Chapter 12: Two Heartbeats

BRABRA

Two weeks pass strangely.

Andriy doesn't disappear the way I half expected him to, the old fear still whispering that men like him change their minds once the shock wears off. Instead, he calls. Not every day, but enough that it stops feeling unusual, his voice steady on the other end of the line asking simple, careful questions. How are you feeling. Did you eat today. Do you need anything.

I don't always know how to answer. I'm not used to anyone asking.

By the time Thursday afternoon arrives, I've rehearsed a dozen different versions of how this appointment might go, and none of them quite prepared me for the sight of him already waiting outside the clinic doors when I arrive, dressed down from his usual sharp suits into something almost ordinary, like he wanted to look like he belonged here today instead of somewhere with marble floors.

"You're early," I say.

"I didn't want to be late." He studies me for a moment, something gentler in his expression than I've seen from him before. "You look tired."

"I am." I don't bother hiding it anymore, not with him. "Twins do that."

Something that might almost be a smile tugs at the corner of his mouth. "So I've heard."

Inside, the waiting room feels different with him beside me, quieter somehow, though nothing about the room itself has changed. I catch a few curious glances from other women, quickly looking away when they realize I've noticed. I don't blame them. I still can't quite believe it myself.

"Brabra?"

The nurse's eyes widen slightly when she sees him rise beside me, but she recovers quickly, professional as ever, and leads us both back to the familiar exam room.

Andriy stands near the door at first, hands in his pockets, looking entirely out of place among the paper-covered table and the cartoon poster on the wall. I settle onto the table, the paper crinkling loudly the way it always does, and for a moment neither of us says anything at all.

"You can sit," I tell him, nodding toward the chair beside the table. "It's fine."

He sits slowly, like he's not entirely sure he's allowed to, and I find something almost tender in that hesitation from a man who commands entire boardrooms without a second thought.

Dr. Adaora arrives a few minutes later, glancing between us with a knowing warmth that makes heat rise in my cheeks.

"You must be the father," she says, extending a hand toward Andriy.

"Andriy." He shakes her hand, his voice steadier than his expression. "It's good to meet you."

"Well, you picked a good day to join us." She settles onto her stool and turns to me. "Ready?"

"Ready," I say, though my heart is pounding harder than the word suggests.

The gel is cold against my stomach, the same familiar shock I've grown used to over the past weeks. Andriy shifts closer without seeming to realize he's doing it, his eyes fixed on the small screen beside the table.

"There we go," Dr. Adaora murmurs, moving the wand slowly. "Right on schedule. Let's find those heartbeats."

The room fills with static for a moment, and then, sudden and unmistakable, a fast, fluttering rhythm fills the small space.

Andriy goes completely still.

"Is that—" His voice catches, rougher than I've ever heard it.

"That's baby one," Dr. Adaora says gently. "Strong and steady."

She adjusts the wand slightly, and a second rhythm joins the first, layered and distinct, two separate heartbeats filling the room at once.

"And that's baby two."

I turn my head and find Andriy staring at the screen like the entire world has narrowed down to this one small, grainy image and the sound filling the room around it. His jaw works silently, his eyes bright in a way that has nothing to do with the fluorescent lighting overhead.

"Two heartbeats," he says quietly, almost to himself.

"Two heartbeats," I echo, and my own voice isn't much steadier than his.

He reaches for my hand without seeming to think about it, his fingers closing around mine, warm and slightly unsteady. I let him hold it. I don't pull away.

"They're real," he says, so quiet I almost miss it. "I mean — I knew. I believed you. But hearing it—"

"I know." My throat tightens. "It's different, isn't it? Hearing it instead of just knowing."

He nods, still staring at the screen, still gripping my hand like it's the only steady thing in the room.

Dr. Adaora gives us both a moment before she continues, moving the wand carefully to check measurements, murmuring numbers I've learned to understand over the past weeks. Everything, she assures us, looks exactly as it should.

"They're both measuring right on track," she says, printing a new set of images and handing them to me. "Strong, healthy heartbeats. You're doing everything right, Brabra."

I take the printout with my free hand, my other still folded inside Andriy's grip, and for the first time since that first lonely bathroom test months ago, I let myself feel something other than fear when I look at these two small shapes.

Hope, maybe. Something close to it.

When the appointment ends and Dr. Adaora steps out to give us a moment, Andriy stays exactly where he is, my hand still held in his, his eyes moving between the printout and my face like he's trying to memorize both at once.

"Thank you," he says finally.

"For what?"

"For letting me be here." His voice is low, rough at the edges. "For trusting me with this, even after everything."

I look down at our joined hands, at the printout resting against my knee, and something in my chest loosens slightly, some small, guarded piece of me finally allowing itself to believe this might actually work.

"We're still figuring this out," I say quietly. "I don't know what happens next."

"Neither do I." He squeezes my hand gently. "But we'll figure it out together. Starting now."

I don't have an answer for that. I just nod, and let myself hold onto his hand a little longer than strictly necessary, listening to the faint, fading echo of two heartbeats still somehow present in the room, even after the machine has gone quiet.

• • •

ANDRIY

I sit in my car outside the clinic long after Brabra has gone inside her building, engine off, the printout she gave me resting on the passenger seat where I can still see it without touching it.

Two heartbeats.

I've sat through boardrooms that decided the fate of thousands of jobs. I've closed deals worth more money than most people see in a lifetime. Nothing in any of it prepared me for the sound that filled that small exam room today, fast and fluttering and entirely, undeniably real.

I pick up the printout carefully, studying the two small shapes side by side, already so clearly separate from each other, already so clearly their own. I try to imagine them as they'll be in a few months. Whose eyes they'll have. Whether they'll have her stubbornness or my control, or some impossible combination of both that neither of us saw coming.

I think about the note I left on that hotel pillow months ago, careful and cowardly, the kind of note a man writes when he's decided in advance that staying isn't something he allows himself to do.

I'm not leaving this time.

The thought settles into me with a certainty I don't often let myself feel about anything outside of business, outside of numbers and contracts and decisions I can calculate three steps ahead. This isn't something I can calculate. I don't think I want it to be.

My phone buzzes. A message from my assistant about tomorrow's schedule, the ordinary rhythm of a life that suddenly feels smaller than it did this morning.

I set the phone face down and look at the printout one more time before carefully sliding it into my jacket pocket, close to my chest, the way I noticed Brabra carrying hers for weeks before I ever knew what she was protecting.

Two heartbeats. My children.

I start the car, but I don't drive away immediately. I sit there a moment longer, watching the light in what I've come to recognize as her window, and I let myself feel something I haven't let myself feel in longer than I can remember.

Not just responsibility. Not just concern.

Something closer to belonging, to a family I didn't know I wanted until the moment I heard it beating, twice, in a small room that smelled like antiseptic and second chances.

I drive home slowly, the printout warm against my chest the entire way, already thinking about tomorrow, and the day after that, and every quiet, ordinary way I intend to prove to her that this time, I'm not going anywhere.

I intend to keep that promise even if she doesn't fully believe it yet. Some promises are worth making twice.