Her Doctor's Christmas Proposal

by Louisa George

  He wasn’t sure he wanted any more details. He had enough to get his head around, but he couldn’t help asking the questions. ‘So who else helped you? There must have been someone else? An adult? Surely?’

  ‘Evie, our housekeeper.’

  ‘The one who turned me away when I came round that time? Not your parents?’ He could see from Isabel’s closed-off reaction that she hadn’t involved them, just as she hadn’t involved him. He didn’t know whether that made him feel any better or just…just lost. Cut off from her life. After everything he’d believed, he really hadn’t known her at all. ‘They still don’t know? Even now?’

  ‘No. Evie took me to a hospital across town and they sorted me out. Because I was sixteen the doctors didn’t have to tell my parents. I never did. They were away at the time, they wouldn’t have understood. It would have distressed them. The scandal—’

  ‘Of course. We always have to be careful about what our Melbourne royalty think.’ He didn’t care a jot about them now and he hadn’t back then. They’d cosseted their daughters and he’d struggled to get much time alone with her despite his best efforts; over-protective, she’d called them. Of course, he knew better now. But even so, Isabel had been nothing more than a pawn in their celebrity status paraded at every available opportunity, the golden girl. The darling Delamere daughter who couldn’t do any wrong.

  No…that wasn’t what he’d believed at the time, only the intervening years had made him rethink his young and foolish impression of her. When they were together he’d come to love a deep, sensitive girl, not a materialistic, shallow Delamere. But then she’d cut him off and he’d been gutted to find out she was the same as her parents after all. But this news…and to keep it to herself all that time. Who the hell was she? ‘And that’s why you broke off our relationship? That’s why you sent my ring back to me? No explanation.’

  She fiddled with her left ring finger as if that ring were still there. ‘I didn’t know what else to do, to be honest, I was stressed out, grieving. I’d lost my baby. It felt like a punishment, you see. I hadn’t wanted him, but then, when I lost him I wanted him so badly. And seeing you, telling you, would have brought back all that pain. I wasn’t strong enough to relive it again.’ She’d walked towards him, her hand now on his arm. ‘I’m sorry, Sean. I should have told you.’

  ‘Yes, you should have.’ He shook his arm free from her touch. He couldn’t bear to feel her, to smell her intoxicating scent. To see those beautiful, sad eyes. And to know that she’d let him live all those years without telling him the truth.

  He forced himself to look at her. To imagine what must have been going through her head at that time. The fear, the pain, the confusion. The grief. It must have been so terrifying for a young girl. But still he couldn’t fathom why all of that had been a reason to shut herself off from him. To keep all this from him.

  She looked right back at him, not a young girl any longer. She was a beautiful, successful woman with tears swimming in her eyes—tears that did not fall. She wiped them away. It was the first time he’d seen any emotion from her in the months that he’d been here. Now, and when she’d kissed him back in Melbourne. There had been a few emotions skittering across her face back then: fear mainly, and a raw need. ‘Please, Sean. Please say something.’

  He didn’t know what to say. How to feel. Right now, he was just angry. Empty. No…just angry. It was as if a huge chunk of his past had been a lie. He should have known about this. He should have been allowed to know this. ‘I’ve spent all these years wondering what turned you from being such a happy, loving girlfriend to a cold and distant one literally overnight. I thought it was something I’d done and I went over and over everything until I was lost. Or that you’d had a nervous breakdown. Or that I wasn’t good enough for you. I tried to see you but had the door closed in my face so many times I gave up. You refused to answer my calls. I tried hard to understand what was happening. In the end I just presumed your parents had somehow found out and banned you from seeing me.’

  ‘They wouldn’t have done that.’

  ‘Wouldn’t they? You weren’t exactly thrilled at the prospect of telling them we were an item. Let’s keep it a secret, you said. Our secret love. It seems you had a lot of secrets back then, Isabel.’

  She flinched, so she must have remembered saying words he’d believed at the time were heartfelt. ‘I didn’t want to cause you any pain. There wasn’t anything you could do. I thought it would be for the best, for both of us. Just put it all behind us.’

  ‘I could have grieved, Isabel, I could have helped you with that.’ He held her gaze. ‘So was it? For the best?’

  She shook her head. ‘No. Not for me, anyway.’

  ‘And not for me, either. I’m sorry, Isabel. I’m sorry you had to go through that, I know how hard it must have been. But…’ And it was a hell of a big but…what was he supposed to do now? Why hadn’t she told him? Even though she’d lost their baby, did that mean she’d had to throw their love aside too? He couldn’t think straight. Just looking at her brought back hurt, and more, stacked alongside the fact that he’d been a dad. He’d had a son. And he hadn’t even known.

  Words failed him. ‘I can’t imagine your state of mind, you’re right. But one thing is for sure. If I’d known something like that that deeply involved someone else, someone I’d professed to care about—to love, even—I’d have mentioned it.’

  She hung her head. ‘It was a long time ago. We have to move on, Sean.’

  ‘Easy for you to say, Isabel.’ He was loud now, he knew his anger was spilling into his voice, his face, but he didn’t much care. ‘You’ve had many years to get over this. It’s in your past. But this, this is my present right now. So you’ll excuse me if I take a little time to come to terms with it all. I had a son? Wow. It would have been nice to know that.’

  ‘Oh, yes? Well, it was horrible. I was distraught, traumatised. I was a young girl, for God’s sake.’ Her voice was shaky now, like her hands. ‘You know what makes it all so much worse? You. Seeing you brings it all back, and I don’t want to think about it any more. It hurts. Okay? It hurts, so I wish you’d never found me.’

  You have no idea what she’s been through, Isla had said when she’d encouraged him to come all this way to confront Isabel. Don’t hurt her. No? He didn’t want to do that. He didn’t want to make her relive that pain.

  But he didn’t want to be with her either. Right now he didn’t even want to breathe the same air as her. Not after this.

  A difficult silence wrapped around them like the foggy December day outside.

  Her hand covered his. ‘I didn’t mean to hurt you, Sean. I’m sorry for leaving you to wonder all those years.’

  ‘Yeah. Well, so you should be. Keep out of my way, Isabel. I mean it. Keep out of my way.’ And without so much as looking at her again he stalked out of the room.

  *

  ‘You’ve had a major operation and a big shock to your body. Three units of blood. That’s an awful lot to get over.’ Isabel gave Susan Patterson what she hoped was a reassuring smile. Twenty-four hours post-op many patients felt as if they’d been hit by a truck. But because they always, always put their babies first they tried to recover far too quickly. ‘The good news is, you’re making an excellent recovery. Your blood pressure is stable and your blood results are fine. We’re going to move you from High Dependency back to the ward so you can be in with the other mums, and we’ll bring baby up to be with you. He’s ready to leave SCBU now. Between you both you’ve kept us on our toes, but things are definitely on the way up. He’s a little fighter, that one.’

  ‘He’s got a good set of lungs, I’ll give him that.’ Susan gave a weak smile back. Kicking back the covers, she tried to climb out of bed. But when her feet hit the floor she grabbed onto the bed table for stability. She was still a little pale, and Isabel made a note to keep an eye on that. It wasn’t just haemoglobin she needed to watch, it was Susan’s desire to do too much too soon.

>   ‘Hey, there’s no hurry. Rest easy. I’ll ask a nurse to come help you have a shower. That scar’s in a tricky place, so you need to support it when you move. And remember, Caesareans do take longer to recover from, so don’t expect too much from yourself.’ Glancing at the chart, she realised Susan’s baby was still listed as Baby Patterson. ‘Have you thought of a name for that gorgeous wee boy yet?’

  Doing as she was told, Susan sat down on the side of the bed; a little more colour crept into her cheeks. ‘We had thought about something Christmassy like Joseph or Noel, but as he was early we had to change all that. If he’d been a girl I’d have called him Isabel.’ Her cheeks pinked more. ‘After you, because you did such a great job of saving us both. But instead we thought we’d choose Isaac. It has the Is in it—and that’ll remind us of you. I guess you get that all the time?’

  Isabel felt her smile blossom from the inside. ‘Actually, not very often at all. It’s very nice of you. Thank you. I’m honoured.’

  ‘Oh, and Sean as a middle name. After Dr Anderson.’

  Sean. Of course. Why not? She forced the smile to stay in place. ‘Oh. Lovely. I’m sure he’ll be thrilled.’

  And she’d got through ten whole minutes without thinking about him, just to be reminded all over again.

  Last night had been filled with internal recriminations that had intensified in direct proportion to her wine consumption. From: she should have told him years ago, to…she was glad she’d kept that pain from him, to…how dared he be so angry? She’d been the one going through the miscarriage. She could choose who she disclosed that information to.

  But the way he’d looked at her had hurt the most. He’d shut down. Shut her out. The light and the vibrancy that she’d always seen in him had been extinguished. He hadn’t even been able to look at her. And that had been her fault.

  And now…now that she thought about it, she realised that he had a very disturbing effect on her. Even after all the intervening years she still found just looking at him made her mouth water, made her heart ache for more. Thinking about that kiss made her…

  ‘Isabel? Dr Delamere?’

  ‘Oh, sorry. I was miles away.’ Now she couldn’t even focus on her job properly. First and last time she’d let that happen. It was Maggie, one of the ward clerks. ‘I have a message from Jacob. He wants to see you in his office, as soon as you can.’

  ‘Oh, fine, thank you.’ Isabel turned to excuse herself from her patient. ‘I’m sorry, Susan, but Jacob’s the boss around here, so I’d better get going. I’m off to Paris tomorrow for a conference with him. But I’m so glad we managed to get you on the road to recovery before I go.’

  ‘Paris? Lucky you.’ The new mum looked almost wistful.

  ‘No. You have a husband and a lovely family. I’d say you are the luckier woman right now.’ Isabel tried to put all thoughts of Sean out of her mind. Once upon a faraway innocent time she’d dreamt of having what Susan had: a husband and family. But the thought of risking her heart again left her more than cold. Terrified, in fact. She just knew she couldn’t survive that kind of loss again.

  So seven days away from Sean would be the perfect antidote. She could lose herself in the bright lights and the Christmas markets and the lovely amazingness that she’d heard Paris was—oh, yes, and she had work to do, at least, for the first few days. ‘I’ll pop in this evening, Susan, to make sure you’re okay before I head off. In the meantime, be good and rest up.’

  Thinking about which boots to take with her to Paris…and deciding, oh, what the hell, she’d take all three pairs…she sauntered along the corridor to Jacob Layton’s office. She was just about to tap under the Head Obstetrician sign on his door when she heard voices. Two men. Not happy.

  What should she do? Knock and enter? Wait?

  Ah, whatever, she’d been summoned, so she knocked.

  ‘Isabel.’ Jacob opened the door with a frown. He seemed flustered. Not his more recent relaxed self, but more a throwback to the days when he used to have the nurses quaking in their boots. Maybe things hadn’t been going so smoothly with him and Bonnie. But they seemed fine, beyond happy even. Or…worst-case scenario, maybe he was sick again? The man had a habit of keeping too much to himself and not allowing others to share the load.

  ‘Hi, Jacob.’ Instinctively she put her hand out to his arm. ‘Are you okay?’

  ‘Yes. Fine.’ He stepped back from her hand, looking a little alarmed. No, embarrassed.

  ‘Are you sure? You look—’

  ‘I’m absolutely fine. In all respects.’ Not one to expand on anything personal, he gestured her to come into the office. ‘But I need to talk to you…both.’ He nodded towards Sean, who was standing at the far side of the office, looking out of the window, hands thrust into his trouser pockets. Everything about Sean’s manner screamed irritation. Anger.

  He turned. ‘Isabel.’

  ‘Sean.’ So they were down to monosyllables. Okay, she could live with that for the next five minutes. But, dang it, her heart had another idea altogether and tripped along merrily at the sight of him standing here in a dark-collared shirt and asset-enhancing charcoal trousers, all grumpy and angry and so very, very gorgeous. Why did he have to look so damned delicious?

  He always looked delicious to her, she realised, with a sudden pang in her tummy. Even when he was angry. But that wasn’t important, couldn’t be important.

  ‘Look. You’re not going to like what I’m going to say. So…’ Jacob beckoned them both to sit down ‘…I’m just going to cut to the chase, here.’

  ‘Why? What’s the problem?’ Something inside Isabel’s gut tumbled and tumbled. She looked from Jacob to Sean and back again.

  Sean shrugged. ‘We are. Apparently.’

  Jacob shook his head. ‘I’m sorry to say, I need to talk to you about an incident yesterday. An argument, between the two of you.’

  Blood rushed to her cheeks. Isabel couldn’t believe it. She’d never had so much as a frown about her behaviour, never mind being involved in an ‘incident’, as if she’d been rude or unprofessional or worse. It had been a private conversation, opening her very shattered heart. ‘Someone complained about it? A patient?’

  ‘No, not a patient.’ Her boss looked a little red-faced. ‘This meeting is unofficial and won’t go down on your records, unless…well, let’s just say, if you can resolve this situation amicably…’

  ‘What situation?’ Uh-huh. Of course. Sean hadn’t been happy about what she’d told him yesterday, he felt betrayed and now he wanted to get his own back by getting her fired? Surely that was too underhanded even for him? That would be callous and bullying and very unlike the Sean she’d known. But she didn’t know him now, really, did she? They’d been apart too long. He wouldn’t…would he? She turned to look at him. ‘Did you make a complaint, Sean?’

  His blue eyes fired black. ‘Don’t be ridiculous. Of course not.’

  Jacob’s hands rose in a calming gesture. ‘No, no, it wasn’t Sean. It wasn’t a complaint. I overheard a lot of arguing yesterday in the OR. Raised voices. Personal things were said. It made for unpleasant listening—which, I might add, was unavoidable and a few other people overheard too. The staff now think they’re going to have to work in world war three, dodging bullets flying between you two.’ Jacob leaned towards Isabel. ‘I know I’ve been difficult, I know I can be a grouch, but I hope I never had cause to raise my voice or make everyone feel as if they couldn’t work with me.’

  He’d been sick, poor man, and had wanted to keep that to himself. He’d told no one and borne the weight of the department’s needs along with his illness. He deserved a bloody medal. And yes, he’d been grumpy too, but things had changed—in his love life, mainly—and he was a lot happier now. And well again. The atmosphere in the department had become much more relaxed, until…

  ‘So are you saying that people don’t want to work with me? That it will be awkward?’ Because of Sean? This was ridiculous. Never, ever, had her private life interfe
red with her work. Never. She was a professional. Her work was her life and she would not let anything get in the way of that. Damn Sean Anderson. Damn him for making her life hell all over again.

  ‘No,’ Jacob continued. ‘I’m saying that I can’t have my top obstetricians in such discord. You need to be able to assist each other, to work together at times. I want a harmonious atmosphere when I come to work. Not Armageddon. My staff deserve that, the patients certainly deserve that and so do you if you’re going to do the job well.’

  Sean nodded, and his reaction was surprising. ‘Things got a little heated, I admit. It won’t happen again.’ She’d expected him to level the blame at her, but instead he wore it. He continued, ‘We will be back to situation normal as soon as we leave this room. You have my word on it.’ But Sean didn’t look at her and she knew from the tightness in his shoulders and the taut way he held his body that he was livid, and only just about managing to keep it together in front of the boss.

  And he was right, of course. They had to be normal and civil with each other, for the sake of their colleagues and their jobs. Their patients deserved the utmost professional conduct, not two senior doctors fighting over something that happened years ago.

  But still…she didn’t know if she could face him and be normal. Not after the way he’d looked at her. And definitely not after the kiss that still haunted her.

  She needed time away from him, that was the answer. Although, she ignored the nagging voice in her head that told her that seventeen years apart from him hadn’t made a huge difference to her attraction to him. This time she’d make it work. She’d erase him from her life. She’d go to Paris and teach herself all things Zen and meditate or something, she’d learn the huffy aloofness of Parisian women, she’d become sophisticated…and she’d come back immune to his generally annoying attractiveness.