Chapter Two Risk Assessment
The room's lighting did not improve.
Lena stood in the doorway for exactly three seconds—long enough to establish presence, short enough to avoid appearing uncertain.
She had learned this from her mother, who had learned it from her own mother, and somewhere along the line the lesson had calcified into instinct.
Enter a room like you own it, and no one will check the deed.
She crossed to the empty chair beside Dr. Laurent, sat, and arranged her hands on her knees. Posture was communication. She communicated control.
The woman across from her—Miu Srisuwan, twenty-nine, Thai immigrant, employed as a screenwriter under Thomson Group's entertainment subsidiary—did not appear controlled.
She appeared rumpled. Her dark hair was pulled into a messy knot at the base of her skull, and she was wearing a faded grey sweatshirt with something printed on it that Lena couldn't quite read.
Her eyes, though. Those were sharp. Watching Lena the way a cat watches a hand reaching toward its food.
"You're the egg owner," Miu said.
Lena inclined her head. "I am."
"The email said donor, but you don't look like a donor. You look like someone who owns things."
"Several things, yes."
"Great." Miu leaned back in her chair, which squeaked in protest. "So your thing is currently inside my body. I'm going to need you to un-thing that."
Dr. Laurent made a small, strangled sound.
Lena kept her expression neutral. "It's not that simple."
"It's not that simple," Miu repeated, her voice climbing half an octave. "That's your answer? I have someone else's genetic material floating around my uterus and you're giving me it's not that simple?"
"The egg has already been thawed and transferred. Retrieval at this stage would require—"
"I don't care what it would require. I didn't consent to this. I signed forms for dye. I signed forms for cramping. I did not sign a form that said 'surprise egg transfer.'"
Miu's hands were moving now, gesturing wide and fast, and Lena noticed that her nails were bitten down to the quick. She filed this away. People who bit their nails were either anxious or impatient, sometimes both. Useful information.
"You're right," Lena said.
Miu stopped gesturing. "What?"
"You didn't consent. The clinic made an error. Several errors, apparently. I'm not here to argue liability or fault. I'm here to assess the situation and determine next steps."
"Next steps." Miu stared at her. "You talk like a robot. Did you know that? Like a very expensive robot who just finished a seminar on corporate crisis management."
Adrian would have laughed at that. Adrian was not here. Lena pressed her fingernails into her palms and did not react.
"The first next step," she said, "is medical. You'll need to be evaluated for pregnancy in approximately two weeks. If the egg has fertilized—"
"It hasn't."
"—if it has fertilized, you'll have options. The clinic has already offered to cover all medical expenses and provide compensation for—"
"I don't want compensation." Miu's voice went quiet. That was worse than the loud version. "I want you to tell me how this happened. Specifically. With names and times and the exact moment someone decided my body was a rental property."
Dr. Laurent cleared her throat. "The investigation is ongoing, but we believe the error occurred during the thawing process. The oocyte was removed from storage for a scheduled transfer to Ms. Thomson's surrogate—"
"Surrogate?" Miu's gaze snapped back to Lena. "You have a surrogate?"
"I had a surrogate. The arrangement fell through last week. The clinic was supposed to refreeze the egg."
"They were supposed to," Dr. Laurent agreed.
"But a lab technician mislabeled the thawed oocyte as prepared saline solution for your hysterosalpingography.
And I—" She stopped. Swallowed. "I didn't check the label thoroughly.
I was tired. I'd been on call for thirty-six hours.
I made an assumption I shouldn't have made. "
Silence settled over the room like a blanket thrown on a fire.
Miu looked at the doctor. Looked at Lena. Looked down at her own stomach, flat and unremarkable beneath the grey sweatshirt.
"So there's a chance," she said slowly, "that right now, in this moment, I could be—"
"We won't know for at least ten days," Dr. Laurent said.
"Ten days."
"To allow for accurate testing."
Miu pressed the heels of her hands against her eyes.
When she spoke again, her voice was muffled.
"I came here for vitamins. That's what I told my friend.
'I'm just going for some routine bloodwork and maybe some vitamins.
' And now I might be accidentally pregnant with a rich stranger's egg, and the rich stranger is standing in front of me looking like she's about to ask for my social insurance number and a five-year business plan. "
Lena had not asked for anything of the sort. But she made a mental note: Miu Srisuwan processed stress through exaggeration and deflection. It was not dissimilar to how Lena processed stress through spreadsheets and action items. Different tools, same function.
"I'm not going to ask for anything," Lena said. "Not yet. First, we wait for the test results."
"And if it's positive?"
Lena considered the question. Considered the woman asking it—the bitten nails, the sharp eyes, the sweatshirt that had, upon closer inspection, a cartoon cat on it holding a knife.
Considered the board meeting she had canceled to be here, the press release her mother was already drafting in her head, the carefully constructed future that was currently unraveling like a cheap sweater.
"If it's positive," she said, "then we have a much larger problem. And I solve problems for a living."
Miu lowered her hands from her eyes. For a moment, something flickered across her face—not anger, not fear, something closer to exhausted curiosity.
"You know," she said, "when I imagined meeting a wealthy heiress, I thought there'd be champagne."
"That can be arranged."
"I was joking."
"I wasn't."
Dr. Laurent looked between them like a woman watching two trains head toward the same intersection. "I'll, uh, I'll give you both a moment. My office door is open. If you need anything."
She fled. The door clicked shut behind her.
Miu and Lena sat in the sudden quiet. Somewhere in the building, a vacuum cleaner hummed. A phone rang and rang, unanswered.
"I should give you my card," Lena said finally. "For when you've had time to process."
"I've processed."
"You've been in shock for approximately four minutes. You haven't processed anything."
Miu's mouth twitched. It wasn't quite a smile, but it was adjacent to one. "You're very sure of yourself."
"I'm very sure of facts. The facts are: an error occurred. You are the person most affected by that error. You deserve to be treated with transparency and respect. I'm here to provide both."
"And what do you get out of it?"
Lena stood. Adjusted her blazer. Looked down at Miu, who did not look away.
"I get to make sure this doesn't destroy everything I've built," she said. "That's what I get. Selfish, but honest."
Miu considered this. The corner of her mouth tugged again.
"Okay," she said. "Give me your card."
Lena reached into her inner pocket, extracted a cream-colored rectangle, and placed it on the table between them. Miu picked it up, examined it like a museum artifact, then tucked it into her jeans pocket.
"Lena Thomson," she read from memory. "No title?"
"The title is implied."
"Of course it is." Miu stood. She was shorter than Lena by several inches, which seemed to annoy her. "Fine. I'll call you when I'm done processing. Or when I've decided to sue. Whichever comes first."
"I look forward to it."
Miu walked to the door, then stopped. Turned back. Her expression had shifted again—softer, more uncertain, the sharp edges sanded down by something Lena couldn't identify.
"Hey," Miu said. "Your egg. Was it for someone specific? Like, were you trying to have a baby with someone?"
Lena held very still. The question landed somewhere she didn't want it to land, in a place she had sealed off months ago with spreadsheets and timelines and the quiet, ruthless logic of moving forward.
"No," she said. "It was for me."
Miu nodded slowly. Then she opened the door and walked out, and Lena was left alone in the terrible lighting, wondering why that particular question had been the one to hurt.
---
Outside the clinic, Miu leaned against the wall and pulled out her phone.
Tina, she texted. I need you to sit down.
I'm at work, Tina replied. Standing.
Then find a chair.
What happened? Did the doctor find something?
Miu stared at the text. Thought about typing I might be pregnant with a billionaire's accidental science baby. Deleted it. Typed instead:
Remember how you said my life was too boring and I needed more drama?
Yes???
The universe heard you.
She put the phone away and walked toward the bus stop, one hand resting absently on her stomach.
It was probably nothing.
Probably.