Healing Her Boss's Heart

by Dianne Drake

  Her best feature. The only part of her face not scarred or damaged by the acid. She’d been lucky in that respect. Most acid attack victims were blinded.

  Her dashing admirer had tried to remove her veil when he’d leant in to kiss her, but she’d stopped him.

  ‘Don’t, please. It’s better this way.’

  He’d smiled and used his mouth in other ways...

  Now everyone at the hand-over would be waiting for her, and they’d all look at her when she went back through. The longer she left it, the worse it would be.

  She put the cap on the test stick and slipped it into her pocket, then unlocked the bathroom door. Shoulders back, trying to feel relaxed, she headed off to the briefing.

  Okay. I can do this. I’m an expert at pretending everything is fine.

  The staff were all gathered around the hub of the unit. Whenever a new patient was admitted, or whenever family came to visit, they would walk down this one corridor that led to the hub. From there they would be directed down different corridors—to the right for postnatal and discharges, straight ahead for medical assessment and long-stay patients, to the left for labour and delivery, and beyond that, Theatre.

  From the hub, they could see who was trying to buzz through the main doors to gain access to the ward, with the help of a security camera. They could also see the admissions boards, listing who was in which bed and what stage they were at.

  There were usually thank-you cards there, perched on the desk, or stuck to the wall behind them, along with a tin or a box of chocolates kindly donated by a grateful family, and on the walls were some very beautiful black and white photographs of babies, taken by their very skilled photographer Addison.

  Senior midwife Jules was leaning up against the hub, and she smiled when she saw Freya coming. ‘Here she is! Last but not least.’

  Freya sidled in amongst the group, keeping her eyes down and trying desperately to blend in. She could feel all eyes upon her and folded herself down into a chair to make herself smaller. She had kept people waiting when they just wanted to go home.

  She gratefully accepted a copy of the admissions sheet that Mona passed over to her.

  ‘It’s been a busy day today, and it looks like you girls aren’t going to have it easy tonight either. In the labour suite, we’ve got two labouring mums. In Bed One is Andrea Simpson—she’s a gravida one, para zero at term plus two days, currently at three centimetres dilated and comfortable, but she had a spontaneous rupture of membranes at home. She’s currently on the trace machine and will need to come off in about ten minutes. In Bed Two we have Lisa Chambers, she’s a gravida three, para four. Two lots of twins and currently about to deliver her first singleton baby. She’s had two previous elective Caesareans and is trying for a VBAC on this one.’

  Freya nodded, scribbling notes. A VBAC was a vaginal birth after Caesarean—a ‘trial of scar’, as some people put it, to see if the mother could deliver vaginally.

  ‘She’s labouring fast. At six-thirty she was at six centimetres and she’s currently making do on gas and air.’

  Freya sat and listened to the rest of Jules’s assessment. They had in total twenty-one patients: two on the labour ward, seven on Antenatal and twelve on Postnatal, five of whom were post-surgery.

  And the phones would continue to ring. There would also be unexpected walk-ins, and no doubt A&E would send up one or two.

  But she didn’t mind. Her job was her life. Her passion. The only thing that brought her real joy. It was all she’d ever wanted to be, growing up. A midwife and a mum. And, as of ten startling minutes ago, it looked as if she was going to achieve being both of those.

  Freya was excellent at her job, and she truly believed she was only so good at it because it was something she adored doing. Every new baby born was a minor miracle. Every witnessed birth a joy and a privilege. Every moment she sat and held a mother’s hand through a contraction was another courageous moment.

  It was a weird place, Maternity. A place where staff and patients met often for the first time, total strangers, and then just hours later Freya would know so much about a person—about their family, their hopes and dreams, their sense of humour, what their favourite foods were, what they craved, what they wanted to be, what they wanted to name their children...

  She saw them at their worst, but more often at their best and bravest, and when her patients left Freya knew she would always be remembered as being a part of that family’s life. Someone who had shared in their most special and cherished moments. Never to be forgotten.

  It was an immense responsibility.

  Jules put down her papers. ‘Now, ladies, I want you to calm yourselves, but we have in our midst a new midwife! His name’s Jamie and he’s hiding at the back. Give us all a wave, Jamie!’

  Jamie? No. Relax. It’s a common name.

  Freya didn’t want to turn and look. She knew how that would make the poor guy feel, having all those women turning and staring at him, eyeing him up. But she knew that it would look odd if hers was the only head that didn’t turn. It would single her out. So she gave him a quick glance.

  Lovely. No...wait a minute...

  She whipped her head back round, her mind whirling, and pretended to scribble some more notes about what Jules had just reported on her sheet. But her pen remained still above the paper.

  It’s him. It’s him! Oh, God, oh, God, oh...

  Her trembling fingers touched her lips and her nausea returned in a torrent so powerful she thought she might be sick with nerves right there and then—all over Mona’s shoes. She wanted to get up and bolt. Run as fast as she could. But it was impossible.

  She frantically eyed the spaces between the rows of staff and wondered how quickly she could make a break for it at the end of the briefing.

  It couldn’t be possible. How could it be him? Her one-night stand.

  ‘Jamie is with us for a couple of months, filling in for Sandra who’s away on maternity leave, so I’d like to say welcome to the team, Jamie, it’s good to have you here. For the rest of you—Jamie has been working all over the country in various midwifery posts, so he’s got a lot of experience, and I hope you’ll all take the time to welcome him here, to Queen’s.’

  Jules smiled.

  ‘Right, then. We’re all off. Have a good shift, ladies. And Jamie!’

  She smiled, waved, and the majority of staff disappeared off to the locker room, to grab their things and go.

  Freya, frozen to the spot, wished she could do the same.

  Okay, so the simplest thing to do is to stay out of his way.

  So far she’d done a sterling job of that.

  Mona was showing him around, pointing out where everything was, getting him acquainted with the temperamental computer and how to admit people to the ward—that kind of thing. Freya, on the other hand, had just been given the task to introduce herself to the two labouring mothers and work on the labour ward—which she was very happy about because that gave her the opportunity to stay in her patients’ rooms and not see or have to engage with him.

  The irony of the situation was not lost on her. The first time they had met she had been brimming with temporary confidence, an urge to experience life again as a normal woman meeting a handsome guy at a party. But now she was back to reality. Hiding and skulking around corners, trying her best to avoid him. The man she’d propositioned.

  And what the hell were the odds of him turning up on the very same day that she took a pregnancy test? It had to be millions to one, didn’t it? Or at the very least a few hundred thousand to one?

  Jules had said he’d been working in various posts around the country. Why hadn’t he got a job at one of those? Why did he keep moving?

  What’s wrong with him?

  The weight of the pregnancy test in her left pocket seemed to increase, its weight like a millstone.

&nb
sp; She entered Andrea Simpson’s room quietly.

  ‘Hello, it’s Andrea, isn’t it? I’m Freya and I’m going to be your midwife tonight.’

  She smiled at her new charge and then glanced over at her partner, who was putting his phone in his back pocket and standing up to say hello.

  He reached over to shake her hand and she saw him do that thing with his eyes that everyone did when they noticed her face—noticed that she’d been burned, somehow, despite her corrective surgery and skin grafts. Noticed that she’d had work done.

  His gaze flittered across her features and then there was that pause.

  ‘Hi, I’m George,’ he introduced himself. ‘I’m just here to do what I’m told.’

  Freya smiled. ‘Mum’s the boss in this room.’

  She glanced over at the belt placement on Andrea’s abdomen and checked the trace on the machine. The trace looked good. No decelerations and the occasional contraction, currently seven or eight minutes apart. Still a way to go for Andrea.

  ‘I want you to stay on this for ten more minutes, then I’ll take it off—is that all right?’

  Andrea nodded, reaching for a bottle of water and taking a short drink.

  ‘Do you have a birth plan?’

  ‘Just to have as much pain relief as I can get.’

  ‘Okay. And what sort of pain relief are you thinking of?’

  ‘I want to start with gas and air, see how I go with that, and then maybe get pethidine. But I’m open to whatever you suggest at the time.’

  Freya smiled. ‘So am I. This is your birth, your body. I’ll be guided by you as long as it’s safe. Okay?’

  ‘Yes...’

  Freya could see that Andrea had questions. ‘Nervous?’

  Andrea giggled. ‘A bit. This is all so new!’

  Tell me about it.

  Freya had seen hundreds of babies come into the world. She never tired of it. Each birth was different and special, and now she knew that if all went well and she didn’t miscarry she’d be doing this herself in a few months. Lying on a bed...labouring. It was actually going to happen.

  ‘You’ll do fine.’

  She laid a reassuring hand on her patient’s and wondered who’d be there to hold her hand during labour? Her mum?

  Her mind treacherously placed Jamie beside her bed and she felt goosebumps shiver down her skin.

  No. It can’t be him.

  It can’t be.

  But isn’t that what you always wanted? A cosy, happy family unit?

  It had been. Once.

  * * *

  It was her. He’d have known those blue eyes anywhere. The eyes that had been haunting his dreams for weeks now.

  He’d been invited to that charity ball after he’d attended a small event in Brighton that was meant to have been low-key. But word must have reached the ears of the hospital that the heir to the throne of Majidar, Prince Jameel Al Bakhari, was around and an invitation had got through to his people.

  It had been for such a good cause he hadn’t been able to refuse it. A children’s burns unit. He’d seen the damage burns could cause, from a simple firework accident right through to injuries sustained in a war zone, and it was shocking for anyone. A painful, arduous road to recovery. But for it to happen to a child was doubly devastating.

  So he’d attended, dressed as a pirate, complete with a large hoop earring and a curved plastic scimitar that had hung from his waist by a sash.

  He’d not intended to stay for very long. He’d made them keep his presence there quiet, as he didn’t enjoy people bowing and scraping around him. He hated that whole sycophantic thing that happened around members of his royal family. It was part of why he’d left Majidar. To be a normal person.

  It was why he tried to live his life following his passion. And his passion was to deliver babies. Something that was not considered ‘suitable’ for a prince back in his own country.

  But what could you do when it was your calling? Delivering babies was what he had always yearned to do, and he’d never been destined for the throne. His elder brother had been the heir and was now ruler. So surely, he’d reasoned, it was better to spend his life doing something worthwhile and selfless instead of parading around crowds of people, smiling and waving, a spare heir that no one needed?

  He’d faced some considerable opposition. Mostly from his father, who’d been appalled that his second son wanted to do what he viewed as ‘women’s work’. His father had forbidden him ever to speak of it again and, respecting his father, he had kept that promise. Until his father had passed away. Then his brother Ilias had taken the throne, and Jamie had approached his new King and told him of his vocation.

  Ilias had proudly granted his younger brother the freedom to pursue it.

  So he’d gone to the ball, telling the organisers that he didn’t want to draw attention to himself, and asking that they did not make any special announcement that he was there, just let him join in as any other person would.

  Jamie had mingled, smiled, shaken people’s hands—and found himself losing the will to live and wondering when would be a polite time to leave... And then he’d spotted her in a corner of the room.

  Almost as tall as he, she’d been dressed from top to toe in black, accented in dark purple, with some weird cogs and a strange pair of pilot goggles attached to her hat. Her face had been covered by a Bedouin-style gauze veil that had reminded him of home.

  Her honey-blonde hair had tumbled down her back, almost to her waist, and above that veil had sparkled the most gorgeous blue eyes he had ever seen. Blue like the ocean and the sky, and just as wild and free.

  ‘I’m Freya. Pleased to meet you.’

  ‘Jamie.’

  ‘I saw you eyeing up the exit. Getting ready to make a break for it?’

  He had been. But not any more.

  So he’d stayed. And they’d talked. And laughed.

  Freya had been delightful, charming and intelligent, and so easy to be with. She’d told him a story about the last time she’d attempted to flee a party. She’d been eleven years old and it had been the first time her parents hadn’t stayed with her. She’d been frightened by all the noise and all the people and had scurried away when no one was looking and run home to hide in her dad’s garden shed.

  She’d grimaced as she’d recalled how she’d stayed there, terrified out of her wits not only about being found out, but also because there had been a massive spider in the corner, watching her. He’d laughed when she’d told him she’d almost peed her pants because her bladder had been killing her from drinking too much pop. But she hadn’t been able to go home too early, or her parents would have known that she’d run away.

  ‘No spiders here,’ he’d said.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Nothing to be afraid of. I’ll protect you.’

  ‘Now, why would you do that? You hardly know me. I might be dangerous.’

  ‘I think I can handle you.’

  His pulse had thrummed against his skin, his temperature rising, his whole body aware. Of her. She hadn’t removed the veil, but she’d kept on peering at him over it with devilment in her gaze, and he’d felt drawn to her excitement and bravado. She hadn’t been drunk on alcohol. Her eyes had been clear, pupils not pinpointed, so no drugs. But she’d definitely been intoxicated by something, and he’d begun to suspect that he was feeling the same way, too.

  There’d been something about her. So different from everyone else at the party. But what had it been? What had made her unique? Had it been the veil? The air of mystery? Or just those eyes? Eyes that had looked so young, but had also spoken of a wisdom beyond her years. As if she knew something that no one else did. As if she’d experienced life and the gamut of emotions that came with it. And yet that night she’d been drawn to him, and he to her. She a purple and black veiled moth and he the flame.
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br />   ‘Do you trust me?’

  She’d smiled. ‘Can any woman trust a pirate?’

  ‘I’m not just a pirate.’

  The corners of her mouth had twitched and she’d glanced at his mouth, then back to his eyes, and he’d been hit with such a blow of lust he hadn’t been able to help himself. He’d tried to look away, to take a deep breath, to regain control over his senses.

  ‘I need to go,’ she’d said.

  ‘Let me walk you home.’

  ‘No need. I have transport.’

  ‘Then let me walk you to it.’

  He’d offered her his arm and she’d taken it, smiling through the gauze and looking up at him, her eyes gleaming.

  He’d been overcome by a bolt of desire.

  But what to do about it? He considered himself a gentleman. He had principles...he’d only just met her...but there was something...

  They’d stood there staring at each other, each of them trying to force the words to say goodbye, but neither of them ready to leave just yet. Her eyes had glinted at him in the darkness, with a look that said she wanted more than this...

  The first door they’d tried had been unlocked, and they’d found themselves inside a supply closet, filled with clean linen and pressed staff uniforms.

  He’d stood in front of her, just looking at her, noticing the small flecks of green and gold in her eyes. They’d shone like jewels, and her pupils had been large and black as she’d reached for his shirt and pulled him close.

  He’d lost himself in her. Completely forgotten who he was, where he was. All that had mattered had been the feel of her, the taste of her, as he’d hitched up her skirts, her million and one petticoats, slid his hands up those long, slim legs...

  Freya...

  Like two lost souls that had found each other, they had clutched and grasped, gasped and groaned. He’d reached to remove the veil, so that he could kiss her, so that he could seek out her lips and claim her for his very own, but she’d stopped him, stilled his hand.