The Fatherhood Affair

by Emma Darcy

  Someone was talking nearby.

  ‘...severe concussion. Brains are a bit scrambled at the present moment. Nothing broken. Nothing that won’t heal properly.’

  It was an affable voice, speaking with confident authority, but how dared he speak of her brains as if they were a pastiche of broken eggs!

  ‘So the prognosis is...?’

  A different voice, deeper, warmer, richer, more passionate.

  ‘Fine. There’ll be some memory loss for a short period. That will return quite naturally.’

  ‘How long?’

  ‘Somewhere between a few days and a few months.’

  ‘But her memories, all her recollections, will return?’

  ‘Without fail. Everything.’

  Natalie forced a wary eye open. Who were these people who appeared to be discussing her quite openly in front of her?

  The light wasn’t too bad. She opened the other eye, as well. Two doctors stood at the foot of the bed.

  ‘Ah, she’s awake again.’

  That was the affable voice. It belonged to a short, slightly built man with sandy hair and spectacles.

  ‘Do you know your name?’ he asked.

  ‘Of course, I know my name. It’s Natalie.’

  ‘Natalie what?’

  ‘It’s not Natalie Watt at all.’

  ‘Can you tell me your second name, Natalie?’

  The persistent questioning made her feel very uncomfortable. She knew she knew the answer but it didn’t come to mind.

  ‘Natalie Something,’ she responded irritably. They wouldn’t be able to argue with that.

  ‘That’s good. Very good,’ the affable man soothed.

  Natalie dismissed him. She turned her attention to the other man, the one with the passionate voice. He was tall and broad-shouldered and so good-looking Natalie bet all the nurses swooned in his wake. He moved around the bed and sat on a chair beside her. He had riveting eyes, grey, with double rows of thick black lashes.

  ‘You’ve had a nasty knock on the head. Seven stitches. Everything is going to be fine,’ he assured her.

  ‘I know that, Doctor,’ she assured him back. She’d heard the other one say there was nothing that wouldn’t heal properly.

  ‘I’m not a doctor.’

  ‘Who are you then?’

  ‘I’m... Damien.’

  He looked anxious, uncertain, so she smiled to put him at ease. ‘Hello, Damien.’

  He relaxed and took her hand in his. ‘Hello, Natalie.’

  He had a beautiful voice. His fingers gently stroked her palm. Her skin tingled. It was a pleasurable sensation, soothing in one way yet oddly intimate, as though he was imparting some of his own energy through his fingers. She could feel little rivulets of warmth travelling up her arm. She wondered if he had healing hands.

  ‘I like your touch,’ she said.

  His face broke into a smile. His lips gave it a rueful twist but his eyes simmered with a warm approval that seemed to zing right into her heart. There was something very special about this man.

  ‘Are you some kind of therapist?’ she asked.

  He looked at her helplessly, seemed to come to some decision. ‘I’m your lover,’ he explained. There was a blaze of determination in his eyes, as though he wanted to sear that claim indelibly on her mind.

  Natalie stared at him in consternation. How could she mislay a memory of that magnitude? What was she doing with a lover anyway? Then she recollected she was in an intensive care unit. Only family was allowed there. Had he lied to get in? If so, who had sent him? And why?

  She looked sharply at the doctor who still stood at the foot of the bed. Did he accept this man as her lover? He didn’t look suspicious. He seemed to have adopted the role of interested spectator. Natalie decided to get some facts straight.

  ‘Where is my mother?’ she demanded.

  The doctor gestured to the man called Damien. Natalie swung her gaze back to him, her eyes sharply watchful as she waited for answers.

  ‘Your mother’s in Noosa, Natalie.’

  ‘Did the ambulance take me to Brisbane?’

  ‘No. You’re in Sydney.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘Do you remember what happened to you?’

  ‘I had a fall in the gym. Tried a double somersault over the vault.’ She frowned, not quite sure she had that right. ‘Maybe it was a triple.’

  ‘You’ve been floating in and out of consciousness for two days, Natalie.’

  She’d lost two days of her life. No wonder they were dripping something into her arm! She couldn’t comprehend why they had flown her to Sydney.

  ‘Can I go home now?’ she asked.

  ‘If you tried to stand up you’d probably fall over. Try sitting up.’

  Natalie tried and gave up without a struggle. It was easier to lie still.

  ‘You had an accident. Your memory will come back. So will your strength.’ Damien fondled her hand, pressing reassurance. ‘It will simply take a little time.’

  She had a very uneasy feeling about those statements. ‘What’s wrong with my memory?’

  ‘What happened in the gym must have occurred years ago, Natalie. You’re here because you were knocked over by a car.’

  Years ago?

  Her mind whirled. That couldn’t be right. She stared at him, looking for some waver in his steadfast gaze. There was none. The grey eyes had more than caring concern in them. They poured a message straight into her bewildered mind. I’m here for you. I’ll look after you. I’m the rock for you to lean on.

  ‘How old am I?’ she asked, feeling that he knew. She should know, too.

  ‘Twenty-eight,’ he said without hesitation.

  He squeezed her hand hard—or did she squeeze his? Twelve years lost! She had been sixteen when she had taken that fall in the gym. What had she done with her life since then? She remembered her ambition to become an artist, as well as a great gymnast. She suspected she hadn’t been much good at either.

  ‘What kind of work do I do?’ she asked, feeling an urgent need to fill in the gaps.

  ‘You’re very creative. You do graphic design on a computer. At the present moment, you’ve signed a contract to illustrate a children’s book.’

  ‘I must be good at it, then,’ she said in surprise.

  ‘Your work is stunning.’

  The admiration in his voice gave her a deep sense of pleasure.

  ‘Keep telling her everything that will prompt recall,’ the doctor encouraged. ‘The patient is doing fine. I’ll leave you to it.’ He gave Natalie a smile, Damien a man-to-man nod, and made a brisk departure.

  The doctor’s confidence was comforting. Natalie did her best to relax. She rolled the name ‘Damien’ around in her mind, trying to find echoes of it to patch together into a meaningful picture.

  Nothing.

  Yet his hand and eyes said she belonged with him, and the feeling he evoked in her suggested the same thing. She looked at him wonderingly. She was twenty-eight. He looked to be in his mid-thirties. What precisely was their connection?

  ‘How long have you been my lover?’

  His eyes were unflinching, steely, unrelenting. ‘Many years. But in all that time we never made love physically.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘You were married.’

  Another shock! ‘Who was I married to?’

  ‘A man named Brett. Brett Hayes.’

  His eyes were searching hers.

  She looked away, disconcerted at not remembering. How could she possibly forget a husband? And a lover! She glanced down at her left hand. No rings. The hospital staff might have taken them off. She stared at her ring finger. The golden tan of her skin was unbroken by a pale band. She couldn’t have worn her wedding-rings.

  ‘Am I divorced?’

  ‘No. Widowed.’

  She felt a glimmering of memory...something coming back...something important. Her heart filled with a rush of maternal love and pride. She swung her gaze to Damien,
feeling a sense of triumph. ‘I have a son. A beautiful boy.’

  He nodded gravely. ‘His name was Ryan.’

  ‘Where is he now?’ she cried eagerly. ‘Why isn’t he here?’

  It was Damien’s turn to be discomfited. He lifted her hand and kissed her fingers, transmitting his healing warmth and a deep caring. Then he looked at her with a sad compassion that chilled the warmth. ‘I’m sorry, Natalie. There was another accident a year ago. Ryan was...killed.’

  As soon as he said it, she knew it was true. The happiness drained out of her heart, leaving an aching, senseless void. Her beautiful boy was gone. Like the years he had occupied in her life.

  Damien must have seen or felt her distress. ‘That’s why you want to have another child,’ he said, the intensity in his voice drawing her attention back to him.

  ‘Do I?’ she asked listlessly.

  ‘Yes. More than anything else,’ he asserted. ‘And I want very much to be the father of that child.’

  His passion poured into the empty spaces inside her and stirred a consideration of the future. She didn’t understand how he was her lover, yet they still hadn’t made love together. He looked a very virile man. It must be she who was holding back for some reason.

  Damien’s fingers grazed longingly over hers, wanting a response from her, not demanding, but she could feel the wanting reaching into her, finding a deep chord of harmony that assured her he was speaking the truth.

  She didn’t know why, but the thought of this man being her lover felt...familiar. A sense of rightness, of contentment, swept through Natalie. Yes, she did want another child. And what better man could she choose as the father? Most women would gladly line up to have such a man as their mate.

  ‘We’re not married,’ she half-queried.

  ‘I don’t think you wish to marry again.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Your first marriage...’ He hesitated. She could see it pained him to talk about it. He shook his head. ‘It wasn’t all you wanted it to be, Natalie.’

  So that was the problem. She was wary of commitment. It wasn’t exactly fair on Damien to load him with the damage caused by another man. If he had loved her for years, he had been waiting a long time for her acceptance. She should know...

  ‘Chandler,’ she said. ‘You’re Damien Chandler.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘And I’m Natalie Arnott.’

  ‘Before you were married you were Natalie Arnott.’

  Whatever had happened in her marriage was over, Natalie thought. Damien must be more important to her now. She had remembered his name.

  ‘Thank you for being a nice and very patient lover, Damien,’ she said warmly. ‘Thank you for...for looking after me.’

  His smile irradiated sunshine. ‘I’d do anything for you, Natalie.’

  She sighed, deeply moved by his devotion to her. The talking had made her very tired. Her eyelids closed of their own weight. She could feel the light tingling of his strong hands. It forged a bond of trust.

  ‘I like your touch,’ she reaffirmed.

  Of one thing she was certain. Whatever she had been like before the accident, her instincts had been very good at choosing a lover.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  DAMIEN came to see her every day.

  No one else did.

  He brought her flowers, chocolates, fruit, magazines, highly expensive and beautifully perfumed toiletries, everything she might desire to make the hours in hospital less burdensome. She was moved out of Intensive Care after the danger of a cerebral haemorrhage subsided. In the more relaxed atmosphere of a ward, Damien’s attention to her excited curiosity and speculative gossip.

  That was all very fine, but Natalie wanted her memory back. Once she was out of her drug-haze from the initial trauma of the accident, it weighed very heavily on her mind that she had a twelve-year gap in her life, and she was increasingly frustrated in her efforts to recall it.

  Why did there appear to be only Damien in her life? That troubled her more and more. She tackled him about it on her fifth day in hospital.

  ‘Not one person has come to visit me except you. Do other people know I’m here, Damien? I can’t remember so I don’t know whom to call, but I must have some friends in Sydney.’ She accepted now that she did live in Sydney, New South Wales, and not at Noosa, Queensland.

  ‘You shut everyone out of your life when Ryan died,’ he explained. ‘This past year...there were friends and acquaintances who did try to draw you back into their social circle. You rejected every invitation. After a while they stopped trying and drifted away.’

  She could understand their withdrawal, however regrettable she found it now. ‘You’re saying I isolated myself.’

  ‘Completely.’

  ‘Except for you.’

  He gave her a dry smile. ‘I persisted.’

  She wondered why. She had looked at herself in a mirror. Admittedly the stitched gash on the side of her scalp didn’t help her hairstyle. She did have nice eyes and a good figure, but she was not the type of woman who would automatically create a sensation wherever she went. Damien only had to enter the ward and general conversation faded out as every eye swivelled to follow him.

  On the other hand, all she had to do was look into Damien’s eyes to know he wanted her. Very much.

  And she wanted him.

  Every time she saw him she felt the strong kick of response inside her. It wasn’t so much how handsome he was or how splendid he looked in his tailored suits. There was more to Damien than superficial charisma. It was what happened between them, the tug of feeling, a response that was evidently grounded in a long knowledge of each other.

  ‘I must have been a trial to you,’ she stated flatly.

  He shrugged. ‘You were grieving.’

  For her son.

  But what about her husband?

  Damien wouldn’t talk about him. She supposed that was natural if he wanted her for himself. Why remind her of the man she had married? Nevertheless, it made Natalie feel as though she was trapped in a dark area, unable to move forward with the confidence she should have.

  ‘You have a faraway look in your eyes,’ Damien observed. ‘What are you thinking?’

  ‘Speculating about the future.’

  ‘Am I in it?’

  Her eyes danced teasingly. Perhaps it was a female instinct to like him being a little bit uncertain of her, but she quickly chided herself for being unkind in the face of his unswerving devotion. ‘How could you not be,’ she said lightly, ‘in some form or other?’

  She expected him to smile. It surprised her that he didn’t. ‘You could cut me out of your life like this,’ he said, using his finger to demonstrate the action of a guillotine. ‘You’ve done it to...others.’

  She winced. ‘Was I so bad, Damien?’

  He took her hand. His eyes were hooded as he fanned his fingers over her knuckles, arousing the sensitivity she always felt at his touch. ‘We all carry some emotional baggage which turns out to be garbage, Natalie,’ he said. ‘At the moment, you’re free of it. When your memory returns, it will colour your reactions and responses.’

  ‘To you, as well?’

  ‘Yes, certainly. To me.’ He lifted his gaze and seared her heart with the agonised conflict that raged inside him. ‘I don’t want it to happen, Natalie. But it will.’

  ‘Will it be a...bad...reaction? To you, I mean.’

  He paused fractionally, then gave a firm answer. ‘Yes. It will be a bad reaction.’

  ‘So what does that mean?’ she asked, perplexed.

  She couldn’t imagine why she should turn on this man. There did not seem to be any reasonable explanation. She waited expectantly for Damien to give her an answer. When his reply came, it was nothing she could possibly have anticipated.

  ‘It means,’ he said slowly, as if he had an infinity of pain, ‘that I have limited time ... maybe ... between one or two days and a couple of months before your memory is fully restored. In
that period of time I have to fulfil my life.’

  The blaze of purpose, resolution and desire coming from his deeply recessed eyes lent such impact to his words, Natalie was struck by the need for an instant response, an assurance to him, a defence of the fair-minded person she felt herself to be. Through whatever eyes she had seen him before, the man she saw now was a man she wanted in her life.

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about, Damien, but I promise you this. I won’t forget what you’ve done for me, nor the way you’ve stuck by me through everything.’

  She had hoped he would relax, look reassured.

  All that stared back at her was total disbelief.

  ‘What did you do to me,’ she whispered, ‘that I should respond to you...in such a negative fashion?’

  ‘Nothing,’ he said mockingly. ‘Maybe I should have. I don’t know. What I can declare with absolute conviction and honesty is that I did nothing to you at all.’

  It chilled her.

  ‘Then what kind of person does that make me?’

  ‘Essentially you are the finest person I’ve ever known. But you were hurt, Natalie. Dreadfully hurt.’

  ‘And that’s what I’ve got to recollect?’

  He nodded. ‘All the doctors state definitely that you will have total recall.’

  ‘I don’t know that I want those memories back.’

  ‘It’s inevitable. It must be accepted.’

  ‘What will happen to us...when I do remember?’

  The alarm and concern she felt must have been written plainly on her face. Damien moved, sitting on the edge of the bed where she was propped against the tilted backrest. He gathered her into his arms, holding her close to him, tenderly, as though he treasured her.

  She slid her hands around his neck and lay her head on his shoulder. They were broad and strongly muscled shoulders, made to lean on, to weep on, to rest on. As she nestled her breasts against his rock-solid chest, and breathed in the wonderful, unique scent of him, Natalie felt a comforting sense of homecoming...relief, pleasure, the sweet promise of all that was missed, and the magic of finding it waiting to be taken up again.

  His fingers caressed the nape of her neck. His mouth brushed over her hair, and she was glad it was soft and silky from having been washed today. She wanted to feel perfect to him, as perfect as he felt to her. She was tempted to press her lips to the warmth of his throat, but realised this wasn’t the time or the place for such an intimacy.