Chapter 2: Six Heartbeats

"You're shaking."

"I'm fine."

"You're not." G stopped outside the door and looked at me. "We can stop right now. I'll walk you downstairs and put you in a taxi. No hard feelings."

The hotel was right above the club. I'd followed him into the elevator without saying a word, and now my hands were cold and my heart was loud.

"I've only ever been with one man," I said. It came out small. "My husband. Ex-husband. As of about an hour ago."

He didn't laugh. He didn't make a joke. He just nodded, like I'd told him something important.

"Then we'll go slow," he said.

The room was huge. A real suite, with a sitting area and a wall of windows and the whole city lit up below. I stood by the door in my red dress and felt like a kid in a museum.

For a hired man, G had a very nice room. I decided not to think about that.

"Sit," he said. "Please."

I sat on the edge of the couch. He picked up the phone on the table and ordered something. I didn't hear what. Ten minutes later, a waiter wheeled in a cart with a pot of tea and a plate of toast.

I stared at it. "Is this part of the service?"

"You haven't eaten," he said. "I could tell. You held that drink like it was the only thing keeping you up."

I almost laughed. Then I ate three pieces of toast and drank the whole pot, and some of the shaking stopped.

He sat across from me and didn't touch me. He just waited, like he had all night.

"Who called you a failure?" he asked quietly.

I looked at my cup. "My husband. His secretary. His mother, mostly in the way she looked at me. We tried for a baby for three years. Nothing happened. So I'm broken, apparently. Barren."

"Do you believe it?"

"I don't know anymore."

"Then let me say something." His voice was low and even. "Someone who's worth anything doesn't say that to a person who loved him. That word says everything about him. It says nothing about you."

My eyes stung. I hadn't cried in front of him. I didn't plan to start now.

"You're good at this," I said, and my voice cracked. "The kind words. Is that in the price?"

Something flickered across his face. A small, tired smile. "No. That part's free."

"What about you? You look like you're hiding from something too."

He was quiet for a second. "Everyone," he said. "I'm hiding from everyone tonight."

"That's the saddest thing I've ever heard."

"Then we're even."

We both laughed. It was a small, surprised sound, and it was the first real thing I'd felt in hours.

He stood and held out his hand. I took it, and he pressed my palm flat against his chest. His heart was going as fast as mine.

"See?" he said. "I'm nervous too."

A man who sold his nights should not have been nervous. I decided it was the most honest thing anyone had said to me all year.

"Last chance to walk away," he said.

"I don't want to." And I meant it.

He kissed me like I was something that mattered. Slow and careful, asking a question with every move. When I said yes, he said thank you. I'll never forget that. Nobody had ever thanked me for it.

The rest of that night belongs to me. I'll keep it that way.

I woke up before dawn. G was asleep next to me, one arm flung over his face. His phone sat dark on the nightstand. In the gray light he looked younger, and tired in a way sleep hadn't fixed.

I almost touched his hair. My hand stopped an inch away. Strangers don't get to be missed.

For five seconds, I was happy.

Then it all came back. The office. The cake. The laughing.

I couldn't be here when he woke up. If he said something kind, I'd fall apart. If he said something polite, I'd fall apart worse.

My purse held two thousand dollars, my savings from years of small jobs and small birthdays. A rainy day fund. It was definitely raining. I put every bill in a hotel envelope and set it beside his phone. On the notepad, I wrote, Thank you. You were kind. I didn't sign it.

Then I dressed in the dark, picked up my shoes, and walked out barefoot. I put them on in the hallway and didn't look back.

By noon my divorce had a case number. By evening I was on a bus with a one-way ticket to the smallest city I could find. Brookmere. I'd never been there. That was the point.

My phone buzzed on the ride. Callan.

Stop being dramatic. Come home and apologize.

I looked at it for a long time. Where else would she go? That's what Brielle had said. Well, I was going as far as the bus would take me. I hoped the cake went stale on his desk. I blocked his number, then his mother's, then Brielle's. Then I turned off my phone and watched the dark fields go by.

Brookmere had one bakery, one clinic, and a landlady named Dot who asked no questions. She was sixty-something and a retired nurse, with a flat voice and quick hands. On my first night, she left a bowl of soup outside my door and knocked once. That was it. I cried over that soup.

I found work at the bakery counter and counted every dollar. Some nights I let myself think about G, just for a minute. His steady voice. Then we'll go slow. Then I made myself stop. He was a stranger I'd paid. That was all.

Then the mornings started. I'd wake up and run for the sink. I blamed stress. I blamed the bus food. I even blamed the soup, even though it was perfect.

On the third day in a row, Dot found me hanging over the sink. She stood in the doorway with her arms crossed.

"How long?"

"A week. It's stress."

"Honey, I was a nurse for thirty-eight years. That's not stress." She picked up my coat and held it out. "Shoes on."

Seven weeks after the Velvet Room, I lay on a paper-covered table while Dr. Alvarez moved a probe over my stomach. Dot sat in the corner, pretending to read a pamphlet. Dr. Alvarez was quiet for too long.

"Is something wrong?" I asked.

"No. I don't think so." She turned the screen toward me. "Miss Rowan, I need you to stay calm. There's more than one heartbeat."

"Twins?" My mouth went dry. "Is it twins?"

She pointed at the screen and counted under her breath. Then she started again from the top. Then a third time.

"Miss Rowan," she said slowly. "It's six."

I laughed. I couldn't help it. It came out cracked and strange, and then I was crying, and Dot was beside me holding my hand so hard it hurt.

"Six," I whispered. "From one night."

"Six," Dr. Alvarez said. She handed me a tissue. "You'll need a lot of help. And probably a bigger apartment."

"I'll figure it out." I had no idea how.

For three years, I'd been called barren to my face. I looked at those six small flickers on the screen and thought, Callan, you have no idea.

Part of me wanted to print the picture and mail it to him. But a picture like that could lead anyone back to the night I'd paid for. And their father didn't even know I existed.

I put my hand on my stomach.

"Nobody finds out," I said softly. "Not him. Not anyone."

Dot squeezed my hand. "Then we keep it between us."

On the walk home, she said "Six" again, for the fifth time. "Lord help us both."

That made me laugh. "I can't afford one baby, Dot. How do I afford six?"

"One diaper at a time," she said. "That's how anyone does it."

That night I sat on my narrow bed and did what I always do when I'm scared. I made a budget. Rent. Food. Diapers, times six. The number was so big it looked fake. I cried again. Then I wrote one more line at the bottom, in pen. Do not go back.

I kept that promise for six years.

Then I took a new job.