BENEATH THE GOLDEN VEIL

CHAPTER 7: THE DOUBLE HEARTBEAT

The emerald earrings sat on the mahogany nightstand for three days, untouched. To anyone else, they were a king’s ransom in gems, to Tare-ere, they looked like two drops of cold, green poison. They were the physical manifestation of Jide’s new philosophy ‘I will pay for your silence so I don’t have to hear your pain’. When the morning of her twenty-week anatomy scan arrived, the sun over Lagos was a harsh, unforgiving white. Tare-ere had waited until the last possible second, hoping Jide would emerge from his study, car keys in hand, and say, "Lover Girl, I’m coming with you." Instead, she heard the smooth hum of his SUV pulling out of the driveway at 7:00 AM. A text message arrived minutes later “Incredible morning at the office. Big moves. Have the driver take you to the clinic. Wear the emeralds, they’ll look great with your skin. Love, J.”

She didn't wear the earrings. She wore a simple, loose-fitting linen dress and a pair of dark sunglasses to hide the fact that she had spent the night staring at the ceiling.

The Adeleke Maternity Center was a monument to Jide’s ego, a high end facility he had funded to ensure his legacy was born in the lap of luxury. But as the driver pulled up to the entrance, Tare-ere felt like she was entering a prison she had helped design. The security guards saluted her, and the receptionists offered practiced, sycophantic smiles, calling her "Mrs. Adeleke" with a reverence that felt hollow.

The waiting room was a masterclass in sterile opulence. The air-conditioning was set to a bone chilling temperature, and the scent of expensive eucalyptus diffusers did little to mask the underlying smell of antiseptic. Tare-ere sat in a corner, watching other couples. A young man nearby was rubbing his wife’s back as she winced, another was showing his partner something funny on his phone, their heads tilted together in a private, intimate world.

Tare-ere looked down at her own hands. They were empty. The space beside her on the velvet sofa felt like a canyon.

"Mrs. Adeleke? Dr. Soyinka is ready for you," a nurse announced, her voice echoing in the hushed room.

The walk to the ultrasound suite felt like a march to a gallows. Inside, the room was dim, dominated by the glowing monitors of the high definition imaging equipment. Dr. Soyinka, a woman who had been hand picked by Mama G for her "traditional values" and medical prestige, offered a curt nod.

"Lie back, Tare-ere. Let’s see how our heir is doing today," the doctor said. There was no 'How are you feeling?' or 'Are you getting enough rest?' In this clinic, Tare-ere was merely the vessel for the Adeleke future.

The gel was ice-cold against her skin. Tare-ere flinched, her muscles tensing. As the doctor moved the transducer across her abdomen, the familiar grainy images appeared on the wall-mounted screen.

"Everything looks…" The doctor paused. She tilted the probe, her brow furrowing. She adjusted the frequency, the hum of the machine intensifying.

Tare-ere’s heart hammered against her ribs. "Is something wrong? Is the baby okay?"

"Be still," Dr. Soyinka commanded, though her eyes were widening. She moved the probe to the far left, then back to the center. Suddenly, the audio was switched on.

Thump-thump, thump-thump. A steady, rhythmic beat. But beneath it, like an echo, came a second sound. Thump-thump, thump-thump. It was faster, slightly off-beat, creating a chaotic, beautiful symphony of life.

"Well," Dr. Soyinka whispered, a rare flicker of genuine shock crossing her face. "It seems the Adeleke blood is more potent than we thought. Tare-ere, look. This is Baby A. And over here, tucked behind the first... this is Baby B."

Tare-ere stared at the screen. Two heads. Two spines. Two sets of tiny, waving limbs. The room, once cold and sterile, suddenly felt small and breathless. "Twins?" she breathed, a single tear escaping and tracing a path down her temple into her hair. "I'm having twins?"

"Identical," the doctor confirmed, her professional mask sliding back into place. "But this changes everything. A twin pregnancy is high-risk by nature. Especially given how much weight you’ve lost from the hyperemesis. You are fragile, Tare-ere. We cannot afford complications."

For a moment, pure, unadulterated joy surged through Tare-ere. She thought of her mother, TK, and how she would scream with delight. She thought of the two little lives she was protecting. But then, like a cold wave crashing over a warm shore, she thought of Jide. She thought of his "management" style. She thought of Mama G’s warning about "Okoro women being soft."

How would a man who couldn't handle one sick wife handle two babies?

Tare-ere spent the afternoon in a daze. She sat in the nursery, the one Jide had ordered to be painted in neutral, sophisticated greys and tried to imagine it filled with two cribs. Two lives. She wanted to believe this would be the miracle that fixed them. Surely, a double blessing would melt the ice in Jide’s heart?

She waited for him in the dining room. She hadn't eaten, but she had set the table with the precision of a state dinner. When Jide finally walked in at 9:00 PM, he looked like a man who had won a war. He was on the phone, laughing, his voice loud and confident.

"...exactly, tell the developers if the API isn't ready by Friday, we pull the funding. I don't care about their excuses," he snapped, then hung up. He looked at Tare-ere, his eyes skimming over her before landing on the dining table. "You’re up late. I told you I’d eat at the club."

"I went to the scan today, Jide," she said, her voice steady despite the trembling in her soul.

"And? I assume the Adeleke heir is growing as scheduled?" He reached for a glass of water, not looking at her.

Tare-ere reached into her pocket and pulled out the folded thermal paper of the ultrasound. She smoothed it out on the table between them. "It's not an heir, Jide. It's heirs. Two of them. We’re having twins."

The silence that followed was absolute. The only sound was the hum of the refrigerator and the distant honking of Lagos traffic outside their gates. Jide didn't move. He stared at the grainy image of the two tiny souls.

He didn't pull her into his arms. He didn't thank God. He didn't even smile.

Slowly, he pulled out his chair and sat down, his face darkening into an expression she had never seen before, a mixture of profound fear and immediate resentment.

"Twins," he whispered, but it didn't sound like a celebration. It sounded like a sentence. "Do you have any idea what this does to the timeline, Tare-ere? Do you have any idea the cost? The medical bills, the staffing, the... the noise."

"The noise?" Tare-ere’s voice cracked. "Jide, these are our children! Our babies!"

"No," Jide said, his voice rising, gaining that sharp, aggressive edge he had learned from his mother. "This is a complication. You can barely handle being pregnant with one! How are you going to carry two? You’re already a ghost of yourself! This is going to drain me, Tare-ere. My focus needs to be on the company, and now I have to manage a high-risk medical drama?"

He stood up so abruptly his chair screeched against the marble. He didn't look at her; he looked at his phone.

"Where are you going?" she cried, her heart breaking in real-time.

"I have to call my mother," he snapped, already walking toward his study. "She warned me about this. She said your family’s line was prone to these 'irregularities.' We need a plan. A real plan. Because clearly, you aren't strong enough to handle this alone."

He slammed the study door.

Tare-ere stood alone in the magnificent dining room, surrounded by wealth and absolute, crushing silence. She picked up the ultrasound photo, her thumb brushing over the two tiny shapes. Through the heavy door, she heard Jide’s voice, sharp and urgent. "Mama? Yes, it’s true. It’s two of them. No... no, she’s already crying. What do I do? How do we fix this?" Tare-ere realized with a sickening jolt that she wasn't a mother in his eyes, she was a faulty piece of machinery that had just doubled his maintenance costs.