London tried not to scrap her hope. She knew exactly what her father was referring to, what had both Wallace and Reese concerned. Well, damn it, life wasn’t without risks, and she was willing to take them in exchange for freedom.
“No offense, Dad, Wallace is a nice man, and there’s no doubt he’s good at his job, but you do pay him a lot of money to watch me. Did it ever occur to you that he’s basing his argument on the fact that he just might want to hang on to this lucrative job?”
Ambassador Merriweather was tired of going around with his daughter about this. Tired of arguing. He’d just spent the past six hours trying to settle a dispute between a major American corporation in Madrid and the minister of industry. He didn’t want to have to waste time chasing around this familiar bush with his daughter.
“And did it ever occur to you that your life could be in real danger? That whoever is sending you those notes and flowers is probably deranged?”
The barely tethered anger in her father’s voice had her reaching for a dose of protective sarcasm. “Don’t think someone can send me notes and flowers without being deranged, Dad?”
Mason nearly lost his temper, something he very rarely allowed himself to do. “This isn’t a time for jokes, London. I won’t have something happen to you just because you can’t take this seriously.”
So near and yet so far. Her frustration got the better of her. Rising, she began to pace. “Yes, I know, nothing must happen to the ambassador’s daughter. Think of the way that would reflect on you.”
“What are you talking about, ‘reflect’?” he shouted at her. “I was thinking of how it would feel.”
Now there was a word that she wasn’t accustomed to hear coming out of her father’s mouth. “Feel, Dad? Do you feel?”
“What kind of a question is that?” he demanded angrily. “Of course I feel.”
She sincerely doubted he knew the meaning of the word, much less what it entailed. He was the perfect ambassador, the perfect unruffled diplomat. She’d seen a news clip of him several days after her mother’s funeral. He was attending the wedding of some prince from one of those tiny countries that most of the world was unaware of. There’d been a smile on his face. That had convinced her that her father was completely without feelings.
“What, Dad?” she wanted to know. “What exactly is it that you feel?”
He had no idea what had gotten into her. Normally, he told her what he wanted of her, and she eventually did what was requested. He had no patience with this rebellious nature she displayed—this trait that was so like her mother’s.
“London, I can’t talk to you when you’re this way.”
She was through retreating. It was time they had it out. And if they didn’t speak again after it was over, well, they hardly spoke now, so what did it matter?
“No, you have to talk to me when I’m this way. Not talking to me has made me this way. Sending me away from you when Mother died made me this way. You sent me away when I needed you.”
He wasn’t accustomed to having to explain himself to anyone who wasn’t part of the government. “I sent you away to spare you.”
That was a lot of hogwash, something he’d told himself to ease his conscience, London thought. “Spare me what—contact with the only person who could have seen me through that awful time?”
She’d been eight years old. What did she know of going on without someone who was a vital part of his everyday existence? Someone who had been his guiding sun? Children bounced back, their hearts didn’t break the way adult hearts did. He’d sheltered her and expected her to be fine.
Each word felt heavy as he dug it out. “I was having a terrible time adjusting to life without your mother. I didn’t want you to see me like that.”
His admission took London by surprise. He’d actually felt something, felt a loss? Resentment crowded her. Damn it, why hadn’t he said so? Why hadn’t he told her? It would have meant so much.
“Seeing you like that would have helped me, would have made me feel that we both missed her.” She took a deep breath, her voice suddenly shaky with emotions she didn’t want to release. If he was telling her the truth, then his so-called restraint had cost them both. “And maybe it would have brought us together the way she’d always wanted us to be.”
London was right, he realized. She was right. And there was nothing he could say to change that. “London.”
There was another long pause, this time it was hers. “Yes?”
“I’m sorry.”
This was her father; she wasn’t going to read anything further into his words. “Sorry we’re having this conversation, or—”
He broke in. “Sorry that I didn’t realize how much you were hurting, too.” He took a deep, steadying breath. That out of the way, he still was not going to be moved. “But that’s still not going to make me terminate Wallace and his men.”
She supposed, if she looked at it from his perspective, she could see his point of view. “No, I don’t suppose it will.” London could hear someone in the background, calling to her father. She was surprised that there hadn’t been an interruption before now. This probably ranked among the longest conversations they’d ever had. “I guess that’s the rest of your life calling. You’d better answer it.”
He had to go, but since they’d cleared things up this far, he had one more thing to attend to. Something that had gone unsaid for perhaps too long. “One last thing, London. You do know I love you, don’t you?”
He’d never said that to her before, although her mother had told her he loved her more than once. She’d just assumed her mother was covering for her father, the way all good mothers did.
London felt a smile creeping up from her toes. “I do now.”
The connection was suddenly lost. She figured the storm was having its way with the phone lines. Her smile didn’t abate. She hadn’t won what she wanted, but she’d gotten something far more precious. The impossible had happened. She and her father had cleared the air.
Mentally she reviewed her calendar for the coming month. Maybe she could manage a trip to Madrid around the third week or so. It was a thought.
On her way to the first-floor tower elevators, Alix DuCane turned the corner and just barely avoided colliding with Reese, who was coming from the opposite direction. Both halted abruptly within inches of contact.
The first thing she noticed was that he was smiling. To her knowledge, he wasn’t given to looking like that for no reason.
“Well, you’re looking pretty chipper today,” she commented. Rooting around for a cause, she thought of the surgical list she’d seen at the nurses’ station just beyond the operating rooms. “I take it that bowel resection you performed this morning went well.”
He laughed. The surgery had gone far better than anticipated. “Yes, but this has nothing to do with a bowel resection.”
No, she thought, surgery didn’t put a light into a man’s eyes, even an excellent surgeon’s, like Reese. She wasn’t about to let him get away without telling her what did.
“Tell me.” She placed her hand on his arm to add weight to her entreaty. “I could use a little happy news.”
Reese made no reply. Instead he dug into his pocket and took out a ring box. When he opened it, there was a blue-white, heart-shaped diamond nestled against a black velvet interior.
It took her breath away. “Wow.” Alix looked up at him. “Reese, I don’t know what to say. This is so sudden. We’re not even dating.” She saw the sudden bewildered look on his face and laughed. “Relax, I’m kidding.” And then she became serious, wanting to share in his happiness. “Who’s the lucky girl? I didn’t think you ever got to see anyone except for your patients.” And then, as she mentally backed up, it hit her. “It wouldn’t be that gorgeous one who was brought in the other month, the one who’d tried to find a way to drive through a telephone pole, would it?”
Reese had always maintained that Alix had one of the sharpest minds at the hospital. The brightest of
the bright. “You do take all the fun out of things, Alix.”
Overjoyed that he’d found someone to share his life with, Alix gave him a quick hug.
“But if I know you, you’ll find a way to put it right back in.”
She stepped back to admire the ring again. The overheard lighting threw blue-white sparks everywhere in the corridor. “So when’s the big day so I can clear my calendar?”
He flipped the box closed and slipped it back into his pocket. “Haven’t asked her yet.”
That was so like a man. “Well then, get to it. Not that I expect any woman in her right mind to turn you down,” she added. And then a thought hit her. Her grin grew wider. “Oh, God, Reese, your mother is going to be so jazzed about this. Have you brought the lady around to meet your mom yet?”
He thought of the first encounter. After a few minutes he might as well not even have been there. “Not only has my mother met her, she’s assimilated her. You know that orphanage my mother volunteers at?”
“Hayley’s House?”
Alix had gone and held and fed a few babies there herself when time permitted. She’d also volunteered her professional services on occasion.
Reese nodded. “That’s the one. Mom’s taken her there several times already. She even corralled London into holding a fund-raiser for the place next month.”
Alix laughed. Rachel Bendenetti had never struck her as being a shrinking violet.
“Sounds like this is a good match all around.” She had to get going. Alix brushed a kiss against Reese’s cheek. “I am really happy for you. Now put that ring on her finger, Romeo, and get on with it, already.”
He intended to do just that this evening.
Reese made reservations at the most expensive restaurant in the area.
He wanted to propose there, where the lighting was romantic and the atmosphere even more so. There was even a band playing tonight. He knew London liked to dance.
The plan was to give her the ring just before the dessert arrived.
That was the plan. But he couldn’t wait.
Tension was all but taking the very air out of his lungs. He was pretty sure London would say yes, but there was still a small part of him that was afraid the evening, the proposal wouldn’t go the way he hoped it would. Afraid that after all this time, he’d found the girl of the dreams he didn’t even know he had, and she would turn him down.
So when London opened the door in response to his knock that evening, he decided the hell with timing and plans. It was better to get this over with and then take her out to celebrate.
If there was something to celebrate.
Whenever she went out with Reese, London was prepared for a phone call telling her that he’d be delayed because of an emergency. Seeing him standing there brought an instant smile to her lips. At least the evening was off to a good start, she thought. And with any luck it would end that way, too. In her bedroom.
“Hi, you’re early.” London turned toward the hall table where she’d left her things. “I’ll just go get my wrap—”
His heart thumping against his chest, Reese caught her arm, stopping her. “Wait a second.”
She turned around obligingly. Her smile faded slightly when she saw the serious look on his face.
Oh, God, he was going to break up with her.
Well, it wasn’t as if she hadn’t been preparing for this from the first moment he’d walked into her life. More than half a lifetime of training was hard to shrug off. Still, something within her felt as if it was about to go into mourning.
“Yes?”
Now that he had her attention, he felt his mouth go dry, and he forgot all the words he’d been rehearsing.
“I’m not sure how to say this.”
She was surprised at him. Didn’t doctors advocate ripping off a Band-Aid in one fast motion? This was just like that. Swift if not painless.
“Just spit it out,” she told him. “That’s the best way. It doesn’t have to be fancy. It just has to be said.” Although she wished it didn’t. She wanted a little longer, just a little longer. Happiness had made her greedy.
Reese was disappointed in himself. Granted, he had never exactly been eloquent, but he’d never been tongue-tied, either. This was a side of himself he wasn’t happy about.
“I really thought I would be better at this. Not that I’ve had any practice,” he added quickly.
The last thing he wanted was for her to think he’d done this before. He’d never proposed, never wanted anyone in his life on a permanent basis before. Until London had come into his life, he was certain that he would just go through it doing all the good he possibly could and that would be enough.
After having met London, he knew it wasn’t enough. Not anymore.
He looked so uncomfortable she suddenly found herself wanting to put him out of his misery. “Do you want me to make it easy for you?”
He looked at her sharply. “No.”
Reese had no idea what she could do, other than propose herself. He didn’t want her beating him to the punch. He wasn’t a traditionalist, but there were some things that a man had to do first.
His fingers curved around the velvet box in his pocket. Now or never. If he kept on babbling this way, she was going to think he was certifiable.
He took a deep breath and plunged in. “London, I’d like you to wear something for me.”
Had the breakup made a U-turn? Or was this about something else? The conversation she’d heard earlier today with her bodyguard came back to her. “What, a two-way homing device? Sorry, Wallace already proposed that, and I—”
He had no idea what she was talking about, only that he was about to start perspiring if he didn’t get this said soon. “No, this.”
Taking her hand, he placed the box in it.
Stunned, London stared for a long moment at the black object nestled in her palm.
He wasn’t leaving her. He was staying. Saying he was staying permanently.
She didn’t know which was worse.
Because as painful as it would have been to see Reese leave, what he was asking of her made things even more difficult. He was asking her to believe that this was going to continue. That they were going to continue. Asking her to believe, when she knew things didn’t continue. They ended. For her they always ended.
He couldn’t read her expression. She was just standing there, looking at the box. “Aren’t you going to open it?”
She didn’t want to open it, didn’t want to see it. Didn’t want to slide down deeper into the quicksand from which there was no escape.
“No.” She pushed the box back into his hand. “Let’s just go out to dinner, Reese.” Again she turned to retrieve her things on the table. “They’re not going to hold the reservation indefinitely, even for the doctor and the ambassador’s daughter—”
Confused by her reaction, he took hold of her arm, turning her back around to face him. “Maybe you don’t understand—”
That was when the need for self-preservation suddenly leaped in between them. “Yes, yes, I do understand. I understand perfectly. You’re giving me a ring, or a skate key, or some kind of binding thing and asking me to be part of your life—”
She sounded as if she were accusing him of something. Why was this going so wrong?
“I’m asking you to marry me so we can be part of each other’s lives,” he insisted.
“We already are,” she told him. Didn’t he see that? He was the first thing she thought of every morning, the last thing she thought of every night. And she wasn’t happy about it. “Why can’t you just leave things the way they are?”
There came a time when commitments were made, when people settled down. They’d reached that junction. He thought, hoped, they’d reached it together. “Because I don’t want to take it one day at a time anymore.”
She shook her head adamantly. “That’s the only way I know how to take it.”
“I want forever, London.” He didn’t know how to say i
t any better, any plainer than that.
Cornered, trapped, she lashed out, trying to make a break for freedom. “What kind of doctor are you? Didn’t they teach you anything in doctoring school? There is no such thing as forever.”
All right, she was being incredibly practical, especially for London. “Then I want as long as I can get.”
“That’s what I’m giving you,” she cried. Didn’t he see that? Didn’t he know what he was asking of her? To strip herself bare and leave herself exposed to a pain that was more than she could endure? “One day at a time. It’s all I can give you. All you can give me. Anything else would be a lie.”
She was shouting now, and he tried to break through the barriers she was throwing up between them. “It doesn’t have to be that way.”
“But it is.” Suddenly she was very, very tired. He was boxing her in and she wanted to escape. “Look, maybe going to the restaurant isn’t such a good idea right now.” She laced her arms in front of herself protectively. Blocking him out. “I’m suddenly not hungry. I just want to be alone for a while.”
There was an edginess in her voice. He was accustomed to her being in complete control of herself, confident, poised. She was none of those now. And her body language was telling him that she was walling herself off from him.
“Will you just go? I need my space.”
He tried to take her into his arms, but she backed away. Reese felt frustration welling up inside of him. “I’m not going to crowd you, London.”
“Then go. Please.” Her hands on his chest, she pushed him to the door. “Please.”
There was nothing else he could do. He slipped the ring box back into his pocket. Squaring his shoulders, Reese opened the front door and left.
Chapter 15
He’d never known two days to drag by so slowly. Filled with work, both of the emergency and non-emergency variety, the minutes of each day still moved with the speed of two anesthetized turtles.
Reese put in for an extra shift, not wanting to go home. Nothing worked.
M.D. Most Wanted Page 16
