She gave an imperceptible shake of her head to refocus her thoughts.
‘However, the paediatric surgeon we spoke to doesn’t want to operate due to her young age. He doesn’t want to operate when the patient is still growing and developing, and he doesn’t know if she could cope mentally with the procedures, including an implant.’
‘He has a point.’
‘I appreciate that, and you must know how cautious I am about making such recommendations. But I’ve worked with this girl for almost a year. I don’t believe its body dysmorphic disorder, and I know it’s a fear of all paediatric plastic surgeons that they could miss such a diagnosis. In this case it clearly isn’t an imagined or minor so-called defect in her appearance. It is something which is understandably imposing significant limitations on her life.’
‘And what about realising the impact of these procedures? Does your patient understand that her body will never be perfect, that she will have to deal with the scars from the operation?’
‘She absolutely does understand that. But, in her own words, the scar is something she could live with. It wouldn’t prevent her from wearing a bra, or a swimsuit, or a prom dress. All things she currently can’t do.’
He pinned her with a look that was more about the undercurrents running between them than the conversation they were ostensibly having.
‘And your assessment is that this procedure isn’t just about rectifying the physical problem but is necessary for developing well-being?’
‘I think it’s essential to her self-esteem and her social development at this crucial time in her life, Mr Van Berg.’
Her hands shook as she took another steadying sip of her coffee, her eyes still locked with his over the plastic rim.
‘Then I’ll take a look at the case before I leave.’
‘You would do that for her?’
‘I told you before, I respect you as one professional to another,’ he growled. ‘So, how’s the boyfriend?’
Evie stiffened. As it happened her latest attempt at a boyfriend had resulted in being unceremoniously dumped when his mother had deemed her not good enough for her precious son, after Evie had revealed that she would never be able to give the woman the longed-for grandchild.
She hadn’t loved the guy, but, still, it had been painful. It had hurt being told that she wasn’t good enough, an echo of the hurt she’d felt when her father had walked out all those years ago.
But surely Max couldn’t know about her pathetic love-life? She’d be a laughing stock. Hospital gossip was an unstoppable machine, everyone knew that, but, not working at Silvertrees permanently, she’d always convinced herself that she escaped the worst of it. Still, if people did know, then she couldn’t afford to lie to Max now.
‘Gone.’
She fought to affect nonchalance.
‘Good. He didn’t deserve you anyway,’ Max murmured, his hand reaching slowly up to lower the cup from her lips.
‘You didn’t know him,’ she protested mildly.
‘I know if he lost you, he’s a loser.’
Evie swallowed hard, unable to tear her eyes away from his.
‘I’m going to check on your patient now. All I ask in return is that you join me for a drink in the bar across the way as soon as I can get away from this farewell party I’m supposed to be at right now.’
‘What about your business and pleasure rule?’ she whispered.
‘In a few days, I won’t even be in this country, let alone this hospital.’ He gave a lopsided grin, so sexy it made her toes curl. ‘I think we can bend the rules this once, don’t you?’
His head inched closer until his nose skimmed hers. It was like some kind of exquisite torture.
She knew she should be strong, back away. But didn’t she know only too well that life was short?
Stretching her neck, she closed the gap between them, a small sound of pleasure escaping her throat as her lips met his.
Max responded without hesitation. One hand slid around the back of her head as the other pulled her firmly to him. The reality of the feel of his solid body even more impressive than the eye had allowed the mind to imagine. His teeth grazed her lips as his tongue danced seductively. He might seem dedicated to his career and refuse to date within the hospital pool, but there was no doubting that Max had dated. He knew exactly what he was doing to her.
It was all Evie could do to raise her hands and grip his shoulders and she hung on for the ride.
‘Is that you?’
‘Is what me?’ she muttered, frustrated that he’d pulled away from her.
‘The beeper.’ His voice was laced with amusement.
Slowly a familiar sound filtered into her head.
‘Oh, that’s me,’ she gasped as her brain slowly clicked back into gear.
‘Yes...’ the corners of his lips twitched as she stood dazed and immobile ‘...Evangeline. You need to go now.’
‘I do,’ she murmured, muscle memory allowing her legs to start moving, backwards but in the right direction, even as her brain felt frazzled.
‘I’ll go and see your patient. When you’re done with whatever your message is you can come and find me. I’ll be back in my office.’
‘I... Okay, I’ll...see you later, Mr Van Berg.’
She watched Max turn smoothly and walk towards the double doors at the far end of the corridor, unable to stop him or say anything. It was only when her back slammed into something solid that she realised she’d reached the double doors at her own end.
She wanted to say something, but no words would come.
‘Oh, and, Evangeline?’ Max twisted his head to call over his shoulder. ‘For the rest of tonight shall we agree that it’s Max, and not Mr Van Berg?’
A slow grin spread over her face as he disappeared through the doors.
CHAPTER ONE
EVIE PACED THE hospital corridor.
The wait was excruciating. The squeak of her shoes sounded unusually distracting as she slowly turned on the polished floor. The ever-present smell of disinfectant pervaded her olfactory senses in a way it never had before, so strong that she could almost taste it. Once she’d been a doctor here, now she was a patient like anyone else. She could wait in the visitors’ room but there was already a woman in there who seemed to want to talk every time Evie was in there.
And anyway, out here she felt more in control, and closer to her sister-in-law, Annie. Beyond the double doors, Annie was going through yet another set of checks to confirm that she was still suitable to be Evie’s living donor for a new kidney. But after almost a year and a bombardment of test after test to confirm compatibility and eligibility, these final cross-matching and blood-pressure checks still had to be run.
She subconsciously touched her lower abdomen, more out of habit than pain since the cramps had already subsided after today’s dialysis session. Less than a week and this whole nightmare would hopefully be behind her.
Yet that wasn’t even what had her heart performing its real show-stopping drum solo, as it had every single visit she’d made to Silvertrees since that night with Max, almost one year ago to the day. The double doors clanged at the end of the corridor, causing her to whirl around, her heart in her throat, just as it had been every other hospital visit in the last four months since he’d returned from Gaza. But it was always just patients or hospital staff she didn’t know or barely recognised. Evie had no reason to think she would ever just bump into Max here. The transplant unit was in a dedicated wing set slightly apart from the main hospital. And yet every time she feared—and hoped—that the next person to walk through the doors would be him.
She could have chosen a different hospital, the one closer to where she now called home, but Evie’s referral to the state-of-the-art facility at Silvertrees was like gold dust and she’d
have been a fool to turn it down for fear of bumping into a man who, for all intents and purposes, had been nothing more than a one—okay, five—night stand.
At least, that was the argument she told herself, and the one she was sticking with. After the two catastrophic attempts she’d made to contact him when he’d still been in Gaza, to tell him about the baby they had created together, she wasn’t about to admit out loud that some traitorous part of her secretly dreamed that Fate might intervene. That, in the silence of the night, a tiny, muffled voice challenged her to venture into the main hospital and find him.
Not that she had any idea what she would say to him. How she would even attempt to begin to explain the choices that she’d made. In her heart she knew everything she’d done had been for their baby—a miracle, given the deterioration in Evie’s kidney condition at the time of the pregnancy—but it didn’t make her feel good about herself.
And still.
She’d hardly been in a state to think clearly when she’d accepted the hush money. In a daze from her premature baby and her kidney failure, rushing between NICU and her dialysis sessions. So when Max’s parents—the people who should have their son’s best interests at heart—had told her that neither they, nor their son, would want anything to do with the baby, a fiercely protective new-mother instinct of her own had kicked in. She’d worked with enough troubled teens to know how damaging it could be when a child was unloved, unwanted. And she had her own painful experience of being left by her father, too.
Both she and Imogen deserved better than that. They deserved to be cherished, not made to feel like a burden. And so Evie had allowed herself to be persuaded it was in her precious baby’s best interests not to tell Max Van Berg he was a father.
But what if she’d been wrong? What if Max would have wanted to know about his daughter? Her head whirled with doubts, drowning out the sound of the double doors slamming open once again.
‘Evie?’
Goosebumps swept across her skin. She didn’t turn around; she couldn’t. The voice was painfully familiar and intensely masculine. It evoked a host of memories that Evie had spent a year trying unsuccessfully to bury. A prong of doubt speared her insides. Had she been wrong to believe he didn’t care? Because in that perfect moment Max actually sounded happy—albeit a little shocked—to see her.
She swallowed ineffectually, her mouth too parched, and her heart wasn’t so much beating in her chest as assaulting her chest wall. Whatever she’d imagined, she wasn’t mentally prepared for this but there was nothing else for it.
Steeling herself against the kick from the moment she laid eyes on Max again, Evie lifted her head boldly and completed a slow one-eighty.
She hadn’t steeled herself enough.
‘Max.’ She gritted her teeth, striving to sound calm. In control.
‘What are you doing here, Evie?’
There was still no trace of chilliness in his tone. Was that a good thing, or a bad one? It suggested he knew nothing about Imogen, so maybe there was still hope. But then again, it also meant he’d been happy with their fling and certainly hadn’t been thinking about her these last twelve months so the bombshell of a daughter wouldn’t be well received.
So she stayed silent and contented herself with drinking in the man she recalled so very intimately.
Time apart had done little to diminish the sheer physical presence he exuded and she was grateful for the few feet of space between them, acting as something of a safety buffer, both mentally and physically. But space couldn’t erase everything. The way Max looked and the authority he exuded. The feel of his skin beneath her hands and her body. The way he smelled—no overpowering aftershave for Max, but instead a faint, intoxicating masculine scent underpinned with a hint of lime basil shower gel she remembered only too well.
‘Are you working here again?’ he pushed.
‘No.’
Silence hung between them.
‘Evangeline, why are you here?’
She had to say something. She was standing in the middle of a dedicated transplant unit—she had to explain her visit somehow. So she settled for a half-truth.
‘My sister-in-law has some tests before her appointment with Mrs Goodwin,’ Evie started carefully, studying his face for any kind of reaction.
‘Arabella Goodwin?’ He frowned. ‘The nephrologist?’
‘That’s right,’ she confirmed slowly.
‘Is it serious?’
Evie searched his face; she needed to be careful here. Really be sure of herself before she said anything.
Admittedly, he seemed genuinely interested, but that meant nothing. This was the side of Max she knew, his sincere concern for his patients and their families. But it didn’t mean he wanted a family of his own. It just meant he was dedicated to his career.
Just as his parents had cruelly reminded her.
Just as they’d made her see that, for Max at least, their short-lived fling had been just that. It certainly hadn’t been the start of something. He hadn’t asked her to wait for him whilst he was away in Gaza. He hadn’t even told her that his parents were the renowned surgeons she had read about, attended guest speaker talks to see, studied, throughout her medical studies.
In short, they had shared five nights and four days of intense, unparalleled intimacy, yet told each other so very little about their lives beyond the bedroom.
What if she told him everything now only for him—out of some ill-considered knee-jerk sense of obligation—to involve himself in their lives, only to resent his daughter’s existence every time it even threatened to impact on his career?
Wasn’t that the nightmare scenario his parents had painted for her? Right before they’d offered her enough money to secure her daughter’s financial future in the event that her kidney transplant failed and she wasn’t around to look after her precious daughter herself?
But it wasn’t just what they’d said, it had been their calm, assured delivery. As if they were acting in her interests as much as in their son’s. As if they really believed that her taking the money and staying away was the best solution for everyone. That was what had convinced her to take their word for it.
The savage protectiveness Evie felt for her new daughter still caught her unawares sometimes. There was nothing she wouldn’t do to protect her beautiful daughter from anything which—or anyone who—could potentially hurt her.
If the Van Bergs had been cruel or vindictive, she probably wouldn’t have believed them, wouldn’t have taken the money. But she’d been frightened. And vulnerable. Between her bleak prognosis and her premature baby, she hadn’t been able to face a battle on a third front. And if his parents were right and Max didn’t want to know, how could she face yet more anguish? She couldn’t risk it. So now, she needed to buy herself time to think. She’d never expected to see Max again.
But was that completely true? Hadn’t she always hoped, deep down, when she was stronger, and if the transplant was successful, that she might be able to track him down again? Hadn’t she told herself that, if all went well, she would push past her own fears of rejection and loss to finally tell him about his daughter? For Imogen’s sake, because her precious daughter deserved so much more.
But now was not that moment.
‘Annie’s going through final checks for a kidney transplant. Blood pressure and all that,’ Evie trotted out.
She sounded more blasé than she’d have liked, but it was better than having to tell him Annie was actually a kidney donor and that she herself was the recipient. And it was better than breaking down and telling him how frightened she was.
She should have known better than to think she could fool someone as astute as Max. Disbelieving eyes raked over her and she tried to suppress the wave of heat at his intense assessment, all too conscious of the toll her illness and the pregnancy had take
n on her over the last year. Dark pits circled her eyes, her frame was unattractively thinner, and her skin flat and pallid—no matter how much she tried to lift it with clever make-up.
She squirmed under his sharp gaze.
‘God, Evie, I’m so sorry. I had no idea.’ The reserved tone was gone again, replaced by an open candour she thought was more Max-like. ‘Didn’t you say you were close to your brother and his wife? No wonder you look so pale—you must be so worried about her.’
Her stomach flip-flopped. He’d actually remembered some of the few things she’d told him. Was that really something he’d have bothered to take notice of if it had only been about the sex? Her mind swirled with conflicting thoughts.
She jumped as she closed the gap between them, his hands closing firmly around her shoulders, drawing her in so that she had no choice but to look him in the eye.
‘Evie, if you need anything, you know you can come to me, don’t you?’
Residual sexual attraction still fizzled between them.
Chemistry. It’s just chemistry, Evie repeated to herself, clinging to the mantra like some kind of virtual life raft. But her grip was slipping and a flare of hope flickered into life deep in her chest. At this stage of her renal failure, a man who could make her feel attractive, wanted, who could make her forget her constantly exhausted body and her regular rounds of dialysis, was a rare male indeed.
Only Max could have snuck under her skin in five minutes flat.
She so desperately wanted to let him kiss her, take her, reassure her that she was still a sexy, desirable woman. It would be welcome relief after the year she’d had.
But this wasn’t about her, this was about Imogen, too, and Evie couldn’t risk her daughter being drawn into some game as a pawn. Hadn’t her own biological father used herself and her brother to hurt their mother? First by walking out on them when Evie had been a baby, with no contact for years, and then by trying to play them off against each other when their mother had finally found happiness with a new man. A kind man who Evie considered to be her true father rather than simply her stepfather. A man who had saved her from going down the kind of route that too many of her troubled teens now found themselves stuck on.
The Surgeon's Baby Surprise Page 2