by Kim Lawrence
He was a parent... Would it ever sink in?
Behind him he registered Lily’s voice. The tone sounded urgent and pleading, but he tuned it out. All his focus was on that next step.
He took a deep breath, released it in a measured hiss and walked into the room.
In his life Ben had walked coolly into tough situations. Meetings where a false move or a show of weakness could lose him a fortune. He’d once got himself unexpectedly caught in the middle of a coup and found it exhilarating. Nerves were good. He used them; they gave him a vital edge.
He shoved his hands into his trouser pockets to hide the fact they were shaking. If only those people who said Ben Warrender had nerves of steel could see him now! As he walked into the room his body was bathed in a cold sweat. It was the hardest step he’d ever taken.
‘She’s asleep.’
He didn’t react to the unnecessary information.
She’d seemed bigger somehow when he’d seen her at Warren Court, but now she was tiny, a baby really. She lay in a baby-sized bed, the sheet pulled up to her chin, one little hand clutching it tight. There were streaks on her face as though she’d been crying.
He gasped as he felt the emotion-tipped knife slide between his ribs straight into his heart. He had worried that he was incapable of loving anyone, even his own child... He’d been wrong. He knew now that he’d lay down his life in an instant for this sleeping angel.
Watching his face as he leaned forward and touched Emmy’s cheek brought a massive aching lump of emotion to Lily’s throat. The bleakness, the pain, the wonder...she recognised them all.
Then she saw the sheen of moisture in his eyes... Sorry. The word rattled around in her head and stayed there. What was the point in saying it? If the roles were reversed she’d never have forgiven him. The knowledge lay like a stone in her chest.
‘I’ll be outside,’ she whispered huskily, turning her head so he didn’t see her own tears as she left to give him some privacy.
It was some minutes later when he emerged. His handsome face was drawn and, though he had clearly been shaken by the emotional experience, he was in control now.
As her eyes meshed with his, without warning Lily’s stomach clenched with desire that she stubbornly refused to acknowledge.
‘She is a beautiful child.’
‘I think so.’
‘Will she sleep long, do you think?’
Lily nodded and explained, ‘She had a bad night, so they gave her something. Last time it really knocked her out.’
‘So you had a bad night too?’ The shadows under her eyes made the answer obvious. She looked like a sepia copy of the radiant woman he had seen emerge from the sea. Still the most beautiful creature he had ever seen, but with a vulnerability that was programmed to arouse any man’s protective instincts.
The response was not unique to him.
‘Would you like a coffee?’ she suggested tentatively. ‘There’s a machine in the visitors’ lounge.’ She tilted her head in the direction of a corridor to her right. ‘It’s just down here.’
He nodded.
The small lounge used by parents was empty. Lily walked across to the drinks dispenser, while Ben folded his long, lean length into one of the easy chairs that lined the wall. Stretching out, he crossed one booted foot over the other.
She was conscious of his eyes following her as she walked back.
‘Black. I think it’s coffee—it’s hard to tell.’ Her lips fluttered in a smile that didn’t reach her eyes.
He looked at the paper cup for a moment before taking it and grimaced, but didn’t comment as he lifted it to his lips.
‘Sorry about Mum—she’s still in shock.’
His lashes lifted off his chiselled cheekbones. ‘There’s a lot of it about.’
Lily lifted her chin a defiant notch. ‘I did what I thought was right at the time.’ Not long ago she had had no doubts that her choice was the right one. Now...she thought again of his face, the pain and regret she had seen in his eyes.
She pushed away the guilt, but it resisted. There was no escaping it—she’d been wrong.
‘And there’s no going back. This is the way it is.’ She wished she could feel as hard and practical as she sounded.
‘We should talk.’ Because the world carried on, life carried on. Even when just down the corridor the baby he had fathered fought for her life. ‘The lawyers have drawn up a trust fund for your approval.’ A spasm of self-loathing crossed his face and he squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head. ‘God, that must sound incredibly crass of me, talking about money when—’
‘No!’ she cut in. ‘You’re talking about Emmy’s future...you believe she has one.’ She gave him a watery smile of gratitude and Ben felt something in his chest tighten.
He studied her face. ‘But maybe this can wait till later?’
Lily nodded. ‘Mum is heading back home to pick up some things. Everything happened in such a rush, she’s worn the things she has on for two days straight, and Emmy has forgotten Timmy. Her teddy bear,’ she explained, catching his look. ‘I should get back to relieve her.’ She glanced at the clock on the wall above the doorframe just as a couple came in. She had seen them before. The woman was weeping on the shoulder of her husband, whose face was grey and strained.
The stab of sheer visceral fear made Lily oblivious to the hot liquid she spilled down her front. She stood blinking as the empty cup was prised from her hand.
‘Come on.’ There was no resistance in her trembling body as Ben urged her from the room. As he reached the door his glance connected with the husband of the weeping woman. The level of understanding in that look brought the situation sharply into focus...he might lose a daughter he had not known he had.
Lily looked at the tissue extended to her and shook her head, clinging to her self-control with the grim determination of a drowning man grabbing a lifeline. ‘It’s fine...’ She dug her teeth down hard into her trembling lower lip. ‘I’m not going to cry.’
‘Maybe you should,’ Ben roughed out, fighting off the protective feelings her delicacy and distress had shaken loose inside him. It mingled with the ever-present lust—the combination was one short teeth-grinding step from insanity. ‘There’s nothing wrong with letting go.’ Good advice, he told himself, thinking of the anger he had nursed towards Lily, now recognising it for what it was—a self-indulgence for which he didn’t have the time or energy to spare. ‘It would be some sort of outlet,’ he told her evenly. ‘You’re carrying around a lot of stress.’
The comment brought her chin up with an angry jerk. Her green eyes blazed. ‘My daughter, my beautiful baby daughter who has never done anything to anyone, never had a mean thought in her life, is fighting for her life. Stress? Yes, I suppose you could say that!’ She stopped, her chest heaving, and pressed a hand to her mouth. ‘Sorry, I... Sorry, it’s not your fault—’ She gritted her teeth over a gulping sob.
He had reared back as though struck when she’d begun to yell, but when the first tear fell his anger had melted away. ‘It’s nobody’s fault, Lily.’
He touched her shoulder and with a lost little cry that he felt at a cellular level she pressed her face into his chest. ‘I should have known,’ she wailed. A moment later she was straightening up, wiping her face with the backs of both hands and shaking her head. ‘I am so sorry. You don’t want to hear this.’
‘This is my child too.’ Head back, he dragged a hand through his hair, missing her wince. ‘This place...’ His blue eyes brushed her face. ‘I’m not keen on hospitals. I could do with some fresh air. So could you.’
If she got any paler she could have been taken for a ghost. Except ghosts didn’t have hair like fire. His eyes followed the sweep of the glorious curls over her slender shoulders and down her back. The inevitable warmth in his belly, the hot charge
that zigzagged through his body, was mingled with a less explicable tenderness—she looked so damn fragile it hurt.
He couldn’t explain it. God knew he was no white knight, but maybe there was a part of him that was pre-programmed to respond to that vulnerability.
Lily, who hadn’t even looked in a mirror for two days, was suddenly conscious of how awful she must look. The coffee stains added the finishing touch.
‘I need to get back—’
‘Five minutes.’
He didn’t wait for her response, just put a hand in the middle of her back and started walking. Lily didn’t have the strength to resist and maybe fresh air would be good.
She didn’t know how he did it. The hospital was several vast old buildings plus new additions all linked by a series of glass connecting corridors, yet he didn’t once glance at the overhead signs as he led them through the maze of corridors unerringly to a side door that opened to the outside world.
Lily closed her eyes and took several deep breaths. Like someone in a trance, she stood there staring at the skyline until the sound of an ambulance siren made her start. They were in the visitors’ car park. It was quiet and empty at the moment, but soon would begin to fill.
She glanced over her shoulder at the hospital building. ‘I should go back in.’
‘You should go to bed, but I know you won’t.’ It was hard to maintain his anger. Part of him had wanted to find fault, but, whatever else she was, Lily was obviously a devoted mother.
Her lips ghosted a faint smile as she lifted her face to him. She brushed the wisps of gold red hair from her face, leaving one free, which Ben fought a sudden urge to tuck behind her ear.
‘There will be plenty of time to sleep afterwards...’ As he watched a stricken expression spread across her face she rushed into explanatory speech. ‘I didn’t mean it like that...she will be all right, won’t she?’ She shook her head and murmured a soft, almost inaudible, ‘Sorry.’
‘For what?’
‘For asking you to tell me it will be all right.’ She lifted her chin; she knew it would be a massive mistake to fall into the habit of thinking they were a team. ‘You don’t know... I don’t know... We have to put our reliance in medical science and blind luck.’
‘Don’t knock luck and aren’t you forgetting a little girl’s fighting spirit?’
‘I wish I could do it for her...’
‘I know.’
On the point of leaning into him, she pulled back. ‘I should go back...’ Behind her the door was caught by a gust of wind and slammed, rattling the glass. She turned her head at the sound and wondered how long it would take to find her way back to the ward.
‘Where are you staying?’
She turned her head and looked at him, a frown of incomprehension forming between her feathery brows. ‘Staying?’ she echoed.
‘Sleeping.’
‘Oh, they recommended a nice B & B near the hospital.’ Her arm lifted in a vague directional gesture. ‘Mum booked us in there. She’s dropping off my bag on her way home, I think.’
His mouth thinned into a critical line. ‘That hardly seems ideal.’
‘This situation is not ideal!’ she flared bitterly, then tacked on a weary, ‘Sorry.’ Immediately regretting venting her anger and frustration at him—she didn’t blame him, he was just there.
Were there couples whose relationships were casualties of a situation like this? she wondered. Were there bleak statistics out there to confirm it? Well, one thing they couldn’t become was a statistic. They weren’t a couple; they were already apart.
Suddenly very cold, she gave a shiver.
‘Do you want to go in?’
She gave an absent nod, tucking her hair behind her ears as she tilted her head to look up at him. ‘They are very good here. They try their best. The unit has a purpose-built apartment block for parents and families, but it’s vastly oversubscribed and pretty much on a first-come-first-served basis. Anyway I actually prefer to sleep in the chair by Emmy at the moment—just in case...’ She gulped, her eyes falling from his, but not before he had seen the terror she struggled to ignore.
He fought against the instinct to offer her comfort. ‘I understand.’
Bracing her shoulders, she exhaled a gusty sigh. Her voice no longer quivered and was firm with conviction as she said, ‘She’ll be all right. I know she will. It was just seeing that couple—they were so happy yesterday...’ She shook her head as if to shake away the scene in the day room. ‘It was a good idea to get some fresh air.’
‘It helps. I hate being inside hospitals.’
‘Do you hate hospitals because of your accident?’ She encountered his blank expression and touched her own head.
‘Oh, that.’ He shrugged. ‘No one likes hospitals.’
Suddenly Lily felt very angry, remembering what he’d told her about his mother. ‘I just don’t get... How could she?’
Ben shook his head.
‘She was your mother. How could she leave you alone? Was your father there?’
‘He was in the middle of a project or affair, maybe both. He was good at multitasking, but I got the best medical care money could buy.’ Her empathy was beginning to make him uncomfortable. He did not think of himself as an object of pity. ‘This is the part where I normally bring out the violins.’ He cocked his head to his shoulder and pretended to play a violin.
‘It’s not funny!’ Maybe making a joke of it was his way of coping?
‘My grandfather came,’ he said, hoping this would stop her flow of indignation.
‘Was that when they sent you to live with him?’
Ben shook his head, exasperated by her persistence. ‘No, that was a couple of years later and I sent myself.’
‘Sent?’
‘I packed my bags and told them I was going, end of story.’
Her emerald eyes widened in astonishment. ‘And they let you?’
‘I didn’t ask permission and I imagine they were secretly relieved. So was I when my grandfather let me stay.’
‘Have you told him yet, your grandfather, about Emmy?’ She took his expression as a no. ‘I’ll give Mum a ring and ask her not to tell him before you’ve had a chance to speak to him. You can’t let him hear something like this from a stranger. He’s old.’
‘Old and as tough as old boots,’ Ben retorted, no inflection in his voice.
‘Maybe,’ she conceded. ‘But at his age something like flu can take a long time to get over.’
The comment slid through his defences. ‘He had flu?’
‘You didn’t know?’ She was startled.
Ben compressed his lips, his jaw hard as he turned and curved his hands around the cold metal rail he had been leaning against before admitting, ‘We had a ten-minute conversation last week. I hadn’t been home...well, since the last time and he threw me out.’
‘I assumed you’d had a falling out...’
Ben opened his mouth to tell her that it was none of her business and instead found himself responding to her probing with an explanation.
‘My efforts to update the estate did not go down well. He accused me of being heartless and avaricious.’ An accusation that had left a bitter taste in his mouth because Ben was pretty sure that, even though he’d never mentioned it to his grandfather, the old man knew about the money Ben had surreptitiously sunk into various projects on the estate. Unless he thought the aged machinery in the saw mill renewed itself? ‘It appears he thinks forward planning involves selling off a painting or a piece of land to settle debts.’
Lily felt a stab of sympathy for both men. ‘I suppose it’s hard for someone like your grandfather to relinquish control...young lion, old lion type of thing...?’ she suggested tentatively. ‘People need to feel needed.’
‘There’s ju
st no talking to the man!’ The explosive complaint left his lips before he could censor it. He shrugged, moderating his tone as he added, ‘But I will tell him about Emily Rose.’
Hopefully the shock would not see him off, he thought grimly. Would it heal any rifts? The jury was still out on that one.
‘When?’
‘Next weekend,’ he decided, estimating the time the round trip would take him by helicopter as he unzipped his leather jacket. ‘The next time Elizabeth wants to go back to Warren Court let me know—you can use the chopper. It’s at her disposal any time she wants it.’
Lily blinked at the generous offer.
‘And you, of course.’
Lily, who had no plan to go anywhere, nodded then frowned as he removed his jacket. Underneath he wore a thin long-sleeved top. ‘What are you doing?’
In response he took hold of the hem of the cashmere top.
Panic slid through her. It turned out to be justified because a moment later he was standing there naked from the waist up, revealing his muscle-ridged golden torso to anyone who might be passing.
Only there was no one in the car park but her. Her own private striptease.
She had no control over the movement of her wide eyes as they made a covetous sweep from his broad, powerful shoulder to his ribbed belly. The warmth that began in the pit of her belly spread outwards until she was burning and hot all over. A sound that was half moan, half protest left her mouth as she struggled to tear her gaze free. He had a body like a classical statue.
‘Well, come on, I’m getting cold.’ He sounded impatient.
She looked at the top he held out to her and closed her mouth with an audible snap.
‘Do you really want to spend the rest of the day looking like that?’
Lily followed the direction of his gaze downwards, registering for the first time the coffee stains all down her front. There were some splashes on her slim-legged trousers but her top was totally ruined. She patted ineffectually at the still-damp stains, stopping as she recognised it was a lost cause—she barely even remembered spilling the coffee. What had it been—five, ten minutes ago...? It felt as though it had happened in another life!