Heartbeat by Danielle Steel

No, Adrian, it is not right.” He looked terrified, even more so as he saw that he hadn't convinced her. She knew how extreme he was in his views because of the poverty of his own youth, but their life was entirely different.
    “Money isn't everything. We have time and love and a nice home and each other. What more do you need than that?”
    “The desire to have them,” he said quietly, “and I don't have that. I never have. I don't want children, Adrian. I never have and I never will. I told you that before we got married, and if you turn on me now, I'm not going to stand still for it. You have to get rid of that …” He hesitated but only for an instant. “…the pregnancy.” He refused to call it a baby.
    “And what if I don't want to?”
    “You'd be a fool if you didn't, Adrian. You have a shot at a great career yourself, if you set your mind to it, and there's no way you can do what you do and have a baby.”
    “I can take a leave-of-absence for six months and then go back. A lot of women do it.”
    “Yeah, and eventually they give up their careers, have two more kids and become housewives. And in the end, they hate themselves and their children for it.” He was voicing the worst of her fears, but she still thought it was worth taking a chance and having the baby. She didn't want to give it up just because it was easier not having children. So what if they weren't millionaires? Why did everything have to be so goddam perfect? And why couldn't he understand what she was feeling?
    “I think we ought to think about it for a while, before we do anything drastic that we might both regret later.” She had friends who had had abortions and hated themselves for it, and admittedly, others who hadn't. But Steven didn't agree with her.
    “Believe me, Adrian,” he gentled his voice a little bit and took a step closer to her, “you won't regret it. When you think about it afterward, you'll be relieved. This thing could be a serious threat to our marriage.” This “thing” was their baby. The baby she had come to love in the four days she had known of its existence.
    “We don't have to let it be a threat to our marriage.” Tears started to fill her eyes as she leaned against him. “Steven, please …don't make me do this …please. …”
    “I'm not making you do anything.” He sounded annoyed as he walked around their bedroom like a caged animal. He felt threatened to his very core, and deeply frightened. “I'm just telling you that this is a rotten piece of luck, and a bit of insanity to even consider going through with it. Our lives are at stake. For God's sake, do what you have to.”
    “Why do you have to see it that way? Why is a baby such a big threat?” She didn't understand why he felt so radical about it, she never had. He had always regarded children as if they were the threat of enemy invasion.
    “You have no idea what kids can do to your life, Adrian. I do. I saw it in my own family. My parents never had anything. My mother had one lousy pair of shoes, one pair of shoes for my entire childhood. She made everything she could and then we used it till it fell apart, or the clothes fell off our backs. We didn't have books or dolls or toys. We didn't have anything, except poverty and each other.” She felt sorry, and it must have been terrible, but it had nothing to do with the reality of their lives, and somehow he refused to understand that.
    “I'm sorry that happened to you. But our children would never have to live like that. We both make healthy salaries and there's enough for us and a baby to live more than comfortably.”
    “That's what you think. What about school? What about college? Do you have any idea what Stanford costs these days?” And then, like a forlorn child, “What about our trip to Europe? We wouldn't be able to do anything like that anymore. We'd have to give up everything. Are you really prepared to do that?”
    “I don't understand why you see it in such extremes. And