Sydney Harbour Hospital: Lexi's Secret

by MELANIE MILBURNE

  She stepped into his arms and sighed as her body came up against his. She laid her head on his chest and moved with him as the slow romantic ballad took her back in time. ‘I’ve missed you,’ Lexi said. ‘I can’t stop thinking about the weekend, how wonderful it was.’

  Sam rested his chin on the top of her head as the song changed to a poignant minor key. ‘I’ve missed you too,’ he said, his legs moving in time with hers.

  They danced through another number, a slow waltz that made Lexi feel like she was floating on air instead of dancing with her feet firmly on the ground. It always felt like that in Sam’s arms. Her worries and cares slipped to the back of her mind when his arms held her close against him. She felt protected and safe, his arms like a shield to keep the world and all its disappointments away from her. He might not love her the way she wanted to be loved but she was sure he felt something for her, something more than just transient lust. But would it be enough to sustain a relationship between them? And for how long? A week or two? A month? Three months?

  And what was she going to do about Matthew? He had promised to match the funds she raised this evening. How could she tell him she no longer wanted to marry him? How could she reach him before she went any further with Sam?

  Lexi felt Sam’s lips moving against her hair. ‘What are you doing after this is over?’ he asked. ‘Do you want to come and spend the night with me on my yacht? Tomorrow we could go out on the water. Just the two of us. No interruptions.’

  Lexi looked up into his handsome face. ‘Sam …’

  A frown settled between his brows. ‘You haven’t told your fiancé yet, have you?’

  She lowered her gaze, staring at the bow tie at his neck rather than meet his gaze. ‘I have responsibilities, Sam. I’ve made a commitment to the hospital and I can’t just walk away. It’s not that simple. People are relying on me.’

  Sam’s features darkened with cynicism. ‘It’s about the money, isn’t it?’ he said. ‘You’d do anything for Brentwood’s money, wouldn’t you? You’d even sell your soul.’

  Lexi stepped back and hugged her upper arms against the light chill in the air. ‘Sam, you’re asking too much and giving too little,’ she said. ‘You want me to give up my life for you but what are you promising in return?’

  His eyes glittered darkly. ‘Isn’t what we have together enough for now?’ he asked.

  Lexi opened her mouth to answer when she heard the sound of footsteps and two male voices approaching.

  One was her father’s.

  ‘I think she went out there,’ Richard said. ‘She’s probably gone off to the kitchen to sort something out with the caterers. She won’t be far away. Do you want me to call her on her mobile? I’m pretty sure she has it switched on.’

  The other voice was her fiancé’s.

  ‘No,’ Matthew Brentwood said, anticipation and excitement evident in his voice. ‘Don’t do that. She has no idea I’m here. She walked past me three times already and didn’t recognise me. I want it to be a surprise when I finally take off my mask.’

  Lexi looked at Sam in wide-eyed panic. Matthew was here? Her heart threatened to beat its way out of her chest. She couldn’t breathe. She felt trapped. Claustrophobic. Her stomach was churning. She wasn’t prepared. She needed more time. She needed to get her emotions in check.

  Sam gave her a look that cut her to ribbons. ‘Thank you for the dance,’ he said. ‘I hope you enjoy the rest of your evening.’ And without another word he strode away, not back into the marquee where all the laughter and music and frivolity was happening but into the anonymous darkness of the night.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  IT TOOK Lexi over a week to find the courage to tell Matthew their engagement was over. It was the worst feeling in the world to have broken someone’s heart, and not just Matthew’s heart but his parents’ and sisters’ too.

  After she had said spoken to Matthew she stood outside the Brentwoods’ lovely family home, the house she had come to think of as her second home, and knew she would never be back.

  It would have been easier if Matthew had been angry at her, furious with her for betraying him. But instead he had just been sad, utterly and indescribably sad. His grey-blue eyes had looked stricken as she had told him she couldn’t marry him. He hadn’t shouted. He hadn’t hurled abuse at her. He hadn’t even withdrawn his offer of matching the amount of money she had raised for the transplant unit. He had honoured his promise, which made the breaking of hers that much harder for her to do without feeling appallingly guilty, even though she knew deep in her heart she was doing the right thing.

  As soon as Lexi’s father found out he told her to pack her bags and leave. He ranted and raved, shouting and swearing, thumping his fists on the table, reminding Lexi of a child having a tantrum because he couldn’t have his own way. Unable to bear it any longer, she packed a few things before she made her way to Sam’s apartment.

  She rang the doorbell but there was no answer. A sickening feeling of déjà vu assailed her. Surely he hadn’t left without telling her? But of course not, she reassured herself. He was working at the hospital. He had a two-year contract with an option for five. He was probably on call or something.

  Sam wasn’t at the hospital either, Susanne, his practice manager, informed her. ‘He had a heart-lung transplant this morning,’ she said. ‘He did his rounds straight after he saw a few patients in the rooms. You might find him down at the marina. He’s probably gone out for a quick sail. He should be just about back by now.’

  ‘Thanks, Susanne.’ Lexi turned to leave.

  ‘Oh, and, Lexi?’ Susanne said.

  Lexi turned at the door. ‘Yes?’

  ‘I’m sorry to hear about your engagement,’ Susanne said. ‘I heard about it from one of the staff.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Lexi said. ‘But I think it’s for the best.’

  It was almost sundown by the time Lexi got to the marina. Her heart sank when she couldn’t see Sam’s boat anywhere in sight. Then in the distance she could see his yacht motoring back to the marina. She drank in the sight of him. She hadn’t seen him since the night of the ball. He looked so gorgeous standing at the helm of his boat, steering it into its mooring place.

  She stood with her bags at her feet, waiting for him, her heart beating hard and fast in excitement and longing.

  He looked up and saw her, a frown carving into his forehead when his gaze went to the bags at her feet. Once the boat was tied up securely he jumped down on the marina to face her. ‘What are you doing here, Lexi?’ he asked, still frowning formidably.

  Lexi’s stomach did a queasy little turnover. ‘I’ve come to tell you I’ve called off my engagement,’ she said.

  ‘I already heard about that in the doctors’ room this morning,’ he said, as if it was the most insignificant news, like the current price of milk or bread.

  Lexi licked her dry lips. ‘I would’ve liked you to have been the first to know but my father took it upon himself to tell everyone what a disappointment for a daughter I’ve become because I cancelled my wedding within a couple of weeks of the ceremony.’

  ‘It’s your life, not his,’ he said, his face set like marble.

  Lexi let out a rattling breath. ‘Sam? Is everything all right?’

  His eyes were blank. ‘Sure? Why wouldn’t it be?’

  She bit her lip. ‘I just thought you’d be more … more excited about me ending things with Matthew. I thought you’d be thrilled we can be together now. I’m free, Sam. It can be just you and me. We can be together all the time.’

  Sam glanced at her bags before returning his gaze to hers. ‘I offered you an affair, not a place to stay,’ he said. ‘Nothing serious and nothing long term, remember?’

  Lexi looked at his mouth speaking those cruel, heartbreaking words and wondered if she had misheard him. She moistened her lips again. ‘Sam, I love you. Surely you know that by now? I love you and I want to be with you.’

  His jaw was tight, his eyes hard and i
mpenetrable. ‘I don’t love you, Lexi. I’ve never loved you. I’m happy to enjoy an affair with you but that’s it. Take or leave it.’

  Inside Lexi’s chest she felt her heart had broken off in a thousand sharp-edged pieces, each one scoring at her lungs every time she took a breath. ‘You can’t mean that, Sam,’ she said, tears building up in her eyes. ‘I’ve given up everything for you. I can’t imagine life without you. How can you do this to me?’

  Sam’s expression was still locked down. ‘I haven’t done anything to you, Lexi. You’ve done it to yourself.’

  ‘You asked me to end my engagement!’ She didn’t care that her voice was shrill.

  ‘I didn’t ask you to do any such thing,’ he said in a steely voice. ‘I just asked you how you could possibly think of marrying a man who didn’t satisfy you. You were marrying him for all the wrong reasons. I did not at any point offer to take his place at the altar.’

  Lexi swallowed her anguish with an effort. Pride was the only thing she had left and she clung to it with the desperation a drowning person did a life raft. She would have to walk away. She would have to rebuild her life. She would have to learn to be happy without Sam, the only man she had ever loved, the only man she could ever love. There would be no happy ending. No marriage and making babies together. It had all been a fantasy that she had mistaken for the real thing. Again. Yet again she had been duped by her own foolish, romantic dreams. ‘I hope you find what you’re looking for, Sam,’ she said in a cold, hard voice. ‘And then when you find it, I hope it gets snatched away from you and you never get it back.’ And then she picked up her bags and walked back up the marina, out of his life for good.

  Sam watched her walk away, the words to call her back lodged in the middle of his throat where a choking knot had formed. Seeing Lexi on the wharf with her bags packed, ready to move into his life, had made him panic. But, then, ever since he had heard she had called off her engagement he had felt conflicted. He had felt the same gut-wrenching agitation the night of the ball when he’d heard the sound of her fiancé’s voice.

  Up until that point Sam had assumed Matthew Brentwood was one of those rich, shallow guys who had plucked the prettiest girl from his social set and got engaged to her because it was the thing to do. But hearing Matthew’s excitement at seeing Lexi again had hit Sam in the gut like a wildly flung bowling ball.

  The man loved her, really loved her.

  Sam needed time to think, to process what it meant now Lexi was free. He felt uncomfortable with the prospect of being forever labelled as the man who had come between her and her fiancé, especially when he wasn’t sure he could offer her more than a resumption of their affair. He wanted to offer more but he didn’t know if he was capable of opening up that part of him that had closed down so long ago.

  Lexi deserved better than another casual fling with him. She deserved to be loved totally and completely, but he wasn’t sure he was ready to make that sort of emotional commitment, or at least not yet.

  Sam threw himself into work over the next couple of weeks but even after the most gruelling days he still hadn’t been able to sleep at night. He thought about Lexi all the time. He hadn’t seen her at the hospital. He had heard via one of the nurses that she had taken some leave. The days seemed so long and pointless without the anticipation of running into her in one of the corridors or on the ward. He hadn’t realised how much he had looked forward to those offchance meetings, those little verbal stoushes that had made his blood bubble with sexual excitement in his veins.

  Even being out on his boat wasn’t the same any more. He could still smell the fragrance of her perfume. It had seemed to permeate the very woodwork of its every surface, torturing him with a thousand little reminders of her: the way she had squealed as she had jumped into the cold water of the ocean; the way her naked body had been wrapped around his on the hot sand as he’d possessed her; the way her soft mouth had pleasured him; the way she had stroked and caressed every inch of his body until he had thought of nothing but the incredible release he felt with her. Even his shirts smelled like her. Wearing them was like wrapping himself in her.

  He wanted to rewind the clock, to go back to the marina and do it all differently. But every time he called her phone it went straight to the answering service. And each time he hadn’t said anything. Not a word. Hell, it was so pathetic. He had been as tongue-tied as any shy young teenager asking a girl on a first date.

  Sam drove up to visit his father on the weekend to distract himself from the habit he’d developed lately of incessantly checking his phone for texts or missed calls. He was acting like some of the teenagers he saw around town, their phones never out of their hands, their fingers constantly texting or scrolling.

  Jack Bailey enveloped him in a bear hug as soon as he arrived. ‘I hope you don’t mind, Sam, but I’ve invited a young lady to join us for dinner,’ he said.

  ‘Come on, Dad,’ Sam said with an edge of irritation. ‘You know I hate it when you try and hook me up with women. I can find my own dates.’ And lose them, not once but twice. Would Lexi ever forgive him for that? he wondered. Probably not. No wonder she wasn’t taking his calls.

  ‘This one’s not for you, son,’ Jack said grinning. ‘Jean’s my date.’

  Sam stared at his father with his mouth open. ‘You’ve got a date?’

  Jack beamed. ‘It’s only taken me twenty years to put myself out there but she’s great, Sam. She reminds me of your mother. I guess that’s why I fell in love with her.’

  Sam was still gobsmacked. ‘You’re in love?’

  ‘Yep, and I’m getting married,’ Jack said.

  ‘Married?’

  Jack nodded happily but then his expression turned sombre. ‘I grieved too long for your mum,’ he said. ‘I guess I felt so guilty about her dying because I couldn’t afford the health cover. But life is short, Sam. You of all people know that. No one knows how long we have on this earth. We each of us have to grab at what happiness we can before it’s too late. Your mother would’ve wanted me to be happy. She would want you to be happy too.’

  Sam rubbed one of his hands over his face. ‘Yeah, well, I’d like to be happy but you won’t believe the mess I’ve made of things …’

  His father listened as Sam told him what had happened. ‘Sounds bad, son, especially when she won’t even take your calls. What are going to do?’

  ‘What are you doing for the next couple of days?’ Sam asked. ‘Do you fancy some time out on the boat?’

  ‘Sure,’ Jack said with a twinkle in his eyes. ‘Are we going fishing?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Sam said with a slowly spreading smile. ‘You could say that.’

  Lexi was walking along the beach at Noosa on the Sunshine Coast of Queensland when she saw him. At first she thought she had imagined it, conjuring him up out of a bad case of wishful thinking. But the closer he came the faster her heart began to beat until it was even louder than the sound of the waves crashing against the shore.

  She wanted to turn and walk back the other way. That’s what her head was telling her to do but for some reason her feet weren’t co-operating. They were stuck in the soft sand as if it had suddenly turned into concrete.

  ‘Lexi,’ Sam said, coming to stand in front of her.

  She gave him a brittle look. ‘I don’t have anything to say to you.’

  ‘Maybe not, but I have something to say to you.’

  She rolled her eyes and started walking away. ‘I can just imagine what it is,’ she said, her bare feet making squeaking noises on the pristine sand. ‘You want me to have a sordid little affair with you until you find someone else who interests you more.’

  ‘No,’ Sam said. ‘That’s not what I want to say. Anyway, no one interests me more than you do.’

  ‘Sure, and I believe you,’ Lexi said, throwing him a fulminating look over her shoulder.

  Sam looked at her flushed features. Her long blond hair was blowing across her face and she kept flicking it back with angry mov
ements of her hands. She looked like a mermaid. His very own gorgeous sea nymph. How could he have ever imagined his life without her in it? ‘Don’t you want to hear what I’ve come all this way to say?’ he asked.

  She frowned at him furiously. ‘You think I would agree to have a relationship with you after the way you treated me?’

  ‘You took me by surprise, turning up at the marina like that,’ he said. ‘I wasn’t prepared. I needed more time to think things over.’

  ‘I took you by surprise?’ she flashed back. ‘I thought you were going to welcome me with open arms and instead you sent me away as if I was nothing to you but an annoying little tramp.’

  ‘I know,’ Sam said. ‘It was unforgiveable.’

  ‘You’ve got that right, country boy,’ she said, stomping away again.

  Sam had to trot to keep up. He caught one of her arms and turned her round to face him. ‘Lexi—’

  ‘If you don’t let me go this instant I’ll scream for the lifeguard,’ she said. ‘I’ll say you’re attacking me. I’ll tell him you’re a stalker. I’ll tell him you’ve been calling me about a hundred times and never saying anything, not a single word. I’ll tell him … I’ll tell him you broke my heart and I’ll probably never ever be happy again …’ She choked back a little sob.

  Sam looked at her with melting eyes. ‘Lexi, darling,’ he said, holding her close so she couldn’t run away again. ‘You know how hopeless I am with words. I can only manage one or two when I’m feeling under pressure. I just clam up. But there are three words I wanted to say to your face. I love you.’

  ‘No, you don’t.’ Her eyes flashed at him. ‘I bet you’re just saying that to get me back into your bed.’

  Sam lifted her chin, a soft smile playing about his mouth. ‘I knew you probably wouldn’t believe me so that’s why I have a back-up plan.’

  Lexi wrinkled her forehead. ‘A … a what?’

  Sam turned her so she was facing the ocean. There was a yacht out behind the small breakers. Lexi could just make out the name on the side—Whispering Waves. ‘You sailed all the way up here?’ she asked, looking back at him.