by Holly Rayner
“Something’s wrong, isn’t it?” she asked, a tear threatening to drop.
“Not at all. I can tell you why your morning sickness is so acute, however.”
Rachelle waited for her to go on, Phoebe sitting in the chair next to her.
“Rachelle, I’ve counted a few times now, so I think I’ve got the right number here. You’re having sextuplets.”
Phoebe gasped.
“Six babies? How is that possible?”
The doctor shrugged, removing the wand from Rachelle’s belly as she reeled in shock.
“It’s beyond rare when someone isn’t going through IVF, to be honest, but it definitely happens. I would take extra care, for your own safety and that of your babies. Growing one child is difficult. Growing six is going to take six times the strength. Go easy on yourself, and take rest when you need to.”
Rachelle stared at her in disbelief.
“Is the father around?” the woman asked, her tone delicate.
“He will be,” Rachelle said, and Phoebe reached for her hand, giving it a reassuring squeeze.
“Military?”
“Something like that,” Rachelle said, not wanting to get into it at the moment.
The doctor accepted that answer, leaving Rachelle with a few more words of advice before closing the door behind her. Phoebe stared at her with wide, blue eyes.
“Six?” she whispered.
“Yeah. I guess I can justify feeling this sick, huh?”
Phoebe was speechless. She left the room so that Rachelle could get dressed, but Rachelle sat motionless for some time, thinking.
With six babies on the way and their father nowhere to be found, what kind of future did Rachelle have? How could she raise six babies on her own? How was she going to keep them healthy and safe, when even twins made pregnancy risky?
With nothing but worry on her mind, Rachelle dressed once again, and prepared to face her future, whatever it would bring.
Chapter Thirteen
“Good luck, Rachelle!”
The room was filled with an entire office’s worth of smiling faces as Rachelle did her best not to look as uncomfortable as she felt. She’d spent six months working through every weekend, pulling extra hours to make enough to take a long maternity leave. Her colleagues had done everything in their power to try to get her to slow down, but Rachelle had refused.
She called the Zaradi embassy once a week, always getting the same answer. The royal family was nowhere to be found. The practical part of her accepted this and began planning for life as a single mother of six. The romantic, hopeful part of her called the embassy, praying every time for a different answer.
Smiling at her colleagues, she made to rise, embarrassed by how much effort it took. With six babies growing inside her body, her stomach was massive, to say the least. Phoebe jumped to her side, and Rachelle gratefully took her offered hand.
“Thank you all for this wonderful shower! I will miss each and every one of you while I’m on leave.”
The CEO, Cheryl, placed a supportive hand on her arm.
“Don’t think twice about it. Take care of your growing family, and leave the rest to us. There will always be a place here for you, Rachelle. You will be sorely missed.”
Rachelle’s eyes welled up, as they so often did these days. Pregnancy hormones six times over was a whole other battle she had worked to get used to. It wasn’t easy.
“Thank you, Cheryl. I appreciate everything.”
She spoke with a few other colleagues before fatigue began to set in, and she made her exit for the last time. She had requested six months’ leave, and hoped that it would be enough to figure out what to do. Over the past six months, she had considered moving back home, so her parents could help her, but she had decided against it. If it came to it, she would, but at the end of the day, Michigan wasn’t where she wanted to be.
When she got home, she slowly lowered onto the couch, her belly wriggling as her babies woke and began to play a game of soccer on her bladder.
The doorbell rang, and Rachelle waddled to the door, where a delivery man waited to bring in all of her presents from her baby shower. She let him bring everything in before leaving, then sat in the resounding silence of her apartment as her children happily twirled around, a little foot popping to the surface of her belly every few minutes.
Rachelle had never felt more sad and alone in her entire life.
Picking up the phone, she called the embassy again. The woman’s voice was curt as she provided the same answer as always before hanging up the phone. Rachelle didn’t care. She would pester them until they told her the truth. After so much time, they had to know something. The fact that the party line never changed was suspicious.
A thought struck Rachelle which was so insane that she laughed at herself before seriously considering it. New York was a day’s drive away. She could get there and demand, face-to-face, for information about Darian. She could find him. It wasn’t quite Zaradi, but it was close enough. There had to be something they weren’t telling her, and with six babies in their eighth month of pregnancy, she was quickly losing time.
Rachelle waddled to her bedroom, where she packed a small suitcase and filled a bag with snacks from her kitchen. When she looked at the clock, she realized she would be driving through the night. She was already weary from her shower, and her body balked at the thought of staying up all night driving. Instead, she resolved to get as much sleep as possible, and leave the following morning.
As she fell asleep, she dreamed once more of Darian and his stars. As she awoke, her determination was so fierce that she grabbed her bag and headed straight out the door, not bothering to change her clothing. At that point, comfortable maternity clothes felt like pajamas anyway.
Rachelle put her car into gear, leaving the skyline of Chicago behind her as she merged onto the highway and didn’t look back. She stopped in every state, ignoring the stares of other travelers as she visited each gas station bathroom. Because she had to take so many breaks, she didn’t arrive in New York until midnight, her body hurting from sitting in one position for so long.
Seeing a hotel, she pulled into the parking garage and rented out the cheapest room she could. If Darian couldn’t be found, she would still have to survive on the money she had saved on her own. While it was certainly plenty, she knew it would go fast, and she would have to find a solution before heading back to work.
Rachelle lay on her side, cradling her belly as she fell to sleep. Somehow, she would find a way to care for all six of her children. She had to.
The next morning, she showered and dressed, not wanting to enter the embassy looking like she’d come off the streets. She drove over to the small, squat building. Compared to the royal palace, it seemed out of place in her vision of Zaradi. It was so very…bland.
When she opened the door, there was a long entryway that led to a desk with glass windows in front of it. There, a woman was sitting and staring at a computer. Rachelle waddled up to the desk, and when the woman looked up, her eyes widened.
“Can I help you, ma’am?”
Her voice was so familiar. Rachelle had heard it every single week, telling her the royal family could not be found. Telling her that her search was for nothing. Telling her to give up, in so many words. Rachelle smiled at her, undeterred.
“My name is Rachelle Smith. I’m looking for Sheikh Darian Al-Adain.”
The woman’s eyes widened as she looked Rachelle up and down.
“You’re the woman who keeps calling?”
“That would be me. You can’t hang up on me now. I need to know where he is. This is urgent.”
Rachelle subconsciously glanced down at her belly, and regretted it. She had just told the woman, in no uncertain terms, that the children belonged to the Sheikh. It was clear, even from behind the glass wall, that the receptionist was stunned. After a moment, the woman blinked, remembering that she had been addressed.
“I’m terribly sorry, Miss
Smith. I really am. The truth is that we have no information regarding the royal family. There is nothing I can do for you, whether you are here or not.”
Rachelle watched her carefully, trying to find the lie. When the woman held her gaze, Rachelle’s eyes began to water, as they so often did, and she wobbled dangerously on her feet.
“Ma’am! Are you all right?”
The woman stood, prepared to walk around the enclosure, but Rachelle placed a bracing hand on the wall and waved for the woman to sit back down.
“I’m not going to faint. I just…I just thought…”
Rachelle couldn’t help herself. She burst into tears. She was so alone and scared. She had driven so far so late in her pregnancy because she had hope that somehow, some way, she would be able to find Darian, and the nightmare could end. She was lost now, so far from home, with no one but this stranger watching her with open discomfort.
“There, there. It’s going to be all right. Whatever it is…”
The woman’s eyes darted down to an envelope on her desk, and even in her misery Rachelle noticed a hesitation. As she continued to cry, she shifted to get a better look at the envelope, and her heart began to race.
There, sitting on top of a pile of papers, was a package with very unusual handwriting on it. Handwriting that Rachelle had spent months staring at, as she called the number written in that script more times than she wanted to admit.
Darian was alive!
Chapter Fourteen
Rachelle nearly fainted with relief, but she held herself steady. This was her one chance to find him, and she couldn’t blow it by being obvious. As the woman watched Rachelle cry, her shoulders slumped.
“All right,” she murmured, her voice barely above a whisper. “I can tell you that there is a man who matches Darian’s description living in a safe house north of here, and that he is safe. That is the only lead we have, though, ma’am. I’m sorry I can’t help you.”
Her words were loaded with secret meaning. She was trying to tell Rachelle that Darian was alive and well, and she didn’t need to worry about him. It was still very clear that she wouldn’t release his whereabouts, and Rachelle couldn’t totally blame her for that—she was doing what she needed to in order to protect the royal family. While Rachelle wanted to wring her neck for keeping this information from her, the rational part of her hidden away somewhere still understood.
She sniffed, and the woman handed her a tissue through the glass. Rachelle shifted, working to get a better angle of the desk as she stealthily pulled out her cell phone. She accepted the tissue with a nod of gratitude.
“Thank you. I just needed to know that he was okay, you know? Obviously, he means a lot to me.”
There was no pretending that the children weren’t Darian’s. Rachelle didn’t want to pretend otherwise, anyway. The more sympathy she could get from the woman, the more likely she was to get some answers.
“I understand. Really, I do. I wish I could do more.”
Rachelle bestowed her most gracious smile on the woman.
“I understand. You’re doing your best to protect…”
Rachelle made a lurching sound, like she was going to vomit. She widened her eyes in panic as she looked up at the woman.
“Morning sickness. It’s been so terrible with so many babies. I’m so sorry, but I’m about to…”
She began making a series of sick noises. Panicked, the woman dashed out from behind the counter to go retrieve a trashcan. The moment she was out of sight, Rachelle pressed her phone against the glass and snapped a picture of the return address on the envelope Darian had written on. She quickly pocketed her phone just before the woman came out with a trashcan.
“Here you go!”
Rachelle straightened and cleared her throat, smiling as sheepishly as possible at the woman. She didn’t want to look too triumphant, but after months and months of searching for answers, the fact that she had a lead to Darian’s whereabouts was too much not to grin about.
“Must have been a false alarm. Thank you again for your help. It is most appreciated.”
She turned and made her exit then, not looking back at the gaping mouth of the attaché. She walked as fast as her body would allow, not stopping until she was in her car with the doors locked, clutching her phone.
She stared at the picture, zooming in on Darian’s script. It was definitely him, and thank goodness for how distinguishable his handwriting was, with its elegant loops and swirls. Eying the address, she saw it came from Vermont.
Vermont!
She would never have guessed he would be there! Then, of course, that was likely the entire point. Vermont was rural and out of the way. Obviously, they had chosen his safe house very wisely.
Glancing at the clock, Rachelle realized that if she left then and there, she could likely reach his safe house by dusk, depending on where in Vermont that actually was. Pulling out her navigation system, she typed in the address, realizing that there was yet another long drive ahead of her.
Rachelle’s legs were aching, her lower back shouting in agony at sitting in one position for so long. She didn’t think twice about it. She had been waiting far too long to see Darian again, and her heart fluttered at the chance to actually find him. She drove back to her hotel, where she checked out and grabbed her bag, tossing it into the back seat of her car before heading back out onto the road.
To her annoyance, Rachelle still had to make several stops along the way. Her whole body was aching, but it didn’t matter. Her heart was soaring, her stomach was filled with baby kicks and butterflies. What would she say to him when she saw him again? What would he say to her?
A cloud of doubt cast over her joy. She remembered just how curt he had been the last time they had seen each other. He had told her it was best if she moved on, left him out of her life. Did he really mean it? Over the past long, lonely months, she had convinced herself that he hadn’t, that he had simply been saying that to save her from heartbreak in case anything happened to him.
Regardless of his feelings, he still deserved to know that he would be a father in the very near future. As Rachelle drove on, the populated streets of New York gave way to long stretches of rural highway, encased on either side by a forest of greenery. Rachelle’s navigation system led her into the mountain range, and she drove on windy country roads until the system told her she had arrived. She passed by the opening of the driveway three times before she finally saw it, her car rumbling on the dirt road as she turned in.
After driving for some time, she finally caught sight of a secluded cottage, and she felt a moment of hesitation. She was a heavily pregnant woman in the middle of nowhere. Her cell phone signal was patchy at best. Was she putting herself in too much danger in this search? Was Darian even there?
Steeling her resolve, she pulled the car up to the front of the cottage. There was a plume of smoke drifting lazily up from the brick chimney, and she shivered as she turned off her car and stepped outside. There was another car poking out from the back of the cottage, like someone had attempted to be sneaky and failed at it. Rachelle’s babies went quiet as her heart trembled.
She stared at the door for a moment, finding her courage. After looking for so long, she might finally have her answer. Whether or not it would be one she liked, well, she would only know if she knocked on that door.
Taking the steps carefully, she reached the door, and knocked.
Chapter Fifteen
Rachelle held her breath, considering running back to the car. She could hear footsteps approaching, and held her ground. She had to know if he was there. She had to have the courage to see him. When the door opened, she released her breath.
An older gentleman with a gray mustache stood before her, frowning. His eyes darted straight to her belly, as most people’s did, and she stared at him, stunned and crushed.
She clearly had the wrong place. Now she had to find a way to get back out and home.
“Can I help you with something,
miss?” the man asked.
Clearly he had deduced that some pregnant lady had become stranded and needed help outside his cabin. Rachelle shook her head, fighting back more tears.
“No, thank you. I’m sorry to bother you; I just thought this house might belong to a friend.”
“I’m afraid not. This house has been occupied by me alone for many years. Are you sure I can’t direct you somewhere?”
“Really, I’m fine. I have a navigation system in my car. You are very kind though; thank you.”
Rachelle turned to walk down the steps, feeling completely and utterly defeated.
“Rachelle?”
She froze, slowly turning back around. She knew that voice. She had dreamed about it for many long months. Darian’s face peeked out from behind the older man, who stepped aside while hovering just a tiny bit. Rachelle’s eyes met Darian’s, and her whole disjointed world fell right back into place, just like that.
When she fully turned around, her belly presented itself, and his eyes widened in surprise when he looked down at it, then back up to Rachelle.
“You’re…”
Rachelle let out a nervous laugh, running a self-conscious hand through her hair as she gazed up at him.
“Yeah. Our time together was a little more fruitful than anticipated.”
Darian stared at her, realization dawning that the babies were his, though he would likely be in for quite a bigger shock once she let him know just how many there were inside! Stepping out onto the porch, he held a tentative hand out.
“May I?” he asked.
“Of course,” she said with a small smile, and he grinned back down at her as he placed a gentle hand on her enormous stomach.
“We’re having a baby?” he whispered, his eyes lit with wonder.
“Um, actually we’re having six.”
Darian blinked, his hand not moving from her belly.