After the scan he’d thought they’d turned a corner.
Had that just been in his head?
‘Friday to Monday,’ she confirmed. ‘We don’t get them that often, but when we do it’s pretty full-on.’
‘Fine. Lunch Tuesday, then. That will give you a day to recover.’ It wasn’t a question. ‘Look after yourself and the baby, and I’ll pick you up at midday. I’ll take you for lunch.’
‘Tuesday.’ She nodded, and then she flashed him a smile which seemed to send light cascading right through him.
He really was in trouble.
* * *
‘Yep, small bowel atresia.’ The paediatric surgeon eyed the X-ray with Saskia. ‘Good call.’
Good call—crappy outcome, Saskia thought as she considered the newborn baby at the other end of that X-ray.
She had practically floated back to the ward after her scan—and after talking to Malachi—but now everything had crashed back in. Hard. Painful.
The tiny girl they were discussing had only come into the world days before—a little premature, but apparently healthy, if a touch jaundiced, and passing a little meconium. Within hours it had become clear that she was vomiting every time she tried to feed, and the green colour, along with an examination, had revealed a swollen abdomen, leading Saskia to consider a bowel blockage.
She dealt with sick babies and children on a daily basis, but today it was really getting to her.
She fought to pull her head back into the game. ‘No contrast scan?’ she verified with the surgeon. ‘Enema?’
‘Not this time. The image is clear enough.’
‘Okay...well, she’s on a fluid drip now because she was dehydrated,’ Saskia confirmed.
‘Fine. I’ll go and have a chat with the parents. What are they like?’
‘Young. Terrified.’ Not that she could blame them.
‘Right, leave it with me. I’ll give them a brief outline now, and once Rosie is stable I’ll take them through the operation in more detail.’
‘That’s great, thanks,’ nodded Saskia as her colleague jerked her head to the end of the ward, where children’s A&E lay beyond.
‘Looks bad out there.’
‘Yeah well, typical winter, even more hectic than usual.’ Saskia blew out a breath. ‘Lots of respiratory—colds, flu—and more kids than we have room for, but I can’t possibly send them home.’
‘You’re under pressure to clear out?’
‘All the time.’ Saskia grimaced as they headed out of the door, her mind still threatening to wander.
‘Well, good luck with it.’
‘Yeah, thanks.’ She bared her teeth in a semblance of a smile as she passed the board again to check anything new.
That little girl could probably go home.
This guy was waiting for bloods.
That boy could go home.
Still, it barely even scratched the surface.
And now she would have to set up a nasogastric tube to drain off Rosie’s stomach and bowel contents, as well as any gas build-up. It wasn’t the first time she’d had to prep for an operation on a newborn—not by any stretch—but suddenly the enormity of it hit her.
Being pregnant with her own baby had suddenly brought the reality of the situation home to her. As well as how fragile and precious life was. Maybe marrying Malachi and making sure her child had the best possible start wasn’t such a bad plan after all.
She would have security. Support. Someone with whom to share the burden—and the joy. Not to mention the fact that she couldn’t do any worse than commit her life to a cheat and liar, which she’d nearly done with Andy.
Somehow she didn’t think Malachi was the type to cheat or lie.
And sexual attraction has absolutely nothing to do with it, she concluded, somewhat redundantly.
It was a logical decision. One which had absolutely nothing to do with her libido. All that was left to do now was to tell him.
Suddenly Tuesday lunch with Malachi couldn’t come around soon enough.
CHAPTER SEVEN
ELEVEN FORTY-FIVE, SASKIA THOUGHT, checking her watch as she exited her apartment block, her stomach in knots as it had been all weekend, when even the avalanche of a caseload hadn’t taken her mind off the scan. And Malachi Gunn.
She probably should have waited upstairs, for fear of looking overkeen for this non-date with Malachi, but she’d been wearing a trench in the living room floor as it was. Better to be out here, waiting in the winter evening, than up there getting cabin fever.
And suddenly there he was. Languishing against the side of a sleek black car which looked as though it belonged on a waiting list as long as the A&E department’s patient list on New Year’s Eve. And he looked as though he belonged in some designer aftershave advert.
Her heart clattered against her ribs, and it was easier to concentrate on the muscular lines of the car than the muscular lines of the man himself. Confident, self-possessed, and altogether too tempting for words.
He shifted, and this time it was her stomach’s turn to give a little lurch.
Hunger pangs, she reprimanded herself sharply.
If only they were.
‘You’re early,’ she managed, instantly cringing at such a less-than-stellar opening line.
‘I might point out the same,’ he replied dryly, opening the passenger door and waiting for her to get in. ‘I would have preferred to come up to your apartment rather than hover out here like some adolescent waiting for his girlfriend to sneak out of her parents’ house.’
Girlfriend? Was that what she was? She tried not to let her body do funny things at his use of the term.
‘Funny,’ she threw back, as lightly as she could manage, not quite able to move. ‘But I’m telling you, my nosy neighbour is worse than any overbearing parents. The grapevine would have been positively shaking before we’d even left the building.’
‘Then I suppose it’s good that you came down at all.’
There was something in his voice which made her snap her head up. ‘Did you think I wouldn’t?’
He shot her a masked look which she couldn’t quite read. ‘I wondered.’
Her curiosity was piqued. ‘What would you have done?’
‘I’d probably have come up to your door and thrown you over my shoulder and made a scene in front of all your gossiping neighbours.’
‘Oh.’
There had to be something wrong with her, she thought, that the idea should appeal so much to some perverse part of her.
‘Or perhaps you might have enjoyed that,’ Malachi continued quietly, the gleam in his eyes spearing through her right to her core.
She tilted her chin up. ‘I most certainly would not.’
He grinned, a devastating smile that she could feel blooming though every inch of her body.
‘Then get in the car, or we’ll both find out how false that statement is.’
It was as if he had some kind of hold on her. The way her body was moving towards him—obeying him—even though her brain was bellowing its objections.
He closed her door and strode around the front of the car, powerful yet graceful, making it impossible for her not to gawk. When he slid into the seat beside her, his thigh too close to hers, and the heat from his body radiated over her, she pretended that a delicious shiver didn’t dance all the way up her spine. That her chest didn’t tighten as though he’d sucked all the air from the confined space.
Saskia could feel the pulse at her throat, her wrist, her groin, beating out a frantic SOS. Or perhaps it was tapping out a joyous jig.
If he’d suggested ditching the meal and going straight back to his apartment she knew she wouldn’t have objected. Heat suffused her, making her dress feel too scratchy on her skin, her body too tight for itself, her breasts too heavy.
Go
d, she really did need to get a grip.
‘You also mentioned that you didn’t want your friend to see me.’
His voice dragged her back to the present, getting closer to the heart of the matter. Unease washed through her.
‘Yet,’ she clarified. ‘I don’t want her to see you yet.’
‘Because...?’
‘Because I haven’t told her I’m pregnant.’
‘Maybe you don’t think it’s any of her business?’
Saskia shook her head slowly. Uncertainly. ‘No, we tell each other everything.’ Usually. ‘We’ve been best friends since we were kids, when our mothers were rivals in the same prime-time American soap opera. We’ve done everything together—including coming to the UK to become doctors.’
‘Yet she doesn’t know about the baby? About us?’
‘And what do I say about “us”?’ Saskia asked, before she could stop herself.
It wasn’t exactly the way she’d intended to get to the subject of accepting his marriage proposal, but she supposed it would achieve the same thing.
Instead of replying, however, Malachi simply started the engine, the power of the vehicle humming all around them whilst they pulled away, leaving her fighting to unglue her tongue from the roof of her mouth.
They were speeding along the motorway before she succeeded. He was a good driver, but then, why wouldn’t he be? She got the impression that Malachi Gunn was the best at everything he chose to do.
And maybe that wasn’t such a bad thing, she considered, since she’d been feeling a little lost ever since she’d found out she was pregnant. Maybe now was the perfect time to tell him everything she’d been reconsidering. Everything she’d spent the past few days practising how to say.
She opened her mouth to speak.
‘I apologise for the caveman routine the other week,’ he announced unexpectedly.
Her well-rehearsed speech flew out of the window. ‘Pardon?’
Something hitched inside Saskia. She couldn’t remember Andy apologising for anything, ever. Even when he’d been cheating on her. He’d always claimed apologising was a sign of weakness, and she, to her shame, had come to believe him.
Now she realised just how foolish she’d been believing that, too.
It didn’t make Malachi look weak at all. Quite the opposite. He looked utterly secure in his own skin. Plus, as she didn’t imagine he was a man who often had to apologise, the very fact that he even had made her feel valued. Respected.
‘Insisting on marriage,’ he was saying as she yanked herself back to the present. ‘Being a couple. That was...ill-thought-out.’
Saskia’s mouth went dry.
Just as she had decided that it was a good idea.
She should have kept her distance after all—emotionally and physically.
Every fear she’d ever had crashed over her at once. This had to be how it felt to drown.
Saskia tried to rearrange her thoughts, but they jumbled together like a tangle of wires that she couldn’t even begin to find the ends of.
‘You don’t want to be part of our lives after all?’ She barely recognised her own voice. It sounded so detached and...alien.
‘No—there’s no question that I will be a part of your lives,’ he corrected. ‘But you were right to argue that marriage would overcomplicate things. It isn’t the solution.’
‘I see,’ she managed, even though she didn’t see at all. ‘So what now?’
His momentary silence caught her off guard, and she swivelled her head to find him looking at her. Gauging. Assessing. She tried to relax, for fear of him reading every emotion etched clearly on her face, but she wasn’t sure she had succeeded.
Finally he turned back, to concentrate on the road, and she exhaled silently. Hopefully she hadn’t given herself away completely, but at least he didn’t look entirely at ease himself. If she hadn’t known better, she might have thought his set jaw meant he felt as at sea as she did.
She tossed the idea over and over in her mind. On the one hand Malachi wasn’t the kind of man she could imagine second-guessing himself. On the other... Well, her gut was telling her he was playing his cards close to his chest. That he still wanted her every bit as much as she wanted him.
‘Now,’ he echoed firmly, ‘we find a solution that works all round. Now we talk.’
‘And by talk you mean we won’t end up in bed this time?’
She was hectoring him. Trying to get a rise out of him. The thing was, she couldn’t figure out why. Or, more accurately, she was pretending she couldn’t. Either way, Malachi didn’t look amused. If anything, he seemed to grimace.
‘That won’t be happening again, believe me.’
‘Right.’ She told herself she shouldn’t feel hurt by his wintry tone. ‘Good to know.’
Was he trying to convince her, or himself? Could he turn off his attraction just like that? Because there was no way she was able to do it.
They lapsed into another edgy silence.
Saskia tried to concentrate on the drive, but all she could think about was the fact that only a few months ago Malachi had given her the most intimate, passionate weekend of her life—which was vaguely sad in itself, given how many years she’d been engaged to Andy—and there hadn’t been one single uncomfortable moment between the two of them. Yet now they were walking on eggshells around each other.
Eventually, she couldn’t stand it any longer. ‘So where are we going, then?’
‘I thought I might take you somewhere civilised.’
‘Civilised?’
She feared she liked the sound of that far more than she should.
‘A restaurant.’
‘Like...a date?’ It was out before she could stop it.
He cast her another impenetrable look. ‘More like somewhere we can talk. Somewhere neutral.’
‘Out of the city?’ she noted.
And not at his apartment.
Who was it he didn’t trust? Her? Or himself? She suspected it was sadly the former.
He didn’t answer immediately. Instead he pulled off the road and onto a small Tarmac clearing.
A helicopter stood a hundred or so metres away.
‘You could say it’s out of the city...’
‘That’s for us?’ Saskia schooled her features, ignoring the goosebumps that travelled up her arms.
‘It is.’
‘And that’s the pilot?’ She glanced at the man sitting in a car on the other side of the Tarmac.
‘No, that’s Bill. He’s just been looking after the heli for me.’
Her stomach flip-flopped in anticipation.
‘Let me guess—you’re the pilot.’
Malachi lifted one easy shoulder, then set about helping her up into the passenger seat.
‘Trust me...’ he murmured.
The startling thing was that she did.
She couldn’t help but thrill at it all, even as she knew she was being ridiculous. And part of her whispered that he seemed to be going to a lot of effort for someone he no longer wanted to marry.
The smarting she’d felt earlier eased a little.
Which only served to panic her all the more.
Frantically, she tried to remind herself that Malachi was all about practicality. She told herself that he’d probably chosen the helicopter so she couldn’t keep wittering in his ear, the way she had in the car. She instructed herself that there was nothing romantic about this moment.
Nothing at all.
It was a shame her body—and her soaring heart—didn’t want to agree. All they wanted to do was revel in the fact that he wasn’t walking away from her and their baby after all.
* * *
‘When I said “out of the city” you didn’t tell me you meant out of the country!’
Saskia savoured
another delicious mouthful of the sumptuous winterberry soufflé—the final course of her two-Michelin-star meal.
The day had been surprisingly pleasant, given their conversation a few hours earlier in the car. At some point over the English Channel, they had clearly decided that the frosty atmosphere wasn’t going to help the situation, so by the time Malachi had landed the helicopter they’d both been trying hard to lighten the mood.
She had to admit that the incredible venue had significantly helped matters.
‘I’ve dreamed of visiting France, and this restaurant, for years.’
‘I remember,’ he told her, his eyes holding hers without wavering. ‘You saw it in a magazine that weekend we were together, and told me you’d heard of this place when you first moved to the UK. You said that you and Anouk had always talked about visiting it.’
‘You remember that?’ She stared at him.
‘I do.’
She cocked her head to one side. ‘Well, I also remember reading that it’s always booked up months and months in advance.’
‘An opening became available.’
He shrugged it off but she wasn’t fooled.
He’d done all this for her. This definitely wasn’t a way of brushing her or the baby off. Relief, and another emotion, uncoiled within her.
‘I thought it would be nice for us to talk somewhere like this. Besides, you seem to be enjoying the menu.’
Saskia smoothed the frown from her face before it could take hold properly.
‘Is that a backhanded compliment?’ She forced a lightness into her tone, as if the words didn’t really bother her. ‘I suppose I could pretend to be one of those people who push lettuce leaves around their plate and claim not to be hungry, but I’m afraid that has never been me.’
‘I can’t imagine you ever pretending to be anything you aren’t.’
He’d surprised her by saying that. And it sent a warm glow through her even as she schooled herself not to react.
‘But, for the record, it was a straightforward compliment.’
The glow intensified. ‘Good to know...’ She had no idea how she managed to sound nonchalant.
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