‘Better?’ he asked.
‘Better.’ She bobbed her head tentatively. Then, when it felt okay, she nodded a little more confidently. ‘Thanks.’
But he didn’t move. Neither of them did.
How much had he heard?
For several long moments a kind of tenseness swirled around them. Saskia waited for him to mention her pregnancy, but he didn’t. Clearly he hadn’t caught her last comment to Babette.
An odd sense of deflation rolled through her. She should probably be happy he hadn’t overheard—that would have been no way for him to find out. But at least it would have taken the decision out of her hands; it would have meant she didn’t have to sit here frantically trying to work out what to say and how to phrase it. Or even when to say it.
Her brain whirred. Whatever she said, though, dropping such a bombshell right now, in an on-call room during a busy shift, wasn’t the way to do it. And that wasn’t just an excuse. She would do it. Just not here, not now, and not like this.
‘Anyway, I can’t lie around here all day. I have patients to see,’ Saskia began, forcing out an attempt at a jolly little laugh and placing her fists on the hard mattress to push herself to a standing position. Suddenly a tiny rod of hope punched through her. ‘Although...you didn’t come here to see me, did you?’
He didn’t answer immediately, and it felt as though the air had suddenly been sucked from the room. Something dense and heavy was threatening to close over her, and before she could stop herself she began to babble.
‘It’s just...well, with not seeing you at Care to Play these last few months, I was beginning to wonder if you’ve been avoiding me. You know...after that weekend. What we did. Together.’
She tried for another jolly laugh, but it sounded as stilted and awkward as she felt.
Malachi hesitated. It was only the briefest of moments, but Saskia caught it nonetheless. Her heart launched itself at her ribs, slamming against her with painful force. It had been one thing to suspect it, but having it confirmed scraped at her much more deeply and painfully than it had any right to do.
And still she stood, rooted to the spot as he stared at her with a closed expression that said far more than any words could have.
The silence pressed on until she couldn’t bear it any longer. ‘I should go. Forget I said anything. I didn’t intend to make things...’
‘There’s a patient called Izzy here.’ His voice was clipped. Distant. ‘She came in today after falling off a climbing frame. I just brought her mother in.’
Saskia snapped her head up.
‘That’s my patient.’
The seven-year-old girl had been brought into Resus several hours ago, where she’d been seen by Malachi’s neurosurgeon brother, Sol, and Anouk, after she’d fallen from a rope climbing apparatus in the local park. Sol had told her that someone would be bringing Izzy’s mother—who was an MS sufferer—in as soon as possible. She just hadn’t realised that someone would be Malachi.
‘So Izzy is a young carer from Care to Play? I didn’t realise...’ She faltered under the intensity of his gaze. ‘I mean, I haven’t seen her there before.’
‘You haven’t been going that long.’
‘No...true. But Sol never told me it would be you bringing her mother in.’
‘He has no reason to think you and I know each other.’ Malachi shrugged.
He couldn’t know how much that dismissive gesture cut her.
‘How is Izzy, anyway?’ he asked abruptly, his concern evident.
Saskia felt another stab of something she didn’t care to identify. She forced it aside and made herself focus. In all her years as a doctor she’d never felt so torn before.
The young girl had landed on her face and her head and suffered loss of consciousness. Along with a laceration over one eye, and the loss of a couple of teeth, their main concern had been internal bleeds, so she’d been sent for a head and neck scan, with the possibility of a broken jaw. Fortunately the CT scan had come back as clear as they could have hoped, along with all the other tests they had run.
But she couldn’t tell Malachi any of that. Not when he wasn’t technically anything more than her patient’s mum’s lift in.
‘I’m sorry, I can’t discuss this with you,’ she apologised. ‘I need to speak to Izzy’s mum.’
‘Of course,’ he confirmed instantly. ‘I left Michelle with Sol before. She forgot some things in the car.’
For the first time Saskia noticed the small pink rucksack Malachi was carrying. Despite everything she couldn’t stop a little smile from playing at her lips; his evident concern for Izzy and her family was touching. Not that it surprised her. Malachi was as dedicated to his role as co-founder of Care to Play as he was to his multibillion-pound investment empire, MIG International.
The fact that he seemed so utterly committed to helping those kids had been part of what had attracted her in the first place. So different from her self-serving ex.
‘I should go and see Izzy’s mum. Bring her up to date.’
‘Don’t worry. Sol’s with her.’
She tried to skirt past Malachi without looking pointed.
Not because she didn’t want to touch him. More because if she did she was certain she would self-combust. Her mouth was insanely dry. Her body throbbed mercilessly. It was all she could do to keep her brain functioning.
‘The little girl is my patient.’
‘And Sol saw her, too,’ he countered.
‘I’m perfectly aware that your brother is a doctor. One of the top neurosurgeons in this place, in fact. But he isn’t my patient’s doctor now. I am. And, as such, I should be the one to talk to her mother.’
Saskia only realised she’d drifted forward when her hands made contact with his unforgettable granite chest.
She leapt back like a scalded cat, and fought valiantly to drag her mind back to the present.
They’d had a gloriously wild, wanton time together, but she couldn’t afford to rehash it in her mind. She had no claim on Malachi Gunn, and she still hadn’t even told him her life-changing news.
And could she really drop her pregnancy bombshell on him? He had a right to know—but would he prefer not to? Her mind was spinning, and it didn’t help that he was still standing there, scrutinising her.
‘I really should go,’ she said.
‘I’d rather you rested a little more.’ He frowned, looking irritated.
She shifted from one foot to the other, reaching out to place her hand on the door handle. But she didn’t open the door and she didn’t walk out. Instead she shuffled some more and wrinkled her nose.
‘I’m fine.’
He didn’t look impressed.
‘Have you eaten?’
‘I’m fine, Malachi,’ she repeated, more firmly this time.
He lifted his arm past her, holding the door closed with his hand, and for a moment she thought he was going to say something else. Then, without warning, he dropped his arm.
She told herself she wasn’t disappointed, yet it was all she could do to tug at the handle and make herself walk through the door, overcompensating a little by hustling fast to the unit where Izzy was being treated.
With every step she was conscious of the fact that Malachi was following her. It was all too easy to imagine his long, effortless stride as she schooled herself not to sashay her hips or appear in any way as though she was being provocative. No mean feat when her whole body was so hyper-aware of him, her belly clenching. If the baby had given a good, strong kick in response to Malachi’s presence she doubted she would have been surprised, even though logically she knew it was far too soon for that.
It was as though the man was somehow imprinted on her. On both of them. She’d be glad when this moment was over and she could get away from him and back to her patients.
At least,
that was what she told herself.
The truth was that she wasn’t entirely convinced she was buying it.
CHAPTER TWO
WAS SASKIA PREGNANT?
Malachi sat on one of the plastic seats in the hospital corridor. Saskia was still in the room, telling Michelle about her daughter, and he was out here...uncharacteristically rattled.
His brain fought to focus; his body felt supercharged. He rolled the idea around his head as if testing it, seeing if it might fit.
Pregnant?
The problem was that he couldn’t be sure. Certainly he thought that was the last thing she’d said to that godawful nurse with the irritating voice, but then he hadn’t been thinking straight from the moment he’d stepped around that corner and caught sight of Saskia—the woman who had haunted his dreams for the last three months.
The blood roared through Malachi’s ears.
And elsewhere, if he was being honest.
When he’d heard her mutter—thought he’d heard her mutter—that word pregnant as he’d approached, he hadn’t really thought a lot about it. After all, she might have been talking about any one of her patients. Or colleagues. But then they’d sat in that on-call room together and she’d been so...odd...that slowly things had started slotting themselves into different places and suddenly he’d found himself wondering if she’d actually been talking about herself.
In that moment everything had...shifted. Kids. Family. Two things he’d thought could never be in his future. Two things he’d sworn never would be in his future. Not after the childhood he and Sol had endured. Not after becoming responsible and providing for his drug-addled mother and kid brother when he’d been a mere ten years old. He’d endured enough responsibility and commitment to last a lifetime, and he’d sworn to himself he would never put himself through any more as an adult.
Nor would he put any kid through the trauma of having someone as detached and emotionally damaged as he was for a father.
Instead he had dedicated himself to his work, his business, his charity. Partly because he lived for those things, but also because it ensured he’d never have time in his life for anything—or anyone—else.
And now this.
Maybe.
Possibly not.
Yet some sixth sense—the one he had trusted his entire life, the one which had allowed his eight-year-old self to keep his brother and mother together and a roof over their heads, the one which had helped him make his first six-figure sum by the age of fifteen, his first million by the age of eighteen, the one which had ensured he could send his brother to medical school and make MIG International a global business—told him it was true.
No wonder his entire world was teetering so precariously on the edge of some black abyss.
How was it that in the blink of an eye everything he’d worked for could suddenly be hovering over some unknown precipice? Everything that made him...him gone in one word.
Pregnant.
His body went cold. His brain fought to process this new information and make some kind of sense out of it. But the only thing it could come up with was that any baby couldn’t be his. They’d used protection.
He always used protection.
Except that first time, when all his usual rules had splintered and shattered one by one. Not least any thought to the notion of protection.
Which meant that he had no one else to blame for the fact that a baby wasn’t wholly out of the question.
So how the hell was any kid to cope with him as a father?
Malachi’s mind hurtled along like a car with no brakes. He was usually controlled, intuitive—effective when it came to dealing with business problems put in front of him—but right now he felt as if the ground beneath his feet was opening up. Instead of focusing on the issue all he could picture was her lush naked body, spread out before him like some kind of personal offering. He could still practically feel the heat from her mouth, as wild as it was sweet.
He couldn’t say she’d been experienced, or skilled, and yet he’d never replayed sex with any other woman the way he’d replayed those nights with Saskia.
Why?
Maybe because he’d been lusting after her from the moment she’d walked into Care to Play as a medical liaison volunteer a few months earlier. Somehow during the so-called interview she’d ended up telling him about her failed engagement and her cheating fiancé, and she’d been so refreshingly open with him that he’d found himself captivated, wondering what kind of an idiot man would let a woman like Saskia slip through his fingers.
He’d had no intention of acting on the attraction, of course. Even as it had sizzled between them for months he’d been determined not to go there. Firstly, she was bound to be rebounding, and secondly she was a volunteer at the centre that he’d set up, and he’d told himself that was tantamount to making him her boss.
He’d even said those very words to her that evening at the nightclub, several months later, when Saskia, Sol, and a group of their Moorlands General colleagues had been letting loose for once, and she’d laughed in his face. Confident, sassy and oh-so-sexy, she’d told him in no uncertain terms that he was nothing like her boss. She’d also told him that maybe a rebound fling was exactly what she needed, given that she’d never had a one-night stand in her life before.
And he’d believed her. More than that, he had wanted to believe her. Because she’d spoken to something utterly primal deep within him...and what was the harm of a one-night stand?
Only he hadn’t been able to let her go that night. Or the next night. Or the next.
It had been the most indulgent, incredible long weekend Malachi could ever have imagined, and when she’d finally left he hadn’t been prepared for how quiet—how empty—his luxury bachelor pad would suddenly feel. As ridiculous as that was.
He’d fantasised about her returning with a sharpness that punctured him. Whether because he knew he was nothing more to Saskia than a rebound fling, or because he knew that he didn’t have the time or inclination for a relationship, he couldn’t be sure. Either way, what choice had he had other than to put a little distance between them and avoid Care to Play every single time he’d known she was due there, in the hope of letting that sharpness dull?
Only it hadn’t dulled. It hadn’t faded at all.
If anything, this latest encounter had only proved that he wanted Saskia more than ever—pregnant or not.
His baby.
It was enough to bring his head round a full three-sixty.
Surely he was the last person in the world who should ever have a kid? He wouldn’t love it. That quality wasn’t in him—not any more. It was gone. Spent. Used up all those years ago when he should have been the one being loved and cared for—not the other way around.
A baby?
He could provide for it, but he couldn’t be the all-attentive father figure it would need.
Worse—and he was ashamed of this more than anything—he would end up resenting it, and the time and attention it demanded, the way he’d resented his own mother. The way he’d once resented even Sol.
He still hated himself for those feelings. Even now.
The responsibility he’d had for his younger brother since they’d been little kids had made him so angry back then. And even now, over two and a half decades later, he still felt it. Especially as Sol looked a million miles away now, a plastic cup of vending machine coffee in his hands.
‘What’s the story, bratik?’
Sol frowned before parroting out information in a way that only confirmed that he was sidestepping the real answer.
‘The scan revealed no evidence of any bleed on the brain, and Izzy didn’t damage her neck or break her jaw in the fall, which we suspected—hence why she’s been transferred to Paediatric Intensive Care. Maxillofacial are on their way, to deal with the teeth in Izzy’s mouth that are sti
ll loose. We have the two that came out in a plastic lunchbox someone gave to Izzy, but I think they’re baby teeth, so that shouldn’t be too much of an issue. We won’t know for sure until some of the swelling goes down.’
‘I know all that. I was there when the paediatric doctor told Michelle.’
The paediatric doctor.
As though simply saying Saskia’s name would allow his brother to read the truth all over his face.
As though he didn’t know how every inch of how her body felt and tasted.
As though she wasn’t carrying his baby.
Possibly.
Probably?
Shaking it off, he tried for levity.
‘I was asking what the story was with you, numbnuts.’
Not exactly his most convincing attempt at humour, but it was all he had in him. Fortunately Sol seemed too caught up in his own issues to pick up on it.
‘Don’t know what you’re talking about,’ he mumbled, a sure-fire giveaway that he was lying.
Malachi snorted. ‘You know exactly what I mean. You forget I’ve practically raised you since we were kids. You can’t fool me.’
Sol opened his mouth and Malachi waited for the usual witty comeback. But for once it didn’t come. Instead his younger brother glowered into his coffee. Strangely, he was avoiding Malachi’s stare. And when Sol spoke his voice was unusually quiet, his words coming out of the blue.
‘I haven’t forgotten anything. I remember everything you went through to raise us, Mal. I know you sold your soul to the devil just to get enough money to buy food for our bellies.’
The words—the previously unspoken gratitude—slid unexpectedly into Malachi’s chest. Like a dagger heading straight to the heart and mercifully stopping just a hair’s breadth short.
How was it that the very moment he was ready to doubt himself his brother seemed to say the words that made him think again? As if Sol had known just what to say when he couldn’t possibly have guessed about Saskia being pregnant, let alone that it might be Malachi’s.
Or was it just that he was reading into it what he wanted to read? Trying to convince himself that perhaps Saskia and her baby—their baby—wouldn’t be better off without him?
Surprise Baby for the Billionaire Page 2