She wasn’t hearing him right. She couldn’t be.
Panic threatened to overtake her.
‘You can’t pigeonhole your life like that.’
‘I can. I do. My business life and my charity work have always been two distinct areas of my life. They don’t mix and they don’t need to. Why should our crafted marriage be any different?’
‘Because...it is,’ she cried helplessly. ‘Because we’re different. Whatever this was meant to be at the start, it’s real now, and we’re having a baby together. Or is our baby not real to you any more? Is she not welcome in your life?’
He advanced on her. So close that she couldn’t stop herself from backing up, right into the wall behind her. It reminded her of that night back in his apartment at Christmas time. Except this time when he lifted his arms and placed his hands on either side of her head it felt more like a cage than ever.
‘Our baby is the only real thing about all this,’ he said.
His voice was rasping. Much too rough for her to mistake the emotion in it. Not that she was about to.
‘And she will always be welcome in my life. All areas of my life. And she will be loved more than you can imagine.’
‘And yet here I am, the mother of that child, and you don’t even want me dipping a toe into the waters of any other part of your life.’
She barely recognised her own voice—it was loaded with something she couldn’t quite identify. Or didn’t want to.
‘You’re a master at compartmentalising your life, aren’t you?’
She realised her voice was too sharp, too high, but she couldn’t stop it. And his expression was so bleak, so haunted, that it scraped inside her. Like a scalpel blade to her chest wall. And when he spoke, in that distant, cold tone, she half expected her skin to freeze and blacken with frostbite.
‘You say it like it’s a bad thing. Besides, I would have thought that was something you would welcome. After all, it benefits you, too.’
‘How does it remotely benefit me?’ she exploded.
‘We aren’t a couple, Saskia. We never were. I was your rebound and then you fell pregnant. But I was never the man you were in love with.’
And suddenly everything fell into place.
The simple truth roared through Saskia and she wanted to scream, and laugh, and sob—all at the same time.
He loved her. This beautiful, impossible, impenetrable man loved her—perhaps as much as she loved him.
He just didn’t know it yet.
She lifted her hand, tentatively at first, and touched it to his chest, taking heart when he didn’t pull away as she’d feared he would.
‘You were never just my rebound, Malachi,’ she whispered. ‘You were always more than that.’
She heard a beat of silence. The moment when he absorbed what she’d said. But she should have known it wouldn’t be that easy.
‘I don’t believe you, zvyozdochka.’
Her heart kicked. He’d given himself away with just that one term of endearment, and now her spirit was beginning to soar.
She lifted her hand to cup his cheek. ‘It’s true. I might not have realised it before, but I know it now. In my entire life I’ve never done anything like have a one-night stand. I’d only ever been with one man...’
‘Whom you loved,’ he reminded her grimly. ‘You told me as much that first night.’
‘I was wrong,’
‘You want me to believe that you didn’t love him?’ He eyed her sceptically.
‘I did love him. At the time. Or at least I loved what I thought we had. The fact that he cheated on me—and if we’re being honest who knows if Babette was the only one?—means that he was never the man I thought he was. Ergo, I could never have loved him. Not really...’
She faltered, waiting for him to speak. But he didn’t. Still, his gaze never left hers. She had no choice but to forge on.
‘I think what I was in love with was the idea of what we had. But then I met you, and we had that crazy weekend. After that it was all you. You were the one I thought about. You were the one who threw out the questions and what ifs in my head. And then I discovered I was pregnant, and I think that was the excuse I’d been looking for to talk to you again. To see if maybe you’d thought about me, too.’
Silence stretched out between them. All Saskia could hear was ragged breathing. Hers? His? Probably both.
Abruptly Malachi pushed himself off the wall, taking a few steps back. Away from her. She almost reached out to stop him, but knew it would be a mistake.
‘But you didn’t come to talk to me,’ he said. ‘You didn’t approach me at all. In fact, the first chance you had to see me you ran away from me. You recall that, of course?’ He was challenging her. ‘You aren’t trying to rewrite history?’
‘Yes, I recall that. We were in a consultation room. I was at work. You were there for my patient and her family. And... And I had no idea how to tell you that I was pregnant.’
‘That’s pitiful, zvyozdochka.’
‘You may be right.’ She straightened her shoulders. ‘But that doesn’t make it any less true.’
His glower deepened. It couldn’t be a good sign that he wouldn’t even look at her. Instead, his glare was directed at some unseen spot on the wall behind her.
‘I was frightened and I was lost. I wasn’t sure if I could do it on my own. And then you made it so I didn’t have to. When I went in for that emergency scan, when they discovered that our baby was...’ She choked on the words, swallowed, then pushed on. ‘You were there with me every single step. You made sure I knew we were going through it all together. And I love you for that.’
‘You do not love me, zvyozdochka,’ he countered angrily. ‘If I am not mistaken, what you feel—what you have described—is gratitude. They are not the same thing.’
She was losing him. She could see it right in front of her eyes and she was wholly powerless to stop it.
Fresh panic bubbled up inside her. ‘So now you presume to tell me what I feel?’
‘When you’re claiming things which cannot possibly be true, then, yes. I’m not the kind of man you want, Saskia. Haven’t you told me that a thousand times? I do not show my emotions the way you want. I don’t speak the words of love you want to hear. I won’t give you the poetry and the flowers you seem to think are proof of love. You believe in all of that, yet I do not.’
‘And I was wrong!’ she exclaimed. ‘I got caught up in the hurt of being betrayed and I lost sight of what it means to actually love someone. I thought I needed those big, romantic gestures. It turns out I don’t. I just need truth and honesty. I just need you, Malachi.’
A storm was raging within him. She saw it blustering over every one of his features. Watched its unobstructed trail. Knew it left devastation in its wake.
‘I’m not the right man for you,’ he bit out, turning his back on her and moving towards the ballroom. ‘I will always be there for our baby, but I don’t want you in the other areas of my life. Go home, Saskia. You’re free at last.’
‘I don’t want to be free.’
‘And I don’t want you here.’
As he walked away, swallowed up by the crowd and carried out of her sight, Saskia slumped back against the wall and marvelled at just how badly she’d managed to mess things up.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
‘OKAY, SO ROSIE is a ten-year-old female with a BMI of nineteen. She presented with abdominal pain and a diagnosis of non-complicated gallstone was made. Elective laparoscopic cholecystectomy has been scheduled for today.’
Saskia listened as her colleague ran through the surgery planned for the young patient.
She wouldn’t go to the surgery, and knew this briefing was for the benefit of the surgical interns in the room, but she appreciated knowing what her patient was about to face. It gave her a greater depth of un
derstanding, especially when talking to her patients later about post-op care—although of course the surgeon would have run through everything with the family.
‘We’ll place her supine, in a reverse position, at a thirty-degree angle, making a ten-millimetre incision at the umbilicus and pneumoperitoneum positions...’
Besides, work had always been her saviour when times were rough. She could always trust her job to refocus her brain and show her what really mattered. But this time was different. This time—even though she would never let her patients down or become distracted when it mattered—she couldn’t shake Malachi, or the hold he seemed to have over her.
‘And inserting two percutaneous atraumatic graspers into the abdomen via small incisions on the right side and on the mid-clavicular line...’
Her mind wandered to Rosie’s parents. For the longest time she’d thought that Kevin, her father, was less concerned about his daughter, leaving her mother to ask the questions and try to understand what was going on with their daughter.
‘The cystic duct and artery will be clipped, and the gallbladder extracted through the umbilical porthole...’
Perhaps she should have known better. She’d been a doctor long enough. But when she’d seen him take the surgeon’s hand and heard him speak, low and sure, she’d realised that he didn’t need to say much. He showed who he was, how supportive he was, by his actions, and in the way he didn’t try to control the situation, letting his wife ask all the questions she needed whilst he absorbed everything, ready to talk through it with her when they were alone. A constant tower of support for both his wife and daughter.
Much like Malachi had been for her. And for their own baby.
Why had she thought she needed words and promises from him? Instead, he showed her who he was by every action and every deed.
When she’d needed him—when there had been complications with their baby—he had been there instantly. Always. Never leaving her side, and never letting her feel she was alone.
Because he loved her.
She’d been waiting and waiting, desperate to hear him say it, angry with herself, and him, when he hadn’t. Waiting for beautiful, poetic words of love—more grandiose than anything Andy had ever said to her—which would prove to her that what was between her and Malachi was real.
She’d thought that after Andy’s betrayal she’d need Malachi to go bigger and better than anything her ex-fiancé had ever done. Suddenly, she realised her mistake.
She was an idiot.
Because Malachi had done that.
She just hadn’t been paying attention.
He had told her he loved her through every little thing he’d done for her. And for their baby. He just didn’t know how to say the words.
But she could teach him, now that she understood him better.
Although she couldn’t just go to him and tell him. After all the other things she’d said he would never believe her. She needed to prove it to him—to make that gesture she’d yearned for from him. She owed him that much.
* * *
Malachi slammed his fist down on the heavy, burr walnut desk.
He couldn’t stand it any longer.
Thrusting his chair back from the desk, Malachi stood. He leaned over to activate the intercom to his secretary.
‘I need you to arrange the helicopter for me, Geraldine.’
Geraldine’s voice came clearly, crisply, through the speaker. ‘Of course. Where to, sir?’
‘Moorlands General,’ he said decisively. ‘Now, please.’
‘Yes, sir.’
He was just about to terminate the communication when he heard her startled voice.
‘Wait...you can’t go in there...’
He’d reached for the switch to deactivate the privacy control on the glass wall when the door to his office burst open and Saskia strode boldly in.
‘If you’re looking for me, I’m right here.’
She placed her bag down and closed the door behind her, but he noticed that she didn’t approach his desk. Perhaps not as bold as he’d first thought. The faint tremor in her hands suggested her confidence was a front.
Still, it had momentarily thrown him.
‘So you are,’ he bit out.
She looked well. Better than well. Her cheeks were red, as though she’d been walking outside in the cold, and her tousled hair made him think she’d recently tugged off one of those warm woolly hats she favoured. But it was the overcoat, pulled tight and cinched over the ever-expanding bump which took most of his attention.
Their baby.
‘Well?’ she demanded, as the quiet shimmered around the space.
‘Sorry?’
‘What were you coming to the hospital for?’
He glowered at her for a long moment before answering. ‘To see you.’
‘Well, it’s good that I’m here, then.’ Her eyes flashed, a frenetic expression whirling through them. ‘I saved you the trouble.’
If he’d had to guess, he might have thought her nervous. Although the Saskia he knew had never been nervous about anything.
That said, she was bouncing around the room in a way he’d never seen her do before.
‘Take a seat,’ he suggested, fighting to slow his accelerating heartbeat.
‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘Thanks. Are you ready to go?’
‘To go where?’
‘You’ll see.’
And with that she practically danced out of the room, leaving him with little choice but to grab his suit jacket and heavy woollen coat and follow.
He caught up with her just as the lift pinged, ready to take them down to the lobby. She was bobbing from one side to the other, shifting her weight as though she couldn’t bear to be still for even an instant.
‘Just slow down, Saskia. I haven’t even called the car round to meet us outside.’
‘No need.’ She bustled them both out of the lift. ‘We can walk.’
It was ridiculous, but her barely restrained excitement was infectious. Malachi found himself swept along in it even as he followed her.
‘Walk where?’
‘I told you—you’ll see.’
He wanted to tell her that nothing had changed. That he still couldn’t give her all the romance and sentiment she wanted. But he couldn’t bring himself to speak; he didn’t want to burst this little bubble of hers into which he could already feel himself being drawn.
It might be just an illusion, but it was one in which he wanted to revel—if only for a few more minutes.
And, besides, something had changed.
He’d realised that what he felt for her was—if not love itself—the closest thing he was ever going to get to it. She was like a fire, drawing him in from the cold. Her heat and her laughter had thawed him out when he’d thought he would never feel warm in his life.
It was why he let her lead him through the lobby now, watching her pull her woolly hat down over her curls before glancing over her shoulder to him and preceding him out of the revolving doors.
The streets were slick with rain, and he reached for her arm instinctively, wrapping it around his and ensuring that she didn’t slip. And the wide smile she shot him kick-started some new alien sensation inside him.
It was as though she welcomed his care. As though she understood it for what it was.
Even if he wasn’t quite sure that he did.
‘Not far now,’ she murmured, and he knew he wasn’t imagining the nervous tremor in her tone, despite her overly bright smile.
It was only when they turned into the town hall that the wheels in his head finally began to spin.
‘Saskia, what’s going on?’
‘Shh...nearly there,’ she chided with a shaky laugh—but her voice cracked and betrayed her.
Moorlands Register Office.
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‘Did you know it’s a leap year this year?’
Normally he would have known, but this past week had blurred into itself so much that for once he had to stop and think.
‘Is it?’
‘It is,’ she confirmed, her voice pitched higher than usual. ‘And even though it might be the wrong month, I...thought I’d take advantage.’
‘Advantage?’ he echoed numbly.
‘You were right all those months ago when you told me I was only holding out for a passionate love like my parents’ because deep down I knew it had never really existed. It gave me the excuse I needed to keep people away—just like you do. Only at least you were more honest with yourself about what you were doing.’
‘No, I don’t think I was,’ he refuted. The words were coming out without him intending them to. ‘I think you were right. I thought I had come to terms with my childhood in a way Sol never had, but all I was doing was keeping it in front of me to...what did you say?...use as a shield.’
‘So we’ve both taught each other something?’
Saskia smiled, and a shard of light pierced through him in an instant.
He’d grown so accustomed to the gloom in his world that he’d thought it was normal. Fine. But now he’d seen everything bathed in the vibrant colours of Saskia how was he ever to go back to that darkness?
‘Why are we here, zvyozdochka?’ he demanded, perhaps a little more sharply than he’d intended.
But she didn’t blink—she just rewarded him with another of her dazzling smiles.
‘You taught me that all the words of love and poetry I was holding out for don’t bring much to the table after all. You taught me that actions really do speak louder than words, and you showed me how much you love me...us,’ she corrected, smoothing a hand over her ever-growing abdomen. ‘So now it’s my turn.’
‘This is unnecessary—’ he began.
And yet he was doing nothing to move away from her. He certainly wasn’t leaving. He was just standing there, breathing her in, trying to hold himself back from the insane need to cover her mouth with his and claim her as his.
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