“I’m so happy for you, honey. This is the real thing. I can tell.”
I beamed back, but as suddenly as the warm elation had come, it left just as fast—leaving me chilled and lonely in its wake.
“But what about the baby?” I asked softly.
Her face sobered as well. “Rebecca, I know you never planned on a baby. But let me ask you this—do you think you’ll love this baby?”
“That’s never been the problem,” I admitted. “Of course I’ll love this child, but I’ll love this baby too much. I’ll love it at the expense and exclusion of everything else—including me.” I stared hard at the ground, trying to think of the best way to say it. “I’m still firmly stuck in the developmental part of my life. I don’t want to push all that aside before it can even begin and give way to the next generation.”
She nodded thoughtfully. “I felt the exact same way when I was pregnant with Max.”
“Yeah—but Mom, you didn’t have plans to be an actress.”
She laughed aloud and swatted me across the back. “I’m serious, Bex. The exact same thoughts were running through my mind. But my mother said to me the same thing I’m going to say to you right now: you’re underestimating yourself.”
My face grew puzzled. “I…I don’t think I am.”
“I mean, you’re underestimating your heart. Sweetie,” she said patiently, “you say that you fell in love with Marcus. That implies a certain opening. A willingness to let someone else take a prime place in your life. Do you feel like it’s lessened you in any way?”
I thought about it, hard, but I honestly didn’t.
“It’s exactly the opposite,” I said softly. “He makes me better. He just…enhances what’s already there.”
“That’s exactly the same way it is with a baby. You think your heart will be overwhelmed, and it will take everything you have—but I’m telling you, you’re wrong. Your heart will just grow bigger.”
My eyes welled up with automatic tears, and she threw up her hands.
“Oh no! I’m not watching you cry for another twenty-four hours straight. Truth be told, I was about ready to call a doctor.” I wiped my eyes, and we chuckled together as she picked up another photograph of baby Max. This time, he was sucking on someone’s hairbrush. “Max has a girlfriend, by the way,” she said as she stared at his picture appraisingly.
“What—he does?” I asked in surprise. “He didn’t tell me that.”
There was a knock on the door, and she grinned, getting slowly to her feet. “Well, he’s not pregnant or getting either fake or genuinely married to a billionaire on the cover of Forbes, so I guess it’s not front page news.”
I rolled my eyes, but she was still chuckling at her joke as she went to the foyer to see who was calling. There was a muted exchange, and the next second, she was back in the living room, a restrained smile dancing around her lips.
“Rebecca, there’s someone here to see you.”
Chapter 6
It was a surreal collision of two worlds to see Marcus standing in my mother’s Washington living room. Fidgeting nervously in what I know he took to be ‘woodsy casual.’ My eyes trailed up from his designer sneakers to his three hundred dollar jeans, to his custom fitted Dior jacket. All of which he’d paired with the smaller of his two Rolexes. A small smile flitted across my lips as I finally forced myself to look him in the face.
This was the man on whom I’d dropped the ultimate bombshell, then ditched in a free clinic in the middle of Van Nuys. The same man who I’d dismissed for not
being “family,” then taken off on a plane for the middle of the Pacific Northwest Rain Forest.
And he didn’t look remotely angry.
Quite the contrary, he looked terrified.
“I’m staying in a hotel,” was the first thing he said, raising his hands defensively.
“A hotel?” I repeated slowly.
He faltered for a second, then continued earnestly. “I know you said you need space, and I didn’t want to crowd you—I just…” He turned a little hesitantly to my mother, standing three feet away with her arms crossed. “Sharon, do you think we could have a moment?”
“Oh no, sugar.” She straightened up and cocked her hips. “You lost all illusions to privacy when you helped convince my daughter to perpetuate an international lie, one which you two had the thoughtful inclination to apply to family as well. Whatever you say to Bex now, you can say in front of me.”
His cheeks paled, and he glanced back at me. “You told her.” It wasn’t said as a question, more as a shocked affirmation. She shifted impatiently in his periphery, and he was quick to recover himself. “I’m glad you did,” he said quickly. “It was time.”