Chapter 30: First Ultrasound Together

Noah showed up with coffee. Decaf, two sugars, splash of oat milk. He remembered.

I sat in the waiting room of Dr. Martinez’s Upper East Side clinic, my hands knotted together in my lap, watching the door like a hawk. I had arrived fifteen minutes early, driven by a nervous energy that had kept me pacing my apartment since dawn.

Today was the twelve-week scan. The big one. The one where the grainy blob from four weeks ago supposedly started looking like a human being. The one where we checked for fingers, toes, and genetic anomalies.

When the glass door swung open and Noah walked in, the air in the room seemed to shift. He was wearing a navy suit that fit him like armor, his tie loosened slightly as if he’d just come from a battle in the boardroom. He looked tired—there were faint shadows under his eyes—but when he saw me, his expression softened.

He walked straight to me, ignoring the receptionist who perked up at the sight of him.

"Hi," he said, his voice low and rough.

"Hi," I breathed.

He held out a paper cup. "Decaf. Two sugars. Oat milk."

I stared at the cup. It was such a small thing. A throwaway detail from a conversation we’d had weeks ago. But the fact that he remembered—that he had stopped to get it for me—made a lump form in my throat.

"You remembered," I whispered, taking the cup. The warmth seeped into my cold fingers.

"I remember everything," he said simply.

He sat down in the chair beside me. It was a bucket seat, designed for comfort, but he perched on the edge of it, radiating tension.

"How are you feeling?" he asked, watching me take a sip.

"Better," I admitted. "The nausea is... receding. Mostly."

"Good."

We fell into silence. It wasn't the hostile silence of the first few weeks, nor the comfortable silence of the bed rest weekend. It was a fragile silence. A silence filled with things we were too afraid to say.

I looked around the waiting room. Across from us, a couple was holding hands, their fingers interlaced on the woman's knee. They were whispering to each other, laughing softly. To my left, a man was reading a pregnancy book while his partner rested her head on his shoulder.

They looked so happy. So uncomplicated.

I felt a pang of longing so sharp it almost hurt. I wanted that. I wanted the easy joy, the public claim, the right to lean my head on Noah's shoulder without wondering if I was ruining his life.

I glanced at Noah. He was staring at his phone, scrolling through emails, but his thumb was moving too fast to be reading. He was distracted.

"Mr. and Mrs. West?" a nurse called out.

I flinched. I opened my mouth to correct her—to say 'It's Ms. Stone and Mr. West, and it's complicated'—but Noah stood up before I could speak.

"Ready?" he asked, offering me his hand.

I looked at his hand. Large, capable, waiting.

I took it.

"Ready," I said.

The Heartbeat

Dr. Martinez was a beam of sunshine in a white coat.

"Welcome back!" she beamed, shaking Noah’s hand and giving me a warm smile. "Twelve weeks! The end of the first trimester. This is the exciting one."

She ushered us into the exam room. It was dim and quiet, the exam table covered in fresh paper.

"Everything has been good?" she asked as I climbed onto the table. "No more spotting? Cramping?"

"No," I said, adjusting my skirt. "Just... tired."

"Normal," she nodded. "You're growing a whole person, Aria. It takes energy."

Noah stood by the head of the table. He had taken off his suit jacket and draped it over a chair. He rolled up his sleeves, revealing strong forearms. He looked out of place in the clinical room, too large and too vibrant for the sterile space.

"Alright, let's take a look," Dr. Martinez said, squirting the warm gel onto my stomach.

Noah stepped closer. He didn't take my hand immediately. He rested his hand on the railing of the bed, his knuckles white.

Dr. Martinez moved the wand over my belly.

The screen on the wall flickered to life.

The last time we were here, at eight weeks, the baby had been a smudge. A bean. An abstraction.

This time, the image resolved instantly.

I gasped.

It was a baby.

There was a head—large and round. There was a body, curled in a C-shape. And there were limbs. Tiny, distinct arms and legs kicking and waving in the fluid.

"Oh my god," I whispered, my hands flying to my mouth.

"There we go," Dr. Martinez narrated, pointing to the screen. "Here's the head... the spine... look at those legs kicking. Very active today."

I watched the tiny legs pump. It was swimming. It was moving inside me, and I hadn't even felt it yet.

I looked at Noah.

He was frozen. His eyes were wide, fixed on the screen with an intensity that was almost painful to witness. His mouth was slightly open. The cool, detached CEO mask was gone, shattered by the gray-scale reality of his child.

"Is that..." his voice cracked. He cleared his throat. "Is that the hand?"

"That is the hand," Dr. Martinez smiled, zooming in. "You can see the fingers forming."

Five tiny, translucent nubs.

"Would you like to hear the heartbeat?" she asked.

"Yes," Noah and I said in unison.

She pressed a button.

Whoosh-whoosh-whoosh-whoosh.

The sound filled the small room. It was louder than before. Stronger. A rapid, galloping rhythm that sounded like the most powerful thing in the universe.

The tears came instantly. I couldn't stop them. They spilled over my lashes, hot and fast.

"It's so fast," I sobbed, laughing through the tears.

"155 beats per minute," Dr. Martinez confirmed. "Perfect."

I felt a warmth on my hand.

Noah.

He had reached out. His hand covered mine where it rested on the sheet. He squeezed, his grip tight, trembling slightly.

I turned my head to look at him.

He wasn't looking at me. He was staring at the screen, tears standing in his own eyes. His face was a landscape of awe and terror and a love so raw it terrified me.

In that moment, all the walls we had built—the "professional" boundaries, the anger, the mistrust—crumbled into dust.

We weren't the CEO and the contractor. We weren't the secret lovers or the mistake.

We were parents.

He looked down at me then. His eyes locked with mine. And in the dim light of the exam room, accompanied by the whoosh-whoosh of our child's heart, I saw him. The real Noah. The man who was scared to be a father but desperate to be a good one.

He squeezed my hand again. I squeezed back.

I see you, his eyes said.

I see you too, mine answered.

The Moment

"Everything looks perfect," Dr. Martinez said, wiping the gel from my stomach. "Measurements are right on track. Due date is January 15th."

January 15th. A winter baby. A Capricon.

"I'll print these out for you," she said, the machine whirring as it dispensed a strip of glossy photos. She handed them to Noah this time. "And I'll give you two a moment."

She stepped out, closing the door softly behind her.

The silence that followed was heavy, but it wasn't oppressive. It was charged.

Noah stared at the photos in his hand. He traced the outline of the baby's head with his thumb.

"That's our baby," he whispered.

It was the first time he had said "our." Not "the baby." Not "your pregnancy." Not "my heir."

Our baby.

"Yes," I whispered back, sitting up and pulling my shirt down. "Ours."

He looked up at me. He took a step closer, closing the distance between us until his knees bumped the exam table.

He reached out, his hand cupping my cheek. His thumb stroked my skin, a tender, unconscious gesture that made my breath hitch.

"I was so angry," he confessed, his voice rough. "At you. At the situation. At myself for letting it happen."

"I know," I said, leaning into his touch.

"But this..." He gestured to the photos, to the screen where the image was frozen. "This isn't a mistake, Aria. I look at that screen, and I don't see a mistake. I see..."

He struggled for the word.

"A beginning?" I suggested softly.

"A miracle," he corrected. "As much as I hate that word. It's a miracle."

He looked at me with such intensity that I felt stripped bare.

"I don't know how to do this," he admitted. "I don't know how to be a dad. I don't know how to navigate your family. But I know I want to be here. I want to be standing right here, holding your hand."

"You are here," I whispered. "You showed up, Noah."

"I'll always show up."

His gaze dropped to my lips. The air in the room thickened, becoming electric. The pull between us—the physical magnetism that had started all of this—flared to life, but now it was deepened by something else. Something emotional. Something permanent.

He leaned in.

I tilted my head back, my eyes fluttering shut. I wanted him to kiss me. I wanted him to seal this promise with his mouth on mine.

The door handle rattled.

We sprang apart guiltily, breathless and flushed.

The nurse bustled in with a clipboard. "Just need to schedule the next appointment!"

Reality crashed back in. The exam room. The clinic. The world outside where we were a secret.

Noah cleared his throat, stepping back. He put his suit jacket back on, smoothing the lapels, reassembling the armor of Noah West, CEO.

But when he looked at me, the armor didn't quite reach his eyes.

"I'll walk you to your car," he said.

The Drive Home

We walked to the parking garage in silence, but it was a companionable silence. He walked close to me, his arm brushing mine.

When we reached my beat-up sedan, he waited for me to unlock it.

"I'll see you at the office," I said, clutching the ultrasound photos he had given back to me.

"I'll see you," he agreed.

He hesitated. He looked like he wanted to say something more. He looked like he wanted to finish what we started in the exam room.

Instead, he reached out and squeezed my shoulder.

"And Aria?"

I looked up. "Yeah?"

"Thank you," he said softly. "For letting me be here. For... for sharing this."

"I wouldn't want to do it without you," I admitted. And it was the truth. The terrifying, wonderful truth.

He nodded, his jaw tight with emotion. "Drive safe."

I got into my car and watched him walk toward his Aston Martin. He stopped once, looking back at me, before getting in.

I drove home in a daze.

The city skyline passed in a blur of grey and glass, but all I could see was that grainy black-and-white image. All I could hear was that rapid, galloping heartbeat.

Whoosh-whoosh-whoosh.

I placed my hand on my belly. It was still small, barely a bump, but now I knew what was in there. A person. A swimmer. A fighter.

A baby made of me and Noah.

For weeks, I had felt trapped. I had felt like my life was over.

But as I merged onto the Brooklyn Bridge, watching the sunlight glitter on the East River, I felt something new blooming in my chest.

It wasn't fear. It wasn't dread.

It was hope.

We were a mess. We were a secret. We were a scandal waiting to happen.

But we were also a family. And listening to that heartbeat, I knew one thing for sure:

We were going to be okay. Somehow, someway, we were going to be okay.