Page 53 of The Baby His Secretary Carries

I care, he wanted to shout, but his throat was too dry. He did care. Too much. If this was a taste of what it was like to be loved by her, to have had her and then to lose her, he couldn’t bear a lifetime of fearing it could happen again. Better to heal this sense of having a limb amputated and be done with it.

Molly’s hands had been clammy for weeks, ever since her mother had told her about Gio’s visit.

“I told him Sasha’s story is not mine to tell and neither is it his,” her mother had stressed. “I pointed out that it’s not up to him to reveal Libby’s birth mother to her or anyone else, but I don’t know what he’ll do with what he knows.”

Molly had relayed everything to Sasha.

Sasha was still dealing with headaches, real and proverbial. Her parents were pestering her and her marriage was foundering against the many rocks between her and Rafael.

Those things were to be expected, but the minute she and Molly had been left alone at this villa on a remote island south of Athens, Sasha had confided, “I didn’t really lose my memory, Moll.”

“Oh, my God, Sasha.Whyare you faking amnesia?” Molly had cried.

“It got out of hand! I was trying to get my parents out of my hospital room. Out of mylife. Then it helped me avoid dealing with how hard things had become with Rafael, but it turned into this...” She waved helplessly. “I wanted to text you, but then Rafael might have figured out I knew everything.Pleasedon’t tell him.”

Molly groaned with mental agony.

“You know I’ll always have your back, but I also know how these things snowball into something that becomes bigger than you can handle.” Before you knew it, you were fathoms deep in love with the man of your dreams and he was shutting you out of his life. “The sooner you come clean to him, the sooner you can get past it.”

“I know, but...” She blinked damp lashes.

Compassion overwhelmed Molly. She couldn’t blame Sasha for trying to protect herself when she was genuinely suffering from crippling headaches.

“Will you tell me one thing?” Molly prodded her gently. “I need to know. Do you want this baby?”

“Yes! So much.” A thicker sheen of tears came into her eyes. “But I’m really s-scared that I’ll be a terrible mother.”

“No. You’ll be wonderful.”

“You don’t know that!”

“I do. I have every faith in you.” Then, they had hugged it out. “But let’s both have a rest. We can talk more later.”

It became a time of healing for both of them.

A nurse came weekly to monitor Molly’s pregnancy and Sasha’s concussion, but for the most part, it was just the two of them in the modern home built on the ruins of an ancient villa. Crumbled walls formed the garden fence and were covered by hibiscus and wisteria. Fragrant thyme and sage bloomed in the corners of the yard and bright pink bougainvillea flowered against the white walls of the house.

If they followed the path around to the back, there was a vegetable garden filled with tomatoes, peppers, eggplants and herbs. Beyond the arched gate in the wall were arid hills and barley fields, groves of fig and fruit trees, and rows and rows of grapes.

In the mornings, they wandered the olive groves and the acres of vineyards, breathing in the serene ambience and breathtaking views of the Aegean. Then they ate breakfast on the terrace by the pool and swam when the day grew hot. They had naps in the afternoon and spent the evenings reading or watching television, if Sasha’s head could stand it. Sometimes they did very little at all.

It was not unlike the time Sasha had spent living with them as a teenager, when they would find silly things to amuse themselves, such as completing jigsaw puzzles or collaging a dream board while they waited for the baby to grow.

Sasha didn’t want to talk about her marriage, but she did let Molly tell her about Libby. Sometimes Molly talked about Gio. Her heart was cracked in half over the way things had ended with him. She missed him constantly. She felt as though she’d lost a lifetime with him and it made her sick with regret.

Not that she blamed this baby, though. In the weeks she’d been here, her baby bump had become pronounced and its subtle kicks put a gleam of happy tears into Sasha’s eyes. Every week, after the nurse left, Sasha said, “Thank you for doing this, Molly.”

Thankfully, Rafael had business in Asia for several weeks. He often asked Molly how she was feeling when he chatted with Sasha, but it was awkward for her, since she knew Sasha was lying to him about her memory loss.

At one point, Molly said to Sasha, “I might have had second thoughts about this if I’d known you two weren’t in love.”

“I’m in love with him,” Sasha said with quick defensiveness. “He’s the one who—”

She didn’t finish the sentence and Molly decided it wasn’t her place to judge. She knew what it was like to be in love with a man who didn’t love you back. All too well.

Which was why, as she was closing in on her twenty-fifth week, when everything should have been sunshine and roses, Sasha came upon her crying on the couch.

“I thought we agreed that only one of us is allowed to cry at a time,” Sasha said.

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