Chapter 4
Four months later…
“Pregnant?” Astra hissed, staring at the test. “How is that possible?”
Memories of that night with Antonio flashed through her head. “Right!” she whispered, leaning her head back against the bathroom wall. Her apartment wasn’t very large. She was rarely here since her business reputation had taken off after the wedding in Sidrina. Over the past three years, she’d enjoyed helping clients all over the world with their event needs. She’d worked in most of the capitals of the world, but always came back to Philadelphia to unwind after each assignment. But after the royal wedding, people all over the world had been interested in hiring her.
There had been so many phone calls by the time she’d landed in Philadelphia. Plus, there had been phone calls from Antonio as well. Astra remembered the calls and the short, clipped messages from him. He’d called her in the wee hours of the morning, at times when she was sound asleep. She’d called him back, trying to be sure that she’d dialed his number during the daylight hours in Spain. But he’d never returned her phone calls at a time when she could answer them.
Finally, she’d decided the bizarre call times were Antonio’s way of avoiding her.
And now she was pregnant? This…no! It couldn’t be possible!
And yet, the plastic strip on her bathroom counter mocked the impossibility.
Her phone rang and Astra looked at the caller. Macie. With a groan, Astra answered the call. “What’s up?” she asked, closing her eyes as she tried to tamp down on the nausea that threatened to send her right back to bed.
“We won!” Macie whispered, barely controlled excitement lacing her words.
Astra couldn’t seem to rouse her enthusiasm at the moment. It might be the morning sickness, or perhaps it was the exhaustion that never seemed to fully leave her these days.
Smothering a yawn and looking away from the softness of her bed, Astra forced herself to concentrate on Macie’s words. “What did we win?”
“The Spanish contract!” she whispered.
Spanish contract? Immediately, an image of Antonio popped into her head. But just as she’d done so many times over the past several months, she pushed thoughts of him away. Their night together had been a one night stand. A beautiful, wonderful, life-altering one night stand. But nothing more.
Still…!
Blinking away tears, she focused on Macie’s words as well as her tone. “Why are you whispering?”
Macie laughed, her voice still soft. “I don’t know. It just feels as if speaking too loudly will jinx this amazing win.”
Astra couldn’t remember which contract Macie was talking about. Astra was the creative side of the equation while Macie maintained the business end. The woman had a knack for computer programming, which she applied to just about every aspect of Astra’s business. Astra knew Macie wasn’t fond of the party side of the business, but what the woman could do with a computer was nothing less than magic!
“I need more information,” Astra prompted, rubbing her forehead. She felt a headache coming on and wasn’t sure how to ease the pain. Could she take ibuprofen? Was that allowed during pregnancy? And how far along was she? Astra had been pushing herself pretty hard lately, fighting against sadness at missing Antonio’s calls. He’d called her at odd hours and Astra now suspected that he’d purposely called her at times when he knew she wouldn’t be awake enough to answer the phone. It was a good way for him to ease a guilty conscience by telling himself, and his friends, that he’d tried to call her but she’d never answered.
And now she was pregnant. Pregnant!
“Are you even listening to me?” Macie asked, breaking into Astra’s contemplation of her new reality.
Blinking and valiantly trying to focus, Astra cleared her throat and said, “Um…no. Sorry. Could you repeat that?”
Macie laughed. “Never fear. I’ll just send over the contracts. You’re going to love this gig since it will be a long term project. And the money is great! I’ve already started entering the data into my computer program that will evaluate the potential vendors that you might need for this contract.”
“I’m sure it…” she stopped, reviewing Macie’s words in her head. “Wait. Did you say that this next contract is in Spain?”
“Yes! The client wants us to throw a series of parties and events throughout the summer months with a big carnival, sort of ‘end of summer’ blast. I’ve already signed the contracts and my computer is spitting out possible vendors. I’m going to write some new code that will help us better evaluate them. We don’t want another issue like what happened in Venice last month.” She laughed at the memory. “I sent the contracts to your email so you can read through the details. But the pay is about twice as much as your normal fee, plus, I know that you’ve been feeling under the weather for the past few months. Accepting this contract will give you a chance to take a bit of a break. The two month contract will require only one event per week and they all seem to be relatively low key with the details of the events up to your discretion.”
Astra felt as if she might choke. Work in Spain? What if she ran into Antonio? What would she do? What could she say? And how did one handle a casual interchange when one ran into a previous lover on the sidewalk?
It took her several moments to remember that Spain was a large, diverse country. The possibility of running into Antonio on the street, or anywhere else, was slim.
With that in mind, her heart slowed to almost normal levels. “I’m going to my computer now to read through the documents.”
“You’re going to love this one!” Macie promised and Astra could hear her friend and brilliant assistant typing away on her keyboard, obviously still tweaking whatever computer program she was working on. Macie was brilliant at using a computer to organize…everything. Schedules, vendors, time tables…just about anything relating to business, Macie could create a program for it. The woman had streamlined Astra’s business so that everything needed for any event was delivered and organized.
“What if I…” she paused, logging onto her computer, and lost the thought. Instead, she saw the email from Macie and clicked on the link, opening up the contract and started reading. “Can you cancel?”
“Why would we? It’s a great contract, a way to let your imagination run wild, plus the fee has already been paid up front. We’ll get expenses of course, plus room and board. We’ll be staying in a castle! Isn’t that great? An actual castle!”
Astra silently groaned as she read through the contract. It really was a great opportunity and she relaxed slightly as she finished reading the initial paragraph. It wasn’t signed by Antonio – so that was a relief. She didn’t want to show up on Antonio’s doorstep after months of him avoiding her. Wouldn’t that seem pathetic?!
Closing her eyes again, she tried to get control of herself.
“Let me look over the details and I’ll start working on ideas.”
“Sounds great!” Macie replied, then paused. “As soon as you get some good ideas, send them my way and I’ll enter them into my database and I’ll get you possible vendors and a timetable.” She paused for a moment, then asked, “You’re not…baking anything, are you?”
Astra’s eyes opened and she blinked at the toilet in front of her, baffled. “Not at the moment. Why?”
Macie sighed with relief. “I don’t know. Just…needed to ask.”
Astra didn’t understand that comment, but she told Macie that she’d call her back after she had some ideas.
For a long moment, Astra sat on the floor, trying to figure out what she was going to do. She was pregnant. Thinking back, she realized that she must be…maybe four months along. She’d been so sad about not seeing Antonio again, feeling rejected, angry, and resentful, that she’d pushed herself harder than normal.
Obviously, she’d been pushing herself too hard if she hadn’t noticed a lack of a period for four months!
Rubbing her forehead, she tried to figure out a plan. Unfortunately, nothing was coming to her. She couldn’t really think of a plan because she was too focused on trying to figure out what she was going to do about her pregnancy.
However, the idea of baking something sounded like a good idea. Heading into the kitchen, she pulled out the ingredients for…Astra tapped on her phone and came up with a recipe. “Chocolate chip cookies!” she exclaimed. “Perfect!”
While she sifted flour, baking powder, sugar, measured butter and vanilla and the other ingredients, Astra let her mind wander. Baking had always soothed her. She wasn’t very good at it, but did that really matter?
Did she want to keep this baby? She checked the recipe, then remembered an article she’d read that talked about a donut shop in Portland, Maine that added potatoes to the batter to make the donuts moist. Astra had a potato. The last time she’d made cookies, they’d come out hard as a rock! Why not try a potato?
That was an instant yes. As she grated the potato, then dumped it into the batter and mixed everything up, she considered the pros and cons. A baby would be…difficult. But also amazing. She could…how would she raise a baby while traveling the world?
Astra added chocolate chips to the batter and mixed everything together.
What would it be like to have a little boy like Antonio running around her home? Astra smiled at that, then added a touch more vanilla, thinking to make the batter less dense.
What if she had a little girl with dark hair and dark eyes? And Antonio’s charming smile?
Yeah, that would be pretty darn nice!
But could she do this on her own? Sure! There were plenty of women that raised children by themselves. She could do it herself, right?
Of course, she’d have to tell Antonio. How she’d do that, Astra wasn’t sure. As she dumped the bowl of ingredients from the mixing bowl into a casserole dish, she tried to figure out the language one used in an email to inform a man she hadn’t seen in four months that he was about to become a father. That was a tricky message, she thought, unconsciously sticking out her tongue as she patted the batter into the casserole dish. She would have used a cookie sheet, but…well, she’d thrown out all of her baking sheets after previous disasters.
She re-read the instructions, set the oven temperature, then stuck the casserole dish into the oven. “There!” she whispered to her kitchen. “Now what?”
As she stared blankly out at the cars passing on the street, Astra thought about Antonio. “Do I want a tiny version of him running through my life?” The idea had appeal, but would that be painful? Seeing a smaller version of Antonio, a constant reminder of him, would be heartbreaking. “I can’t do it!” she suddenly blurted out to the silent kitchen. “That would be…too painful!”
Okay, so the night with Antonio hadn’t been horrible. She’d been exhausted and…and yes, she’d wanted Antonio. If she were perfectly honest with herself, which wasn’t often lately, Astra knew that she’d been attracted to the man from the first moment she’d laid eyes on him. It was only the wedding festivities’ hectic schedule that had kept her from…from what?
Pursuing him?
Astra hadn’t ever pursued a man in her life. She didn’t even know how. Nor had any man ever pursued her, for that matter. She simply wasn’t that interesting. She was…average looking, she thought as she reached up onto her toes for the cooling rack. That’s when her fingers touched the muffin pan and new inspiration struck her!
“We’re going to make muffins!” she told the air. “And this time, I’m going to follow the recipe perfectly.” She walked over to the oven and peered at the cookies. “They look okay,” she said, then closed the oven door. “Besides, if I’m going to be a mother, I’ll need to know how to make muffins. And pancakes!”
She hefted the giant bag of flour out of the bin, grabbed a clean mixing bowl and pulled up a muffin recipe on her phone.
Carefully, she measured out all of the ingredients, trying to follow the recipe perfectly. “No weird ingredients this time,” she told the mixing bowl as she whipped the butter and sugar together. “Those date cookies had been bad. The chocolate chip cookies are going to be delicious!”
The date cookies hadn’t been as bad as the lemon cookies she’d tried to make two weeks after returning from Sidrina. And the chocolate chip cookies with the raisins had been…black. The dough had completely melded itself to the baking sheet. Astra had just thrown out the cookie sheet after that attempt. Oh, and the maple cookie attempt had been disastrous. She couldn’t figure out why her cookies always seemed to adhere to the baking sheet.
“This time, we will use a silicon baking sheet!” she announced to no one.
The doorbell rang and she looked up, startled. “Who in the world?” she whispered, setting the mixing spoon carefully against the mixing bowl. She knew that the spoons preferred to slip into the batter so she was extra careful to ensure that it was steady before she wiped her hands on her apron. Another trick she’d quickly figured out. The maple cookie debacle had forced her to throw away the clothes she’d worn that day. It was a mystery as to why the batter wouldn’t come out of the leggings and tee shirt she’d donned during that episode.
Pulling open her apartment door, she blinked when she found Raven standing outside her door. “Raven? What are you doing here?” she gasped, and immediately reached out to hug her friend. “Oh, it’s been a while. But you look great!” she said, pulling back. Then she realized that Raven’s gorgeous red sweater was now covered in flour. “I’m so sorry!”
Raven laughed and dusted off the flour. “Don’t worry about the flour.” Raven came inside and Astra closed the door. “But could you explain how you have flour in your hair?”
Astra looked up, as if she could see on top of her head. When she realized what she was doing, she groaned and turned, looking into the mirror on the wall and laughed. “Good grief,” and she started swiping at her long, dark hair. “I have no idea how…,” she paused, then looked at the rest of her. “I’m literally covered in flour! How does this always happen?”
Raven chuckled, dropping her purse onto the sofa. “Your baking skills are a continuous mystery to all of us.” She sniffed the air. “What’s in the oven?”
Astra grunted, then waved her friend into the kitchen. “I’m baking chocolate chip cookies. But then I also decided to try making muffins.” She gestured to the oven. “What brings you here? It’s great to see you, but I thought you were in Paris with Tim this week.”
Raven perched on one of the stools, resting her elbows on the countertop. “That was last month.” She tilted her head to the side. “You’ve been so busy lately that you’re losing track of time.” Then Raven looked down at the bowl of batter. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing is wrong,” Astra argued, unable to look her friend in the eye. “In fact, everything is very good. Macie and I just won a new contract. In fact, we have so much business, we’re actually turning clients away.”
“That’s wonderful!” Raven paused, looking around. “So, what’s wrong?”
Astra was concentrating on carefully mixing the batter, not wanting to get anything else on her person. “Nothing is wrong. Everything is fine.”
Raven shook her head. “You’re baking.”
Astra looked up, smiling triumphantly. “Exactly!”
Raven’s eyes narrowed and she tapped a fingernail on the counter. “You only bake when something is bothering you.”
Astra stopped mixing and looked up. “That’s not true,” she argued. “I just…want to master the art of baking. It’s a concept that has eluded me thus far.”
She turned and pulled the silicone muffin “tins” closer. The silicone product description promised that nothing would stick to the silicone muffin shapes and every muffin would come out perfectly.
“How about if you come over for dinner next weekend?” Raven asked.
Astra concentrated on scooping exactly the right amount of batter into each silicone cup before she answered. As she put the mixing bowl down, she gazed down at her muffins with pride. “I’d love to have dinner with you and Tim.” She smiled with triumph, then looked up. “Wait.” She turned and…”Darn it!”
“What’s wrong?”
“I forgot the…!” Gasping, Astra pulled the now-blackened chocolate chip cookie “casserole”. “Oh dear.”
Raven peered at the blackened mess. “What was that?”
Astra looked at her friend, wondering at the relieved tone in Raven’s voice. “They were supposed to be chocolate chip cookies. I even added grated potatoes into the batter to make them extra moist.” They both stared at the casserole dish with blackened…stuff.
“I don’t think that worked very well,” Raven finally proclaimed.
Astra sighed and walked over to put the charred mess into the sink. “I’ll work on the muffins. They’ll be perfect.”
Then her eyes swiveled from the muffin batter to the oven and back again. Biting her lip, she stared at the muffins. “They’ll be okay for a few minutes while I change the oven temperature, right?”
Raven shrugged. “I have no idea. I don’t bake.” She started to reach out a finger to taste the batter, then pulled back. “Why don’t you call Martha? She’s the brilliant baker.”
Martha was married to Joe and both of them looked after Clarissa. Clarissa was married to Levi Harris and they had two darling children. Clarissa had grown up relatively poor with her mother, but soon discovered that her absent father was actually a billionaire that lived in the adjacent city. After his death, Clarissa had inherited all of his wealth. Levi had been the one to tell her, then he’d stuck around to guide her through the tribulations of becoming suddenly wealthy. Levi was a man who loved to find battered businesses and bring them back to life, then sell them off and start all over again. So the man was disgustingly wealthy himself. Martha loved to bake and cook, having graduated from the Culinary Institute of America. She also loved taking care of any and every one, and could bake muffins that had been known to make a person swoon!
Martha’s husband, Joe, grew things. The couple had moved to the country so that Joe had more space for growing, including fruit orchards and vegetables, herbs and flowers. Martha used his produce to cook for several families that needed help getting back on their feet. Joe loved growing things, Martha loved cooking, and Clarissa loved spending her unexpected money helping people. And Levi adored Clarissa and their two children, so he just smiled every time the three of them adopted someone else to take care of.
Astra considered that for a moment, then shook her head. “I’m sure Martha is busy.” She looked around, startled at the enormous mess that was her kitchen. “The muffins should be okay. It only takes a few minutes for the oven to change temperatures, right?”
Raven laughed and lifted her hands, palms out. “Don’t ask me. I used to enjoy microwaving, but since I married Tim, all of our meals are cooked. Tim has the most amazing housekeeper.” She thought about that for a moment, her head tilting to the side. “Okay, so she’s not as good as Martha, but it’s really nice not to have to cook anymore.”
Astra glared at her friend, then lifted the silicone muffin pan, sliding it carefully into the oven. When she straightened, she dusted off her hands. “Okay, while those bake, you can tell me why you’re really here.”
Raven laughed. “Can’t I just come to visit a good friend?” she asked, then stood up and walked over to the sofa. Astra was about to join her, but Raven held up a hand. “You might want to change clothes before you sit down,” she warned.
Astra glanced down at herself and grimaced. “You’re right.” She turned. “I’ll be right back.”
Five minutes later, she came back out to her living room and sat down. “Okay, so what’s going on?”
“Nothing,” Raven replied. “I just haven’t heard from you in a while and wanted to check in. What’s been going on?”
Astra thought about the pregnancy test that was still sitting on her bathroom counter. “Nothing much,” she replied. Instead of admitting that she was pregnant, Astra proceeded to tell Raven all about the parties she’d organized for various clients over the past few months. They laughed about some of the foibles of their clients and Astra poured some lemonade for them.
She brought two glasses of lemonade over to the sofa, handing one to Raven. They laughed and caught up a bit more, then finally, Raven sighed and stood up. “Okay, so you’re not going to admit what’s bothering you,” she said after two hours. “I’ll have to interrogate you when you get back from your next gig. Where is it this time?”
“Spain. It’s in a small town, from what I understand. Macie just sent the contract to me right before I started baking so I…”
She stopped and gasped. “The muffins!” They blurted out at the same time.
Both of them turned and, suddenly noticed the scent of burnt batter.
“Oh no!” Astra gasped and rushed over to the oven. Pulling it open, she stared into the dark depths and pulled out…blackened muffins.
“Well, that round was better than the date cookies you tried to make in Sidrina,” Raven teased.
Astra burst out laughing and Raven joined in, both laughing so hard, their stomachs hurt.