by Holly Rayner
“Is that her?” Yvonne asked, nearly hissing the words.
“Yes,” he confirmed. “That’s her.”
Yvonne turned, not wanting to look at the gorgeous woman Zadid had found to replace her forever. She could feel the woman approaching, knowing she was out of time. Panicking, she left him with an ultimatum.
“This is it, then. You can choose between marriage to that woman, or me and the babies, but you can’t have us both. I won’t raise our children that way—I’d rather do it alone.”
Zadid opened his mouth to respond when the woman approached, wrapping a possessive arm around his middle as she stared down at Yvonne and her bump. Yvonne noticed that the sonogram pictures had somehow disappeared from sight, and she wondered what Zadid had done with them.
Gazing up lovingly at Zadid, the woman cooed something in Arabic, once again staring pointedly at Yvonne, making it clear in any language that she was no longer wanted. With a nod at Zadid, Yvonne turned before he had a chance to see her face crumble in despair.
Pulling herself together as best she could, she hastily found the ballroom exit, dashing out the enormous front doors and doing everything in her power to avoid the cameras as she fled from the scene as fast as her perfect shoes would take her.
Once she reached the gate, the security guard stared at her curiously as she ran out in the direction of the cliffs. She swept along the stretch of ragged landscape until she reached the edge and turned, staring with tears in her eyes at the stunning palace Zadid had spoken so much about.
In that moment, Yvonne knew that she would be terribly, horribly alone. Of all the scenarios she had imagined, somehow, reality had managed to turn out so much worse.
Chapter 16
Yvonne cried all the way home. She cried when she got back to the hotel. She cried as she packed up her dress and shoes and arranged for the hotel to deliver them back to Iman with her deepest gratitude. She cried as she dressed and packed her bag, got a ride back to the airport, and spent an exorbitant amount on a last-minute flight back home.
She cried on both flights back to Washington D.C.
Finally, as she approached her apartment door once again, completely depleted of tears and hope, she walked in and curled up in a ball on her couch. The room was silent, and the welcoming scent of home still wasn’t enough to cheer her up.
She now faced a harsh reality—one in which she would be raising her three children by herself, her savings effectively depleted by the irrational trip she had just taken to try to win back their father.
In a word, Yvonne was a mess.
The world was dark outside, matching her inner turmoil. After a while, she finally forced herself to rise, dragging her feet as she slumped into her bed. Her home phone blinked, signaling a voicemail likely from the office…probably more like a hundred. She had never been more behind in her work than she had since that fateful Christmas night.
At this point, she would never catch up, anyway.
Feeling terribly bleak, she climbed beneath her comforter and stared up at the dark ceiling, not knowing what to think or feel. In her mind, she replayed the terrible scenario over and over. Unable to stay awake or face another minute of consciousness, Yvonne closed her eyes and fell into a dreamless sleep.
The next morning, Yvonne awoke to a cloudy sky—which was appropriate, given the circumstances. With a good night’s sleep under her belt, she felt a sliver better than she had the day before, though not by much. Determined to distract herself, she rose and walked into her home office, a sense of doom washing over her.
Turning on the computer, she looked at the 102 emails in her inbox and scanned through them to check for the one that told her she was fired. Not seeing it, she decided to reach out to John to let him know that she had returned. She opened a new email and sent a quick message, letting him know her emergency had ended and she would spend the weekend catching up for Monday.
Once that was sent, she dug in.
Every email she opened offered a new piece of bad news, and she wondered if doing this was the best thing for her health. Everyone was at a loss, trying to get their work done, being hindered at every turn by the man who was supposed to be supporting them. It was absolute chaos. After two hours of sorting through emails and answering what she could, Yvonne realized that if she didn’t take a break, she was going to go insane.
Making her way back to the bedroom, she pulled out a pair of jeans and a sweater, only to find that the jeans no longer buttoned around her middle.
“Darn,” she said, reaching for another pair.
That pair also no longer fit about her growing belly.
“Well, if we have to go for a therapeutic shopping trip, it might as well be for the pregnancy. We’ll get through this together, won’t we?”
She spoke down at her belly, running a quick hand over it before she found a comfortable pair of leggings and a dress that still fit over her. It was time to do a little maternity clothes shopping, and perhaps find some other little knickknacks for the babies. She had yet to even think about this part, concerned as she was with informing the father.
Whole lot of good that did, anyway.
Grabbing her purse and donning a jacket, she whisked out of the apartment, feeling an intense craving for a very large waffle with everything on it. She pulled out her phone and checked her bank account to make sure she wasn’t being terribly foolish in spending a little more money, and found her most recent paycheck had just gone through.
At least she knew for sure that she was still employed.
She walked through the lobby and out into the street, breathing in air that smelled like spring. She closed her eyes and inhaled, finding inner strength as she walked.
She would survive this situation. She had to. There was nothing else for it but to carry on, for the sake of her children. She walked two more blocks until she reached her favorite breakfast place, stepping into the warm diner.
“What a beautiful spring day it is, don’t you think, Earl?” an elderly woman spoke to her husband as they smiled at each other in a window booth.
“It’s as lovely as you are, my dear,” Earl replied, gazing adoringly at his wife as he reached a wrinkled hand across the table.
His wife reached across, placing her hand comfortably in his, a gesture that she had clearly made a million times over decades of marriage.
Yvonne nearly began crying again, but a waitress arrived with a menu in hand.
“How many?” she asked.
“Just one,” Yvonne said.
She figured she might as well get used to saying that. It would be her reality for quite some time. The waitress nodded, leading the way to another booth by the windows, next to the older couple. The smell of fresh coffee would have normally had Yvonne salivating, but in her current condition, it only served to make her feel sick.
“Can I get you something to drink?” the waitress asked.
“Just a water, and a waffle with everything on it, please,” Yvonne said.
“You got it,” the waitress replied, turning on her heel and heading back in the direction of the kitchen.
Yvonne had found this place when she’d first moved to D.C. It was one of her favorite haunts, a place she usually took her family when they came to visit and wanted something easy to eat. Staring out the window, she thought of them, and of the Christmas wishes she had made.
She should have been more specific, she thought morosely. In that moment, her stomach jumped, and so did she.
“Whoa,” she breathed, her hand gripping the red, plastic booth seat as she did her best to make sense of what had just happened.
The old woman in the booth next to hers released her husband’s hand and turned to face her, the lines on her face deepening with her concerned expression.
“Are you all right?” she asked.
Yvonne wanted to tell her the truth. She was so far from all right that she couldn’t even begin to explain it, but instead, she nodded. “I…I think one of th
e babies just kicked!”
Squealing in delight, the woman left her husband to his cup of coffee and jumped into the seat across from her.
“That is so exciting! It’s your first time?”
Yvonne nodded. “Triplets,” she said, leaning back as she felt another little kick in her belly.
The feeling was unbelievable. It really felt as though there were tiny little humans dancing inside of her—and, she mused, that’s exactly what was happening. Her stomach grumbled, and the old woman laughed.
“Now it makes sense! They’re hungry! Babies always get restless when they’re hungry, even more so once they get out into the world.”
“You think so?” Yvonne asked. She was so out of her depth with all this. She had no siblings old enough to have children, no one to guide her to know what to do in these circumstances, since she hadn’t told her parents yet. It was all guesswork, and Yvonne hated not knowing how to deal with something.
The old woman nodded. “I do,” she said, her face filling with longing.
Yvonne waited for her to ask her question. Finally, she did.
“Do you mind terribly if I feel? It’s been so long since we had our children with us, and neither of them seem inclined to give us grandbabies any time soon, either.”
Yvonne smiled. “Sure. With three of them in there, you’re in for quite the circus.”
The woman scooted beside her and placed a gentle hand on Yvonne’s belly, the two of them locking eyes as her babies twirled and wiggled around. Yvonne’s emotions were so conflicted.
On one hand, she was smiling with glee at the woman, excited to share her experience with someone, even if it had to be a kind stranger. On the other, she longed for that person to be Zadid, his hand on her belly, cradling the children he had created.
She wondered how long it would take for her to give up those girlish dreams.
The waitress arrived soon after with her waffle and water, and the old woman thanked Yvonne for sharing her belly for a moment. Yvonne nodded and smiled, eyeing the waffle with a hunger she had never known in her adult life. As soon as the waitress walked away, it took everything in her not to lift it to her lips with her hands and devour it, instead cutting it into neat little pieces before doing just that.
It was by far the most delicious thing she’d ever had in her life. As she finished eating, her babies finally calmed down.
“Food coma, huh?” she whispered to them, enjoying the little dialogue she was creating with her future family.
The fact that they didn’t respond meant nothing. Yvonne felt their presence, and for the first time, felt a real sense of joy thinking of the babies as her future family. It would be an incomplete family, and there likely wouldn’t be a man interested in a single mother with triplets, so she would have to get used to finding love in a new way.
She would find it through her children.
Leaving a few bills on the table, Yvonne rose and made a quick exit. The older woman and her husband had left sometime during her scarf fest, and she felt bad for a moment that she hadn’t had a chance to wish them a good day.
Walking into the nearby shopping mall, Yvonne entered a maternity store, her fingertips brushing along the expanded clothing as she considered just what to buy herself. In the end, she purchased a pair of maternity jeans and a few work outfits, figuring she would be spending most of her time there, anyway.
As she was at the register paying for her clothing, her phone beeped, signaling an email. She thanked the saleswoman, thinking absently about Iman and whether or not her mention had gotten her anywhere in the fashion world. She hoped that it had.
Pulling out her phone to check the email, she saw John’s name, and her stomach twisted.
Let’s talk Monday. Something’s happened that we’ll need to discuss.
John
She read it over and over, walking the few blocks back to her apartment. What could have happened while she was away, and why was John being so ominous about it?
Tapping out a quick reply that she would meet with him on Monday, she put her phone away as she opened the door to her apartment once more. As much as she adored it there, the feeling of loneliness consumed the space.
Holding tightly to her bag of new maternity clothes, Yvonne tried her best to remain optimistic, no matter how daunting the future looked.
Chapter 17
With a light, late spring snow falling outside the next day, Yvonne was standing in front of her fireplace, debating whether or not to light a fire. The last time a fire had been lit had been when Zadid was at her apartment, and she was loath to remove those ashes. A part of their Christmas magic was still sitting in those black embers, and against all rational thought, she wanted to keep it there for as long as she could.
Her phone rang, then, and she lifted it to see Mackenzie calling. She grinned as she answered the phone.
“Mack! Are you still employed?”
“No thanks to you, but yes, I am! Meanwhile, you make it back from the Middle East and neglect to tell me or give me news of any kind. I ask you, how’s that for friendship?”
“Sorry, Mack. It’s been a rough couple of days.”
“I imagine so, especially since you came back basically the day you got there, right? I want to know what happened, but I don’t want to know it over the phone. Brunch? We still have one whole day to not deal with John, so we might as well take advantage of it.”
With the news of her pregnancy delivered to Zadid, Yvonne couldn’t wait to confide in her friend. At that moment, she needed a friend more than ever.
“Absolutely. Do you want to meet somewhere?”
“No need. I’m in your apartment lobby right now. Figured I’d convince you, one way or the other.”
Yvonne laughed. “You have always been a master at convincing me to do things I don’t want to do.”
“Then it’s a good thing you want to do this, because you are not getting a choice. I need details, woman! I’m in the elevator now—see you in a sec.”
“Okay, see you soon,” Yvonne said with a chuckle.
It felt good to laugh. It wasn’t something she had done all that often in the past few months. It wasn’t something anyone around her had done, actually. John had thoroughly seen to that.
Yvonne was in her bedroom getting dressed when she heard a key in her door, Mackenzie letting herself in.
“Robbery!” Yvonne yelled from the bedroom as she slid a dress over her head.
She had opted to go for dresses and leggings for as long as possible, as they tended to better hide her condition. Without pressing it to her body, it was still questionable whether she was carrying three babies or had just eaten a big burrito for lunch.
“You make it pretty easy to rob you when you stash a key under your welcome mat,” Mackenzie observed.
Yvonne stepped out into the living room, reaching for her purse as she approached her friend with a warm hug. “You know I’m a serial key-loser. If I don’t keep one under the mat, I’d be the one breaking in here every other day. It’s a miracle I’ve lasted a week without having to access my emergency key.”
“Yeah, yeah. I’ve heard it all before. Are you ready for bottomless mimosas?”
Yvonne hesitated for just a moment, not wanting to tell her friend quite yet. She decided that, after the way things had gone with Zadid, perhaps it would be better to break the triplet news to people when they were sitting down. Though, even as she thought that, she remembered the warmth in his eyes as she’d told him he was going to be a father.
That warmth had died the moment his fiancée strutted into his arms.
Feeling another jolt of heartache, Yvonne brushed those nasty thoughts aside. They would do no good, in the grand scheme of things. What mattered now was keeping herself healthy in order to keep her babies healthy. That wouldn’t happen if she was constantly thinking about Zadid.
“Bottomless mimosas here we come,” Yvonne agreed.
Mackenzie lifted an eyebrow at h
er but said nothing, instead opening the door back up and sliding the key into place under the mat once more.
“You have your other keys?”
“Of course I do,” Yvonne said.
“Just checking. We don’t want you having to go under the emergency mat after you’ve been so good.”
Yvonne smiled at her friend’s gentle teasing. “We wouldn’t want that,” she agreed, closing the door behind them.
Mackenzie drove, her car parked on the curb outside of Yvonne’s building. They stomped snow off of their shoes before sliding into the car, Mackenzie turning it on and blasting the heat.
“I don’t know why it still has to be so cold—it’s almost April, for heaven’s sake!”
“I like it,” Yvonne said, thinking of the arid heat of Abu Algar. She would much rather be in the cold than that cursed place with its glorious cliffs and stunning palace and wonderful people. Yvonne reminded herself that she hated Abu Algar, especially a certain prince-like jerk who was probably already married by now.
“So, you need to tell me what happened, now,” Mackenzie said, not mincing words as she pulled into the street.
“You need to update me on what the office was like while I was away first, and then we can talk about my thing.”
“Ugh, fine. You are such a tease when I want information out of you. The office has been hell, of course. John met with some political guy and decided he liked him, so he assigned Jesse to the contract, even though Jesse doesn’t work in political finance. That’s a totally different office. He had to have simply picked an email from the list at random and then made it happen. Jesse’s interviewing for another firm this week, so we might not have him for much longer.”
Yvonne frowned. “I wish that didn’t have to happen. Jesse is a great guy, and so easy to work with. We worked on a team together several times to get contracts done. It was awesome.”