. And there… is Baby B. Two separate sacs, two placentas. Fraternal twins.”
The world didn’t tilt this time. It stopped. It rewound. The single, terrifying unknown had just become a double one. Two heartbeats. Two lives. The math of risk, of exposure, of fear exploded exponentially in Veronica’s mind. But beneath the tsunami of new complications, another feeling surged, primal and fierce.
Twins.
Stephanie’s free hand came to rest over the gel on her stomach, as if she could already feel the double weight. Her tears fell freely now, but her mouth was curved into the faintest, most bewildered smile. “Two?” she whispered, her accent soft with wonder.
Veronica looked from the screen—the two blurry, ghostly shapes—to Stephanie’s face. The fear was still there, a cold stone in her gut. But it was being worn smooth by the relentless, thunderous rhythm filling the room.
Thump-thump-thump-thump… thump-thump-thump-thump…
She brought Stephanie’s knuckles to her lips, holding them there. She didn’t have words. None that could hold this. So she just listened, letting the sound of their future, twice as loud as she’d ever dreamed, drown everything else out.