by Sarah Morgan
‘One of us has the dress code wrong,’ she muttered. ‘Either you’re wearing too much or I’m wearing too little.’
‘We’re both wearing too much,’ he drawled, his eyes glittering like sapphires as he shrugged off his coat and reached for the buttons of his casual shirt.
Her mouth dried. ‘Patrick—’
‘Hayley?’ The shirt went the same way as the coat and his fingers slid to the snap of his jeans.
Her eyes were on his board-flat abdomen and then he was on the bed beside her. Reaching out, he dimmed the lights and then pulled the duvet over both of them. ‘Now—where were we?’
Hayley lay still in the darkness, feeling the warmth of his arms around her. He hadn’t bothered to close the blinds in the bedroom and tiny lights glowed like stars in the fir trees outside the barn. Through the thickness of the glass she could hear the dull roar of the beck as it raced down from the fells.
‘You’re very quiet.’ Patrick’s voice was low and masculine. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘What makes you think there’s anything wrong?’
‘Because normally you don’t stop talking,’ he said dryly, curving her against him in a possessive movement. ‘I’ve learned that when you’re quiet, it’s time to worry.’
‘That isn’t true.’ She resisted the temptation to snuggle into him and heard him sigh.
‘Hayley, I can tell there’s something wrong. Do I have to put the lights on and interrogate you?’
‘I’m fine, Patrick, really.’
‘Why are we whispering? We’re on our own in the house. Apart from the kittens, of course, and I don’t suppose they’re interested in us.’
His words hastened the deflation of her happiness. It was like going from a slow puncture to a blowout, she thought miserably. Her emotions crashed and with it her desperate attempt to keep her feelings to herself.
Hayley shot out of the bed but his arms caught her easily and he pulled her back.
‘Leave me alone, Patrick,’ she muttered, her voice thickened by tears she desperately didn’t want to shed.
‘Hayley, now you’re really worrying me.’ His voice concerned, he flicked on the bedside lamp and shifted above her, his eyes fixed on her face. ‘Tell me what’s wrong.’
‘I just hate myself, that’s all.’ Hayley turned her face away from the light, aware of the tension in his powerful frame.
‘You hate yourself? For spending the night with me?’
‘Yes!’
Her confession was followed by a long silence and then she heard his slow, indrawn breath. ‘Did I hurt you?’
‘No.’ Her face was burning and she wished she’d stayed silent or given him a neutral response to his original question. ‘It was fine. Can we just forget it?’
His fingers slid around her face and he forced her to look at him. This time there was no trace of humour in his eyes. Just serious intent. ‘Hayley, don’t avoid this—I thought it was what you wanted. Was I wrong?’
‘No, you weren’t wrong! Of course I wanted you—that must have been pretty obvious to you from the moment I dropped my knickers on your bedroom floor the first time.’ Her voice rose slightly. ‘And I wasn’t exactly fighting you off tonight, was I? So it’s a little unfair of you to rub in the fact I can’t say no to you.’
His eyes were wary. ‘I didn’t want you to say no to me. So what’s the problem?’
‘The problem is that you only ever do this when your children aren’t around—when I turned up yesterday, or the day before yesterday or whenever it was…’ She realised that she’d lost track of the time. It must be the early hours of the morning, which meant it was no longer Christmas Day. ‘When I turned up, you looked at me with the same enthusiasm you would have shown a tax bill. Almost the first words you say to me are, “When is the baby due?” Then at the hospital you’re very remote and distant and suddenly we arrive home and just because the house is empty you turn back into a rampant sex god—’ She broke off with a moan as he covered her mouth with his, kissing her slowly and thoroughly until the fire in her pelvis flared to life again.
When he finally lifted his head she was dizzy and disorientated.
‘We need to talk,’ he said softly, curving his hand around her face. ‘You’re right—I haven’t behaved well where you’re concerned. Give me the chance to explain.’
‘You don’t need to explain.’ Hayley tried to wriggle away from him but his weight kept her still. ‘Honestly—just forget I said anything. It’s my fault, I know. Other women have onenight stands all the time and have no problem with it—I’m just built wrong.’
‘You’re built perfectly.’ There was a sardonic gleam in his eyes as his gaze lingered on her mouth and then drifted lower. ‘And I do have things to tell you. Things you deserve to know.’ He rolled away from her and sat up. ‘Can I get you anything? Are you hungry? We haven’t eaten since lunchtime.’
Hayley realised that she was starving, but she wanted to hear what he had to tell her. Was it about his ex-wife? ‘I’m not hungry.’ But her stomach chose that moment to growl in protest and she rolled her eyes as he laughed.
‘Not hungry?’ Springing from the bed, he strolled into the bathroom and emerged wearing a black robe. ‘I’ll go and put some food on a tray. I’ll be back in a minute. I’ve put the bath on. I thought your muscles might ache after all that…activity.’
Avoiding the glitter of his eyes, Hayley waited for him to leave the room and then slid out of bed and padded towards the door he’d used.
Seeing his bathroom, she felt ever so slightly faint. It was huge. Huge and super-luxurious in a cool, contemporary style, with a walk-in shower and what seemed like hundreds of tiny lights in the ceiling. But the real luxury was his bath. It was easily big enough for two. Water cascaded into the tub and mixing with the scented bubbles he must have added before he’d left the room.
As the water level rose quickly, Hayley looked at the bath longingly. Maybe a bath was a good idea.
Just a quick one.
She slid into the water and closed her eyes with a moan of pleasure.
‘I didn’t know what you wanted to eat so I made a few different things.’ Patrick’s voice came from inside the bathroom and Hayley opened her eyes with a shocked squeak.
‘What are you doing in here?’ She noticed that the tray he was carrying contained a bottle of champagne as well as a stack of thick-cut sandwiches.
There was a dull popping sound as he removed the cork from the champagne. ‘I thought this would be a good place to eat. That way we don’t get crumbs in the bed.’ He poured champagne into two glasses and handed her one. ‘Merry Christmas.’
‘Merry Christmas,’ Hayley said weakly, watching as he placed the tray next to the bath, discarded his robe and stepped into the water next to her. ‘When you suggested a bath, I didn’t know you were going to be joining me.’
‘Why not?’ He gave a slow, sexy smile and drank from his glass. ‘Have something to eat. I’m not much of a cook, as you’ve been told, but I can just about manage sandwiches. Turkey, of course. No surprise there.’
‘I love turkey sandwiches,’ she said truthfully, reaching for one and biting into it. ‘I really am starving.’
‘I’m not surprised. It was a long day. Sally and the baby are fine, by the way. I called when I was downstairs.’
‘I’m glad.’ Hayley was tense with anticipation, wondering what he was going to tell her. ‘I love your bathroom. I could move in here for the rest of my life.’
Patrick gave a faint smile. ‘My wife hated it.’ He glanced around the bathroom. ‘She thought it was too modern.’
‘Really? I think it’s gorgeous. Like being in a smart hotel. I’m waiting for you to give me a bill when I step out of the door.’ Hayley lay back against the side of the bath. ‘I feel as though I’m in a Hollywood movie.’
‘I don’t think they usually eat cold turkey sandwiches in Hollywood movies.’ Patrick watched with amusement as she devoured another sandw
ich and she shrugged.
‘Jet-lag always makes me hungry.’
He lifted an eyebrow. ‘Jet-lag?’
‘Well, OK.’ She felt her cheeks redden. ‘It’s entirely possible that the sex had something to do with it—maybe—just a little.’ She watched while he put his glass down, sensing that he was deciding exactly what to tell her. ‘I wish I could be more like you. I mean, I can see you carefully planning what to say and I just can’t do that! I have all these plans to keep my thoughts to myself and then they sort of tumble out of my mouth.’
‘I’d noticed.’ He smiled at her and lifted the bottle of champagne but she shook her head.
‘I’m already tired. If you give me any more I won’t wake up until January.’ She hesitated. ‘You don’t trust me enough to tell me, do you?’
‘It isn’t about trust,’ Patrick said evenly. ‘It’s more about not wanting to relive it, if I’m honest. You already know some of it. You know that my wife—ex-wife—left on Christmas Eve two years ago.’
‘Yes.’ But she didn’t know why. And she wanted to know why. ‘The poor children. And poor you, of course,’ she added quickly, but he shook his head.
‘No. Your first reaction was the right one. I’m a grown-up, I can look after myself, but Alfie and Posy…’ After a moment’s hesitation, he topped up his own champagne glass, watching as the bubbles rose to the surface. ‘If Carly had cared more about their feelings, she might have handled the situation differently. But she didn’t. She was angry with me and she didn’t care that they suffered.’
‘Why was she angry?’
‘Because I wasn’t who she wanted me to be.’ Patrick’s tone was devoid of emotion, his eyes strangely blank. ‘She thought she’d married a high-flying obstetrician. When I was made a consultant her words were, “Now I’ve made it.” At the time I thought she’d made a mistake and what she’d meant to say was, “Now you’ve made it.” But, no, she really did mean that. For her it was all about social status. She pictured herself walking into smart dinner parties with me—the problem is that obstetricians are probably the most unreliable guests on anyone’s list.’
‘You were always working.’
‘Of course. In fact, you could say that there was an inverse correlation between the growth of my career and the decline of my marriage. The more successful I was, the busier I became. I started to see patients from all over the country and because some of the work was challenging, I couldn’t always delegate.’ Patrick gave a humourless laugh. ‘In business, inappropriate delegation leads to lost revenue—in obstetrics it’s a dead baby or a dead mother. And that’s a no-brainer as far as I’m concerned.’
‘Couldn’t she understand that?’
‘Carly wasn’t interested in my work—just in the concept of being married to a successful consultant. But there’s not much point in being married to a successful consultant if he’s so busy working he can’t take you anywhere. She was bored.’
‘She had the children.’
Patrick gave a cynical smile. ‘As I said, she was bored.’
‘Did she have a career of her own?’
‘When I met her she was working as a secretary to my col league—I was a registrar. She didn’t want a career. She wanted a successful husband.’
‘You fell in love with her?’
‘Honestly?’ Patrick put his empty glass down. ‘No. That wasn’t what happened. I thought she was pretty. I asked her out a few times—’
Hayley gave a soft gasp of understanding. ‘Oh, no, she became pregnant—and you married her.’
His blue eyes narrowed. ‘Astute, aren’t you?’
‘Not particularly—but it explains why your first thought when you saw me on your doorstep was that I must be pregnant.’ She stared down at the bubbles in the bath, absorbing that new information. ‘No wonder. No wonder you thought that.’
‘The crazy thing was Carly and I didn’t even really have a relationship—not a proper one. I’d taken her out to dinner twice and on that last occasion she invited me in for coffee.’ Patrick dragged his hand over the back of his neck and shrugged. ‘She told me she was taking the Pill and on that one occasion I wasn’t careful—’
Hayley remembered how he’d always used condoms with her. Always been careful. ‘So you married her.’
‘And we were happy enough, or so I thought.’ Patrick shrugged. ‘She wanted a big house—I gave her a big house; when she said Alfie was hard work, I paid for her to have help. I did my best to turn up at dinner parties, although I confess I rarely managed to stay through three courses. There were lots of occasions when I worked through the night—you know what it’s like. But we muddled through—and then we had Posy.’ He closed his eyes briefly. ‘It went downhill from there.’
‘Why?’
‘Because Carly nearly died in childbirth,’ he said hoarsely, ‘and she blamed me. I think her exact words were, “You save every other bloody woman but you’re going to let me go because I’m not good enough for you.”’
Hayley winced. ‘What happened?’
‘I don’t know,’ Patrick said wearily. ‘I wasn’t doing the delivery for obvious reasons—we were having a nightmare in the department, staff off sick, too many difficult deliveries in one night. Carly was in labour, but everything was fine—routine. And then there was a real emergency and I had no choice but to leave Carly and perform an emergency section on this lady. And I was only just in time—we would have lost that baby if I hadn’t operated when I did. But while I was gone Carly started to bleed heavily.’
‘Oh, Patrick…’
‘The midwife was from another hospital and she panicked—I suppose because she knew Carly was the wife of a consultant. There was a delay. By the time I returned to the room it was horrendous. I thought we were going to lose Posy, so in the end I took over charge of the delivery—I couldn’t trust anyone else at that point. And I had no choice but to do a Caesarean section.’ He pulled a face at the memory. ‘If I’d been there all the time—monitored her—I might have been able to do everything differently.’
‘And another woman’s baby might have died,’ Hayley said softly, tears in her eyes. He’d performed an emergency Caesarean section on his own wife—to save the life of his own baby. ‘You must have nerves of steel to have been able to do that.’
‘I had no choice. To be honest, I blocked it out. I didn’t let myself think, This is my wife, my baby.’
‘Patrick, that must have been so hard. You had to make decisions that no man should have to make.’
‘Carly didn’t see it that way,’ Patrick said roughly. ‘She thought I’d let her down, and maybe I did—I don’t know. I go over it in my head again and again. What didn’t I see? What did I miss?’
‘You didn’t miss anything,’ Hayley said quietly. ‘I’m sure of that. You’re a brilliant obstetrician.’
‘But a lousy husband,’ Patrick said softly, and Hayley shook her head.
‘No. You were put in an impossible position. But I don’t understand why Carly was so upset. If she knew the other lady would have lost her baby…’
‘I think she just panicked and I wasn’t there,’ Patrick said wearily. ‘And when I was there I was focused on saving her and Posy, not on stroking her arm and telling her I loved her. In fact, I pretty much ignored her emotional trauma at the time—I just didn’t want her to bleed to death or Posy to die. But I see now that I made it much, much worse. If Tom or one of the others had been on duty it would have been different, but you can’t be an obstetrician and a husband at the same time.’
‘That’s why you sacrificed your Christmas day to help Tom and Sally.’
Patrick leaned back against the bath and closed his eyes. ‘I just know what it’s like trying to play both roles—and it’s not good. Anyway, Carly was furious about the section—she hated having a scar.’
‘Having seen the way you work, I doubt she had much of a scar.’
‘It was more than she could cope with.’
&
nbsp; ‘Wasn’t she relieved that you’d saved Posy?’
‘If anything, she saw that as more evidence that I didn’t care for her.’ Patrick opened his eyes and looked at her. ‘The one thing I didn’t tell you was that she got pregnant on purpose that first time—she confessed as much to me after one too many glasses of wine one night. She was shocked it only took once, but thrilled with herself. She said that all she ever wanted was to marry a doctor. But the reality wasn’t what she expected and she became more and more unhappy.’
‘Did you love her?’
Patrick hesitated. ‘I adored the children, and she knew that. She always said I only cared about the children. I used to try and get back from the hospital in time to bath them and put them to bed, and then I’d go back to work again and sometimes stay out all night. It’s hardly surprising my marriage collapsed.’
‘She has to take responsibility for it too,’ Hayley said stoutly. ‘She forced you into that position.’
‘I shouldn’t have married her, but that was just one of many mistakes I made with Carly, the first being the fact I took her to bed in the first place,’ he said wearily. ‘My second mistake was trusting her to take care of contraception—I take full responsibility for that. It was carelessly irresponsible of me, but I can’t feel too sorry about it because if it hadn’t happened, I wouldn’t have Alfie.’
And she knew how much he adored his son. ‘So what happened two years ago? Why did she suddenly walk out?’
Patrick gave a short laugh. ‘It was a pretty memorable Christmas. Daniel proposed to Stella on Christmas Eve and we all opened a bottle of champagne and Carly had made an elaborate celebration lunch. Just as she put it on the table—’
‘Your phone went and you had to go to the hospital?’
Patrick gave a faint smile. ‘How did you guess? There was no way I could delegate it. This lady was having triplets and I was concerned about them.’
‘Triplets? Wow.’ Hayley slid closer to him. ‘I’ve never delivered triplets. Sorry, go on.’
‘When I arrived back from the hospital there was a taxi in the drive and Carly was waiting by the door with her bags packed. She’d already told the children she couldn’t live with me any more.’