Chapter 44

He hadn’t cared about anything except what he was to discover in that darkened room in Harley Street, watching while a doctor had moved a sensory pad over the jelly-covered swell of her abdomen. Theodore's mind had been a whirl of thoughts and emotions, a cacophony of uncertainties about the future. Would he be a good father? What would their child look like? How would this new life change his relationship with Pamela, the woman who carried his child?

Suddenly he’d seen an incomprehensible image spring to life on the screen. To Theodore, it had looked like a high-definition snowstorm—until he had seen a rapid and rhythmical beat and realised that he was looking at a beating heart. And that was when everything had changed. When he’d stopped thinking of Pamela’s pregnancy as something theoretical and seen reality there, right before his eyes. The abstract concept of parenthood crystallized into something tangible and miraculous.

His heart had lurched as he’d stared at the form of his so