‘And you bought flowers without thinking about it for this place, to pretty it up, yet your flat in London barely gets a look.’
‘Richard, I’ve been busy, and most of my time off is spent at yours.’
‘Oh, come off it, Freya,’ he snapped again.
Since the moment she’d left to visit Alison he’d been giving it some considerable thought. And all his thoughts pointed to the same conclusion.
‘Is this why you’ve no real interest in whether I take the private job or carry on at the Primary?’
Freya swallowed.
And Richard saw her swallow and knew he was right.
God! He had been going to ask her to move in with him—to take things further! He had even gone to Freya for her take on his career in case it affected them.
Well, he decided, she never needed to know that.
‘It’s been your intention to come back here all along.’
‘No,’ Freya argued. ‘No. Richard, when I left I thought it was for good. I truly did. I was so tired of this place, and everywhere I went there were...’ She didn’t know how to explain it. ‘Reminders.’
‘Of Malcolm?’
He hoped not. God, he seriously hoped not. But he had to rule that one out.
He saw her eyes screw up and the tiny, impatient, shake of her head as she completely discounted that. He believed that it had had nothing to do with the other man.
‘The baby?’ Richard checked, and her silence was his answer. ‘You left because you were upset about your friend’s baby?’
He didn’t say it scornfully. She saved the scorn for herself.
‘Not just the baby. Alison too. I know it shouldn’t get to me the way it does. Even Alison seems so much better, and I guess I appear so too. I should have got over it—I know that...’
‘Freya, you’re grieving.’
‘No.’ That sounded too dramatic a word. ‘Maybe at first, but it was Alison who lost—’
He spoke over her. ‘There aren’t numbered tickets given out for grieving. You don’t get sent to the back of the queue just because the baby wasn’t yours. You went through a bad time at work and the loss was a very personal one. Then you ended a long-term relationship.’
‘I was right to.’
‘Yes, but it might have been more than you could deal with at the time so you ran away.’
‘No.’
But Richard wouldn’t let her off that lightly. ‘Did you know Alison was trying for another baby?’
‘Yes.’
‘You couldn’t face it if anything went wrong and so you left, but you were always going to come home.’
Had she been?
Freya thought of her last days in Cromayr Bay and the ache in her heart as she had walked out of the delivery centre for the last time.
Not the last time ever.
A part of her had known that even then.
Even if she had brushed it from her mind.
‘Yes.’ She admitted it now. ‘But I didn’t know that when I applied to work at the Primary. I didn’t even know it for certain when I started seeing you.’
‘But you do now?’
Freya nodded.
And, for the first time in his life knew that the biter had been bitten.
‘Richard, you and I...’
‘We were a fling.’ He let out a mirthless laugh.
She had meant them to be just that, Freya knew. It had never been going anywhere, or so she had thought, and so she had been able to close her heart and have fun for once. But it had been a grown-up game she’d been playing, which meant when it went wrong there was a greater risk of hurt.
He climbed out of bed—and it was odd the things you noticed, she thought, but he turned away from her to get dressed, when he had never come close to doing so before. A glimpse of that beautiful body was denied to her.
‘Do you know what really annoys me?’ Richard’s voice was as brusque as the hands that tucked in his shirt.
‘That I wasn’t honest with you? I accept that, but I truly didn’t know how I felt—’
‘No,’ Richard interrupted. ‘The part that really annoys me is that you never gave London a chance.’
‘I did.’
‘No, you had it pegged from the start as cold and unfriendly.’
Given the circumstances, Richard figured he deserved a chance to be mean, and he used it well.
‘I’ll tell you why you’ve got no friends, Freya. It’s because—unlike me—people probably sensed that you were never really serious about being there.’
‘I take my job very seriously.’
‘I’m not questioning your midwifery skills. I’m saying that you never gave London a chance.’ He shook his head. ‘I’m going.’
‘Where?’
‘To the Tavern. I hear they do a nice game pie.’
‘Don’t go,’ Freya implored. ‘We can talk. Surely?’
‘And say what? Is it your intention to come back and live here?’
There was no point dressing it up, so Freya told him the decision she had made. ‘I’m going to see my contract out and then I’m moving back here. It doesn’t mean we have to stop seeing each other. Lots of long-distance relationships work out...’
His laugh was almost a shout. Every word sounded foreign to him.
Long. Distance. Relationship.
A few months ago it might have been ideal. He had been growing tired of casual relationships. With Freya in Scotland he could still focus on work...
God, they were so bloody good together that if he stayed—if they ended this row in bed—he could actually see himself saying that he might consider moving here.
But his decision as to what to do was already complicated enough. He did not need another iron in the fire. He was not, not, going to consider living here.
Never.
‘Enjoy the view, Freya.’
He didn’t need to slam the door, for the bitter tone to his voice reverberated through her far more than the sound of wood on wood could.
Her one-night stand had proved to be more.
And yet he had gone without working through it.
Gone without hearing her side.
Gone.
CHAPTER TEN
FIRST CLASS.
It felt incongruent to Freya that she should lug her broken heart back to London in style, but she’d learnt a few tricks, having made the journey so often, and, given it was Sunday and there was a spare seat, she’d got a cheap upgrade.
Freya wasn’t just lugging her heart home, though.
She had thought hard about what Richard had said about her never having given London a chance, and she had spoken about it to Alison too, when she’d visited.
‘I’m torn,’ Freya had admitted. ‘If I stay it will only be because of him. And what happens when he decides it’s not working out? He won’t even talk to me about it. No.’ She’d shaken her head. ‘This is home.’
‘Well, why don’t you try and make London home for a while?’ Alison had suggested.
‘That’s where I’m headed tomorrow.’ Freya had given her friend’s stomach a tender caress. ‘If this wee one behaves.’
Between visits to her friend Freya had braved the cellar of her home and filled up some cases.
The coffee machine would have to wait. It was simply too heavy. But she had packed some rugs and photos and ornaments, and now she sat on the train with her luggage stowed as a tall woman pushed the buffet cart to the side of her table.
An elderly lady stirred nearby and gave Freya a smile as she selected a Ploughman’s sandwich and a bag of crisps and then promptly fell back to sleep.
Freya was grateful for the silent carriage, for there was only the lulling movement of the train and the stunning countryside to take the edge off the frequent barbs of her thoughts.
Richard’s words had stung so much because they were true. Freya hadn’t set out to hurt him, yet inadvertently she had.
And so she looked at her phone, which was on
silent, and this time there was no thought of Russian emojis or tartan berets.
This time her text was from the heart.
I never thought I would feel the way I do about you.
* * *
While he sat in his gorgeous apartment, surrounded by tiny pieces of Freya—a silk scarf over his sofa, a pair of earrings on his table—knowing that there was some of her washing in the tumble dryer, he read her second text.
Does it have to be all or nothing?
Her question was both sensible and ridiculous.
Sensible because they’d been seeing each other for just a couple of months, and it was too early in the piece to be speaking of career and country moves. Ridiculous because they both knew how they felt.
Richard texted back.
Can you see yourself staying in London?
Freya answered.
I don’t know.
* * *
Freya had answered, but sensed that now wasn’t the time to lie.
She looked out of the window as the train slowed down and they arrived at Berwick-upon-Tweed. She recalled being in his car as they crossed the border. The feeling of being home.
And then, as they left Berwick-upon-Tweed behind, she felt torn from the land of her heart. No, she could not see herself permanently in London.
Not really.
And so she sent another text.
No.
Silence was his first response. But as the train pulled into Newcastle her phone pinged.
There’s no point, then.
He was as brusque as ever.
Richard, we can’t do this by text. I’m on the train now. Can I come over?
* * *
He read the message and gave a wry smile, for all too often a lover had pleaded with him via this very vehicle not to end things, and asked could they please just come over and talk.
This felt like a very different message from the familiar.
It would end in bed, rather than tears, Richard knew, and they would be no further along than they were now.
No, you can’t come over. I’ll meet you at Euston.
* * *
Richard wasn’t on the platform, but as she came through the barrier and stepped out into brighter skies her heart sank. He looked amazing, in black jeans and a thin black jumper, but when she saw her own bag over his shoulder Freya knew that the things she’d left at his flat were inside.
‘I’m sorry I wasn’t honest with you,’ Freya said. ‘That first night we went out I’d only just started to figure out that I wasn’t planning on staying after the end of my contract.’
‘Pardon?’
She looked into his gorgeous eyes and managed a pale smile, because she knew he was teasing, as well as trying to ease the pain and make their parting of ways as good as it could be.
‘I kept waiting for you to dump me,’ Freya said, and poked at his lovely big chest. ‘That’s what it said on the box. I went into this with eyes wide open, knowing we had a fast-approaching use-by date...’
‘I know you did.’ His sigh was a weary one, and it came from lack of sleep—though for once that had nothing to do with work, for he had been on days off.
‘Nothing has to change...’ Freya attempted, but even she could hear the futility behind her words, because so much already had.
He handed her the bag. ‘I don’t want us to see each other any more.’
‘Richard, please,’ Freya said, even when she had sworn she would never beg him not to leave. ‘Don’t rush off.’
He had to.
Lest he stayed.
‘You don’t have to make a decision now,’ Freya reasoned as she ran after him.
‘I’ve already made it,’ Richard said.
‘I can’t believe you won’t let us talk.’
Infuriatingly, he shrugged.
She spoke on. ‘I’ve still got a couple of months to go here, and some long-distance relationships work...’
He didn’t want to hear it. Richard did not want this dragged out. He did not want his precious days off spent on the motorway, and he did not want her the best part of a day away. So, rather than admit to the hurt he felt, instead he was blunt.
‘I like sex a bit more regularly than once a fortnight.’
Her mouth clamped closed. She really didn’t have an answer to that.
But Richard hadn’t finished yet.
‘You wanted a bastard you could readily leave behind, Freya,’ he reminded her. ‘Don’t complain when I deliver.’
And, as she had been promised by all and sundry, as she had known would happen on the day she had accepted a night out in his company, Richard Lewis broke her heart.
* * *
‘Don’t!’ Freya warned the flower seller at the Underground station, before he could tell her again to cheer up because it might never happen.
But then she relented.
It had already happened.
She had lost Richard.
And the worst thing about that was that in everything he’d said he’d been right.
So she bought a huge bunch flowers, even though she didn’t really feel like it, and lugged her cases up to her flat.
As she opened the door Freya winced.
Really! Imagine her bringing Richard back here.
The carpet was vile, but she had ordered a huge rug online that would soon be here, and she had brought loads of things from home.
Loads.
Okay, she only had three more months left here, but she was not going to just sit it out.
So she threw some gorgeous quilts over the sofa and scattered cushions on top, and then she set to work putting out ornaments and pictures.
It was better that than focussing on a seriously broken heart.
* * *
At work, he ignored her.
Not in front of the patients, of course. And Richard was far too smooth to do something silly like call her ‘Nurse’. He still called her Freya if he had to—just not quite in the same way he had said it before.
A couple of weeks into her heartache he came to the nurses’ station, where Freya and Stella were sitting. He was wearing scrubs, and still had on a paper theatre hat.
Stella was sorting out the off-duty rota and Freya was feeding a very fussy Baby Glover, whose mother had been taken to Theatre post-delivery when complications had set in.
‘How’s Mrs Glover?’ Stella asked.
‘She’s fine.’ Richard nodded. ‘And she should be back on the ward soon.’
He didn’t look over or say hi to Freya. He just sat and caught up with the notes he’d been writing before he’d had to dash off. Mid-stroke of his pen, though, he peeled off his cap and tossed it into the bin.
The cap had left his hair messy, just as it had been on the day they had met.
Now Freya knew why.
‘Felicity,’ Stella said. ‘I mean Freya—can you swap from an early to a late on Tuesday?’
‘That’s fine.’
Freya no longer took it personally when Stella got her staff’s names muddled up, because when it came to babies and mother’s names she never did.
Never. Not once.
And with twenty-eight mothers and babies on the maternity unit this morning alone, Stella had a lot on her mind.
‘You don’t have plans?’ Stella checked.
‘No,’ Freya said. ‘Well, actually I’m trying to make some curtains, but I’m sure they won’t care if I don’t get to them that night.’
‘You should speak to Pat,’ Stella said, but didn’t elaborate, and then, having finished sorting out the off duty, she got up and walked off.
There wasn’t silence.
That would be too much to ask mid-morning on a maternity ward.
But there was silence between them.
How she missed him.
‘Richard?’ Freya said, and looked up from the little infant she was feeding, ‘Do you think—?’
‘Is this about a patient?’
‘No.’
> ‘Work?’
‘No.’
‘Then you don’t get to know my thoughts.’ He stood. ‘Dominic and my SHO are stuck in ICU, so I’m going down to Surgical to do the Pain Round. Tell Stella I’ll be back to finish these notes when I get a chance.’
‘Sure.’
He walked off.
Richard didn’t stalk off—he didn’t do anything other than put her neatly in her place.
* * *
He did the Pain Round and asked the patients over and over, ‘On a scale of one to ten—ten being the highest—how would you rate your pain?’
‘Ten,’ some would say, while reaching for their cup of tea.
‘Three,’ some would say, just a few hours post-op, while wincing from the pull of stitches on their wound or the weight of a sheet.
And that night, when he went home to an apartment minus any little pieces of Freya, Richard dared not rate his own pain.
He had returned to London after their row to the sanity of a single life. It was now two weeks post-Freya and the pain should have improved considerably. In fact the old Richard would have been well onto the next woman by now. At the very least he should be out with a friend and mocking the fact that he had almost considered giving up all this for a career in Cromayr Bay.
Mocking it.
Laughing at the fact that in the days after they had ended things he had placed a call to the head of anaesthetics at Cromayr Bay and made tentative enquiries.
He had been invited for an informal visit in a couple of weeks, to be shown around. There were currently no vacancies, but he’d set the ball rolling. Richard knew he should halt it now.
He wasn’t hungry enough to order take-away, so he ate cereal and then took off his suit and stepped into his pristine glass shower. But the trouble with that was he missed those awful green tiles at Freya’s place, and the inevitable search for a towel.
Here he had his choice from eight white fluffy ones, all folded and waiting. Yet for all its luxurious bliss, his apartment felt as sterile as an operating theatre now that Freya wasn’t there.
He lay in his non-lumpy bed and, though he might appear comfortable to some, he decided to rate his pain.
One to ten...with ten being the highest.
Seven? he attempted, because although it had hurt seeing her today he had been effective in cutting her off.
And yet he’d badly wanted to hear what she’d had to say.
The Midwife's One-Night Fling Page 11