The Surgeon King's Secret Baby

by Amy Ruttan

“I have never heard him cry,” Reagan whispered urgently. “Well, not since the day he was born.”

  Kainan’s expression was pained, but he said nothing.

  “I would love to hear him cry again.” Tears were welling up in her eyes. “Just one more time. If I had a Christmas wish it would be that.”

  When he gets a new heart you will hear him cry all the time. It will probably drive you crazy.

  Reagan smiled. “I would like that.”

  At least after the LVAD surgery you can hold him. In fact, it’ll be encouraged. He’ll need all your strength.

  The surgical team came in and transferred her fragile son to a gurney, along with all his wires and tubes. He looked so small. She took a step forward, aching to reach out and touch him, but restrained herself.

  “Touch him,” Sophie whispered. “He needs you.”

  “I was told not to,” Reagan said.

  “Touch him. It’s just a touch,” Sophie encouraged.

  Reagan nodded, tears rolling down her cheeks as she bent over her sick boy and touched his head through her rubber glove, kissing the soft skin that she’d never got to touch through the surgical mask.

  “I’ll be waiting,” Reagan whispered. “Right here.”

  Kainan stepped forward, but then he hesitated and turned away, shaking his head. He couldn’t do it, and it hurt her that he wouldn’t reach out to touch their son, but she saw the pained expression on his face and understood.

  She knew that look of pain—she lived it every day.

  The surgical team rolled him out of the pediatric critical care unit. Reagan followed them. She would follow the gurney until she could do so no longer. Until it entered the surgical floor, where she would not be able to follow because she was a parent in this moment, not a surgeon.

  It was hard to stop at the double doors that closed off the surgical wing from the rest of the hospital, but she stopped and watched as they rolled Peter away.

  She hated being in a patient’s shoes. She hated being on this side of the door.

  Kainan was beside her. “Come,” he said.

  Reagan shook her head. She wouldn’t let him take her away. It was as if staring at those double doors would somehow protect Peter, somehow bring him back to her.

  “Reagan,” Kainan said more firmly.

  “I’m not leaving.”

  Before she knew what was happening Kainan was scooping her up in his arms and carrying her away, in broad daylight.

  “Are you crazy?” she screeched. “Put me down!”

  Kainan didn’t respond, and he wouldn’t look at her as he carried her to a small exam room that was dark and unoccupied. He set her down and then shut the door, locking it, then pulling down the blinds.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” she yelled at him. “People could’ve seen—people probably did see, you maniac!”

  Let it out, he signed.

  “Let what out?”

  Let it all out. You can’t bottle up that emotion forever. Let it out. Stop locking your emotions away.

  She just stared at him at first, because she was so stunned at what he was suggesting, and all she could hear was her mother’s voice in her head.

  “Honestly, Reagan. You’re a big girl now. Stop crying. It’s embarrassing. You can hold it together,” her mother had hissed at her when she’d cried over the fact her dog had died. “Big girls don’t cry.”

  “I don’t have anything to let out.” Her voice trembled.

  Reagan, you don’t have to hide with me.

  The moment she saw what he’d signed it was like a floodgate opening up. She broke down weeping, covering her face with her hands, and let it all out—every piece of raw emotion that she had been bottling up inside her since Peter had been born.

  Kainan took her in his arms and she clung to him. He ran his hand over her head, but it was hard for him to do that with the bun she had in her hair.

  Still, it was what she needed.

  She needed to be held. Her body trembled as he held her, the pain washing through her. The strength in his arms calmed her.

  “There was nothing you could’ve done,” Kainan had said back then, gripping her by the shoulders and shaking her. “You did everything you could.”

  “I didn’t. I didn’t save his life. That’s what I could’ve done and I couldn’t even do that!”

  “His injuries were too severe. He stepped in the path of an IED. There was nothing anyone could’ve done, but you gave him comfort.”

  “Comfort?” She’d wiped away her tears.

  “You held him and he passed away peacefully, knowing that he was safe and that he was without pain. You did all you could. In fact you did more. Not many surgeons in this military hospital would do the same.”

  He’d pulled her into his arms then, giving her a hug, holding her close so that she would calm down as she cried in his arms.

  “He was so young,” she’d whispered against his neck. “He didn’t get a chance to live.”

  “Some never do.” He’d tipped up her chin, those dark eyes so reassuring, so understanding, and she’d known that he also felt the pain she’d felt in that moment.

  “You did everything you could. You were strong for him. You are strong.”

  Reagan looked up at Kainan now, longing to hear him say those same things.

  He did say those words. You just didn’t hear them.

  She studied his face. There were a few more scars, some creases in his face from worry, and some grey in his dark curls. It suited him. But those dark eyes were the same. They were reflecting back the pain that she was feeling.

  Acting on the need to be close to him, she kissed him. And it was as if she had come home. His arms wrapped around her, pulling her tight against him as they kissed. How long had she dreamed of this moment but been thrown back into reality, remembering that he had died?

  Only he hadn’t died.

  He was here with her. He was here with Peter.

  And for one brief moment, as she sank into the kiss that eased her sorrow, her pain and her worry, she forgot about it all. She forgot that he was King, that their son was dying and that she had been alone for so long.

  She finally broke off the kiss and laid her head against his chest as he ran his hands over her back. He was still holding her as they stood in silence. The only sound was her own breath and the steady rhythm of his heart under her ear.

  They stayed together in that stolen moment of peace, comforting each other as their son fought for his life.

  Then Kainan’s hand stilled and he moved away, knocking her out of the peaceful reverie.

  I’m sorry for carrying you away like that, but it was the only way, he signed.

  “I know. I’m sorry I called you a maniac.”

  He smiled, a dimple forming in his cheek. I’m used to it. You’ve called me worse things before.

  She frowned. “When?”

  Your Majesty. He made a sarcastic face, as if to drive home the point that she had said it in a spiteful way.

  “I’m sorry about that too.”

  He shrugged. I deserved it.

  “Still, thank you for being here with me. Thank you for bringing me here.”

  I thought you would’ve learned by now not to bottle up your emotions so much. You were about to burst.

  She nodded. “I know. Thank you for coming to my rescue again.”

  He smiled, his expression softening. You’re welcome.

  Warmth crept up her neck into her cheeks. “I’m sorry for kissing you as well.”

  Never be sorry for that.

  His dark eyes glinted with the promise of something more. Something she knew all too well. And as much as she wanted that, she couldn’t do it. She couldn’t divide herself between Peter’s care and Kainan. It would be too much to bear.
Peter and work—that was all she could handle.

  Work was the only thing that kept her sane. It was structured and, though it was never predictable, she knew what she was doing. She could detach herself emotionally from it.

  Starting something up with Kainan was not the answer, because she knew that she would never be able to detach herself emotionally from him.

  He was definitely not predictable, and she wasn’t sure she could handle losing both Peter and Kainan.

  The thought of losing them both scared her beyond all reason. And she wasn’t prepared to invest in that.

  Chapter Seven

  THE SURGERY SEEMED to take an eternity.

  Kainan had stayed in the hospital until he was certain that Peter had pulled through and been hooked up to the left ventricular assist device. He’d done it with flying colors. Then he’d gone with Reagan to the pediatric critical care unit, where Peter had been moved to an isolation room.

  There was only enough room for the nurses and the doctors to navigate and one chair, which was where Reagan had curled up in her street clothes with a hospital gown over her. She’d looked completely uncomfortable, but Kainan hadn’t been able to get her to budge.

  There had been no place for him. So he’d left.

  He had to put some distance between himself and the hospital anyway. He felt so helpless.

  Ever since he’d become King and been whisked away to Canada he’d felt this way, but it came into painful Technicolor how truly helpless he was when he gazed into the incubator at his son.

  He was just like his father, who had been absent for most of his childhood. Kainan was following in his father’s lead and he loathed himself.

  You didn’t even know Peter existed. That’s why you weren’t there, he told himself.

  Only that didn’t make him feel any better. Things had to change. He refused to be like his father. His father who hadn’t taken care of his illegitimate children...his father who had broken his mother’s heart and been distant with his legitimate children.

  Kainan refused to force Peter into an unhappy childhood like he’d had.

  He’d already missed so much. Three months of Peter’s life. And if he didn’t get a new heart soon Kainan would never know him. Never speak to him.

  Reagan said he didn’t cry, that she’d barely heard Peter’s voice.

  Just like me.

  Peter had no voice but he was still here, fighting to live.

  Reagan was strong. She would be able to handle the burdens of royal life. He felt guilty for having to impose them upon her, but it was the only way to protect them if he died.

  Remember how it broke your mother, though. How it hardened Alek and you.

  He had almost lost it when he’d seen Reagan bend over Peter before they took him to surgery. She had bent down and whispered to him to be strong and she’d touched him, kissed him through the surgical mask.

  It had alost been too much for him to take. It had taken all his strength to keep himself from breaking down.

  Reagan had been so strong and he so weak in that moment. The thought of losing his son had too much for him to bear, but Reagan had needed him. He knew she liked to have walls up, not to show any weakness. But when she cracked he would swallow his worry, his sorrow, and step up to bear it for her.

  He wanted to take Reagan and Peter’s pain for them. To be better than his own father. If Kainan didn’t survive his surgery, if Peter wasn’t legitimized, then Kainan wouldn’t be able to leave his fortune to them. It was the only thing he could think of doing to protect them.

  It had made him think back to that night on Isla Hermosa, when the chaos had died down after the rebel attack on the front lines. When his foolish brother had demanded that the youngest and most untrained of the Hermosian Army should advance.

  And that boy who had been no more than eighteen had taken the brunt of the explosion. All they’d been able to do was patch him together, but they had known it wouldn’t stop him from dying. That boy had been alone and dying.

  The boy had been from the coast. Most likely a fisherman’s son, looking to supplement the family income from a dwindling industry by signing up to serve in the Hermosian Army. He’d probably been fresh out of training.

  It had been apparent to Kainan that the boy hadn’t been fully prepared for what awaited him, and it had broken his heart. It had broken his heart to see the youngest of his country dying in the name of his foolish brother.

  In that moment Kainan had blamed himself for the boy’s death, because he’d known that when Alek had begun to run amok he should have done more to rein in his brother. He’d tried. He’d tried hard. But then his brother had sought to end his life.

  So Kainan had backed off and tried to help the people in another way. Serving as a surgeon on the front lines. But in moments like that, when that boy had lain there dying, afraid and alone, Kainan had questioned his choices.

  And then Reagan had appeared, out of the darkness, in the quiet of the hospital where those on duty had been making their rounds on the patients who would live and trying to clean up the mess that the onslaught of injured soldiers from the front had caused.

  She’d given the boy more medicine. More of the painkillers that had already been given to him. And then she’d sat next to him. Reagan could speak fluent Spanish, which was the mother tongue of Isla Hermosa, and she’d spoken to the boy.

  Javier had been his name.

  She’d held him. She cradled him in his arms and sung to him, just as she had sung to Andreas, and Kainan had realized that she sang to many of those who were injured.

  All he had been able to do was watch in awe as she’d administered the simplest form of healing: love, patience and human contact.

  Reagan had held Javier as his tremors had ceased, as his breathing had become more shallow and as he’d breathed his last.

  And she’d held him for a long time after. Singing to him...some sweet melody, something he had never heard before. But it hadn’t mattered what she was singing. It had been her voice. It had been her kindness, her purity. So like his mother, who had helped the less fortunate, who had given everything to his father and got nothing in return.

  It was in that moment that Kainan had melted for her. She might bottle up her emotions, but her compassion for others made her a brilliant, strong woman and he had desired her.

  Only her.

  He had seen her reaching out and comforting their son in the same way she had comforted Javier and all those other countless injured men and women from Isla Hermosa, Canada and the United States. It hadn’t mattered to her what side they’d fought for. She had afforded each and every single one of them the simple gift of human compassion and caring. To her there had been no borders, no colors and no religions. No conflict had been too great to stop her from delivering what they had all needed and that was love.

  Reagan had cared for them all. She had judged no one.

  And at that moment, seeing her being separated from their child, Kainan had realized that their son might never know what kind of strong woman his mother was and what a failure his father was.

  It had broken his heart, and it had been too much for him to take in so he had turned away, missing that moment when they’d taken his son away.

  He had turned back to find her trembling in front of the surgical wing, her eyes wide and her body looking as if it was about to bend and break under its burden. She’d been trying to stay strong, but her walls had come crashing down with the weight of it all. Of carrying the burden alone for too long.

  That was why he’d picked her up and carried her away from it all. He hadn’t cared who saw him in that moment. He’d wanted to afford her the same amount of care and compassion she’d shown to everyone else. To make up for not being there when she’d needed him.

  He wasn’t sure he could ever make that up to her, but he�
��d try.

  She’d helped so many and yet there had been no one helping her. He had seen that. She’d been alone and she’d been standing there so lost. So broken.

  And he’d taken her in his arms, as she’d taken Javier in hers, and he’d held her. Comforted her. And then she’d kissed him.

  He’d thought about her kisses ever since they’d parted. As he’d been transported on his way to Canada, with an endotracheal tube breathing for him, with no voice to cry out, he’d thought of her.

  He’d longed for her.

  When she’d kissed him he’d forgotten about being King. About the conflicts in Isla Hermosa. About his late brother and the damage he’d wrought.

  All he’d cared about was the fact that he was in her arms again.

  It had taken every ounce of his strength to step back from her when she’d broken the kiss, because he’d burned for her. He still did.

  And that was not proper.

  It was selfish of him.

  Perhaps he was just as selfish as his brother was?

  No. You’re nothing like him.

  Still, he’d needed to put some distance between them, and yet now that it was morning he realized that, no matter how much distance there was between them, he would still feel the same.

  His blunder of picking her up and carrying her to that boardroom, where he could hold her, had cost Reagan and Peter something. Their privacy.

  Word had got out to the press about his behavior with Reagan. The world knew about her and Peter. Peter was no longer safe.

  There were pictures of him carrying Reagan. And although he’d thought they were alone in that boardroom someone had managed to get a picture of them kissing.

  He loathed being King in moments like this. Private, precious moments were made into entertainment for the rest of the world. Something cherished became tawdry and debased. It was no longer a beautiful moment between Reagan and him. It belonged to the world.

  He headed back to the pediatric critical care unit and watched Reagan sleeping. The guilt of subjecting her to this intrusion on her privacy was eating away at him.

  I should’ve kept my distance from her in Isla Hermosa. I should’ve kept away.