“Good luck, Rachelle!”

The room was filled with an entire office’s worth of smiling faces as Rachelle did her best not to look as uncomfortable as she felt. She’d spent six months working through every weekend, pulling extra hours to make enough to take a long maternity leave. Her colleagues had done everything in their power to try to get her to slow down, but Rachelle had refused.

She called the Zaradi embassy once a week, always getting the same answer. The royal family was nowhere to be found. The practical part of her accepted this and began planning for life as a single mother of six. The romantic, hopeful part of her called the embassy, praying every time for a different answer.

Smiling at her colleagues, she made to rise, embarrassed by how much effort it took. With six babies growing inside her body, her stomach was massive, to say the least. Phoebe jumped to her side, and Rachelle gratefully took her offered hand.

“Thank you all for this wonderful shower! I will miss each and every one of you while I’m on leave.”

The CEO, Cheryl, placed a supportive hand on her arm.

“Don’t think twice about it. Take care of your growing family, and leave the rest to us. There will always be a place here for you, Rachelle. You will be sorely missed.”

Rachelle’s eyes welled up, as they so often did these days. Pregnancy hormones six times over was a whole other battle she had worked to get used to. It wasn’t easy.

“Thank you, Cheryl. I appreciate everything.”

She spoke with a few other colleagues before fatigue began to set in, and she made her exit for the last time. She had requested six months’ leave, and hoped that it would be enough to figure out what to do. Over the past six months, she had considered moving back home, so her parents could help her, but she had decided against it. If it came to it, she would, but at the end of the day, Michigan wasn’t where she wanted to be.

When she got home, she slowly lowered onto the couch, her belly wriggling as her babies woke and began to play a game of soccer on her bladder.

The doorbell rang, and Rachelle waddled to the door, where a delivery man waited to bring in all of her presents from her baby shower. She let him bring everything in before leaving, then sat in the resounding silence of her apartment as her children happily twirled around, a little foot popping to the surface of her belly every few minutes.

Rachelle had never felt more sad and alone in her entire life.

Picking up the phone, she called the embassy again. The woman’s voice was curt as she provided the same answer as always before hanging up the phone. Rachelle didn’t care. She would pester them until they told her the truth. After so much time, they had to know something. The fact that the party line never changed was suspicious.

A thought struck Rachelle which was so insane that she laughed at herself before seriously considering it. New York was a day’s drive away. She could get there and demand, face-to-face, for information about Darian. She could find him. It wasn’t quite Zaradi, but it was close enough. There had to be something they weren’t telling her, and with six babies in their eighth month of pregnancy, she was quickly losing time.

Rachelle waddled to her bedroom, where she packed a small suitcase and filled a bag with snacks from her kitchen. When she looked at the clock, she realized she would be driving through the night. She was already weary from her shower, and her body balked at the thought of staying up all night driving. Instead, she resolved to get as much sleep as possible, and leave the following morning.

As she fell asleep, she dreamed once more of Darian and his stars. As she awoke, her determination was so fierce that she grabbed her bag and headed straight out the door, not bothering to change her clothing. At that point, comfortable maternity clothes felt like pajamas anyway.

Rachelle put her car into gear, leaving the skyline of Chicago behind her as she merged onto the highway and didn’t look back. She stopped in every state, ignoring the stares of other travelers as she visited each gas station bathroom. Because she had to take so many breaks, she didn’t arrive in New York until midnight, her body hurting from sitting in one position for so long.

Seeing a hotel, she pulled into the parking garage and rented out the cheapest room she could. If Darian couldn’t be found, she would still have to survive on the money she had saved on her own. While it was certainly plenty, she knew it would go fast, and she would have to find a solution before heading back to work.

Rachelle lay on her side, cradling her belly as she fell to sleep. Somehow, she would find a way to care for all six of her children. She had to.

* * *

The next morning, she showered and dressed, not wanting to enter the embassy looking like she’d come off the streets. She drove over to the small, squat building. Compared to the royal palace, it seemed out of place in her vision of Zaradi. It was so very…bland.

When she opened the door, there was a long entryway that led to a desk with glass windows in front of it. There, a woman was sitting and staring at a computer. Rachelle waddled up to the desk, and when the woman looked up, her eyes widened.

“Can I help you, ma’am?”

Her voice was so familiar. Rachelle had heard it every single week, telling her the royal family could not be found. Telling her that her search was for nothing. Telling her to give up, in so many words. Rachelle smiled at her, undeterred.

“My name is Rachelle Smith. I’m looking for Sheikh Darian Al-Adain.”

The woman’s eyes widened as she looked Rachelle up and down.

“You’re the woman who keeps calling?”

“That would be me. You can’t hang up on me now. I need to know where he is. This is urgent.”

Rachelle subconsciously glanced down at her belly, and regretted it. She had just told the woman, in no uncertain terms, that the children belonged to the Sheikh. It was clear, even from behind the glass wall, that the receptionist was stunned. After a moment, the woman blinked, remembering that she had been addressed.

“I’m terribly sorry, Miss Smith. I really am. The truth is that we have no information regarding the royal family. There is nothing I can do for you, whether you are here or not.”

Rachelle watched her carefully, trying to find the lie. When the woman held her gaze, Rachelle’s eyes began to water, as they so often did, and she wobbled dangerously on her feet.

“Ma’am! Are you all right?”

The woman stood, prepared to walk around the enclosure, but Rachelle placed a bracing hand on the wall and waved for the woman to sit back down.

“I’m not going to faint. I just…I just thought…”

Rachelle couldn’t help herself. She burst into tears. She was so alone and scared. She had driven so far so late in her pregnancy because she had hope that somehow, some way, she would be able to find Darian, and the nightmare could end. She was lost now, so far from home, with no one but this stranger watching her with open discomfort.

“There, there. It’s going to be all right. Whatever it is…”

The woman’s eyes darted down to an envelope on her desk, and even in her misery Rachelle noticed a hesitation. As she continued to cry, she shifted to get a better look at the envelope, and her heart began to race.

There, sitting on top of a pile of papers, was a package with very unusual handwriting on it. Handwriting that Rachelle had spent months staring at, as she called the number written in that script more times than she wanted to admit.

Darian was alive!