Admittedly she hadn’t been coming to the centre for long—and only once or twice each month, and only since her engagement to Andy had unravelled so spectacularly—but as far as she’d been able to tell Malachi was always there, and the kids loved him. And they weren’t the only ones—it hadn’t been long before she’d started counting down the days to her next visit.
The fact that since their one-weekend stand he hadn’t once been at the centre at the same time she had could surely mean only one thing—he’d been deliberately avoiding her.
It hurt more than she cared to admit.
Even now her hand went subconsciously to her belly, where the tiniest bump was just beginning to make itself known. As though the gesture could somehow protect her precious cargo from the idea that Malachi wouldn’t want to know. And from other people who might judge her or cast aspersions.
It shouldn’t matter, of course. Saskia knew that. But you didn’t grow up the daughter of a Tinseltown starlet without having people judging your every move. And she’d never really had as thick a skin as she’d pretended.
Not that anyone else could even tell that she was pregnant, of course. Not even Anouk, who had been Saskia’s best friend since kindergarten and hanging out on a movie set where their rival Hollywood actress mothers had battled to out-diva each other.
Saskia felt a fresh pang of guilt about keeping silent with the one person she had always trusted most in the world, but somehow it seemed wrong to tell other people before Malachi. It was ludicrous, really, since she wasn’t even sure he would want to know.
Besides, work had been so busy lately, and she’d already brought enough drama into her quiet friend’s life by landing on Anouk’s doorstep, suitcases at her feet, after she’d walked out on Andy.
Not that Anouk had ever uttered a word of complaint, of course. No, her friend had merely hugged her and then gone out and found a stunning two-bedroom apartment more suitable for them to share. Anouk had simply made it feel like an exciting new stage in the adventure on which they’d embarked over a decade earlier, when they’d boarded a plane out of the States in order to go to medical school in the UK and track down the father Anouk had never known.
It was bizarre, the way people always seemed to consider her to be dynamic and fun whilst they viewed Anouk as reserved, even a little cold. To Saskia, Anouk was focused, loyal, gentle—all the qualities that Saskia, who hated the way she herself seemed continually to find herself in the middle of some new, unwanted drama, envied most.
Gripping the moulded plastic sink top as she glowered at herself in the mirror, Saskia berated herself. Anouk wouldn’t be hiding out in a bathroom on the paediatric floor whilst she worked out what the heck to say to Malachi out there. Then again, wise, pragmatic Anouk would never be pregnant from a one-night stand in the first place.
‘Well,’ she grumbled at her reflection, ‘you are. So you’re just going to have to face the man and get on with it.’
With a satisfied nod, Saskia pushed herself off the cold plastic and marched across the bathroom floor. Then she hesitated. Carefully, slowly, she opened the door a crack.
And nearly fell backwards as a face loomed in the tiny gap.
‘Oh, Saskia...’ the voice cooed. ‘You’re not squirreling yourself away in the bathroom to avoid me, are you, babe?’
Gritting her teeth, Saskia opened the door firmly and forced herself to step outside. Babette was one of the paediatric nurses on Saskia’s ward, and there was no way she could ever avoid the woman, however much she might want to.
‘No, Babette, I am most certainly not trying to avoid you.’
Babette’s laugh was more grating than tinkling, Saskia thought, and then chided herself for being so uncharitable.
‘Are you sure? Only, I don’t know how I’d get myself out of bed if I were you...’
Okay, maybe she wasn’t being uncharitable after all.
‘Indeed. But I’m lucky enough to have an ejector button built in under my mattress.’
‘Really?’
Babette’s eyes went large and round, and it was all Saskia could do to shake her head.
‘No, Babette, not really. I was just joking.’
‘Oh...’ Babette narrowed her eyes in a calculating manner. ‘Well, it’s good that you still have a sense of humour. Especially now.’
Don’t rise to the bait. Don’t rise to the bait.
‘What do you mean, “especially now”?’ Saskia couldn’t help herself, even as her skin prickled in warning.
‘Oh, I really didn’t want to be the one to have to tell you, babe...’ Clearly the other woman could barely supress her glee. ‘But I didn’t want you to have to hear it from someone else. I feel...responsible.’
Yeah. Right.
‘Tell me what?’ Saskia managed, her heart now hammering around her chest so hard that it would surely leave bruises.
Lifting her hand, Babette waved it so close to Saskia’s nose that she had to take a step back. But not before she’d noticed the huge, glistening stone.
‘Andy and I are engaged.’
Her heart stopped in an instant. She was going to be sick. Again. She wanted to grab the wall behind her just to stop herself from plummeting to the cold vinyl floor, but she didn’t want to give Babette the satisfaction.
Most days the shame of her ex-fiancé’s betrayal didn’t get to Saskia at all. But occasionally it felt as raw as it had ten months ago, when she’d walked in on him and his...mistress in flagrante in that on-call room, barely half an hour after she had been in bed with him herself in their own home.
Today was one of those raw days, Saskia thought with another sickening lurch—although, mercifully, this lurch was a little less intense. Not even when his new fiancée was standing opposite her and smiling superciliously.
‘Isn’t it stunning?’ Babette cooed. ‘Thank goodness! I was afraid he might get me something like a tiny quarter-carat thing that I’d need a magnifying glass to even see.’
‘Perish the thought,’ Saskia managed dryly.
Babette’s eyes widened in feigned innocence.
‘Oh, I didn’t mean any offence about the ring he bought you, of course. I’m sure you must have been perfectly happy with it. I guess being the daughter of a Hollywood diva doesn’t guarantee good taste.’
‘Of course you don’t mean any offence,’ Saskia murmured quietly, ignoring the jibe.
She might have come to terms with her parents’ death years ago, but it didn’t mean she wanted someone like Babette dismissing it as though it meant nothing. Besides which, she was still fighting to quell the nausea as she thought of the tiny solitaire Andy had bought for her, on the premise that he was saving money for a decent house.
What a naïve idiot she’d been.
Then again, had she really been completely oblivious?
Sucking in a steadying breath, Saskia considered—not for the first time—whether she had always known, on some level, that Andy was wrong for her. He had been more interested in using her name and perceived connections to further his ambition of becoming a plastic surgeon to the stars.
Was that why, from the very first moment she had stood on Anouk’s doorstep, surrounded by her worldly possessions, a strange tangle of emotions had tumbled inside her? Sorrow, humiliation, and rage, of course. But then also fleeting lightning bolts of something she had only been able to categorise as...relief.
‘Anyway, I just wanted to tell you personally. I always pride myself on being honourable, babe. And Andy agrees.’
Saskia’s jaws ached from being clamped shut. But it was better than saying that neither Babette nor Andy would recognise honour if it danced a jig in front of them. The woman would only take it as jealousy, and Saskia couldn’t bear for Babette to think that. Or to acknowledge that was her motivation.
But that had been before Andy. And before she
’d fallen pregnant with Malachi Gunn’s baby.
How many times had she tortured herself over the last couple of months by scouring the local papers to see if there were any photos of local events where Malachi might be seen with some new, impossibly beautiful date on his arm?
Not that she’d seen any. But it didn’t mean he was pining for her the way she seemed to be for him.
Saskia faltered, then caught herself. No. She’d be damned if catching her ex-fiancé cheating on her with the abominable Babette was going to change who she was deep down. Malachi was supposed to have been her rebound. Up until that night Andy had been the only man Saskia had slept with—ever—and Malachi was to have been her long overdue one-night stand.
Although if a one-night stand stretched into three glorious days and four nights of a long weekend could it still be called a one-night stand?
What was the etiquette?
Who knew?
Either way, despite the sick feeling she had now, the last thing Saskia felt was jealous. Certainly not of Babette or Andy, anyway.
But she really did feel ill. Another wave of nausea threatened to engulf her and Saskia pressed her hand to her stomach. The other woman didn’t miss a trick.
‘Oh, babe,’ Babette crowed. ‘I never expected you to take it this badly. I told Andy it was too soon. I hope it isn’t going to be too much for you, seeing us together at the charity ball on Saturday night?’
Saskia fought it, but the darkness was closing in. Fast.
‘It’s not about you or Andy, Babette,’ she muttered, as her mind fought to battle that little bit longer. ‘I need you to get a doctor.’
‘You don’t need to pretend with me. I understand, babe. Perhaps it’s better that you don’t come...’
Through her blurring eyes Saskia could see that the woman was practically beside herself with joy at the idea that her engagement was causing Saskia such pain.
‘No, Babette,’ Saskia managed. ‘You really don’t understand. I need you to get a doctor. I’m pregnant.’
She just about heard Babette’s shocked intake of breath as her head spun again.
And was that the floor coming up to meet her?
Abruptly, two strong hands grabbed her shoulders. Heat from a body was behind her back. An unmistakably citrusy, woodsy male scent filled her nostrils. And then she was being swept up into the oddly familiar arms of a hulk of a man, and nestled against his shoulder as he carried her down the corridor.
Malachi.
Her mind railed even as her body slumped against him, and by the time she came round fully they were in an on-call room and Malachi was sitting on the edge of the bed, cradling her head, a plastic cup of water in his other hand.
Saskia groaned inwardly.
‘Stop squirming, zvyozdochka,’ he commanded gruffly. ‘You’ll hit your head if you fall backwards.’
Reluctantly, she obeyed, taking another sip of the proffered water, then another, letting her mind stop whirling and twirling like the teacups ride at a theme park. As if water could somehow dampen all that heat and desire which she was sure still swirled around them even now.
At least he had the grace to stand up and move to the chair next to her, instead of being so close on the bed that it felt as though her entire left side was on fire.
It seemed like an age before she could shift position again, moving her legs to swing them carefully over the edge.
‘Better?’ he asked.
‘Better.’ She bobbed her head tentatively. Then, when it felt okay, she nodded a little more confidently. ‘Thanks.’
But he didn’t move. Neither of them did.
How much had he heard?
For several long moments a kind of tenseness swirled around them. Saskia waited for him to mention her pregnancy, but he didn’t. Clearly he hadn’t caught her last comment to Babette.
An odd sense of deflation rolled through her. She should probably be happy he hadn’t overheard—that would have been no way for him to find out. But at least it would have taken the decision out of her hands; it would have meant she didn’t have to sit here frantically trying to work out what to say and how to phrase it. Or even when to say it.
Her brain whirred. Whatever she said, though, dropping such a bombshell right now, in an on-call room during a busy shift, wasn’t the way to do it. And that wasn’t just an excuse. She would do it. Just not here, not now, and not like this.
‘Anyway, I can’t lie around here all day. I have patients to see,’ Saskia began, forcing out an attempt at a jolly little laugh and placing her fists on the hard mattress to push herself to a standing position. Suddenly a tiny rod of hope punched through her. ‘Although...you didn’t come here to see me, did you?’
He didn’t answer immediately, and it felt as though the air had suddenly been sucked from the room. Something dense and heavy was threatening to close over her, and before she could stop herself she began to babble.
‘It’s just...well, with not seeing you at Care to Play these last few months, I was beginning to wonder if you’ve been avoiding me. You know...after that weekend. What we did. Together.’
She tried for another jolly laugh, but it sounded as stilted and awkward as she felt.
Malachi hesitated. It was only the briefest of moments, but Saskia caught it nonetheless. Her heart launched itself at her ribs, slamming against her with painful force. It had been one thing to suspect it, but having it confirmed scraped at her much more deeply and painfully than it had any right to do.
And still she stood, rooted to the spot as he stared at her with a closed expression that said far more than any words could have.
The silence pressed on until she couldn’t bear it any longer. ‘I should go. Forget I said anything. I didn’t intend to make things...’
‘There’s a patient called Izzy here.’ His voice was clipped. Distant. ‘She came in today after falling off a climbing frame. I just brought her mother in.’
Saskia snapped her head up.
‘That’s my patient.’
The seven-year-old girl had been brought into Resus several hours ago, where she’d been seen by Malachi’s neurosurgeon brother, Sol, and Anouk, after she’d fallen from a rope climbing apparatus in the local park. Sol had told her that someone would be bringing Izzy’s mother—who was an MS sufferer—in as soon as possible. She just hadn’t realised that someone would be Malachi.
‘So Izzy is a young carer from Care to Play? I didn’t realise...’ She faltered under the intensity of his gaze. ‘I mean, I haven’t seen her there before.’
‘You haven’t been going that long.’
‘No...true. But Sol never told me it would be you bringing her mother in.’
‘He has no reason to think you and I know each other.’ Malachi shrugged.
He couldn’t know how much that dismissive gesture cut her.
‘How is Izzy, anyway?’ he asked abruptly, his concern evident.
Saskia felt another stab of something she didn’t care to identify. She forced it aside and made herself focus. In all her years as a doctor she’d never felt so torn before.
The young girl had landed on her face and her head and suffered loss of consciousness. Along with a laceration over one eye, and the loss of a couple of teeth, their main concern had been internal bleeds, so she’d been sent for a head and neck scan, with the possibility of a broken jaw. Fortunately the CT scan had come back as clear as they could have hoped, along with all the other tests they had run.
But she couldn’t tell Malachi any of that. Not when he wasn’t technically anything more than her patient’s mum’s lift in.
‘I’m sorry, I can’t discuss this with you,’ she apologised. ‘I need to speak to Izzy’s mum.’
‘Of course,’ he confirmed instantly. ‘I left Michelle with Sol before. She forgot some things in the car.’
The fact that he seemed so utterly committed to helping those kids had been part of what had attracted her in the first place. So different from her self-serving ex.
‘I should go and see Izzy’s mum. Bring her up to date.’
‘Don’t worry. Sol’s with her.’
She tried to skirt past Malachi without looking pointed.
Not because she didn’t want to touch him. More because if she did she was certain she would self-combust. Her mouth was insanely dry. Her body throbbed mercilessly. It was all she could do to keep her brain functioning.
‘The little girl is my patient.’
‘And Sol saw her, too,’ he countered.
‘I’m perfectly aware that your brother is a doctor. One of the top neurosurgeons in this place, in fact. But he isn’t my patient’s doctor now. I am. And, as such, I should be the one to talk to her mother.’
Saskia only realised she’d drifted forward when her hands made contact with his unforgettable granite chest.
She leapt back like a scalded cat, and fought valiantly to drag her mind back to the present.
They’d had a gloriously wild, wanton time together, but she couldn’t afford to rehash it in her mind. She had no claim on Malachi Gunn, and she still hadn’t even told him her life-changing news.
And could she really drop her pregnancy bombshell on him? He had a right to know—but would he prefer not to? Her mind was spinning, and it didn’t help that he was still standing there, scrutinising her.
‘I really should go,’ she said.
‘I’d rather you rested a little more.’ He frowned, looking irritated.
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