"You've Never Had a Fertility Problem": The Doctor's Secret That Exposed My Second Marriage

The rain was pouring hard over Chicago when the results came back.

I stood in the private waiting room of the pediatric wing at Mercy General. Natalie was sitting on the sofa, her hands clasped tightly in her lap, her face pale.

Marcus Thorne stood in the corner near the window. To my credit, I hadn't transferred him to Peoria—Natalie had confronted me about it two days ago, telling me that if I used my power to hurt the people who had cared for her children, she would take the twins and disappear where my money could never find them. I had swallowed my pride and revoked the transfer order.

Dr. Thorne walked into the room holding a yellow folder. His face was grave.

My heart plummeted into my stomach. "Doctor? What is it?"

Natalie stood up instantly, her body trembling. "Is it a match? Am I a match?"

Dr. Thorne shook his head slowly. "Mrs. Vance... you are a half-match, which is expected for a parent, but your tissue markers show a high risk of graft-versus-host disease. It's too dangerous for Liam's current condition."

Natalie let out a choked cry, covering her mouth. Marcus stepped forward, wrapping his arm around her shoulders to support her.

I felt like the floor had dropped out beneath me. "What about me? What about my blood work?"

Dr. Thorne looked at me, then down at the paper. "Mr. Carter... your markers are a fifty percent match, same as Natalie's. It's an option of last resort, but not optimal."

"Then what do we do?!" I yelled, grabbing the doctor’s coat sleeve. "There has to be a donor!"

"There is one more potential match," Dr. Thorne said quietly, turning his gaze toward the door. "Maya."

Natalie gasped. "No! She's five years old! I won't let you put my little girl through a bone marrow extraction!"

"Mrs. Vance, listen to me," Dr. Thorne said gently. "Full siblings have a twenty-five percent chance of being a perfect ten-out-of-ten HLA match. We ran Maya's preliminary panel yesterday."

He pulled a sheet of paper from the folder and held it out to us.

"Maya is a perfect ten-out-of-ten match for her twin brother," Dr. Thorne announced. "She can save Liam's life."

Natalie sank back onto the sofa, sobbing uncontrollably. The fear of placing her healthy daughter into a surgical procedure clashed violently with the desperate need to save her son.

I walked over, dropping down onto my knees in front of her, just as I had done in her Oak Park living room. I reached out, gently taking her trembling hands in mine. This time, she didn't pull away.

"Natalie," I whispered, tears running down my face. "Look at me. Please."

She slowly looked up, her brown eyes swimming with unimaginable sorrow.

"I know you don't trust me," I said, my voice shaking with raw emotion. "I know I ruined your life. I know I broke every promise I ever made to you. But I swear to you on my life, on my soul, on whatever good is left inside me... I will protect them. I will hire the best surgical team on earth. I will stand in that room, I will hold her hand, and I will not let anything happen to our daughter."

Natalie searched my eyes for a long, agonizing moment. For the first time in six years, she didn't see the ruthless billionaire. She didn't see the arrogant man who walked out on her.

She saw the boy she had loved in college. The man who used to hold her hand during sterile clinic visits and pray for a miracle.