And maybe the whispers would go out that she’d led him on, that date rape wasn’t as bad as raping a stranger. But in her view, if anything, it was worse when someone you trusted betrayed you and hurt you like that.
The newspapers would get their angle and it wouldn’t be the truth. There would be some kind of spin on it. Hadn’t James himself said that the press always exaggerated their stories about him?
But even that paled into comparison with the real damage the stories would do. How would anyone at the centre trust her now? How could she give quiet support to people who needed it, people who were vulnerable? The last thing they needed was the press sniffing round and blaring lurid headlines about rape.
There was only one way to keep herself safe—to keep the people who came to the centre for help safe—and that was to back off from James.
Right now.
There were murmurs and looks when she walked onto the ward, and she hated it. Even Steffie looked wary. ‘Are you all right, Charlotte?’ she asked.
‘I’m fine, thank you,’ she said tightly.
‘Hon, you don’t look it.’
‘I could throttle James,’ Charlotte admitted. ‘He didn’t even discuss it with me.’
‘Maybe he was trying to give you a nice surprise.’
‘Maybe he wanted everyone to see what a hero he was,’ Charlotte retorted, her lip curling.
‘Charlotte—look, let me get you a cup of tea.’
‘Thanks, but I’m fine.’ And hanging around the department was making it worse. ‘I’ll be back in a minute. Bleep me if it’s urgent.’
She stomped over to the surgical department and waited for James in his office. Her temper sizzled more with every passing second, and when James finally walked in she didn’t give him a chance to speak. Even though she knew she was being unfair, that she was equally to blame, she lost her temper.
‘What the hell were you thinking of?’ she demanded. ‘Look at the circus out there!’
‘I’m s—’ he began.
‘Sorry? For pity’s sake, James, why didn’t you think before you opened your mouth? Women who’ve been raped don’t want the media crawling all over the place! My clinic is meant to give comfort and practical advice to women who’ve been hurt and shocked, not sensational stuff for the tabloids.’
‘Charlotte, it wasn’t meant to be like that. I was trying to help—to give publicity to the cause.’
‘Publicity isn’t the answer, James. I don’t need flashy celebrity stuff. I need people who are going to be able to give these women support and advocacy, counselling and information. Which they’re not going to get with a pack of journalists baying outside. You don’t have a clue, do you? Right now, I’m doing the centre for one day a week, plus the website and a phone support one evening a week, but I want it to grow. It doesn’t stand a chance if there’s going to be photographers and journalists sniffing around for scandal.’
‘Charlotte, listen—’
‘No, you listen to me, James. Rape’s the most under-reported crime in the country, for a good reason. Women who’ve been attacked feel dirty, feel as if it’s their fault, when it isn’t. They’re scared nobody’s going to believe them. Four out of five don’t even go to the police—and even if they do go to the police, a quarter of those have left it more than a day and it’s too late to…’ She choked for a moment. ‘Too late to collect the evidence. And the trials are a mockery. It’s slowly getting better, but still so many jurors just think the woman’s asking for it or making it up to get revenge on the bloke. And it’s not like that. The majority of women know their attacker, but it doesn’t mean they want to be forced into having sex.’
James looked horrified.
‘Centres like mine help women—but now, instead of having a quiet place to come for help, they’ve got the press shining a spotlight over them.’
‘This wasn’t supposed to happen.’
‘You’ve lived with the paparazzi all your life. You’re used to them—and, if anything, you thrive on the attention. You can’t help seeking it out. Yes, you worked hard organising the ball and you raised a lot of money for good causes—but you like to be seen raising the money,’ Charlotte said bitterly. Because that was the truth of it. ‘You want people to know what you’ve done, so you get public acknowledgement and have everyone talking about what a great guy you are.’
‘It’s not like that,’ James protested.
‘No? I told you I didn’t want the nationals involved, and you didn’t listen. You just went right on ahead with it.’
‘I thought you were just being…well…shy.’
‘Shy?’ She stared at him in disbelief. ‘It’s got nothing to do with shyness and everything to do with wanting to keep my life private.’ Her lip curled. ‘You might be a brilliant doctor, but as a person I think you’re a total and utter…’ She dragged in a breath, then used a word that really shocked him, coming from her.
‘I’ll work with you simply because I have to and I don’t want my patients to suffer,’ she said, ‘but that’s as far as it goes. I don’t want to see you any more than strictly necessary.’
And she walked away before he could say another word.
She wasn’t finished yet. James was just the first one she wanted to talk to. Buoyed up with anger, she strode back out to the hospital entrance.
The moment she appeared, the cameras started snapping.
‘Charlotte, Charlotte, give us a smile,’ several called.
She held up one hand, extending her index finger, and the hubbub fell silent.
‘You’re blocking the entrance to the hospital and you’re getting in the way of the patients and the staff. That’s not fair.’ She took a deep breath. ‘Come with me and I’ll talk to you.’
There were calls of ‘Good girl’ and ‘That’s right, darlin’!’
But, to her relief, they moved away from the hospital entrance.
‘Please listen to me,’ she said quietly. ‘There isn’t a story for you here. I’m not sleeping with James Alexander and I have no intention of seeing him outside work. He’s my colleague. I work with him—and I worked with him on the dance evening to raise money for the hospital.’
‘Bet that’s not all that was raised, darlin’,’ one of them called.
Charlotte took a deep breath. Willed herself to stay calm in front of the crudeness. ‘This is a hospital. I’m a doctor. So is James. We work with sick children. And that’s all there is to it.’
When the questions continued, she realised just how naïve she’d been. They didn’t want the truth: they wanted to sell newspapers.
Again, she held her hand up. ‘If you want a real story…’
They fell silent, agog—clearly believing that she was going to spill some scandal. Well, she wasn’t. She was going to try and make the best of a bad job. ‘What I suggest you do is talk to the hospital’s press department. With my patients’ permission, I’m happy for any of you to sit in my clinic, one at a time. You can talk to my patients and their parents, and you’ll hear the stories of children overcoming real odds—children who’d die if people like me weren’t around to do something to help them. Children who’d die if people didn’t fill out donor cards or give blood. That’s the real story here. Courage and kindness making the world go round. Other people, not me.’
‘What about James?’ someone called.
She sighed. ‘I already told you. I’m here to do my job and so is Mr Alexander. To save children’s lives. Will you let us do that?’
There was no comment, though she thought she could see shame flushing several faces.
‘And I hope,’ she said softly, ‘that any money you’ve made from pictures and untrue stories of last night, you’ll do the decent thing and give it to someone who needs it more. Make something good happen out of all this mess. Now, excuse me. I’ve got patients to see.’
And then she walked back in to the hospital, her head held high.
But the pep talk didn’t work. Or maybe
the paparazzi just didn’t care, Charlotte thought, because they were still chasing her. Doorstepping her over the whole weekend.
By Tuesday, she knew that she couldn’t do her normal stint at the centre. Couldn’t drag the press with her to Penhally, besieging her uncle’s surgery and bringing media attention to women who needed support, not scandal-mongering. The only way she could protect the centre was to close it for the day. And her anger with James grew minute by minute; he’d put her in an impossible position. She barely spoke to him at work; she just about managed to put their joint patients first and maintain a professional attitude, but rebuffed every offer of lunch or a coffee. She was only glad that he hadn’t tried some over-the-top gesture like sending her roses—or she would probably have ended up throwing them at him.
And she found it very hard to be polite when the parents of patients she saw for follow-up appointments asked about James or mentioned seeing them in the paper.
The worst was Judy Martyn, when Ellis came back for a check-up.
‘You looked so lovely together in the newspapers,’ Judy said. ‘The perfect couple. I should’ve guessed, the way you worked together—such a perfect team.’
If only Judy knew how far they were from being a team. And perfect didn’t even begin to come into the equation where James was concerned.
‘W’re Ejust colleagues,’ Charlotte replied, trying very hard to smile when she really wanted to scream. ‘Really, I barely know him.’
And as for the man she’d been falling in love with…
Well, he didn’t exist.
On Thursday, she had a polite call from the surgical team’s secretary, asking to set up an appointment to see Millie Fowler’s parents with James.
Ha. A week ago, James would’ve dropped in to see her before clinic or surgery and synchronised his schedule with hers. And although part of her missed that easiness between them, a larger part of her was relieved that he was doing things formally. It meant he was respecting what she’d said.
All the same, she felt sick with nerves when it got to two o’clock, knowing that she’d have to face James and work as a team with him. There was no alternative. She could hardly refuse to see her patients, and switching caseloads with Tim would be unfair to all their patients as well as to Tim.
James arrived at the special care baby unit at exactly the same time she did.
‘Dr Walker,’ he said coolly.
‘Mr Alexander.’ She, too, could do cool and formal. Even though being close to him again made all her insides ache.
Together—and yet as far apart as they could possibly be—they walked into the room where Millie was lying in a crib, having oxygen therapy.
‘Mr and Mrs Fowler? I’m James Alexander, the surgeon, and this is Charlotte Walker, the cardiologist,’ James introduced them both.
Gently, Charlotte took them through the diagnosis. ‘Millie has a heart condition known as tetralogy of Fallot. It sounds scary, but it’s the most common heart condition and plenty of babies go on to do really well.’
‘Dr Cook said that she had a heart murmur,’ Mrs Fowler said. ‘And that she was a blue baby.’
Charlotte nodded. ‘I’ve run some tests, as you know, so I could take a closer look at Millie’s heart and what’s going on. There are four parts to her condition.’ Putting as much as she could into layman’s terms, she explained the condition to Millie’s parents: a narrowed pulmonary valve which obstructed the blood flow, a hole in the ventricle and an enlarged aortic valve which allowed unoxygenated blood to circulate through the boy; and a thickened muscular wall to Millie’s right ventricle because it had to pump blood at a higher pressure.
‘She will need surgery,’ James said, ‘where I’ll close the hole in her heart so the blood can flow normally again, but that won’t be until she’s six months old.’
‘So does she have to stay in hospital until after the surgery?’ Mr Fowler asked.
‘No, you’ll be able to take her home,’ Charlotte reassured her. ‘But you might find she has “tetralogy spells” where she’ll be a bit irritable and she’ll look blue. That’s because there isn’t enough oxygen in her blood—the blood’s darker and looks blue, and you’ll notice it more in her lips and fingertips. Sometimes just lifting her knees up gently, like this…’ she demonstrated ‘…will help, and give her a cuddle.’
‘But if she has a lot of these spells, we might need to take her in for an operation called a BT shunt, to make sure Millie gets enough blood flow to her lungs. I’ll be able to remove the shunt when she has the operation at six months,’ James explained.
‘It’s a lot to take in,’ Charlotte said, ‘so I’ve got some leaflets for you. You’re bound to have questions afterwards, so I’ll come in again and see you and Millie tomorrow, and we can talk over anything you’re worried about or want to know more about.’
‘Thank you.’ Mrs Fowler looked worried sick.
Charlotte reached over and squeezed her hand. ‘I know it’s worrying,’ she said softly, ‘and you’re probably feeling a bit overwhelmed right now, but things will get better. Millie’s in really good hands, and we can put you in touch with other parents who’ve been through exactly this and can help support you. Obviously w’re Ehere and you can talk to us as any time, but it does help to talk to other parents.’
Mrs Fowler nodded, clearly too choked to talk.
Charlotte gently said goodbye. James clearly intended leaving the ward with her, but she managed to avoid him by the simple strategy of going to the loo.
Ah, hell. She’d been through worse—much worse—in Liverpool. Things would settle down again. It would just take time. And until then…she just needed to keep her distance from James. To stop thinking about him and wishing that things had been different.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
KATE was asleep on the sofa; gently, Rob covered her with a blanket, and went to remind the boys to be quiet while they finished their homework as Kate was sleeping.
But he couldn’t resist peeking in at her before heading for the kitchen.
When Annette had been killed, the bottom had dropped out of his world. He’d never thought he’d fall in love again. And then Kate had arrived in his life, sweet and warm and one of life’s fixers. The more he’d got to know her, the more he’d liked her—and when he’d finally plucked up the courage to ask her out, he’d been amazed that she’d actually said yes.
Liking had turned to love. And he knew without a doubt that he wanted to marry Kate. Part of him wanted to wake her up and ask her there and then. Ask her to make him the happiest man alive.
But it really wouldn’t be fair to ask her.
Not now, when she was so vulnerable. Near the tail end of her treatment, but still with the shadow of cancer hanging over her. Knowing Kate, she’d refuse—not because she didn’t care about him but because she wouldn’t want him to run the risk of becoming a widower for the second time.
It was a risk he was more than prepared to run, but he’d wait. Until Kate had had a chance to recover from the radiotherapy, go to her three-month check-up and get the all-clear. When she’d be in a place to meet him as his equal, in her eyes.
‘And then, Kate Althorp,’ he said very softly in the livingroom doorway, ‘I’m going to ask you to do me the greatest honour. I’m going to ask you to let me love you for the rest of our lives. I’m going to ask you to marry me.’
The weekend was the most miserable that James could ever remember. The end of a whole week where he’d ached with missing Charlotte. And it scared him to find how much he missed her. He’d never, ever felt like this before.
And then it hit him with a shock.
He loved her.
Really loved her.
Though she certainly wasn’t ready to hear those words from him. She might never be. He was going to have to work really hard to establish the old easiness between them—and, given the way she’d been with him at work for the last week, he was beginning to wonder if he ever would be able to do it.
How had it become such a mess? He’d meant to use his celebrity connections for a good reason, to draw attention to what Charlotte was doing and how important the work was. The idea had been to raise the profile of the clinic and get more people to donate funds. And he’d got it wrong. Big time.
This was worse than when he’d discovered the pictures of Sophia draped over the Italian on his father’s yacht—worse than when he’d realised his marriage was an utter sham and Sophia hadn’t loved him for himself at all.
But it wasn’t himself he felt bad for, it was Charlotte. He hated himself for hurting her and causing her problems with the centre. It was so important to her—and, thanks to his interference, he’d heard that she hadn’t been able to avoid the paparazzi and work at the centre that week.
He couldn’t get her accusation out of his head: that he did good, but wanted to make sure that everyone saw him doing it. He’d never thought of it that way, but he was beginning to realise that she had a point. He did lead a flashy lifestyle, and the celebrity world he moved in was incredibly shallow.
He’d considered sending her flowers to apologise but, apart from the fact that it wasn’t anywhere near good enough, he was pretty sure she wouldn’t accept them. The only way he could think of to start making amends was to give some quiet support to the cause that was obviously close to her heart.
And to write her a very, very personal letter of apology.
He just hoped she’d read it.
On Monday evening, Charlotte came home to find a hand-delivered envelope on her doormat. The address was typed. Junk mail, she thought, and opened it, ready to shred anything with her personal details and put the rest in the recycling bin.
But it contained two more envelopes. Both very good quality papers. And both were addressed in handwriting she recognised.
James’s.
One said Open me first and the other Open me second.
Brides of Penhally Bay - Vol 4 Page 44