All In

by Simona Ahrnstedt

  “Natalia, I . . . ,” he began, but she interrupted him.

  “Did you know that Investum was in the middle of a bank deal that made them vulnerable? That was my deal, mine. We were at a sensitive point. A confidential point.” She took a step forward, and he saw red roses on her cheeks. Her eyes glistened, as if she had a fever. “Did you know that, David?” she asked, and her voice was hard and cold as arctic ice. “Was that why you sought me out with your fucking flattery and flirting?”

  David slowly shook his head. The pain in Natalia’s face was almost more than he could bear. She deserved so incredibly much better than this.

  And yet . . .

  If he could turn back time, would he have done anything differently? Would he not have done all the things he had done? The truth was that he didn’t know, because he couldn’t imagine a scenario in which he and Natalia hadn’t gotten to know each other, hadn’t become lovers.

  “I suspected something was going on,” he said. “You know as well as I do how rumors get around. My job is to sift out the facts from the rumors, and yes, I had my suspicions that a merger was underway.”

  Her face went gray, and he knew what she was thinking, that she was remembering how close she’d been to confiding in him, before he’d stopped her.

  “And I said . . . ,” she began. Her voice cracked, and she had to clear her throat before she began again. “I told you . . .”

  “You didn’t reveal anything,” he said curtly. “Nothing that I didn’t already know.” That was true. But he realized that Natalia would still blame herself.

  He clenched his fists in his pockets. He had figured he would hate himself. And he had figured that Natalia would hate and despise him. He had convinced himself that it would be hard but bearable.

  But what he hadn’t counted on was that Natalia would blame herself and that that would feel as if someone had punched him over and over in the chest until he almost couldn’t breathe. If unbearable pain existed, then that’s what this felt like.

  Natalia looked at David’s expressionless face. He hadn’t said very much, mostly listened, his eyes cool and his jaw clenched. She didn’t really know what she’d hoped to get out of seeing him, but seeing him had felt necessary, seeing the man who’d tricked her in almost every conceivable way.

  Åsa’s visit the day before yesterday had been a turning point. After she’d cried herself hoarse, she slept, with the help of Åsa’s pills. When she woke up the next morning she’d been able to breathe again in some sense. Åsa had called Gina, and when the housecleaner had laid out food on the table, Natalia had obediently eaten. She had slept for a few more hours and cried a little more. But then she’d realized she had to see David. She needed some kind of resolution. Whatever that might mean.

  Showering and getting dressed had taken every bit of her energy, and she had forced herself to focus on the practical. The flu had made her weak, and she’d had to rest frequently as she got herself put together. Even so, she almost hadn’t had the strength to make it to Hammar Capital’s offices. She’d had to stand down in front of the building and wait until she gathered the strength to go up. Her courage almost failed her many times. And it wasn’t until she’d reached the almost empty reception area that she noticed what time it was. It was as if she’d been living outside time and space the last few days.

  She’d been on the verge of turning around in the doorway, but the friendly blond communications director had shown her in. Natalia glanced around the room. It was eye-poppingly lavish, smelling of money and capital and success. Every item and painting looked priceless. The furniture and décor had obviously been chosen to impress. This was what David was, superficial and obsessed with money.

  And when Natalia looked at David’s stiff, obstinate face, she knew it was good that she’d come. That everything David had been accused of was true. That what had existed between them was an illusion.

  A lonely, easily duped woman’s desperate fantasy.

  Yes, he’d used her. But she had also allowed herself to be used, even though she should have known better. Well, fine. Strangely enough, this meeting with David restored some kind of energy to her. Now that she saw the cold look in his eyes and realized that she had never meant anything to him, she finally reached bottom. And from the bottom there was only one way to go—up.

  Natalia focused her attention inwardly, searching for something, and finally finding it, the emotion that would keep her going from this point forward, which would give her strength and everything else she needed: rage.

  Fine, because now she could take all the grief and shame and guilt she felt and put them to work for her.

  “Good-bye, David,” she said. She turned on her heel and left, her back straight, her gait steady.

  She would take all her rage and do the only thing she could do.

  She would fight.

  38

  Monday, July 21

  “Natalia De la Grip?”

  Natalia closed the magazine she’d been browsing. Luckily it was an old edition—in other words, no gossip about the hostile takeover. There had been some pictures of Alexander, though, from some society event in New York.

  “Yes,” she said loudly, setting down the magazine, getting up and shaking hands with the doctor who had come to get her in the waiting room.

  “Hi,” the doctor said. “I’m Isobel Sørensen. Welcome.”

  Isobel’s handshake was firm, almost hard, and she was implausibly beautiful with her red hair and freckles. “You already gave us a blood test, right?” she asked with one eyebrow raised.

  Natalia nodded. “Several vials,” she replied.

  “That’s good. We’ll take excellent care of you.”

  Natalia studied the doctor more closely. “Have we met before?” she asked, because there was something familiar about this redheaded Amazon.

  “In Båstad,” Isobel replied with a nod. “We were at the same party.”

  Natalia remembered the redhead she’d seen with Alexander. “Are you a friend of my brother’s?” she asked.

  A sarcastic smile, which Isobel either didn’t have a chance or didn’t bother to hide, fluttered across her lips and then vanished again just as fast. “No,” she said simply and showed Natalia into her examining room. “This way.”

  Natalia sat down on the visitor’s chair.

  Isobel sat at her desk, looked at her chart, and then looked straight at Natalia. Her demeanor was objective and professional. “It says here that you’d like a checkup,” she began. “That’s why we started with the blood tests. How are you feeling?” Intelligent gray eyes studied Natalia attentively.

  “I’m feeling pretty good. I had some kind of flu last week, but that’s not why I’m here. I’ve been working hard, and, well, there’s been a lot going on lately . . .” Natalia paused, unsure how much Isobel already knew about her. She felt totally transparent, despised all this exposure. But she wanted to do this. The meeting with David on Friday had snapped her out of her shock. Now that the weekend was over, she was ready to look to the future.

  “I understand,” Isobel said calmly, and somehow it felt as if she really did understand.

  Natalia shifted her position in the chair. Her normal doctor, an older man, had retired, and now she had this woman instead, and she wasn’t feeling completely comfortable with a doctor who was almost the same age as she. “I just want to make sure everything’s the way it should be,” she said by way of explanation. “Taking care of myself. Coming here felt like the right thing to do.”

  She paused and looked around at the room. The walls were mostly covered with colorful posters and pictures. An anatomical chart showing muscles and tendons hung next to the window. There were two photographs from some foreign country pinned on the bulletin board, two serious little squares in the midst of all the other light, impersonal stuff. One showed Isobel in the middle of a group of laughing black children. The other showed Isobel weighing an underweight infant in a simple scale. Natalia recogniz
ed the emblem of the aid organization in one of the pictures.

  “Do you work for them?” she asked.

  Isobel nodded. “When I’m not working here. It’s a nice change.”

  Natalia bit her lower lip, ashamed of her first-world concerns. What did a little fatigue or vitamin deficiency matter? She was healthy and vaccinated, had a roof over her head, and ate her fill every day.

  “It’s good you came in,” Isobel said somberly, as if she had a sense of what Natalia was thinking. “While we wait for the blood test results, I’ll do a proper physical exam. Does that sound alright?”

  Afterward, once Isobel had examined Natalia with succinct, efficient movements, once they’d done an EKG and Natalia felt thoroughly poked and prodded from top to bottom, including her lymph glands and breasts—yes, Isobel had even examined her breasts—Isobel concluded with, “For women your age, with the symptoms you’ve described, I like to do a pregnancy test as well.”

  Natalia straightened her clothes. “There’s no need. I just had my period, and I can’t get pregnant.”

  Isobel nodded, entered something into the computer, and then looked at Natalia. “You’re not on birth control pills?”

  Natalia looked down at her clasped hands. She hated these kinds of routine questions. “No, like I said. I can’t get pregnant.”

  Isobel nodded encouragingly. “How do you know this?”

  Natalia bit her lip. “My former fiancé and I were tested. That’s what the tests showed.”

  “I see. Have you had any unprotected sex recently?”

  Embarrassingly enough, Natalia blushed. “No,” she replied. “I mean, yes, I’ve had sex recently, but not unprotected. We used condoms. To protect against STDs.” She thought about laughing a little, but the laughter stuck in her throat. Oh my God, she hadn’t caught an STD, had she?

  “Smart,” said Isobel. She handed Natalia a small container. “It’s just routine,” she said in a tone that did not exactly encourage further dialogue.

  Irritated, Natalia took the container, went to the bathroom, and did what she’d been asked. She handed the urine sample calmly back to Isobel, who took it, excused herself, and left the room.

  Natalia picked at the tape and the gauze in the crook of her elbow. She decided she didn’t like this bossy new doctor.

  Isobel came back in with some papers in her hand. “Your blood test results are back,” she said.

  “So fast?”

  “We have a top-notch lab right here in the building.” Isobel looked over the results and then looked up at Natalia. “Your blood work looks good,” she said. “No causes for concern. Liver, iron, glucose, everything looks fine.”

  Well, then. She would buy some vitamins and supplements, and then she’d be her old self again. Natalia got ready to gather her things and go.

  There was a knock on the door. A nurse came in wearing noiseless white rubber-soled shoes and handed Isobel another sheet of paper. Isobel thanked her and quickly perused it. A little wrinkle appeared on her forehead. She looked at Natalia. “You said you had the flu last week?”

  “Or a cold.”

  Isobel looked at Natalia for so long that Natalia started blinking her eyelids nervously. Something was wrong. She sensed it.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  Isobel gave her a friendly smile. “The pregnancy test came back positive.”

  Natalia laughed, a short, joyless laugh. “I just told you,” she pointed out. “That’s impossible.”

  Isobel looked at the piece of paper again. “Not according to your urine sample. It’s very early, but you’re definitely pregnant.”

  “But I can’t be pregnant,” Natalia repeated, now angry. How dare this woman sit there and mock her? “You must be looking at the wrong results,” she said. She came from an almost unbroken line of Swedish noblewomen and Russian grand duchesses. She was born a countess, even if she never used the title, and when she really wanted to, she could sound quite stuck up, and she did now, furiously. She stood. “And besides, I don’t feel pregnant. I don’t feel anything.” Isobel must have misread the results. Or maybe she wasn’t even a real doctor, just an intern or maybe a model, mocking her.

  “Are you tired?” Isobel asked, completely unflappable.

  “Yes, but . . .”

  “Are you nauseated?”

  “Maybe.”

  “How do your breasts feel?”

  Natalia’s forehead crinkled. Isobel’s exam had been gentle, but she’d really felt it. “Tender?”

  Isobel shrugged, as if that settled matters. “You’re pregnant,” she said.

  Natalia blinked. But then she came to her senses. This was utterly absurd. She gave Isobel one of her chilliest stares. Enough was enough. “I have papers that show I can’t get pregnant,” she snarled. “And as I just informed you, the last time I slept with someone we used protection.” Relief coursed through her when she also remembered, “And I had my period the other day, which I also mentioned to you.” She pointed to the notes on Isobel’s desk. “Just a couple minutes ago.” It was outrageous to treat her like this.

  She was going to demand to switch doctors.

  “I see that this wasn’t planned,” Isobel said. She still seemed completely unruffled despite Natalia’s outburst.

  “Planned?” scoffed Natalia. “This must be some kind of sick joke. Are we done yet? Can I go?” Suddenly she hated this redheaded Amazon of a woman. What did someone like Isobel even know about what Natalia had been through? Isobel Sørensen looked like some sexy fertility goddess. She probably had four kids at home that she’d popped out in between prestigious doctor gigs. Natalia was leaving and never coming back. She was going to report Isobel, call some boss and complain, maybe the Ministry of Health. You just couldn’t do this kind of thing to people.

  Isobel leaned back in her chair and put her fingertips together so that her hands formed an airy triangle. Her red hair screamed like a stop sign against her white lab coat. “The period you had. Was there very much blood?” she asked.

  Natalia tried to remember. It had been in Båstad. She shook her head. “No, but it’s always varied quite a bit.”

  Isobel cocked her head to the side. “That’s called spotting. It happens when the egg implants in the uterus. And in terms of infertility, it does happen that women who thought they were sterile get pregnant.” She shrugged her shoulders apologetically. “Nature isn’t an exact science.”

  “But we used a condom,” Natalia said weakly. Now her head was spinning again. This just couldn’t be true.

  “No form of birth control is one hundred percent effective,” Isobel said. “You can put them on wrong. They can break or be old. Condoms aren’t meant to be stored for a long time.”

  This wasn’t happening.

  This just couldn’t be happening.

  Because Isobel was right. The condoms she’d had in her dresser drawer weren’t exactly spring chickens. Suddenly Natalia felt like she was falling. She sank down onto the chair.

  Isobel stood up, filled a disposable cup with water, and handed it to Natalia.

  Natalia took the water. All the anger had streamed out of her. She swallowed and swallowed. “Have you ever heard of something like this before?” she asked quietly.

  The beautiful doctor’s eyes filled with something that Natalia couldn’t put her finger on, boundless sadness maybe.

  “I’ve worked as a doctor in war zones and refugee camps. The things I’ve seen . . .” She smiled a little and nodded at Natalia’s stomach. “This still falls within the bounds of normal.”

  Normal.

  It didn’t feel normal.

  “Are you in a steady relationship?” Isobel asked.

  “I’m sorry?”

  “Do you know who the father is?”

  Natalia nodded weakly. “But it’s impossible,” she said even more weakly, because she couldn’t take this in. For so many years she had longed for exactly this. So many months when a pregnancy would have been th
e only thing she wanted from life, that enormous, all-encompassing desire for a baby, which she’d been forced to give up.

  “I can see that this is a lot to absorb,” Isobel said. “It’s still early. A pregnancy is counted from the first day of the last period. You become pregnant during the third week. If we assume that that was spotting you had, then that happens in week four, which means that you are in about week six now, which matches what the test said—they’re incredibly sensitive nowadays. As I said, it’s very early. It’s not even a fetus yet, just an embryo, a little cluster of cells. If you wanted to terminate the . . .” Isobel stopped. She was being completely professional toward Natalia. There was no judgment, no opinion, just enormous calm.

  I’m pregnant.

  Natalia tried to get her head around the word. She put a hand on her stomach, which was almost ridiculously flat. She was six weeks pregnant. With David’s child. It had probably happened that very first night, the very first time. What was the word she was looking for?

  Surreal.

  That’s what this was—completely surreal.