‘But only because my father left her to do it. It should have been him I hated. Not her.’
Effie shook her head, her hollow laugh catching them both by surprise. ‘It doesn’t work that way. She was the one you trusted. The one you had expectations from. He wasn’t. It was the same for me.’
He looked at her. Hard. As if he was trying to see right down to her very soul.
‘Trust me, Tak,’ she murmured softly. ‘I understand where all that came from. And why.’
‘Then you understand why I can’t be with anyone, then. Why I would only end up hurting them, destroying them.’ Bitterness leeched out of his voice, along with regret. ‘Destroying you.’
‘No. I don’t see that at all.’ She softened her words with a smile.
‘Then you’re a fool.’
‘Possibly. But I think I just see the real you, whilst you’re judging your childhood self on the standards of an adult. And I think you do too, or else why would you be here now?’
‘I just came to apologise,’ he repeated, but it lacked conviction even to his own ears.
The worst of it was that he wanted to believe her. He wanted to believe this version of himself which she claimed she knew. Of a man who might be worthy of her.
‘I can’t be with you.’ He frowned. ‘You have a daughter, responsibilities. I would only let you down and resent you for them.’
‘Really? Are you sure? Only so far you haven’t done either. When I needed somewhere to stay you stepped up. When I told you about Nell you asked me about her. When I confided about that shoplifting you gave me advice. It even worked—’
‘You’re not listening,’ he broke in abruptly. But only because he’d realised he was beginning to listen to Effie and believe in her version of him.
‘I am listening. I’m just pointing out all the ways I know you’re wrong. Not to mention the peace treaty you negotiated between myself and my daughter, and the fact that you took her to that bowling alley party. You’re a good man, Tak. You always have been.’
‘I’m not,’ he muttered, but it had lost more of its vehemence.
Slowly, gently, Effie bent her head forward until her forehead was pressed to his.
‘Yes. You are. You fight for your family, and when you find the right woman you’ll fight for her, too.’
And she said it with such certainty, such ferocity, that Tak felt all his walls beginning to tumble, stone block by stone block. As if her love was a wrecking ball which could topple even the best-built defences.
Love.
The word jolted him. Did she love him? Did he love her?
Possibly, he realised with a start. Perhaps he had even from that first night.
‘I’ve already found her,’ he heard himself say instead.
And then, because he didn’t know what more to say, he did the only thing he could think of to do.
He snaked his hand up to the back of her neck, tilting her head until their mouths fitted together as though it had been inevitable from the very start of their conversation.
He poured everything he had into that single kiss. As if it would convey all the thoughts he couldn’t articulate. As if it would make every word she was saying about him come true.
It was a kiss which went far deeper than anything he could have said, and it might have gone on for an entire eternity. Maybe two.
But it didn’t. Ultimately it had to end.
‘I didn’t mean to do that.’ He only half apologised as he lifted his mouth from hers. ‘I tried to walk away, Effie. But I couldn’t. There’s this dark...thing which twists and knots inside me. I don’t expect anything from you. I came to tell you that I should have told you the truth from the start. And that I’m sorry I didn’t.’
It hurt. So very badly.
‘Yes.’
She sounded composed, but he could see the vein pulsing at her neck. A fraction too fast. Too fluttery.
‘You should have told me that you were using me not simply as a buffer but to shock your family into leaving you alone. You should have been clear that you weren’t inviting me to stay because you were worried about Nell and I not having a roof over our heads but because you wanted the dramatic vision of an unmarried single mother being your lover.’
‘That’s not entirely accurate. I invited you and Nell to stay because I couldn’t stand by and watch you live in that flat,’ he asserted. ‘But once I realised the visual it was creating for the more traditionalist side of my family I admit I played up to it.’
‘What about the dates? And taking Nell to that birthday party?’
‘I took Nell because she needed the opportunity to go and meet new friends and you were working.’
‘But the dating?’
‘Yes...’ He paused, not even sure himself. ‘And no.’
‘What about Paris?’
He exhaled heavily. ‘I couldn’t believe you’d never been out of the country before. I loved the idea of being the person to take you abroad for the first time. But I admit there was also a part of me that knew it would get back to my family and keep things stirred up.’
She nodded, as though she was grateful for his honesty. As though every single word he uttered wasn’t rushing into her, pouring into her chest and stinging her heart and stopping it, the way a swarm of bees might kill an enemy one tiny sting at a time. Individually merely painful but combined ultimately fatal.
The way it felt for him.
‘Why did you love the idea of taking me abroad?’ she managed at last.
Tak fought to gather his thoughts. It wasn’t an action he’d had to take before. ‘I told you—you got under my skin in a way no one has ever done before. I didn’t know what to do with it. It’s how things became so confused.’
‘I could have forgiven you all of that,’ she whispered. ‘If you hadn’t been intimate with me.’
‘Ah...’ For the first time in a while that heady, intoxicating glint was reignited in his eyes. He could feel it. ‘Now that, I can say with absolute honesty, was never part of the plan.’
She stared at him for a long, long moment, and time seemed to stand still. ‘Never?’
That flash of hope in her eyes did things to him that he couldn’t even understand, let alone explain.
‘No, intimacy was never my intention,’ he told her honestly. That was simply me finding myself unable to resist you.’
‘You couldn’t resist me?’ Effie was trying to sound sceptical. Worldly.
Tak managed not to grin in triumph. ‘How could I?’ he murmured. ‘Since I’d managed to fall for you.’
Her reaction was all he could have hoped for. From the shallow breathing to the shift in her body language, and from the quickened pulse to the way her all too expressive eyes betrayed her.
‘You...you fell for me?’
‘I’m in love with you, Effie.’
The words came out on their own. Yet they felt as right and as true as anything ever had.
‘Surely you know that? Even if you don’t trust me with your head, let your heart answer this one. I love you—and there’s no game-play, no agenda. You’re the one who broke through to me when I thought it was impossible for anyone to reach me. You’re the one who made me finally see that, time and again, I was giving my mother the benefit of the doubt because of all that she’d been through with my father and with Saaj, but she was never going to be the woman or the mother I wanted her to be.’
He spoke as though it was a fact—like his lungs fuelling him with oxygen, or his heart pumping blood around his body. Not that either of them seemed to be functioning normally right now. They seemed to flip-flop between working too hard and forgetting to work at all.
Tak shook his head gently and lifted his palms to cup her face. ‘You doubt it?’
She finally found her tongue, ready to counter him as she s
o often had. But this time her voice was full of awe, incredulity.
‘How could I possibly have known? You never once even suggested it.’
‘On the contrary...’ He dragged his finger over her bottom lip, his eyes following the movement as if spellbound. ‘I may not have said the words but I betrayed myself time and again every time I worshipped your body.’
‘That was merely sex—’
Her voice was raspy, bumpy. But then, so was his.
‘We both know that it was never merely sex.’
If only he’d allowed himself to admit that much, much earlier.
‘Still, you can’t just walk away from your family, Tak. I know how much your siblings mean to you.’
He had to concentrate. Answer her every question. But he was having a hard time not simply bending his head and claiming her again.
‘Hetti is in despair,’ he muttered, struggling to drag his gaze from those luscious lips of hers. ‘She wants you to know how desperately sorry she is. She has no idea how my mother got hold of her key but she is adamant that she didn’t give it to her. And Sasha has long since said she can do without the drama. She’s trying to concentrate on her own family and she doesn’t want them being dragged into that life. As for Rafi—he has loathed both our parents ever since he could talk. I don’t think there’s any chance of any of them being upset that I’ve finally decided to cut all ties.’
‘It all sounds too perfect, too easy,’ Effie vacillated. ‘But I don’t just have myself to think about. I have Nell. And, as ever, the idea of doing something which could end up harming my daughter in some way is something I refuse to even entertain.’
‘I know how important Nell is,’ he confirmed.
‘I want to believe you,’ Effie choked out. ‘But love...it’s a big deal.’
And then he gave up trying to fight his instincts any longer.
‘I love you, Effie. And every time I tell you I only become more and more certain of that fact.’
‘I want to believe you...’
‘I know,’ he murmured, lowering his mouth to hers again. ‘I know that it’s just been you and Nell for so long. I know that with everything you’ve been through in your life that you’ve never loved or trusted anyone else this way. But it’s time to take that risk, Effie.’
‘Tak...’
‘Stop over-analysing,’ he murmured softly. ‘I love you, Effie. I’m in love with you. Let me prove it to you. Let me spend the rest of my life proving it to you.’
And then he claimed her mouth and set about honouring his word in the best way he knew how.
EPILOGUE
IT WAS ALMOST three years later to the day when Tak found himself staring at the 4D image of his new baby, who yawned widely before defiantly turning his back on them. It took everything Tak had to tear his gaze from the screen and down to his wife of eighteen months who, impossibly, appeared more beautiful to him with every passing day.
‘It’s incredible...’ he breathed.
‘Incredible,’ Effie echoed, her hands instinctively reaching for his.
‘Nell is going to be livid she missed this,’ he smiled. ‘Her new baby brother.’
‘I promised her we’d watch the video with her as many times as she wants to as soon as she gets home from her exchange trip. Our family.’
Our family. Happiness spiralled through him. His baby, his wife and his stepdaughter—who, at sixteen, was beginning to exert her independence more and more.
Nell was going to be as stunning as her mother, and Tak could imagine the trail of broken-hearted young men she was going to leave in her wake. He might only just have become her stepfather, but he felt honoured that she had accepted him into her life as if he was the real father she’d never had. She had even tagged his name onto her own, just as Effie had.
‘We have a new addition to our family, Mrs Robinson-Basu,’ he whispered, awe flowing throughout his body.
‘We do!’ Her eyes shone brightly—too brightly.
‘More tears of joy?’ He laughed. ‘You’re turning into quite the mushy little thing, aren’t you?’
‘Shut up,’ she chastised him with a laugh. ‘And just be glad that I love you as much as I do, Tak Basu.’
‘You do, huh?’ he teased her, never tiring of hearing her say those words.
‘I do,’ she confirmed. ‘I love you.’
‘And I love you too.’ He dropped a kiss on her lips, then on her stomach. ‘And I love you, little one. With all my heart.’
* * *
If you enjoyed this story, check out these other great reads from Charlotte Hawkes
Christmas with Her Bodyguard
The Surgeon’s One-Night Baby
A Bride to Redeem Him
Tempted by Dr. Off-Limits
All available now!
Keep reading for an excerpt from From Doctor to Daddy by Becky Wicks.
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From Doctor to Daddy
by Becky Wicks
PROLOGUE
FRASER STOPPED TO rest his arms on the ledge at the top of Edinburgh Castle. Brick houses, trees, and in the distance sparkling water shone like a painting under a clear blue sky. He inhaled a lungful of fresh Scottish air. The city was so damn beautiful when the sun shone.
The surgery was crazy, as usual, and he’d taken a morning walk to prep himself, but someone needed him already. He could tell by the vibrations in his pocket.
He pulled out his phone, turning his face to the rare sun. ‘Hi, Anton.’
‘Fraser, good morning. I came across a file that might be of interest for the Ocean Dream, if you’re still looking for a dialysis nurse.’
‘I am.’ Fraser smiled at two kids running around a cannon, pretending to shoot each other.
He couldn’t really remember which positions had been filled and which hadn’t—he’d been so busy. In truth, he hadn’t had time to think much about working on the cruise ship at all this year. That was why he’d put Anton in charge of recruiting the medical team.
‘I’ve found a great dialysis nurse in London who fits the bill. But—get this. She also has a five-year-old daughter who’s on the kidney donor list. Rare blood type. The kid’s never been on a ship before, so naturally I thought...’
‘Sounds great.’ Fraser held the phone closer as the kids ran shrieking around him. He really needed all this in an email, otherwise he’d forget, but he asked anyway. ‘What’s the nurse’s name?’ He started walking across the court towards the gate.
‘Her name is Sara...’
‘Sara Cohen—and her kid’s name is Esme.’
Fraser stopped abruptly and gripped the phone tight in his hand. A tourist almost walked into the back of him.
‘Sara Cohen?’ The name brought a thin sheen of sweat to his forehead. The cool breeze blew over it, giving him goose bumps. How long had it been since he’d heard that name? Six years? After a while he’d stopped counting.
He mouthed an apology to the lady he’d stopped in front of. Her eyes swept his tall frame, in jeans, a fitted shirt and blazer, and she blushed.
He stepped aside. ‘Anton, when is the cruise, exactly—remind me?’
‘A month from today,’ Anton said. ‘Her daughter is pretty pumped for it, as you can imagine. Sara’s just waiting on the go-ahead from St Gilda’s, where she works, but between you and me I think we’ve found our fit.’
Fraser’s head was still reeling. Sara Cohen had a five-year-old daughter? Maybe it was a different Sara Cohen. ‘What’s her background?
He forced his legs to continue down the hill, through the crowds of tourists, past the bagpipe player in his kilt at the bottom.
Anton described the nurse’s profile, some of which he knew, some of which he didn’t. It was definitely the same Sara Cohen.
Six years had come between them. Six years of no contact... Aside from that one time he’d flown to London to talk to her and seen her with that other guy. The sight had made his insides burn. He’d regretted going there instantly, and hadn’t attempted contact with her since. Not that she’d made any attempt with him either.
‘What about the father?’ he said now, trying not to sound as if he was fishing. ‘Esme’s father—Sara’s husband?’
‘It’ll just be the two of them,’ Anton said. ‘She’s single, as far as I know.’
In the car on his way to the surgery, Fraser’s brain ran on overdrive. He could still see her face, standing in his bedroom, telling him they should go their separate ways. She’d never even let him have a say.
A Surgeon for the Single Mom Page 18
