Masquerade

RYAN

“What are you going to do?” asked Ryan’s friend Anna. Ryan had called Anna to come over after just ten minutes of freaking out over the test alone. She’d needed to tell someone, and Anna knew her better than anyone. “Do you know who the father is?”

Ryan sighed. “Remember that masquerade ball we went to?” Anna nodded. “It has to be the guy I slept with that night. He’s the only person I’ve had sex with in months.”

Anna didn’t comment on either the dry spell or the one-night stand. That was why Anna was the best. “Do you know his name?”

“He said it was Marco, but I don’t know for sure.” Ryan lay back on her bed.

“I thought you were on the pill?”

“I am, I was.” She sighed and held up the test. “This is what happens when you’re on an antibiotic and entirely too drunk.”

Anna crawled forward to lie down next to her, squeezing her hand. “Are you going to try to find him?”

“And say what, Anna? ‘Hi, I’m not sure if you remember me, but we met at the masquerade ball. And, well, congratulations, we’re pregnant!’ All I know is he’s tall, dirty-blond hair, piercing green eyes. I don’t even remember if he’s good in bed.”

“Wait.” Anna sat up and grabbed Ryan’s computer off the desk. “Dirty-blond hair, green eyes, and he was at a party thrown by Connie Livingston? And you said his name was Marco?”

“That’s the name he gave me. He could’ve been lying. We did wear masks the whole night, and I didn’t tell him my name. I wouldn’t blame him.”

Anna typed away furiously before turning the computer around. “This him?”

“Oh my god!” Ryan cried, grabbing the computer from her. “He’s Marco Livingston?!”

Everybody had heard of Marco Livingston, the billionaire owner of Livingston, Inc. His mother had been the one throwing the party.

Anna and Ryan had only scored invites because the hospital where they worked took donations from the Livingston Charitable Foundation. Ryan had kind of assumed the CEO of the company would be too busy to attend.

“You have to tell him, Ry,” Anna insisted.

Ryan shook her head. “No, he’ll think I’m after his money.”

“You’re not, though. Why would you be? You have plenty of your own.”

Ryan laid her hands on her stomach. “I do, and I’ll do this just fine on my own.”

“He deserves to know,” Anna said quietly.

“I don’t look like your typical rich girl, and I can’t risk him taking this baby from me.” That seemed like the kind of thing a billionaire would do. Swoop in, pay for lavish maternity care for the girl he’d knocked up, and then steal the baby away to be raised by nannies.

Ryan didn’t want that. Now that she’d had a little time to think, she really wanted to be a mom.

Ryan wasn’t a billionaire, of course. She had plenty of money, but…you wouldn’t know that by looking at her. Her car was over ten years old, her house a small two-bedroom that she rented, and she hardly owned any designer clothes.

Most of her days were spent in scrubs, and she was fine with that; they were comfortable.

They’d probably make comfy maternity clothes, too. She could do this. “I can do this,” she said aloud.

MARCO

“What the fuck is your problem, bro?” demanded Tony.

“First off, I’m not your ‘bro,’ fucker. And if you’d do your fucking job like I asked you to…” Marco trailed off. It wasn’t Tony’s fault he couldn’t track down the mystery girl from the masquerade.

Tony was a wizard with background checks, but even he had his limits. There had been hundreds of people at that party, and “gray eyes, long brown hair” only narrowed it down so much.

“You could’ve at least gotten her name before you fucked her brains out,” Tony griped.

Marco pinched the bridge of his nose. He knew Tony was right. He should’ve insisted on getting a name. He should’ve gotten her phone number before passing out. Or, failing that, he should accept that it had been a one-night stand and let it go.

But it had been two months since he woke up alone in the hotel room, and he’d been trying to find her ever since.

The night kept playing over and over in his head. And while it had been giving him good material to jerk off with, he’d much rather have her again.

“Just find her,” he said, straightening his tie. “I have to go pick Mother up from the hospital.” Marco’s mother, Connie, was a breast cancer survivor. Marco admired her strength, and he did as much as he could to help with her treatment.

“How is she?” Tony and Marco had grown up together, Tony spending a great deal of time at Marco’s house. Marco knew his friend loved Connie just as much as he did.

Marco nodded. “Good. Just routine follow-up tests. Seriously, find me that girl.”

Tony shot him a middle finger but turned back to his computer as Marco turned to go.

***

The hospital was full of people. Marco shoved his way into a crowded elevator, zoning out as it seemed to stop at every floor on the way to the fifteenth-floor oncology.

Then, just as the doors were closing on who-knew-which floor, he heard a familiar laugh that made his heart skip a beat.

He tried to stop the doors from closing, but there were too many people in the way. He looked up: third floor, the surgical suite. His mystery woman was here. Was she sick? Did she work here?

The elevator stopped next on the fifth floor. Marco raced out, barreling back down the stairs to look for her.

“Can I help you, sir?” asked the nurse at the front desk.

He debated whether to walk right past her but decided against it. “I’m looking for a woman. Long, brown hair, about this tall”—he held his hand to his chest—“gray eyes.”

“Is she a patient here?” the nurse asked, glancing at her computer.

“I don’t know.”

“I’m afraid we can’t help—” the nurse started, but then another woman walked up, wearing scrubs and a stethoscope. A doctor, probably. She eyed Marco in a way that spelled trouble, like she’d recognized him as billionaire Marco Livingston.

“What’s going on?” she asked.

“He said he’s looking for a woman with long, brown hair and gray eyes,” the nurse explained, “but he doesn’t have a name. I was just about to tell him we don’t give out information about our patients or doctors.”

The doctor nodded. She had a nametag pinned to her scrubs that read Anna. “I bet you’re looking for Dr. Andrews,” she told Marco. “She’s in surgery right now. Can I give her a message?”

“Yes, please!” He pulled out his business card and wrote his personal cell number on the back. “Please have her call me as soon as she’s available, no matter what time it is.” Normally he would wait here as long as it took, but he did still have to meet his mother.

“Can I ask what this is regarding?” asked Anna.

“It’s personal,” he said, heading back to the elevator before she could pry any further. “Thank you.”

As the elevator doors slid closed, Marco felt his heart hammering in his chest. This was a hell of a coincidence, finding his mystery woman again out of the blue just when Tony had hit a dead end.

Dr. Andrews. He placed his hand on his phone in his pocket. No way was he missing her call.