Page 124 of Duplicity

‘I know it’s a lot to take in. The first thing you should do is get Tabby seen by her cardiologist immediately. He or she will be able to take some blood cultures and evaluate further.’

‘What does that do?’ I pipe up.

‘They’ll monitor the cultures for a day or two. If they start to grow bacteria, that’s your sign that there’s an infection, in which case I’d expect them to push to replace the valve as soon as possible.’

Marlowe stares at her, and I see every ounce of the grief and disbelief and shock in her beautiful face. There’s defeat, too. Because she has moved heaven and earth to get this little girl a new valve, and this doctor is telling us it could all have been for nothing. Tabby might have to go through the exact same rigmaroleagain.

It’s unthinkable, but there’s one massive difference.

This time, I’ll be by Marlowe’s side every step of the way.

CHAPTER 58

Marlowe

The past seventy-two hours have been the worst kind of blur.

I say that, but it’s not true. Because if Brendan hadn’t been here with us, for us, it would have been unbearable.

As soon as the doctor had left on Saturday, I pretty much collapsed.

All that money.

The travel.

The recovery time.

All for nothing.

I couldn’t bear it. I couldn’t go through it again. I just wanted to lie down on the floor and sink into an exhausted puddle and fall asleep and never wake up.

But Brendan wouldn’t let me do any of that.

I’ve always known he was an impressive guy, but boy did he show his true colours that day in the kitchen. And yeah, he’s teased me before that he’s good at throwing both money and his weight around, but this was far more than that. This was the kind of power flex that came from a parallel universe.

My plan was to call GOSH and see if they could squeeze Tabs in for an emergency appointment that day to conduct the follow-up tests the doctor had told us would be needed to diagnose an infection in the valve itself. But Brendan’s proposal blew that out of the water.

First, he insisted that this would all happen privately and at his expense.

‘You’re not jumping through NHS hoops,’ he said. We were all sitting on the sofa together, Tabs on his lap and his arm around me. At that point, I’d take his physical comfort over any concerns about what Tabs might think.

When I tried to push back—because the money involved would becrazy—he shut me down.

‘It’s the best thing for Tabs,’ he said tersely. ‘End of story. And nothing else matters but that.’

So he called his swanky health insurance provider and had Tabs added to his coverage. Just like that. Then he got them to hook us up with the Portland Hospital, a private women’s and children’s hospital where celebrities give birth, and their cardiology team said they would meet with us that day. His health concierge then got on the case with pulling Tabby’s files from both GOSHandDuke to send over in time for our appointment.

Apparently, when Brendan Sullivan tells people to jump, they askhow high.

We saw the consultant there and she took some tests, including those blood cultures. After a tense forty-eight hour wait, during which Brendan refused to let me go into the office at all, she confirmed that Tabs did indeed have endocarditis and would need a full valve replacement posthaste.

It was nobody’s fault.

It was just one of those things.

This was where it got stressful. I had chosen Duke for a reason. The private London hospitals have fancy equipment, but Dr Elliot and his team are the world’s leading experts at valvereplacements for children. A transatlantic trip wasn’t an option for us.

Most normal people would admit defeat and settle for Plan B. Not Brendan. To say he behaved like an emperor was an understatement. He called and called and hustled and hustled, with two outcomes.

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