Ella,

      It was a pleasure to hear of your graduation from law school. You were—and still are—one of my best and brightest. Keep reaching for the stars, and I hope you get everything you want in life.

      Warmest regards,

      Professor Gilbert Harrison

      Saunders University

       Chapter One

       T he waiting room of Dr. Jacob Weber’s office was like most doctors’ offices. Uncomfortable chairs, upholstered in a mauve tweed fabric lined teal-green walls. The chairs, which formed a U around a coffee table covered with outdated magazines, faced the half wall that separated them from the receptionist’s desk. Inexpensive prints in silver frames hung on the walls—all of them some form of mauve-and-teal-green flowers—and a potted fern stood in one corner.

      As Ella Gardner sat there she wondered if there was a handbook for decorators of medical offices that said mauve and teal green were calming colors, and that a token potted plant gave a homey touch. But even if that was the common perception, it didn’t work for her. She didn’t feel at home. She didn’t feel calm. And no amount of office decoration could change the fact that she wasn’t looking forward to the consultation she was waiting for with the man who had been touted in a recent article entitled The Best Healthcare Providers of Boston as the most innovative, cutting-edge fertility specialist the city had to offer.

      But Jacob Weber was her last hope.

      So she’d made the appointment. She’d nearly begged for it. She’d had herself put on a waiting list for cancellations when the receptionist had said there were no appointments available for two months. When that same receptionist had called yesterday to say there had, indeed, been a cancellation, Ella had juggled three other pressing duties at the office to be able to get there.

      Jacob Weber was as widely known for his arrogance and bad bedside manner as he was for his expertise and use of the newest experimental techniques.

      Not that his superior, pompous, self-important attitudes were news to Ella. They’d both attended Saunders University, and although Ella had been three years ahead of Jacob and had never actually been introduced to him, his reputation as the rich boy who considered himself better than everyone else had been widespread. As well, Ella’s younger sister, Sara, had been in Jacob Weber’s class, so Ella had heard enough about him not to doubt his current claim to fame as the best doctor with the worst disposition.

      But she wasn’t there to be friends with Jacob Weber. She was there in hopes that he could do what no one else had been able to do for her in the past three years—conquer her infertility so she could have her heart’s desire: a child of her own.

      There was another woman in the waiting room, and after a glance at Ella, the other woman took a compact from her purse and checked to see if there was lipstick on her teeth. Ella only had on lip gloss but suddenly wondered if something about her appearance had prompted the woman to be concerned about her own.

      She didn’t want her insecurity to be broadcast, though, and since she’d come straight from court after filing papers in a case she was working on, she used her briefcase as a decoy, pulling it up onto her lap. Hoping it seemed as if she’d just remembered something in it, she opened the briefcase.

      There was a mirror on the inside of the lid and she used that to take stock.

      No, no lip gloss on her straight white teeth—it was all still on her pale-rose-colored, not-thick, not-too-too-thick, not-too-thin lips.

      Her hair was