“How long have you been feeling like this?” he asked, stroking my leg gently. He sounded more concerned now, probably because I didn’t even have the energy to argue with him about what noises I might or might not make while I was asleep.
I shrugged. “Dunno. Feels like forever, but probably more like a week. Probably coming down with something.”
“Everyone’s sneezing,” he agreed. “Maybe you ought to go in and see someone. Just in case. If it’s the flu, you don’t want to wait too long or the treatments won’t work.”
“I’m not that tired,” I said, which wasn’t strictly true. But it was a different kind of tired than I’d ever really experienced, even when I was sick.
Daniel, for his part, never seemed to succumb to anything that went around. Since we’d been together, he’d seen me at my most pathetic - pale and sweating, shivering and sneezing and worse - but our situations had never been reversed. I smiled a little bit, trying to imagine Daniel with the sniffles.
He was stroking my leg gently. “Just find a way to live through tonight, and then you’ll get a few days off from all the taxing duties of being my wife.”
I moved my arm, and opened one eye to look at him. “All of the duties?”
He grinned. “Well,” he said. “Maybe not all.”
***
I took a deep breath, and stepped out of the town car.
John, the driver, gave us a jaunty wave. I smoothed my hair and took Daniel’s arm as we approached the huge marble staircase. They certainly spared no expense for this one.
The banquet hall was grand, and already packed to the gills with people. We made our way through the crowd, searching for the place cards with our names on them. I knew the drill by now. If you walked with purpose, you were less likely to end up with a microphone or a camera shoved in your face.
“Hey, Thorne! Thorne!” Someone was waving from across the room, and he looked about ready to elbow his way through the sea of people like a runningback. Daniel, his smile frozen, started towards him to meet halfway. I followed.
Once he was closer, I recognized the man. He was the owner of the company whose stock Daniel had been accused of trading on inside information; I had only met him once or twice, when he’d testified in the trial. I couldn’t quite recall his name. Stephen something?
“It’s good to see you,” said Daniel, shaking his hand, almost sounding like he meant it. “How’s everything been?”
“Oh, just fantastic. Great.”
Stephen’s wife was looking me up and down. “Hello, dear,” she said, doing a decent job of covering up the fact that she couldn’t remember my name either. “That’s a very - interesting dress.”
“Thanks,” I said, although I was pretty sure it wasn’t a compliment.
“The color’s certainly appropriate for the occasion, though,” she said. I glanced around the room; there actually were a fair number of other women in red.
“Right,” I said. “Because of…the…”
“Women’s heart disease awareness,” she said, her smile warming a little. “Don’t worry, I have trouble keeping track of them too.”
I let out a long breath. “Thanks. Now I know what my, uh…talking points are, I guess.” We’d been standing still too long. I could see the journalists starting to descend upon us. “Is the dress really that bad? It was all they had at the store that wasn’t…even more horrible.”
“Oh, it’s fine,” she said, in a tone that made me not quite believe her.
“Mrs. Thorne,” said a journalist, before rattling off her name and affiliation so quickly that I immediately forgot. “How are you doing tonight?”
“Great,” I said. “Just great. How are you?”
“Do you have any personal connection to the cause tonight?”
I breathed a silent prayer of thanks to Stephen’s wife, What’s-Her-Name. “Well, you know, as a woman, of course I’m deeply concerned about the fact that heart disease is often overlooked. It’s a number one killer of women, yet it’s still thought of as being a men’s disease. Most people don’t even know how to properly resuscitate a woman, or hook her up to a defibrillator. Their heart attack symptoms are different, even. It’s important that we get the word out about these issues. Women are dying every day.” I was rattling off facts that I vaguely remembered having read in some news article online, and I could see that the journalist’s eyes were starting to glaze over. “Anyway, that’s…you know, that’s just how I feel about it.” It was a pretty weak way to end it, but hopefully they’d cut that part out for their quotable quote.
“Thank you, Mrs. Thorne,” she said. “Your passion is…inspiring.”
“No problem.” I drifted over towards Daniel, who’d been drawn into the orbit of another journalist.
“…and I think every man should be concerned - I am. For my wife, for my sister, for…my daughter, someday, if…” he drifted off, glancing at me as I approached.
“You’re planning to have a family? Any time soon?” The journalist had a gleam in his eyes.
“Well, no. No,” Daniel modified, quickly. “We don’t - well, we’ve still got plenty of time. I’m young. We’re young. And the way things are now, it wouldn’t really be fair to a kid. I work long hours. Someday. Maybe. I don’t know.”
The journalist finally took pity on him, and directed the line of questioning elsewhere. I stood by, hearing the words, but lost in thought about what he’d said before. Daniel and I had talked about children. Honestly, I was a little terrified of the idea, and he seemed pretty reticent as well. He seemed convinced that his own father had never wanted them, and he couldn’t stand the idea of becoming like that. I could understand the impulse, even if I was convinced that he’d be a much better dad than his father ever was.
I’d be lying if I said the thought never crossed my mind. Sometimes I’d see a kid with bright green eyes like his, or dark hair with those loose, wavy curls. And I’d wonder. What would little Daniel look like? Or…Daniela?
I chuckled to myself as we sat down to dinner. Of course I’d never actually saddle one of our kids with their father’s name. It was just funny to imagine. I remembered Daniel’s sister, Lindsey, telling me about how he’d been hyper and uncontrollable when he was little. It was hard to picture. I wanted to see it firsthand, and there was really only one way to do that.
Of course, there was no guarantee we’d ever have a son. We might have a daughter, like he’d said. We might have a little girl with his features, and I didn’t mind admitting that she’d be quite pretty if she did. Prettier than me.
A plate appeared in front of me, but I wasn’t really interested in the idea of eating. I pushed the steak around, trying to psych myself up for actually taking a bite.
“Do you really want to have a daughter?” I said, at last, quietly. Daniel froze for a moment, then laid his fork down carefully on the edge of his plate.
“It was just something to say for the press,” he said, his voice very cool and even. “I wish I hadn’t. Now they’re going to latch onto it. There’s nothing they want more than a Thorne heir. It would give them fodder for ages.”
A Thorne heir. Leave it to Danny to come up with the coldest possible way to describe our potential child.
“Oh, okay.” I stared at my plate, keeping my voice low. I was mindful that someone might be listening. “Just curious.”
Two
I woke up to a buzzing from my phone on the nightstand. Groping for it blindly, I tried to remember what that particular notification sound signified. Daniel had guilted me into beta-testing an operating system overhaul, and all of my settings had been scrambled.
It took a few seconds of blinking and shaking my head before I was able to understand the popup alert. It was an email, from Emily. The subject line said:
Got something to tell me?
I opened it, my sleepy brain unable to even halfway guess at the contents.
Inside, there was a link, leading to a gossip blog I was pretty sure I’d been featured on before. And underneath:
P.S. Next time, let me pick the dress.
Cringing, I clicked the link.
The site took a painfully long time to load. I had to zoom in on my mobile browser before my still-blurry eyes could process what I was seeing.
DANIEL THORNE’S BRIDE - SPORTING A BABY BUMP?
I scrolled down to the picture, hoping against hope that I was actually still asleep, and this was nothing more than a nightmare.
Out of all the times I had consciously and subconsciously posed for the camera, they’d managed to dig out a picture of me walking down the stairs as we left for the night, from the most unflattering angle possible. And the way the dress bunched around my stomach - okay, even I had to admit it looked a little suspicious.
Oh, God.
Madeline Thorne was looking radiant in her eighties throwback dress at the benefit for women’s heart disease - but did she pick it for a reason other than the color? Maybe she just needed something to fit over her growing bundle of joy. Daniel mentioned a “future daughter” in a conversation with a journalists, and sources say they overheard the couple speaking in hushed tones over dinner.
The couple leads an intensely private life, but…
I couldn’t read any more. I went back to Emily’s email and typed a one-word response:
NO!!!!!!
Against all logic, a few minutes later, I found myself staring at my reflection in the mirror, sideways. I’d never been one of those flat-stomached girls, but I didn’t exactly have a “baby bump” either. And certainly not one with an actual baby in it.
One I’d stopped frowning at my reflection, I went back to my phone and texted Daniel.
The gossip blogs think I’m pregnant.
I was already halfway through breakfast when his response came.
Ha ha.
***
“It wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world, would it?”
Daniel looked up from the sheaf of papers in his hand. “Hmm?”
“I mean, if I was.” I stared at the computer screen. “Pregnant.”
Daniel frowned at the paperwork. “But you’re not,” he said.
“Of course I’m not,” I said. “And if I was far along enough to show, I’d definitely know about it.”
“I should hope so.” He flipped through a few of the papers, and set them down. “Let me ask you something.”
“Sure,” I said, sitting back.
“How’s that OS update?” He jerked his head in the direction of my phone. “I’ve got a meeting with the team tomorrow afternoon. I’d like to report back on the user experience.”
“Oh. Yeah, of course.” I cleared my throat. “Well, I don’t like that it jumbled all my settings.”
“Which ones?” He was pulling a tiny notebook out of his pocket. “Be specific.”
“Ringtones. My wallpaper. I don’t know. Everything.”