Certainly, with the fire and its aftermath still prominent in the news, the public were starting to understand the real implications of Paddington’s closing.
‘Right,’ Victoria said. ‘I think that gives us enough to be going on with for now. Anyone who wants to carry on the discussion can—I think most of us who are not working will be heading over to the Frog and Peach.’
Phones went back on and people started heading out. Dominic made his way over to the stage.
‘Well done,’ he told her.
Victoria simply ignored him and packed up her computer and things in silence.
She had been on days off since the fire and hadn’t seen him since the night she had told him about the baby. She certainly didn’t want to see him now.
There was no getting out of it though. Dominic waited till everyone was gone and, when finally they were alone, she turned to face him and hear what he had to say.
‘I want to apologise for my reaction the other night,’ Dominic said.
She understood it though.
Victoria had sat bristling on the Tube but, even as she had let herself into her flat, she had been able to see where he was coming from. Dominic, especially given what he had been through with his ex, had every right to be suspicious as to whether or not the baby was his, Victoria had decided.
And she was right to hold back, but for reasons of her own that she could not think about right now.
‘Dominic,’ Victoria said. ‘I’m pregnant from our one-night stand. Now, I accept, given what happened between us, you might assume that I drop my knickers like that...’ She snapped her fingers. ‘But actually I don’t. I broke up with someone before Christmas and since then...’
‘I don’t need your history. Victoria, I’m thirty-eight. I’m sure we’re both going to have had our share of past relationships.’
And that was perhaps the moment she fully realised just how very different they were.
Victoria was twenty-nine and as for relationships...
She hadn’t really had any of note.
Oh, there had been a couple of boyfriends who had lasted a few months, but she had never lived with anyone and, in truth, had never really been in love.
‘Well, you shouldn’t be so sure,’ Victoria responded. ‘I don’t do very well with relationships and so I tend to steer clear of them. As I said, I broke up with someone just before Christmas, and apart from a couple of first dates that went nowhere, there hasn’t been anyone since then.’ No wonder the condom hadn’t been up to much, Victoria thought; it had been in her purse for months. ‘This year, apart from one torrid tryst in a turret, there’s been no one.’ And she smiled at her little tongue twister. ‘I believe you were the said torrid tryst.’
‘Indeed I was.’
‘And I’m sorry your ex cheated and that you’re not over her, but that’s your issue and—’
‘It’s not that,’ Dominic interrupted.
She raised her eyebrows and Dominic had to concede a smile, because yes, it probably sounded to her as if he wasn’t over his ex. He guessed Victoria thought that he had run away to England because of a break-up, so knew he had to explain things a bit better than that. ‘The person that Lorna was sleeping with was my brother.’
‘Oh,’ Victoria said.
And he waited for her to avert her eyes or to do what everyone else did and move to quickly change the subject, but instead she gave a small grimace.
‘Well, that’s awkward!’
And he smiled a little and admitted, ‘Indeed it is.’
‘Are you and your brother close?’ Victoria asked.
‘We were.’
‘And had you been going out with her for long?’
‘Yes,’ Dominic said.
‘Were you living together?’
‘Yes.’ He nodded but Dominic didn’t want all these questions. He was just trying to explain, a little, why he had reacted to the news of her pregnancy in the way that he had. ‘I really don’t want to discuss it.’
Only that wasn’t quite true.
Dominic had discussed it with no one.
Everyone in his family wanted to simply move on from the uncomfortable topic and to act as if nothing had happened. Not Victoria though—she actually made him smile when she spoke next.
‘You’re very good at torrid trysts.’
‘It would seem that I am.’
‘Were you both sleeping with her at the same time?’
‘Victoria!’ His voice held a warning. ‘I don’t want to talk about it.’
‘Fair enough.’ She shrugged. ‘But if that’s the case, then I’m going to go for a drink with my committee.’
‘Don’t we have rather a lot to discuss?’
‘I’ll be fine,’ Victoria said. ‘I cope with things. So really, at this stage there’s nothing much to talk about. If you want a DNA test once the baby’s here, then that’s fine too.’
They started to walk down the corridor but as Dominic went straight she turned to the left.
‘Where are you going?’
‘It’s a short cut.’
Dominic didn’t want the short cut; he rather liked spending time with her and, though he didn’t say that, of course, it was actually nice to be walking and talking.
The short cut was an old quadrangle that he hadn’t seen before and there was a glimpse of a navy sky and the scent of fresh air; Dominic guessed it would be a very welcome space to know, if working over a long weekend.
‘Maybe it’s not such a short cut,’ Victoria added as she looked up and felt the cool evening air on her cheeks. ‘More, the scenic route.’
‘You really do know this hospital like the back of your hand,’ Dominic commented. ‘Did your father bring you here a lot?’
‘Yes, there were a lot of nanny changes and so I’d be brought along until a replacement was found.’
She had been close to a couple of the nannies but they all too soon found it unbearable to work for her father and left.
It had been the same with his girlfriends, who would attempt to win over the daughter to impress the father and then would drop her like a hot stone as soon as the relationship came to an end.
Even when she had been a bit older, Victoria would come here after school or on long weekends, rather than sit in an empty house. Here at the quadrangle, weather permitting, she had done an awful lot of homework!
‘What about your mother?’ Dominic asked as they started to walk.
‘They broke up.’ Victoria gave him no more information about her mother than that. She turned and looked at him. ‘I shan’t let you just drift in and out of my child’s life. And I’m not having him or her dropped off here just because you have to work. My baby will be at home with me.’
Dominic said nothing. If Victoria thought he would be a hands-off father, then she was wrong, but Dominic wasn’t going to argue about that now.
He had something to ask her. ‘I would like to be at the ultrasound.’
But Victoria had been thinking about just that over the last couple of days and immediately she shook her head. ‘I don’t think so. That offer has been withdrawn.’
‘Can I ask why?’
‘It just has.’
Dominic knew he didn’t have any right to be there and so he chose not to push the issue.
For now.
They were out of the hospital and walking over to the Frog and Peach but suddenly Victoria did not want to go in.
‘Are you coming?’
‘No.’
She offered no more explanation than that. Victoria didn’t need to give him one and was annoyed when Dominic walked after her.
‘What?’ she asked.
‘There’s surely more to discuss.’
�
�I don’t see that there is. I’ll send you a copy of the images and you can...’ She shrugged. ‘You can do whatever you’re going to do. Measure its little crown rump length and decide if it might possibly be yours.’
Yes, she had read the baby books too.
And she walked off with more purpose this time.
It was all starting to feel terribly real.
For weeks she’d been stuffing down the possibility that she might be pregnant; now she knew for certain that she was.
But it wasn’t just the baby, or telling work that concerned Victoria.
It was Dominic MacBride himself.
She had heard his concern about her working the other night and now she could feel his slight push to be more present; she knew that it was only going to increase.
And she did not want to start relying on him.
She thought of her own mother, who had upped and left, and all the nannies and girlfriends and wives that her father had gone through.
There had been no constant in her life apart from her father and he had merely dragged her to work and palmed her off to others.
No, she did not want to start depending on a man who would no doubt soon lose interest and be gone.
She simply would not do that to her child.
CHAPTER EIGHT
DOMINIC AWOKE TO the sound of sirens in the street below.
In a decisive move, he had bought a three-bedroom apartment close to the hospital and, with the ambulance station nearby, he heard sirens often. Now, each time that he did, Dominic wondered if it might be Victoria’s ambulance on its way to something.
She wouldn’t even know that she had passed by his apartment, Dominic thought, as Victoria didn’t even know where he lived.
They were so removed from each other’s lives.
And yet they were not.
Because he thought about her all the time.
He liked her.
Or rather, he was attracted to her enormously and that didn’t aide sensible thinking.
Since their liaison at Paddington’s Dominic had found himself thinking about her an awful lot.
Prior to that even.
On finding out about Jamie and Lorna he had closed off from others and thrown himself into work.
Absolutely.
It had been his escape from hurt and anger, and the thought of starting again with anyone had been far from Dominic’s mind.
But then she had stomped her way into his thoughts with her heavy boots and crisp handovers. Her confident smile had felt like an intrusion, yet he had found himself looking out for her.
Noticing her.
Victoria was a very different woman from any that he was used to liking.
She had intrigued him when Dominic had not wanted to be intrigued, so much so that, even while talking to a parent, he had been aware that she had been stood registering a patient in Reception. He had seen her duck behind the shelves and, later that same day, he himself had done the same and found the place to which she escaped.
And in his time at Paddington’s he had escaped there a few times.
Once, when a young life had been lost, he had come from Theatre and told the parents that he had been unable to save their child.
In fact, Victoria and Glen had been the crew who had brought the patient in.
It had been the worst of nights.
His career meant that he was no stranger to death, but while all loss hurt, this one had been particularly painful.
Dominic had raced the little girl to Theatre but she had died on the operating table and telling the parents had been hell.
They had wanted her to be an organ donor and wanted her heart to go to another child.
It was their fervent wish, yet she was already dead.
Dominic had never been more grateful for the appearance of Rebecca in the interview room. She headed the transplant team and Dominic could only admire her empathy for the parents.
She had spoken with them at length and had gone through what could be done to give the gift of hope to another child.
Yes, she had empathy because, seeing Dominic, she had said that she would take it from here.
He had lain in the on-call room going over and over the surgery, wondering if there was anything more he could have done, while knowing that the child’s fate had been sealed at the moment of impact.
Unable to sleep he had got up and it had been to the turret that he retreated, where he had looked out to a dark London night.
There, away from the constant background hospital noise, he had thought about the doctors who had fought so hard to save his brother, and accepted he had done the same for that child.
There was solace in that quiet space.
And together he and Victoria had found solace again on a very different night—the night that little William had been born.
Every sensible part of him screeched for caution and told Dominic that he could well be being taken for a ride.
Yet the sensible parts did not take into account the magic of that night, the mutual succour, for despite Victoria’s denial, despite insisting her pensive mood was reserved only for the loss of the famed institution, Dominic was certain that she had been hurting for other reasons that night too.
He wanted to know Victoria some more.
Baby aside, caution aside, he wanted to know the woman behind the cool façade and it was time to do something about that.
* * *
‘You’ve got an admirer, Victoria!’
She returned from a call-out with Glen to the light teasing of other staff. A large bouquet of gorgeous flowers was waiting for her at the station. There were freesias, which were her favourite, as well as hyacinths and other blooms. They filled the air with a rich sweet scent and all the gorgeous shades of spring were on display.
Though her heart was beating rapidly she did not show it in her expression. In fact, Victoria rolled her eyes as she opened the card, for she was quite certain who they were from.
If Dominic thought that a stunning array of flowers was going to give him a second hearing, and that she would let him in on the ultrasound, then he could not be more wrong.
But then she read the card and found out that no, she was not at the forefront of his thoughts.
‘It’s from Lewis’s parents,’ Victoria said, and she smiled as she read it. ‘He was the neck injury from the fire at Westbourne Grove.’
‘How is he doing?’ her line manager asked.
‘Apparently he’s doing really well and they’ll soon be taking him home.’
Victoria only knew that from the card. Unlike Glen, who checked on almost everyone, Victoria chose not to follow up on her patients.
It wasn’t that she didn’t care; it was more that bad news was unsettling and she had made a conscious choice not to get overly involved.
Lewis’s parents had left a present for Glen too—a very nice bottle of wine that he decided would remain in his locker until they had finished nights next week, as on the Monday it would be his and Hayley’s wedding anniversary.
Glen chatted about his plans for that night as they drove to their next job. ‘Ten years,’ Glen said. ‘I can’t believe it.’
Nor could Victoria envision it! ‘So what are you getting her?’
‘Hayley says that she doesn’t want anything. She just wants...’ Glen hesitated and then changed whatever he had been about to say. ‘I’m getting her an eternity ring. Sapphire and diamonds.’
‘That sounds gorgeous,’ Victoria said. ‘So what does she really want?’ She looked over to Glen, who concentrated on the road ahead, but Victoria could guess exactly what Hayley wanted and Glen knew it.
‘Leave it, Victoria.’
Victoria would not.
‘How did you pull up after the school fire?’ she asked.
‘I’m fine. They got everyone out.’
Victoria knew that Glen was stressed. They had been crewmates for two years now. Though it had taken her a while to open up, even a little bit, Glen had been open right from the start.
He was friendly and laid-back and brilliant at his job, but recently things had changed.
They had been called out to a motor vehicle accident a couple of months ago and taken a very sick child to Paddington’s, where she had subsequently died.
Some jobs were harder than others and Glen had taken this one very personally indeed. The little girl had been the same age as his daughter and the accident had occurred on a road that his wife often took.
It was a couple of weeks after that that Victoria had noticed the change in him. Instead of his usual laid-back self, he was tense at times and kept calling home to check with Hayley that everything was okay.
Despite Glen’s insistence that he was fine, Victoria was sure that Hayley wanted Glen to speak to one of the counsellors made available to them, but Glen steadfastly refused to do so.
She would wait for her moment, Victoria decided, and, in the meantime, keep a bit of a closer eye on him.
‘Your flowers were nice,’ Glen said.
‘Beautiful,’ Victoria agreed.
Which they were, of course, but what was niggling her was that there had been a thud of disappointment that the flowers weren’t from Dominic and this unsettled her.
It was a busy morning and just as they were starting to think about lunch they were called out to a woman who had collapsed in a shop.
‘I haven’t got time to go to hospital,’ the woman protested as she lay there. Her daughter was with her and was upset, and as they were transferring her mother to the ambulance, they found out that it was her ninth birthday.
‘No school today?’ Glen asked the little girl.
‘She’s goes to Westbourne Grove,’ her mother said.
Victoria looked over and gave the young girl a smile. ‘You’re having a bit of a time of it, aren’t you?’
The girl nodded. ‘My friend Ryan is very sick.’
‘That must be so hard for you,’ Victoria said.
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