She occupied herself with helping Debi from the passenger seat to the back seat, settling the woman into position just as Lukas returned with the gloves and gel.
‘Okay, Debi, it’s going to be okay. I just need to check how dilated you are, and see if I can feel the baby’s head.’
‘The ambulance is on its way,’ Lukas murmured just before Oti moved back to her patient. ‘But that accident we were avoiding is blocking the road for everyone.’
‘Understood.’ She nodded, stepping away from him. ‘Okay, Debi, let’s see how you’re doing.’
She dropped down to begin her check, but even in that instant her suspicions were confirmed. Still, she took a moment to confirm all was okay before pasting a bright smile on her face as she stood up.
‘Okay, so you’re fully dilated, Debi, and I can see the baby’s head. Your baby is clearly eager to meet you, so I don’t think we’re going to be able to wait until the ambulance arrives.’
‘I can’t deliver here,’ Debi gasped. ‘In the back seat of the car, in the middle of the road.’
‘It happens more often than you might think,’ Oti soothed, turning quickly to Lukas. ‘Can you get me water, paper towels or something like it, and scissors?’
Then she glanced him up and down, her eyes alighting on his suit footwear.
‘And give me your shoelaces.’
His curt nod before swinging around to obey her gave Oti a ridiculous kick of pleasure. As though something had shifted between them. In a good way. She thrust it aside, focusing on her patient instead and busying herself with keeping Debi calm, and breathing properly.
But the birth was happening fast.
Crouching down on the ground, she watched the baby as she heard her patient give a more guttural grunt. There was nothing else for it.
‘Push,’ Oti ordered. ‘Push.’
With a loud cry, the woman pushed, and the baby slithered straight out and into Oti’s arms, and all she could do was pray that she didn’t drop it.
‘Scissors, water, paper towels, and the rug from the car.’ Lukas’s voice came from behind her as she swung around to face him. ‘Oh.’
He stopped abruptly, gazing in horror at the baby in her arms. It might have been comical under any other circumstances. To see the all-powerful, always controlled Lukas Woods look so thrown.
‘Lay the paper towels on the seat,’ she instructed. ‘Quickly.’
To his credit, he gathered himself instantly, laying them down so that Oti was able to clean and massage the baby until she heard that first beautiful cry.
‘Shoelaces and scissors?’ She turned to Lukas as he was just standing up from untying them.
Wordlessly, he handed her both and, conscious that his eyes were still on her, she busied herself with tying off the umbilical cord and then cutting it. Finally, wrapping the baby up warmly, Oti handed the precious bundle to an emotional but happy mother.
‘Meet your daughter—ten fingers, ten toes and a healthy set of lungs.’
‘My husband...?’
‘I’ll head up the road to look for him.’ Lukas didn’t hesitate. ‘Let him know what’s happened.’
And as he left Oti was almost grateful for the space. It was a chance to decompress. This time, she was in no doubt that Lukas would have questions but, far from dreading them as she might have a week ago, she thought she might actually welcome them.
It would be a chance to let Lukas see the real her and maybe erase some of the less than flattering opinion he had of her as some dumb socialite.
And even though she knew it should worry her that his opinion of her mattered so much, Oti couldn’t seem to escape the notion.
She was still fighting her own thoughts when Lukas returned with the rather frantic-looking husband and the couple’s relatively nonplussed son in tow. Keeping their distance, the two of them tried to give the family space as they all waited for the ambulance.
‘You should have told me,’ Lukas bit out eventually.
Oti paused in the process of shoving the bloodied paper towels into the bin-liner, though she deliberately didn’t look at him. She didn’t need to ask what he was talking about.
‘Would you have believed me?’ she asked quietly.
‘I’d have had it looked into.’
The saddest part, Oti thought, was that he actually thought she would find that reassuring.
‘So you wouldn’t have believed me,’ she pointed out. ‘You wouldn’t have taken my word for it.’
He actually hesitated. The man renowned for never missing a beat. It felt like a small victory, even as she chastened herself for caring about that.
‘Why would you let people paint you as some vacuous, party-hard It-girl who’s permanently living it up on some extended tropical holiday? Or that you’re in rehab yet again?’
She tilted her head up to him. ‘What difference does it make?’
‘What difference?’ he echoed, appalled. ‘Look at what you just did. That was...incredible.’
He shook his head as though he couldn’t actually find the words and, even though Oti tried to pretend his words didn’t affect her, there was no denying that ball of pride which swelled inside her, just hearing the admiration in his tone.
Lukas Woods thought she was incredible.
‘What could you possibly gain by not telling anyone the truth?’ he demanded angrily.
Oti didn’t know how, but she managed a shrug.
‘The truth gets distorted by what people want to see.’
‘All the more reason to tell them.’
‘They wouldn’t have wanted to hear it,’ she countered evenly.
‘Then you make them.’
‘Why? What does their opinion matter to me?’ She even let a laugh escape her, a genuine one. Because her next observation, at least, was true. ‘You certainly don’t let yourself get affected by what other people think.’
‘They don’t think I’m a party girl.’
‘But I know I’m not. And besides, they think you’re a ruthless playboy. But you aren’t really, are you?’
He didn’t answer, but the glare that he shot at her might have skewered a lesser woman. Right now, though, she felt anything but lesser.
‘You really don’t care what people think, do you?’ His eyes seemed to root her to the spot.
She couldn’t move. She wasn’t even sure she could breathe.
It was as though Lukas was seeing her for the first time. Or, if not that, then certainly through fresh eyes. And she found the whole experience almost exhilarating.
‘You’re not at all the girl I thought.’
‘Well, then—’ she wasn’t entirely sure how she managed to sound so breezy ‘—it serves you right for not doing your homework on me properly, doesn’t it? I can’t imagine you’re usually so lax when it comes to business. I can only take it as further proof that you aren’t as cold-blooded as you like people to believe.’
‘In fact,’ he continued as if she hadn’t spoken, ‘you’re not a girl at all, are you?’
And, before she could answer, he reached out and took a lock of her hair, rolling it between his thumb and forefinger for a moment, before tucking it behind her ear.
It was such a soft, unexpected, intimate gesture. And it wiped all thought from Oti’s mind.
But then he simply took the rubbish bag from her, stalking to the public bin on the pavement and dropped their rubbish in the slot which would take it to the underground storage.
Then he paced back to her, before turning to sit on the bonnet of the limo, his legs stretched in their usual position, his arms folded across his chest, highlighting his chest and biceps. Not a close-cut hair out of place. The trousers and waistcoat of his bespoke suit as immaculate as usual on his sculpted frame.
And Oti watched his every movement as though beg
uiled. A billionaire who was accustomed to snapping his fingers and everyone leaping to attention, yet he hadn’t been too proud to help her with the baby, and the clean-up afterwards. A man who wasn’t afraid of getting his hands dirty—quite literally.
Despite all her caution, the more time she spent with Lukas, the more she found herself admiring him. Respecting him. And having that respect reflected back at her now when he looked at her was...exhilarating.
Yet it was also terrifying. Because, if she wasn’t careful, she could end up confusing attraction and respect, could end up falling for the man. A man who didn’t remotely feel the same way about her.
She eyed the horizon as a hundred—a thousand—thoughts crashed around her head. But there were so many of them and they were all so intertwined that she had no idea where to even begin unravelling the truth. And at the centre of it was that one single event that she didn’t want to have to talk about to anyone.
Certainly not to Lukas.
‘Then why did your father perpetuate those rumours?’ Lukas demanded after a while.
‘Because he doesn’t know the truth.’
‘You can’t expect me to believe that, surely?’
‘My father hasn’t noticed me since I was that girl, all those years ago. He’s a selfish and self-serving man, but I think you already know that.’
‘I do indeed. So surely he would have preferred to use your success as a doctor to somehow turn it around to his own success as a father?’
‘He would have, yes,’ she agreed evenly. ‘Which is why I never told him. I suppose I thought he’d work it out eventually. The fact that he never has speaks for itself, I think.’
‘So he would rather paint you as an addict who wastes her life partying abroad, and ends up in rehab all too often?’ Lukas’s disdain was unmistakable, and Oti felt her mouth twist into a hollow smile.
‘Ironically, that helps him.’
‘I fail to see how.’
‘That’s because you aren’t like my father.’ Her gaze was drawn to Lukas despite herself, and her smile became a little less hollow and a little warmer. ‘That’s a compliment.’
‘Indeed it is,’ he answered grimly.
‘You may be calculating and ruthless when it comes to work, but you aren’t nearly as intrusive when it comes to more personal matters.’ She smiled. ‘You’re a nicer person than you want the world to see. I just don’t understand why.’
‘And again—’ Lukas arched an eyebrow at her, making her hands actually itch to reach out and smooth it ‘—this isn’t about me.’
‘Perhaps I’m hoping that if I open up to you then you might afford me the same courtesy.’
She didn’t realise how true that was until she heard the words come out of her mouth.
‘Don’t bank on it,’ he growled softly.
But it lacked any bite and Oti felt her smile warming her from the inside. She dipped her head to conceal it.
‘Fair enough. Either way, my point is that it suited my father to let people think I was still that wild child. Whilst they were speculating about me, they weren’t looking at him. Plus, there were rumours that he was having some financial trouble, and I became the perfect scapegoat.’
‘He could tell them that you had blown through your inheritance on exotic holidays, wild parties and drugs,’ Lukas realised. ‘That way, no one would think he was the one who’d lost it all gambling.’
‘He could also claim that he’d spent hundreds of thousands sending me to rehab.’
‘The man’s a degenerate,’ Lukas snarled. ‘But you’re a fool for letting him get away with painting you that way. Why wouldn’t you say something?’
She could tell him about HOP, and how she’d always feared her father would piggyback onto the charity and try to use her involvement with it to somehow improve his image. And then she thought about Edward, and how his accident was the reason that she’d ended up fleeing to the charity in the first instance.
She couldn’t tell Lukas about one without the other.
‘It’s complicated,’ she hedged at last.
‘And that’s a cop-out.’
His look of disappointment cut through her, but the distant wail of an ambulance siren saved her from the need to answer. They each lapsed into silence, waiting for the sound to get closer, as Oti tried to pretend to herself that she didn’t care that Lukas had been so easily stopped from asking her anything more.
And yet she waited and held her breath. But he still didn’t speak. She needed to pull herself together.
‘I’d better go and alert my new patient,’ she commented, standing up straight. ‘They look like they’re all too preoccupied to have heard it.’
‘Will you need to accompany them to the hospital?’ Lukas asked.
‘I don’t think so.’ She shook her head. ‘There were no complications, so a handover to the paramedics should suffice.’
‘Good. Then we’ll head back home and talk properly.’
‘No, I can’t...’ The words came out in a panicked rush. ‘I have to go and see... I have to go.’
She could feel the change in Lukas instantly. Even if she hadn’t been so close that she could feel him tense, she would have felt it in the way the air around them tightened. It thickened.
‘That will not happen, Octavia. You’re not going anywhere until we’ve talked.’
‘I don’t know what you think is going on here,’ Oti cried desperately. ‘But I have to go. I need to see Edward.’
‘Edward?’
‘My brother.’ She watched Lukas’s expression change from anger to disbelief to shock, all in the space of about a second, and it occurred to her that she was far too tuned in to the man if she could recognise all that so easily. ‘The money I needed from you was for him. For an operation.’
‘I thought your brother died,’ he said slowly.
‘He didn’t.’ Misery washed over her at the disgust beginning to settle over Lukas’s features. ‘That was another of my father’s lies.’
And one that Edward had wanted her repeat, if only for his own dignity. But she wasn’t about to tell Lukas that.
The sirens’ wail was louder now, and Oti knew she had to go. But she felt rooted to the spot. Paralysed.
‘Go and help your patient. I’ll leave George to take you to Edward.’
‘You’re going?’ She didn’t know why she felt so surprised. Or so deflated.
‘I have a meeting to get to.’
There really was no reason for her to feel disappointed. So why did she?
‘Then take the car, Lukas.’
He pushed himself off the bonnet and began to move away.
‘I’ll walk.’ His tone was inscrutable. ‘I need to think, anyway, and the fresh air will do me good.’
He stepped around the car and reached inside to retrieve his phone and jacket, slinging it over his shoulder as he walked away. Try as she might, she couldn’t seem to drag her eyes from him.
‘And what then?’ she asked thickly.
Lukas turned to look at her, the expression in his eyes almost ominous.
‘Then, Octavia, you are going to come home, and you are going to tell me everything.’
And it struck Oti as more than a little telling that the part her unguarded heart clung on to most tightly in that instruction was when he told her to come home.
CHAPTER SEVEN
OCTAVIA WAS IN his sleek living room, already waiting for him, when Lukas finally arrived home that evening.
She looked serene and composed, and utterly in control—just as she had done that morning helping the mother give birth to her child inside that car. As though this was the kind of thing she did every day.
He suspected, from all the research he had spent the day doing, including her charity work with Health Overseas Project, that it wasn’t too
far from the truth.
Octavia—or Oti, as she preferred to be called—wasn’t at all the woman that he’d believed her to be.
Had he ever been so mistaken about someone?
The question had been running through his head for the past several hours, though he knew the answer of course. It was because that was all he’d been expecting her to be. It was all that he’d wanted her to be.
He’d known her reputation didn’t fit from practically the first moment they’d met, when she’d sent all his senses into full alert. But he’d ignored it because it hadn’t suited the narrative he’d wanted to write.
Then he’d realised it again in the cathedral, when she’d stood in front of him and he’d felt as if his skull was cracking with the effort of resisting her. And he’d certainly realised it on witnessing the way she’d taken charge during Andrew Rockman’s heart attack. But he’d ignored it on those occasions too, because he’d been so focused on stealing Sedeshire International out from under Rockman’s nose. And he’d been using her to finally trounce that man, once and for all.
Now, though, it was time to face up to the fact that he should never have married her. Oti deserved better than to be a pawn in such a game, and he should have known that.
Lukas crossed the room to pour himself a drink from the cabinet—more for something to do than because he actually wanted one—and then took out a glass for her.
‘I take it you do drink?’ he asked brusquely. ‘Given that you’re clearly not in need of any twelve-step programme after all.’
He hadn’t intended to sound quite so abrasive and, in any case, his anger was directed more at himself than at Oti. But he wasn’t accustomed to missing things, certainly not in business. Oti might believe it showed he wasn’t quite as ruthless as he liked to appear, and it was ridiculous how much Lukas wanted to be the man she thought he was. However, he suspected the truth was far less selfless.
The simple fact was that whilst business was always clear and easy for him, marrying Oti had been about furthering his revenge for his mother. He had nearly—finally—succeeded in the plan he’d formulated back when he’d been a twelve-year-old kid. A plan he’d tweaked slightly over the years, but which had essentially stayed the same.
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