Chapter 36

• She was moved from the limo into the small hospital in a wheelchair and taken to a small side ward. Somewhere in the background, she could hear Lucas talking in low-pitched urgent Italian and thought numbly of how useful his gift with languages could be. A few minutes later, she was moved yet again, and this time she was transferred to a room where there were no other patients. Lucas helped her into bed, and the fraught silence between them worked on Layla’s nerves until a radiographer entered with a portable scanner. Layla lay still while the gelled probe moved back and forth over her tummy, her attention locked to the small screen, her hopes and dreams slowly dying as what she prayed for failed to appear. The operator excused herself and reappeared some minutes later with a doctor, who spoke English. He broke the news that the machine had failed to detect the baby’s heartbeat but that the procedure would be repeated the following day to ensure that there was no mistake.
• "I don’t see why we should wait twenty-four hours to get a confirmation." Lucas breathed harshly, his bone structure rigid below his bronzed skin.
• "It’s standard procedure to wait twenty-four hours and check again," Layla chipped in.