‘No, I don’t.’
They were sulking and turned on and now staring ahead as they sniped, and both wanted to be down on the floor.
He had told James with absolute certainty that he would not be staying on after March, but the certainty had been in his voice only.
‘Freya.’ James came back into the meeting room and his voice had them both turn around. ‘That was Red.’
‘Red?’ Freya frowned. ‘Why would he call you?’
‘Because he can’t get through on your phone.’
Red had James’s number in case Freya was away and there was an emergency.
‘He thinks you ought to go home. Cleo’s not well,’ James told her. ‘I’ll drive you.’
‘I don’t need you to drive me,’ Freya snapped, and got up. ‘I can drive myself.’
But she’d run to work this morning.
‘What’s going on?’ Zack asked James when Freya had left, as if he didn’t know, as if just last week a fat pug hadn’t been asleep on his feet and then stood on his chest, baring her teeth at him.
‘Her dog’s not well,’ James said. ‘She’s a vicious little thing.’
Freya or Cleo? Zack nearly said, but stopped himself. It was getting harder and harder to separate things, and he was glad when James gave up on the meeting.
‘Can we do this tomorrow?’ James asked.
‘I’m in Theatre all day tomorrow.’
‘Well, I’ve got a list this evening.’ James was distracted and so too was Zack. ‘We’ll work out a time later.’
‘Will she be okay?’ Zack asked.
‘Cleo?’ James said, and Zack frowned as if he had no idea who James was talking about. ‘Oh, you mean Freya. I think so, though you never really know with Freya. She always says that she’s fine.’
Zack found her coming out of the changing room, where Freya had left her phone.
‘You haven’t got your car,’ Zack said. ‘Do you want me to drive you?’
‘No, thank you,’ Freya said. ‘You’re busy today. I’ll get Stephanie to call for a car.’
Stephanie did so. ‘Are you still not feeling well?’ she enquired, and Freya wished she was more like Zack and simply didn’t answer questions that she didn’t want to.
‘I’m much better. Thanks for all your help this morning,’ Freya said. ‘I just got a call and my dog’s sick.’
‘Cleo?’
‘Yes.’
Freya knew that Red wouldn’t call without good reason and she was right.
The vet was there and Cleo lay on the sofa and her little tail thumped when she saw Freya.
‘She got all breathless,’ Red said, and then the vet told her things weren’t going to get better.
‘She’s comfortable. We can take her back to the clinic and put her on some diuretics...’
‘No.’ Freya shook her head. ‘She hates being away from here.’ It was why she didn’t put her in boarding kennels and why she’d be grateful forever to Red because in the last year of an old dog’s life she’d stayed home every night.
It was time, but not for Freya.
‘Can I have a day with her?’ Freya asked. ‘Can you do it here?’
‘I’ll come by with Kathy at the end of surgery,’ he said, and Freya nodded. Kathy was her favourite nurse at the vet’s.
She thanked the vet and she thanked Red and saw them all out, and then she sat on the sofa with her best friend who’d seen her so far on her journey.
‘I’m not getting another puppy,’ Freya told her. ‘I could never love it as much as you.’ She buried her face in Cleo’s black fur. ‘And I don’t think it would be very fair on the baby.’ She looked into loving black eyes. ‘Shall we find out?’
Poor Cleo had been listening to her rabbit on about it for days now and it didn’t seem very fair that she died not knowing for sure.
And so she peed on the stick and came out a few moments later.
‘I am,’ she said to Cleo, and she accepted her lick and gave Cleo a kiss as the news sank in.
She was pregnant by a man who had hauled on his boots at the first sniff of commitment.
A man she was seriously head over heels about.
But more than that.
She was pregnant.
But more than that...
Freya wanted to be.
* * *
Zack knew that James had an evening theatre list and he actually drove past Freya’s and wondered if he should go up.
It was odd, but when James had said that Cleo was vicious, Zack had wanted to laugh. That morning, back in her bed, he’d thought Cleo had been warning him to be nice to her mistress. Instead, it had just been a demented dog.
It was her demented dog, though, who had been with her through all the hard times. He saw Freya come down the stairs, carrying Cleo and chatting to her as she did her business and then back up the stairs they went.
And a little while later he saw a couple come down carrying a bundle in a blanket and he knew it was the vet and assistant and that Cleo had just been euthanised.
Zack, who never got close to anyone, was tearing up over a dog, or was it over Freya and how devastated she must feel right now?
This would not end up in bed, Zack told himself as he got out of the car. He was knocking on a door as a friend.
Or maybe it would end in bed, he amended, but only if she so chose.
Yet the woman who answered it didn’t just surprise him—Freya shocked him.
‘Yes?’
She was pale and rather angry looking but what floored Zack was that she was absolutely dry-eyed.
‘I heard that your dog wasn’t well...’
‘And?’
‘Freya?’
‘What do you want, Zack?’ Freya asked. ‘Do you think sex is going to help?’ She looked at him. ‘You do, don’t you?’
‘I get what works for me might not for you. I’m just checking if you’re okay.’
‘Well, as you can see, I am.’
She slammed the door on him.
Screw you, Freya thought.
Oh, she wanted him but, more than that, she wanted Cleo tonight.
Her phone buzzed and it was a text from Mila.
James told me about Cleo.
Then it buzzed again and it was James.
Do you want me to stop by?
No, thanks, I’m fine.
How many ways could she say it?
Red came and drank all her beer and he cried and then he did all the stuff with the bowls and leads and things for her.
And finally a teary Red headed off and it left Freya alone in her apartment minus Cleo, and that had never happened before.
She’d done everything right by her, Freya told herself. Cleo had had the best possible last day.
There was only one thing about this day Freya regretted.
That Zack wasn’t there.
Not for the sex, or the possible progression of them, and not because she had found out she was pregnant...
It would have helped to have him here tonight.
Just that.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
IT WAS THE oddest week.
No Cleo to chat to.
All her routines felt shot and she didn’t know how to tell Zack the news.
Beth had returned from her honeymoon and they had a girls’ night in to go through the photos and videos.
The tamest girls’ night in—they were all pregnant now, not that Freya let on.
She was detoxing too, she told them!
‘The photos are amazing,’ Beth said. ‘Except these ones.’
There was Zack striding down the stairs and people turning and frowning in annoyance as
he messed up the shot.
And Freya found herself laughing quietly and said that she wanted a copy.
‘I can have the crowd edited out,’ Beth offered.
The crowd being her friends!
‘No, no,’ Freya said. ‘I like it.’
So much so that when they were all talking husbands she snapped a photo of it onto her phone.
After that it was a weekend for thinking. Freya knew that she had to tell Zack and she went by his office on the Monday morning but got cold feet.
‘What I can do for you, Freya?’ Zack said.
There were so many possible answers to that question that they even shared a smile, and Freya made up something about the Canadian hockey player. It served its purpose and diverted them back to work, and Zack got cross but it was clear the lust remained.
Freya was now swiping oolong tea every time she went past one of the waiting rooms just to keep hydrated as she was throwing up so often.
‘How are you?’ James stopped by her office.
Lately he seemed to be doing that a lot.
‘I’m fine.’
‘That doesn’t mean anything with you,’ James said, and finally he told her what was on his mind. ‘You’ve lost weight.’
‘James...’ Freya took a breath. ‘Every time I drop a couple of pounds it doesn’t have to mean that I’m back to sticking my fingers down my throat.’
‘I didn’t say that. I asked if you were okay.’
‘Well, I am.’
‘Good.’
‘And while we’re discussing the great white elephant of my eating disorder,’ Freya said, ‘I’m going to start taking clients. I’m having some cards made up. If you want me to see them elsewhere...’
‘Are you sure you’re not taking on too much?’
‘Do I ever ask you that?’
‘Actually, yes,’ James said. ‘I’ve got to go. I’ve got interviews but I’ll let the others know that you’re taking on clients and if they have anyone who might benefit from a referral.’ He gave a roll of his eyes. ‘That’s half my patient list, actually. I don’t think you’ll ever need to advertise.’ He turned at the sound of Zack’s footsteps coming down the corridor. ‘I’m just about to start interviewing for your replacement.’
‘Not now,’ Zack clipped. ‘I’ve got a patient to see.’
He was dreading it.
It was the last-chance saloon for this little mite and his parents knew it.
All night he had been up late, speaking with colleagues, going over and over the ultrasounds with the best brains he knew, and the response had been the same. Zack would take on more than most, which was why his stats came in low, but in this...
Zack sat with the twenty-year-old mother and the twenty-two-year-old father and he told them as best as he could that their son would die.
‘Please,’ Rachael begged. ‘Can you at least try...?’
And he went through it all over again, how the damage was too much and that his system was collapsing.
‘He’d very likely die on the operating table, or shortly post-operatively,’ Zack said. ‘Or he can die in your arms.’
Zack could have gone then but he stayed and spoke with them extensively and made sure they understood he wasn’t simply giving up on their son.
Sometimes you didn’t get a choice.
Like ten years to this day when his brother had died.
It was not a good day at the office!
Freya tried not to notice Stephanie’s raised eyebrows as she came out of one of the patients’ very luxurious restrooms. She hadn’t been able to make it to the staff one.
Oh, no. If Stephanie mentioned to James that she’d seen Freya dash off to vomit, he’d have her back in rehab by the end of the week.
And there was Zack, handing over his pagers.
‘I’m not on call tonight,’ Zack said to Stephanie.
‘I’ll call if there’s anything urgent with one of your patients—’
‘I said that I’m not on call tonight.’ Zack made things clear to Stephanie. ‘I’m going to get blind.’
‘Oh.’
He was as grey as she’d seen him and they didn’t bother with small talk as they walked out to their cars.
‘Freya...’ he called her over as she climbed into her car.
‘Yes?’
She turned and looked up at him and Zack stared back and he honestly didn’t know what to say, he hadn’t even meant to call out to her.
He needed her tonight.
Sex, yes, but he wanted all the rest tonight too. Hell, he’d even take the green smoothie.
Just because he didn’t want to move in it didn’t mean he had wanted it to end, and he was kicking himself for doing what he did best—put on his boots and get out.
‘How have you been since Cleo?’
He didn’t get to know that, Freya decided. ‘It happens.’ She went to walk off and then remembered what she’d heard. ‘I heard that you lost a patient today. I’m sorry.’
‘It happens,’ Zack said, but it nearly killed him when it did, especially one so tiny.
Especially today.
And she looked at his eyes and he said not a word of that but she knew him, and she could feel the want between them.
And that was why she cried each night. She was crazy about this guy.
‘You’ve lost weight,’ Zack said.
‘Oh, here we go. Have you been talking to James?’
‘No,’ Zack said. ‘Is he worried?’
‘James is always worried.’
‘Does he have reason to be?’
‘No.’
‘Freya, I know I didn’t end things very well.’
‘There was nothing to end, Zack. It was sex, we both agreed to that and no more, and as good as it was...’
Their eyes met at the memory and Zack looked very deep into her eyes. She could not believe his gall.
Yes, his eyes were asking her for that.
‘You are kidding me,’ Freya said. Did he really think they were going to have sex?
She wanted to so much.
To just ignore that she was completely incapable of not wanting a relationship with this man and to take the good they had.
It would be too much for her heart to bear, though. She had to tell him about the baby, but she could see his anguish today so Freya chose not to now. She abruptly pulled back from telling him and got angry instead.
“You know what, Zack? We should have kept it at one night. Life was so much easier when I didn’t know your name.’
Freya climbed into her car and reversed out angrily.
She wanted him—oh, my, she wanted him.
But even if they had kept it at one night, she’d still be in trouble.
Freya drove towards home and hoped she wasn’t too late to let Cleo out and then she remembered that Cleo wasn’t there any more.
And so instead of knowing that patient black eyes awaited her, Freya had the joy of chatting with herself on the drive home.
She had to tell Zack.
Or not.
He’d be gone in a few weeks.
And she’d been considering donor eggs and donor sperm after all.
But the donors chose anonymity and it would be her baby’s right to know, and Zack had the right to know too.
He’d find out anyway soon.
Stephanie was gossiping, Freya knew, and she trusted Zack wouldn’t just assume her eating disorder was back.
They had both messed up that first night but it wasn’t a disaster. Freya had it all under control.
She was thirty-one, she’d planned to be a single mom.
Zack deserved to know and he also deserved to know that she
neither needed nor expected nothing from him.
Freya took the exit and then joined the traffic heading into the city.
She left her car with the valet and walked into the hotel and went straight to the elevators. Down a familiar corridor she walked, but with a different type of anticipation knotting her stomach now as she tried to guess his reaction.
There was a ‘Do not disturb’ sign on the door and Freya ignored it and knocked.
‘Read the sign,’ came his deep, surly voice in response to her knock on the door.
‘Zack, it’s...’ Freya started, and then she had the appalling thought that he might be in there with someone he might have met in the elevator or bar and was banging his brains out, as was clearly his chosen stress response. But then the door opened and he had on only a towel, and then she glanced over his wet, naked shoulder and saw that, no, there was no one else in his suite.
‘I’m just in the middle of a phone call,’ Zack said.
‘Do you want me to wait outside?’ Freya offered.
‘No, no,’ he said, and as she walked into his suite he caught her off guard and pulled her in. ‘Thank God,’ Zack breathed into her ear, and then his mouth was on hers in a hungry kiss and she got a slab of wet muscle pressed into her. It took Freya a second to register that he had assumed she was taking him up on his earlier offer.
‘Zack...’
‘I won’t be long,’ Zack mouthed, and put his finger to his lips and then walked over to the bed and picked up the phone he had left there. ‘Sorry, Mum, it was just the maid.’
He gave her a wink and took her right back to their first conversation and straight back to when all they had been was sex. Freya stood there, her dress damp from his freshly showered body, and she tasted him as she licked her lips. She was unsure what to do as Zack carried on the conversation and she could actually see the tension in his back as he tried to keep his patience as he spoke with his mum.
‘Alice has a right to have a life...it’s been ten years,’ Zack said. ‘She’s allowed to go out on his anniversary. We don’t have to sit behind the curtains to grieve.’
Oh, God, it was the anniversary of his brother’s death, Freya realised as he spoke on.
On top of it all he was dealing with that today.
He went over and got out another glass and went to pour her some wine from an open bottle.
Seduced by the Heart Surgeon Page 12
