Page 52 of Billion Dollar Baby Deal

He woke the next morning with his arm wrapped around Sophie, feeling more rested than he had in weeks. She was still asleep, breathing softly. At first he was confused, unsure of how he had gotten there, until the events of last night ran through his head. Nothing had happened. Noah had crawled into bed and held her until they fell asleep. That was all. He convinced himself it was what any friend would do.

He pulled his arm away slowly and checked his phone. It was almost seven thirty in the morning. He sat up, quietly removing the sheets from his legs when Sophie’s phone began to ding with her alarm. Noah froze as she stirred.

Sophie groaned, sitting up on her elbows to grab her phone and turn off the alarm. She turned towards him.

“Morning,” he said. He did not face her fully.

She replied some form of ‘good morning’ in a groggy voice as she sat up fully.

Noah needed to get out of there. It was a mistake to sleep in her bed last night. They had rules for a reason. He hoped that Sophie understood that this didn’t change anything between them.

“I’m going to go shower before the appointment,” he announced and left the room in a hurry.

Noah showered and got ready quickly. It would take them about thirty minutes with traffic and they needed to be fifteen minutes early.

When he was finished he met Sophie in the living room, where she was digging inside her purse. She looked up at him. “You ready?”

Noah patted his pockets to check for his wallet, keys, and phone. “Yup, let go.”

They took the elevator down to the parking level and left in his car. It wasn’t until they were almost halfway to the clinic that he realized they hadn’t spoken a word to one another.

Noah turned up the radio. He didn’t feel like talking, especially about last night, or even two weeks ago at the wedding dress shop. There had been too many close calls for his liking.

They arrived at the doctor’s office exactly fifteen minutes early and Noah sat quietly as Sophie filled out some information sheets.

The receptionist called Sophie’s name and the pair followed a nurse back to a private room. The walls were painted pastel yellow and filled with posters on the different stages of pregnancy.

The nurse told them the ultrasound technician would be here in a few moments.

Sophie sat on the table covered with hygienic paper and Noah took a seat in one of the three black chairs against the wall. Sophie’s hands wrung together in her lap.

“Nervous?” he asked.

“A little.”

Before he could ask her why, the technician walked in. She was a short, plump woman with dark hair.

“How are we doing this morning?” she asked. “I’m Pam.”

Sophie introduced herself and confirmed that she was here for the twelve-week ultrasound.

Pam nodded along as she glanced over the paperwork that Sophie had filled out.

“So, is this dad?” Pam asked.

Sophie froze slightly, as if trying to gauge Noah’s reaction. “Yeah, he’s dad.”

Pam didn’t seem to notice Sophie’s tone but Noah did. He wondered if she was still upset about the joke he had made at their first fertility appointment.

Pam instructed Sophie to lay back and tuck her shirt into her bra, then followed up by tucking some kind of towel into her waistband. She informed Sophie that it was there to prevent gel from getting onto her pants.

“Now, usually this gel is pretty cold but luckily for you we have a heated cart,” Pam said, grabbing a bottle of gel from the large gray cart.

Sophie smiled nervously as the woman squeezed a glob onto her lower abdomen.

“Nice, right?” Pam gushed. “Now, I’m going to use the doppler so we can see. It might just take me a moment to find it.”

Noah couldn’t see Sophie’s face but her hands were clenched by her sides. He thought about her dream last night, how she thought she was going to be a terrible mother. It was ridiculous, Sophie was going to be an amazing mother. After experiencing his own mother and father, Noah didn’t have a doubt in his mind that Sophie would be great. She wanted a child so badly, and he could see how much she already loved them.

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