Chapter 234: 234. Easy

The smell of charcoal and rosemary drifted across the back patio, cutting through the warm, dry air coming down from the canyon.

Daniel stood by the outdoor grill with a set of long iron tongs, flipping thick cuts of ribeye and skewers of salted vegetables. He wore a faded grey shirt, board shorts, and sandals. Down in the pool, the automatic cleaner clicked rhythmically against the blue tiles, but the rest of the yard was filled with the easy, unstructured noise of a Sunday that had nothing to do with call sheets or box office charts.

Sitting around the long teak table under the pergola were Margot, Florence, and Scarlett.

Scarlett had her bare feet propped up on an empty chair, wearing an oversized white linen button-down over her swimsuit. In front of her sat a tall glass of sparkling water crammed with crushed mint and lime wedges. She looked thoroughly relaxed, her skin lightly sun-kissed, though she had a soft throw pillow wedged permanently behind her lower back.

The front gate buzzer sounded in the kitchen, followed a minute later by the heavy thump of the side garden gate latching shut.

Tom walked through the archway of the bougainvillea trellis first, carrying a wooden crate packed with cold bottles of beer and dry cider. Behind him came Sarah, wearing a loose summer dress and a straw sun hat, holding a wide ceramic dish covered in foil.

Bringing up the rear was Stan Lee, moving at a slow, steady shuffle with his polished wooden cane. He wore his classic tinted aviators, a light tan windbreaker, and beige slacks. Walking half a step behind him was Juniper, his quiet, sharp-eyed caretaker, carrying a small leather bag with his medication and an oversized box wrapped in silver paper with a massive red bow.

"Look at this place," Tom grunted, setting the heavy crate down on the edge of the stone counter near the grill. "Smells like a five-star steakhouse. Tell me those steaks aren't that lean grass-fed stuff, Dan. I want actual fat on my meat."

"Prime marbled, Tom. Calm down," Daniel said, setting the tongs down to shake Tom's hand before leaning in to give Sarah a quick, warm hug. "Hey, Sarah."

"Hey, Daniel," Sarah smiled, setting her covered dish on the long table. "I brought the potato salad. Real mayonnaise, no weird health-food substitutes, so don't let Florence lecture me about dairy."

"I heard that!" Florence called out from the table, waving a wooden salad spoon in mock protest. "I only lecture people about things when they lack taste, Sarah!"

Stan made his way over to the shaded pergola, Juniper quietly pulling a sturdy armchair out so the older man could sit down without straining his hips. Juniper placed his leather bag on a side stool, poured him a small glass of chilled apple juice from the pitcher on the table, and then stepped back toward the perimeter of the patio, keeping an unobtrusive eye on him while taking in the garden view.

Stan settled into the chair with a long, satisfied sigh, pushing his sunglasses down the bridge of his nose to look across at Scarlett.

"Well, well, well," Stan said, his voice carrying that familiar, gravelly New York warmth. "Look at the mother-to-be. You look radiant, my dear. Absolutely glowing."

Scarlett laughed, leaning forward to take his hand across the table. "Thanks, Stan. Mostly I just feel full of sparkling water and tired by two in the afternoon."

"That's how you know it's working," Stan grinned, tapping the table with his knuckle. He gestured toward Juniper, who immediately stepped forward and set the oversized silver-wrapped box directly in front of Scarlett.

"What on earth is this?" Scarlett asked, looking at the massive red bow.

"A small welcome wagon from an old man," Stan said proudly. "Go on, open it."

Scarlett pulled the ribbon, peeling away the thick silver paper.

Inside the cardboard box was an absurd, hilarious collection of gifts. On top sat a tiny, miniature bomber jacket made of genuine distressed brown leather, complete with a faux-shearling collar and a miniature embroidered aviator patch on the chest. Beneath it was a solid sterling silver rattle shaped like Thor's hammer, inscribed with tiny, delicate engravings along the handle, and three vintage children's picture books from the early 1980s with pristine dust jackets.

Florence let out a loud squeal from the other side of the table, immediately snatching the miniature leather jacket. "Oh my god, look at the sleeves! They're the size of sausage rolls! Stan, this is the most ridiculous thing I've ever seen in my life."

"She's going to wear it home from the hospital," Stan declared with a wink.

"See?" Florence pointed an accusatory finger at Tom and Sarah. "Stan knows it's a girl! Even Stan calls her 'she'!"

"I haven't called the kid anything yet, Florence," Tom said, popping the cap off a cider with his pocket opener. "All I know is that if it's a girl, Daniel's hair is going to turn grey by the time she turns twelve."

"My hair is fine," Daniel said, carrying a large wooden carving board piled high with sliced, medium-rare ribeye over to the table. "Sit down and eat before the meat gets cold."

The afternoon settled into that comfortable, messy rhythm that only happened when people had known each other through years and didn't have to pretend to be interesting.

They ate with their fingers, passed the potato salad around twice, and debated everything from the heat in the valley to whether Stan's not so new dog back home was actually getting deaf or just ignoring him. Juniper was handed a full plate of steak and grilled peppers, which she ate quietly from a shaded bench near the pool, politely declining Tom's offers for a cider with a small, professional smile.

At one point, Sarah leaned across the table, tapping Scarlett's arm. "Let me see the pictures. Tom told me you went to Annika on Tuesday."

Scarlett reached into the canvas tote bag resting against the leg of her chair, pulling out the white paper sleeve from Dr. Rosenkrantz's clinic. She handed the strip of black-and-grey prints across the wood.

Sarah held the paper carefully by the margins, tilting it toward the afternoon light. Margot and Florence leaned in on either side of her, looking down at the grainy print like they hadn't already spent three hours staring at it the night before.

"Look at that little flicker," Sarah murmured, her thumb resting just below the dark circle. "That's five or six weeks, right?"

"Six weeks and two days," Scarlett said, smiling as she took a bite of grilled zucchini. "Doc said the heart rate was a hundred and twenty. Fast little thing."

"It looks like a navy bean," Tom remarked, peering over his wife's shoulder with a piece of bread in his hand. "A tiny little grey bean floating in a bowl of soup."

"Don't call my niece a bean, Tom," Florence warned, narrowing her eyes at him.

"You're the one who started calling her the Little Bean on Wednesday, Flo!" Margot pointed out, laughing as she poured more iced tea. "You literally told the grocery delivery guy that the organic raspberries were for the Little Bean!"

"That was between me and the delivery boy, Margot, and he agreed it was a lovely name!"

Stan chuckled, lifting his small glass of juice toward the center of the table. "To the Little Bean, then. May she have her mother's looks and her father's passion."

Everyone clinked their glasses together, the clear ring of glass hanging in the warm afternoon air.

Daniel sat at the head of the table, his hand resting on the back of Scarlett's chair, watching the five of them talk over each other.

The house felt grounded. For all the millions of dollars moving through studio accounts and the massive sets being assembled over the hill, the world inside these hedges was small, warm, and real.

---

By the middle of the following week, the domestic atmosphere in the Bel Air house had undergone a quiet, coordinated shift that Daniel didn't fully catch onto until Tuesday evening.

It started with small things.

Scarlett was practically barred from touching anything heavier than a paperback book. If she walked into the kitchen to pour a glass of water, Florence would materialize from the pantry, snatch the kettle out of her hand, and demand to know why she wasn't sitting on the sofa with her feet up. Margot had completely reorganized the lower refrigerator drawers, replacing the cured meats and soft French cheeses with containers of washed organic blueberries, sliced melon, pasteurized goat's milk yogurt, and small glass jars of cold bone broth.

Every morning, Margot would place a small porcelain ramekin on the marble island beside Scarlett's tea: one prenatal multivitamin, a small yellow capsule of algae-derived DHA, and a tablet of calcium.

"Drink the whole mug, Scar," Margot would say, leaning over the counter with her own coffee. "The doctor said you need thirty ounces of fluids before noon."

"I'm going to drown in tea, Margot," Scarlett would sigh, but she'd swallow the pills anyway, resting her chin on her hand with that sleepy, content smile that had become her default setting.

Then came the second change.

It happened on a Thursday morning, right around seven o'clock. Daniel had come out of the shower in the master suite, towel around his neck, looking for his watch on the long double vanity.

Sitting right on the edge of the marble sink, right beside the bronze trash can, were two small, flat, rectangular cardboard boxes.

Both were standard commercial blister packs of oral contraceptives—the ones Margot and Florence kept in their respective vanity drawers.

Both boxes were half-full. And both were sitting in the bottom of the wastebasket beneath a crumpled tissue.

Daniel stood there in the bathroom for five seconds, his hand resting on his damp hair, looking down at the trash can.

He didn't say anything. He put his watch on, walked out into the master bedroom, and found Margot standing by the French doors that opened onto the balcony, tying the belt of her silk robe around her waist.

Daniel leaned against the doorframe, watching her. "Morning."

Margot turned around. Her blonde hair was loose, tumbling over her shoulders, and there was a calm, completely unhurried look in her eyes that made her look older, softer, and entirely certain of herself.

She caught him looking at the bathroom door. She didn't look flustered. She didn't try to make an excuse.

A small, quiet smile touched the corners of her mouth.

"You saw the bins?" Margot asked softly.

"I saw them," Daniel said, crossing the room to stand in front of her.

Margot looked up at him, resting her hands flat against his chest, right over his heart. "We talked about it. While you were down in San Fernando Valley last week."

"You and Flo?"

"Me, Flo, and Scarlett," Margot nodded, her blue eyes steady and completely clear. "We were sitting by the pool after the ultrasound. Flo looked at Scarlett's stomach, then looked at me, and said, 'Well, if one of us is doing this, we're all doing it.' And she was right, Dan."

Daniel looked down at her, taking her wrists in his hands, feeling the fine, strong bones beneath his fingers. "Margot..."

"We're thirty-three, Daniel," Margot said, her voice dropping into that sweet, direct Australian tone that had no room for second-guessing. "We've spent eight years building this whole life. We have the house, we have the space, and the studio isn't going to collapse if we take a year to do the real thing.

"We don't want three separate pregnancies spaced out over five years while someone is always on a set or recovering. We want the kids together. We want them growing up in the same hallway, breaking the same toys, sharing the same dirt in the garden. If Scarlett's little bean is coming in eight months, I want my baby right behind her. And Flo does too."

Daniel stared at her for a long moment.

The simplicity of it hit him hard. In an industry where everything was calculated—image rights, release dates, public relations timelines, body maintenance contracts—the women in this house had simply decided that life was going to happen on their terms, all at once, together.

"You're sure?" Daniel asked softly.

Margot's smile widened, her fingers curling into the fabric of his shirt, pulling him half an inch closer. "I've never been more sure of anything in my life, Miller. Now stop talking and go kiss Florence before she complains you're playing favorites."

---

The physical reality of that decision hit Daniel like a freight train over the next three weeks.

It was one thing to agree to the concept in the cool morning light of a master bedroom; it was an entirely different thing to navigate the biological reality of three women in their early thirties whose daily routines suddenly revolved around ovulation calendars, body temperature tracking, and an absolute, unyielding focus on conception.

Florence had downloaded three separate tracking apps on her phone, setting alarms with names like Window Open and Target Acquired.

She would walk into his study at three in the afternoon while he was reviewing set drafts from Rick Carter, shut the heavy oak door with a decisive click, lock it, turn around, and say, "The strip turned dark purple twenty minutes ago, Daniel. Put the pencil down."

Margot was no different. Her approach was calmer, slower, but carried the stubborn, relentless focus of a woman who didn't like leaving things to chance. She would wait for the evening when the house quieted down, slip into the bedroom wearing nothing but one of his worn cotton shirts, and pull him onto the mattress before he had even unbuttoned his collar.

And Scarlett, who was already six weeks along, was experiencing that sudden, intense surge of first-trimester hormones that completely bypassed her afternoon fatigue once the sun went down. She didn't have an ovulation window to hit, but the biological reality of being pregnant seemed to have unlocked an appetite that kept Daniel pinned to the sheets until well past midnight.

By the end of the second week, Daniel was operating on four hours of broken sleep a night.

He would wake up at five in the morning, his hamstrings tight, his lower back aching, his brain feeling like it was wrapped in wet wool, and drive thirty miles over the hill to the San Fernando Valley lot to inspect three-story plaster archways and discuss timber framing with forty construction union heads. Then he'd drive back to Burbank, sit with Alan Menken for three hours running through key changes for the tavern scene, take two phone calls from Tom about European distribution advances, and drive back to Bel Air only to find Florence waiting in the foyer with her hair tied back and that familiar, predatory glint in her eyes.

On a Thursday night, at precisely 3:15 AM, Daniel lay flat on his back in the center of the massive king bed.

The room was cool, the air conditioner humming faintly against the ceiling.

To his left, Margot was fast asleep, her face buried into his shoulder, one bare leg draped heavily across his thighs. To his right, Florence was curled on her stomach, her forehead pressed against his ribs, her arm flung over his chest, breathing in deep, steady rhythms.

Down the hall in the east guest suite, Scarlett was sleeping off a bowl of late-night carbonara, completely dead to the world.

Daniel stared up at the dark plaster ceiling.

His eyes burned behind the lids. His shoulder blades felt like someone had driven two lead spikes between his joints, and his lower back was throbbing with that deep, dull, muscular exhaustion that came from twenty-one consecutive days of high-intensity physical output on top of sixteen-hour studio workdays.

He had a 7:30 AM production walk-through with Rick Carter on Stage 12, followed by a vocal read-through with Dan Stevens and Anne Hathaway at ten, and he could barely lift his left arm off the mattress.

Daniel closed his eyes, took a slow, deep breath through his nose, and pulled his thoughts inward.

In the dark space behind his eyes, the interface flickered to life.

It was faint, clean, and completely silent—a system he had largely ignored for the last couple of years because his life had achieved a rhythm of wealth, autonomy, and practical momentum that rarely required artificial intervention. He had trained his body the hard way; he had directed his films the hard way; he had managed his people with patience and money.

He scrolled past the inactive production tabs, past the legacy project logs, down into the personal utility matrix.

There, sitting greyed-out and untouched in the lower corner of the skill tree, was the icon.

[Overwork]

Daniel stared at the text.

He hadn't touched the ability since the absolute, frantic, ninety-hour crunch weeks of his early independent directing days, back when he had to edit three reels of film overnight along with his crew.

The description was simple, brutal, and pragmatic:

> Freezes all physiological and neural fatigue accumulation at absolute zero for 48 consecutive hours. Eliminates the physical perception of exhaustion, lactic acid buildup, and sleep deprivation. Cooldown: 7 days upon expiration.

Daniel didn't hesitate.

He focused his intent on the glyph.

Select.

A sensation like ice water being poured directly into his carotid artery surged through his chest.

It wasn't an electric shock, and it wasn't a sudden rush of chemical adrenaline. It was a cold, absolute, vacuum-sealed silence that swept through his muscular system.

The throbbing ache in his lower back vanished instantly, as if the nerves had simply been unplugged from the spinal cord. The hot, stinging burn behind his eyelids evaporated into cool, clear clarity. His heart rate slowed to a steady, rhythmic fifty-two beats per minute, his breathing deepened, and the heavy, leaden weight pinning his limbs to the mattress dissolved into light, effortless mobility.

Daniel let out a long, silent exhale.

Beside him, Margot stirred faintly in her sleep, her lips brushing the skin of his collarbone, muttering something incoherent before settling deeper into his side. Florence didn't move at all, her warm breath puffing softly against his ribs.

Daniel kept his arms around them, staring up into the dark.

For the next forty-eight hours, he was a machine again.

And looking at the calendar on his nightstand, with the Valley shoot looming and two more weeks of Florence's ovulation charts to survive, he was going to need every single second of it.

---

Over the next ten days, the balance between the domestic front in Bel Air and the soundstages in the San Fernando Valley became a masterclass in controlled momentum.

With the fatigue meter locked at zero, Daniel moved through the studio lot like a man who had unlocked an extra gear.

On Stage 12 and 14, Rick Carter's construction crew had finished the heavy timber framing two days ahead of schedule.

Daniel walked the massive floor on Friday morning, inspecting the completed ballroom with Rick and the master scenic painters.

The space was breathtaking.

The herringbone parquet floor had been cured and hand-buffed to a deep, warm amber sheen that caught the light like polished tortoiseshell. Along the north and south walls, the twenty-four Corinthian columns stood tall and imposing, their fiberglass surfaces brushed with faux-limestone plaster that had been delicately aged with burnt umber and raw sienna washes, giving the masonry the texture of two hundred years of French winter damp.

Overhead, suspended from thirty-ton structural chain hoists hooked directly into the hangar's steel trusses, hung the twenty-four crystal chandeliers.

"Turn them on," Daniel said, standing in the center of the empty floorboards.

Rick whistled toward the master dimmer board by the stage door.

The dimmer pack hummed.

Slowly, three thousand tiny, custom-filament incandescent bulbs flared to life, their warm, low-kelvin amber glow catching the thousands of lead-crystal pendants hanging from the gilded iron frames.

The room transformed.

Light cascaded across the high plaster arches, throwing fractured, glittering patterns across the polished oak floorboards, illuminating the carved plaster cherubs and acanthus leaves along the ceiling molding. It didn't look like a set. It looked like an actual, forgotten royal hall that had been sleeping under snow for a decade, waiting for the music to begin.

"What do you think?" Rick asked, standing beside him with his hands in his pockets, his grey hair lit by the golden glow.

"It's perfect, Rick," Daniel said, his voice quiet, looking up at the high gallery. "The camera won't know the difference between this and Versailles."

"Wait until we get the blizzards running outside the glass," Rick smiled. "Dan Stevens is going to look like an actual beast standing in this light."

At the Burbank bungalow, Alan Menken had completed the finalized vocal charts for the three principal cast members.

Daniel sat on the sofa beside Dan Stevens while the English actor ran through the final four bars of Evermore with Menken at the Steinway. Stevens had taken Daniel's notes to heart—his voice had found that deep, resonant, wounded baritone floor that vibrated the wood of the piano, dropping down into a raspy, agonizing whisper on the final chord that left the room completely silent for five seconds after the pedal was released.

Hugh Jackman had already spent three days with the fight choreographers in the stunt bay, swinging five-foot wooden practice broadswords until the leather grips were soaked in sweat, laughing like a maniac while leaping off six-foot staging platforms onto crash mats.

Anne Hathaway had finished her first three wardrobe fittings, standing patiently for four hours while the seamstresses pinned layers of buttercup-yellow silk organza over a custom-molded corset, ensuring the skirt had enough flare to float three inches off the parquet during the central waltz.

The production was locked. The script was finalized, the soundstage was dressed, the orchestra was booked at Abbey Road for the orchestral tracks, and principal photography was officially scheduled to roll in twelve days.

And then, on a bright Tuesday morning six weeks after Scarlett's first appointment, the domestic side of the ledger officially came due.

---

The black studio truck pulled into the quiet, tree-lined cul-de-sac in Beverly Hills just past nine in the morning.

The ficus hedges were damp from the morning marine layer, the smell of wet earth hanging in the air.

Daniel cut the engine outside the discreet mid-century clinic, stepping down onto the pavement. He walked around to the passenger side, opening the door.

Margot climbed down first, wearing a loose, knee-length knit dress in a soft oat color, flat leather mules, her blonde hair pulled back with a simple tortoiseshell clip.

Behind her came Florence, wearing dark denim dungarees over a striped long-sleeve t-shirt, her boots hitting the asphalt with a solid, energetic thud.

Scarlett remained at home in Bel Air, sleeping in after an enormous breakfast of scrambled eggs, sourdough toast, and half a cantaloupe, having waved them off from the front porch with a sleepy, knowing grin.

Margot took Daniel's right hand; Florence took his left.

Neither of them said a word as they walked up the flagstone path to the private rear entrance. Their palms were warm, but their fingers were gripping his with that distinct, slightly tense pressure that always preceded an audition or an opening night curtain call.

The private consultation room smelled of the same calming lavender antiseptic.

Dr. Annika Rosenkrantz was sitting behind her wide birch desk, her reading glasses resting halfway down her aristocratic nose, reviewing three separate sheets of laboratory letterhead.

As the three of them walked in and sat down on the low sofa, Dr. Rosenkrantz looked up over the rims of her glasses.

She stared at Daniel for four full seconds.

Her face was completely expressionless—that classic, unreadable Nordic mask that could mean anything from total medical disaster to mild administrative boredom.

Then, very slowly, her gaze drifted from Daniel to Margot.

Then to Florence.

Then back to Daniel.

Dr. Rosenkrantz reached up, took off her reading glasses, and set them down on top of the lab sheets with a deliberate, audible click.

She leaned back in her high-backed ergonomic chair, folded her hands across her stomach, and let out a long, slow, dry breath that sounded remarkably like a laugh being suppressed by thirty years of clinical training.

"Daniel," Dr. Rosenkrantz said, her voice completely deadpan. "I have practiced obstetrics for thirty-two years. In Copenhagen, in London, and in Los Angeles."

Daniel sat with his arms resting on his knees, his face relaxed, but his eyes locked onto hers. "Yes?"

Dr. Rosenkrantz picked up the first laboratory requisition sheet, holding it between two fingers.

"Margot Robbie," the doctor read aloud, looking over the paper. "Serum beta-hCG: eight thousand six hundred and forty milli-international units per milliliter. Transabdominal visualization shows a single, well-defined gestational sac with a visible fetal pole and a rhythmic embryonic heart flutter measuring approximately one hundred and twelve beats per minute. The estimated gestational age is five weeks and four days."

Florence let out a sharp, choked gasp, clapping both hands over her mouth, her eyes instantly going wide and wet.

Margot didn't gasp. She closed her eyes, her shoulders dropping, a slow, deep, trembling breath leaving her chest as her hand gripped Daniel's knee so hard the knuckles turned white.

Dr. Rosenkrantz set Margot's file down, picking up the second sheet of paper with the exact same clinical precision.

"Florence Pugh," Dr. Rosenkrantz continued, her eyes flicking toward Florence. "Serum beta-hCG: three thousand two hundred and ten milli-international units per milliliter. Gestational sac is intact, well-seated in the posterior uterine fundus, with early yolk sac formation. Your estimated gestational age is four weeks and two days."

Dr. Rosenkrantz set the second paper down directly beside the first, lining the edges up until they were perfectly square on the blotter.

Beside them lay Scarlett Johansson's existing file, currently stamped: WEEK 12 – PROGRESSION NORMAL.

Three files. Three names. Side by side on the desk.

Florence let out a loud, wet sob, threw her arms around Margot's neck, and buried her face into Margot's shoulder, laughing and crying simultaneously while her boots kicked frantically against the bottom of the sofa.

Margot held her tight, her own tears finally spilling over her lashes, tracking down her cheeks as she reached back blindly with one hand to catch Daniel's jaw, pulling him down until their foreheads touched.

"We did it," Margot whispered against his skin, her voice shaking with pure, unadulterated, overwhelming relief. "Dan, we did it."

"You did," Daniel said, kissing her temple, his arm wrapping around both of them as Florence sniffed loudly against Margot's collarbone. "Both of you. Right on schedule."

Dr. Rosenkrantz sat across the desk, watching the three of them with that faint, dry smirk playing around the edges of her lips.

She picked up her fountain pen, uncapping it with a quiet flick.

"Well," the doctor said, her voice cutting through the sniffling in the room with absolute, pragmatic reality. "Scarlett is due in December. Margot is due in February. Florence is due in the first week of March."

She looked directly at Daniel, tapping the end of the pen against the mahogany wood.

"You have approximately six months, Daniel," Dr. Rosenkrantz remarked, her tone entirely deadpan. "I suggest you hire three additional nannies, buy a wholesale share in a European diaper manufacturer, and begin construction on a private primary school on your property immediately."

Florence popped her head up from Margot's shoulder, her face flushed red, mascara slightly smudged under her lower lashes, her eyes blazing with triumphant, chaotic light.

"I told you!" Florence yelled at Daniel, pointing a finger at his nose. "I told you my app was accurate! I told you the tea worked! We're all having beans!"

"Please do not refer to medical fetuses as beans in my consultation suite, Florence," Dr. Rosenkrantz sighed, though her eyes crinkled with genuine, warm amusement as she pulled three identical prescription pads forward. "Prenatal vitamins with eight hundred micrograms of folate for both of you, starting this morning. No raw fish, no soft unpasteurized cheeses, light cardiovascular exercise only, and I want both of you back here in three weeks for your dating ultrasounds."

"Yes, doctor," Margot said, wiping her cheeks with both hands, laughing through her tears as she stood up.

"Thank you, Annika," Daniel said, standing up and shaking the doctor's hand with a firm, solid clasp.

"Good luck, Daniel," Dr. Rosenkrantz said, looking him dead in the eye with deep, professional sympathy. "You are going to need it far more than they are."

---

The drive back to Bel Air was thirty minutes of absolute, unhinged, joyous pandemonium.

Florence had rolled the passenger-side window all the way down, letting the warm canyon air whip her hair across her face while she belted out an off-key pop song from the truck's speakers, waving her hands out the window at passing delivery vans.

Margot sat in the middle, wedged securely between Daniel and Florence, holding both ultrasound printout strips in her lap, smoothing the slick paper flat against her knees, staring down at the tiny grey circles with a look of profound, quiet peace that Daniel had never seen on her face before.

Every couple of minutes, she would look up at Daniel, catch his eye, and reach out to lightly squeeze the back of his neck, her smile completely radiant.

When the truck rolled through the black iron gates of the estate, the house was sitting quiet under the midday sun.

Daniel parked by the garage.

The three of them walked up the flagstone steps together, Florence practically dancing on her toes, and pushed the heavy front door open into the foyer.

Scarlett was sitting at the marble kitchen island, wearing a loose grey sweater and yoga pants, eating a bowl of sliced peaches with a silver fork, reading an architectural magazine.

As the front door clicked shut, Scarlett looked up.

She looked at Margot's red, tear-streaked eyes.

She looked at Florence's smug, triumphant grin.

She looked at the two white cardboard sleeves tucked under Daniel's arm.

Scarlett slowly set her silver fork down on the edge of the ceramic bowl.

Her hazel eyes widened.

A slow, massive, completely breathless smile spread across her face.

"No," Scarlett whispered, sliding off the high barstool. "No way."

Florence didn't answer. She just charged across the limestone floor, throwing both arms around Scarlett's neck with enough momentum that Scarlett had to brace her hips against the marble counter to keep from tumbling backward.

"February and March, Scar!" Florence yelled into her hair, laughing hysterically. "February and bloody March! We're all in the mud together!"

Margot walked over, wrapping her arms around both of them from the side, burying her face into Scarlett's shoulder.

The three of them stood there in the center of the sunny kitchen, tangled together in an embrace so tight, so full of tears and breathless laughter, that the room seemed to vibrate with the sheer, concentrated life inside it.

Daniel leaned against the archway of the kitchen, his hands resting casually in his pockets, watching them.

The two cardboard sleeves were resting on the marble island beside the peaches.

Three babies.

Within eight weeks of each other.

In twelve days, he was going to walk onto Stage 12 and call action on a hundred-million-dollar musical with forty dancers in silk gowns, twenty-four crystal chandeliers, and an eight-foot beast on carbon-fiber stilts.

He had four film franchises running across two continents, a video game division with three million active players, and an entertainment empire that was currently conquering the global box office.

Daniel looked at his three women laughing together by the counter, their hands resting on each other's stomachs, planning nursery paint colors and arguing over who got the master suite's soaking tub first.

He took a slow, deep breath, felt the quiet warmth of the house settling into his bones, and let out a soft, helpless, deeply contented laugh.

The movie was definitely going to be the easy part.

-----