by Sue MacKay
‘Why wouldn’t I be?’
‘Because maybe it’s time you weren’t.’
Here we go again.
Only weeks before he’d left for Dubrovnik Harry and his wife had given him a speech about living alone and not finding a partner. They’d gone on and on about how he was becoming more solitary by the day. How he was turning into a serious surgeon twenty-four-seven, never letting up for fun. ‘I already read that memo. It doesn’t pertain to me.’
Just like that, an image of Alesha lying on the bed half covered in a sheet sprang into his head and he couldn’t breathe. There was so much to like about her. So much to remember. To want to revisit. He could be in trouble here.
‘Here, get this into you.’ A cold, moist bottle was forced between his fingers. ‘You look like you could do with something more powerful than cold H2O.’
Thanks, Harry.
Kristof lifted the bottle to his lips and drank deep of the cool, refreshing beer. Which did nothing to banish that picture from the front of his skull. She was so beautiful, so tantalising. And broken in some way.
Don’t forget that. That’s what will keep you away, if you choose to step back into her world for another week of passion. She was broken, he had been: they’d never make it work. If he even wanted to, which he didn’t.
‘Want to tell me something?’ Persistence was Harry’s middle name. Sometimes it was even his first name.
‘I ate squid at the charity dinner.’ Sitting beside Alesha, feeling at ease with all the socialite types for the first time, not feeling as though his father was breathing over his shoulder to make sure he did everything correctly so as to impress everyone. She’d been relaxed, despite telling him she wasn’t used to rubbing shoulders with the wealthy. She’d charmed everyone seated at their table with her accent and her ability to laugh at herself. ‘And drank champagne.’
Now that was a mistake. Harry was going to pick up on it straight away.
Yep. ‘You weren’t doing that alone.’
‘I shared the bottle with the whole table.’ He had, and ordered another so that Alesha didn’t run out of her favourite drink. Though she’d been circumspect, barely touching her glass. He’d picked that was because she didn’t want to do something like come on to him again in front of his mother’s guests. Because while she hadn’t come on to him again all evening, she’d sure responded when he’d turned the tables and kissed her.
The ringing of Harry’s phone cut across his thoughts and brought him back to reality. ‘You’d better get that.’
Alesha wasn’t real? Wasn’t warm and friendly and gorgeous?
Sure she was, but she didn’t belong in this picture of him at work with his mate talking the breeze.
‘Hi, Scallywag. How was it at the pool?’ Harry’s eyes were soft and dewy as he spoke to one of his daughters. ‘You swam how far? That’s amazing, you clever clogs.’
This picture of sitting with Harry having a beer just got complicated. Harry had pulled on his father cape, while he still sat here as the surgeon frantically denying Alesha access to his brain—and her ignoring him. He shoved to his feet. ‘Time I headed home.’ To his pristine apartment where everything stayed in the place he put it until he wanted it again. No shoes with six-inch heels lying around. No discarded clothing leading a trail to his bedroom. Paradise. Or so he used to think. When had that changed? Prior to or post Alesha? Or somewhere in the middle?
Harry looked up and flapped a hand at him. ‘See you tomorrow,’ he mouthed before returning his full attention to his daughter.
Tomorrow and the surgical list that’d keep him busy and focused, and in a zone he understood and needed.
Not a place where a certain woman interrupted his thoughts.
Not in his office while his mate sank into the love of his children excitedly talking to him and asking when he was coming home for dinner because they were starving. Yep, he’d heard all that, and just had to get away. It was too much.
It was not the lifestyle he endeavoured to get.
It was the one he’d dreamed of having if only Cally hadn’t walked all over his love in hobnailed boots.
CHAPTER SEVEN
‘HOLD THIS FOR ME, will you?’ A doctor held out a saline bag to Alesha.
‘Sure.’ She took it and waited patiently while the young woman inserted a needle into the back of their little patient’s hand to give the boy much-needed fluid after a severe bout of vomiting that had left him dehydrated.
On the other side of the bed the boy’s father watched, his face ashen, and his eyes bleak with worry. ‘I hope it wasn’t the chicken he ate for lunch that’s made him so sick. He started throwing up not long after and hasn’t stopped since.’
It could very likely be food poisoning. Undercooked chicken was always risky. ‘Was the chicken bought from a takeout place, or home-cooked?’
‘I was cooking it last night for dinner when my mother phoned to ask us to go round for a meal. I turned the element off and left the pan with the lid on to cool down, and put it in the fridge when we got home.’
The doctor looked up. ‘How late was that?’
The man winced as though he was about to get told off. ‘About one in the morning.’
The temperature had been unusually high yesterday. ‘You wouldn’t have had air-conditioning running while you were out, would you?’ Alesha asked and got a nod from the doctor.
‘If only I had it.’ The father reached for his lad’s hand, wound his much larger one around it. ‘Sorry, Charlie. Your dad’s such a fool.’
Alesha felt for him. ‘Don’t say that. You made a mistake, but that doesn’t make you a fool. It’s just that chicken has to be cooked right through, no pinkness at all.’
‘I’m still learning to cook since my wife died. She was a champ in the kitchen, could make the dullest of foods tasty. I’ve got a long way to go to be half as good.’ The poor guy had more than enough to deal with without beating himself up over his cooking skills.
‘Sounds like you’re trying and that’s what counts.’
The doctor had the needle in and was attaching the tubing to it that led from the bag Alesha held. ‘I think your boy is going to be fine once we get some liquid into him as well as all those nutrients that come with it.’
Alesha took a quick glance at her watch. The day couldn’t go any slower if it tried. She hung the bag from the steel frame and smoothed the damp curls off Charlie’s forehead. ‘There you go. You’ll be chasing your football before you know it.’
‘I’m going to run some blood tests,’ the doctor said.
‘I’ll get the kit.’ Alesha slipped around the curtain and walked the length of the children’s ward to the storeroom.
‘How’s it going?’ Cherry asked as they passed in the hall.
After five weeks Alesha already loved this job, and had been hoping the nurse she was covering for really didn’t want to return at the end of her maternity leave. Though today that idea felt tiring. ‘I’m looking forward to knocking off.’ Half an hour to go and she’d be able to give into the exhaustion dragging at her. Never had she felt so debilitated by it. She was sounding geriatric. ‘Can’t wait to get home and put my feet up.’ And try not to think about Kristof. Why had one week of fun together come to mean so much? It had been two months since they’d said goodbye in Dubrovnik. She should’ve moved on by now, not be thinking about him at all hours of the day and night. Just because he’d inadvertently made her see she needed to be strong and not let just any guy in close didn’t give him the right to take over her thoughts and emotions.
‘You really wore yourself out in Dubrovnik, didn’t you?’
Oh, yes. That heady week with Kristof used up a lot of energy. Add in all the walking around the city she did every night after finishing work at the home. Staying on in Dubrovnik had turned out to be the right decision. Working full
time with those children had made her believe she could actually settle down somewhere and become a part of a community, get a permanent job instead of taking slots all over the show. To make herself a home where she might finally integrate herself and become a part of the local picture. As much as she loved travelling it had palled in the light of what she’d done with those sad and needy children. So much she’d stayed on right up to the day before she was due to report here. And now... Well, now everything was about to change in a way she’d never foreseen.
Cherry had turned to follow her to the storeroom. ‘Want to go to the pub tonight for a game of pool and a beer or two?’
‘I’ve got to see someone tonight.’ But a game of pool was tempting. It’d be an easy option with no conflict, no arguments or disappointments, no professional façade glaring at her. And wouldn’t solve a thing.
Her stomach clenched, sent a wave of nausea roaring up her throat. She held her breath, willed her body to behave. What was a bit of tiredness anyway?
But at seven that night, when Alesha finally found the address she needed and no one answered the bell she jabbed, her body all but dropped to the step. Tightening her spine, she turned and walked back the way she’d come to the bar she’d seen on the way in. The barman smirked when she ordered a cup of tea. Too bad. It was written on the blackboard.
At eight she tried the bell again with the same result. This time she couldn’t fight the sagging of her knees and hit the step hard. Shuffling around, she made her butt as comfortable as possible on the concrete and clasped her knees to her chest, and waited. And waited.
‘Alesha?’ It was a soft question. Or was it a dream?
She blinked her eyes open. And blinked again. Kristof towered above her, concern lacing the puzzlement in those beautiful eyes.
Bang. Her heart tightened. And she knew. No doubt at all. She’d gone and fallen in love with Kristof in the space of that intense week. Not the maybe love, or a tentative, ‘see how it worked out’ love. Nor the ‘had a great time and then goodbye’ kind. No, this was a full-on, ‘involve the head, the body and the heart’ love. A deal breaker.
She gasped. There was the problem. They had to make some sort of deal tonight, and she’d gone and got her side all messed up.
‘What’s wrong?’ he asked in his professional voice.
* * *
When Kristof strolled up the road to his apartment from the parking garage, relieved another day was over and his patients were getting through post op as well as they should be, he’d been thinking how he could shuck off the clothes of his profession and pull on shorts and a casual shirt to relax with a cold one and think of nothing more difficult than what to have for dinner.
He’d been whistling under his breath, not expecting anything to change his plans as he turned towards his front door.
Then the whistle died. His feet slowed. While his eyes locked on the sleeping form sprawled across his front step.
‘Alesha?’ His heart skittered around in his chest. Alesha was on his doorstep? Why? Something cracked open a tiny way inside him. He slammed it shut with a deep breath and pulled back into work mode. ‘What’s wrong?’ A pebble jabbed his knee when he knelt beside her. Please be okay. What had brought her here? Her long eyelashes were black against her pale skin. In his chest worry stabbed hard. Alesha had to be all right. She just had to be. He couldn’t imagine her any other way, did not want anything bad to have happened to her. So much for being calm about this.
‘Kristof?’ She lifted her head, blinked at him. Then her eyes widened. ‘I fell asleep.’ Her voice was thick with sleep and surprise, as if she’d forgotten why she was here.
He had no idea why she was here. Alesha was the last person he’d expected to find tucked up on his doorstep. Not that he was used to finding anybody here. When they’d said goodbye in Dubrovnik that had been the wrap-up they’d agreed on. The end of a wonderful week, and not even the memories, and, yes, the longing for more in the middle of the night, had been going to change a thing. Yet here she was: the woman who wouldn’t get out of his head. ‘Are you all right?’ Standing, he held a hand out to pull her to her feet.
She rubbed her arms and stared up at him, caution glittering out of those brown eyes. ‘Why wouldn’t I be?’
‘How about because you’re sleeping on a front step in a busy central London location? Or because you’re outside my home, which I guess means you’re wanting to visit.’ He didn’t add, When we’d agreed not to get in touch.
Ignoring his outstretched hand, she scrambled to her feet, then pushed back against the door, the rumpled blouse reminding him inexplicably of the night he’d found her pacing outside the apartments dressed only in a bikini and towel. As it wasn’t her clothing that was the same it had to be the look of apprehension in her face that brought back that scene so clearly.
‘It’s good to see you. I’ve been wondering how you were getting on since coming back to London. Mum said you’d enjoyed your time working with her.’ Now he was prattling like a teen on a hormone high. Clamping his mouth shut, he watched Alesha and waited.
‘It was great. Those kids are so resilient they could teach most of us a thing or two about surviving life’s hazards.’ Her breasts rose and fell.
Yes, he remembered them all too well. Warm, soft, skin like satin.
Alesha continued, hopefully unaware of where his mind had strolled. ‘I need to talk to you, but I won’t stay long. Promise.’ Did she just begin to cross her fingers then stop?
Stay as long as you like if I can touch you, hold you close, kiss that worry away. Make another memory.
He dug into his pocket for his keys. ‘Let’s go inside. Feel like a beer? Sorry, I don’t have any of your favourite champagne.’
‘Can I have a cup of tea?’ Her teeth were chattering.
Tea? Apprehension trickled down his spine. ‘No problem.’ He hoped. ‘Come through.’ He led the way to his kitchen and plugged the kettle in before snatching a bottle of beer from the fridge. ‘Sure I can’t tempt you with one of these?’ She had enjoyed a beer on a hot evening in Dubrovnik.
Alesha shook her head as she stared around. ‘Wow. This is state-of-the-art.’
‘Shame it doesn’t get used as much as it should.’
‘You don’t do swanky dinner parties, then?’ There. A glimmer of that wonderful smile that always created knots in his gut.
‘Afraid not.’ Kristof sipped his beer before getting a mug and a teabag.
‘You really do stand alone.’
It was a statement, not a question. Seemed Alesha had seen more of what made him tick than most people ever did, and that was all in the space of a week. He must be slipping. ‘I’m too busy most of the time, and when I do stop working I like to chill out without having to put my best face on.’
‘Oh, boy.’ She slumped, reached for a bench stool and sank onto it.
Apprehension grew, expanding and nudging aside the need for her that had begun pushing through. ‘Why are you here? I’m presuming this isn’t a social call to talk about the weather.’
Cool it. Don’t upset her without good reason.
Alesha wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t necessary. Or would she? Did she want to go back on her word and continue their fling until it petered out—or became something more? Even if she did, it wasn’t happening. He wasn’t about to change his mind over trusting someone with his heart. Not even Alesha, as much as she intrigued him and had got under his skin.
The kettle whistled and clicked off. He poured boiling water over the teabag, his focus entirely on Alesha. Exhaustion was undoing her usually straight posture, while her hands fidgeted at her waist.
‘Stop pouring,’ she said in a surprisingly strong voice. ‘Water’s going everywhere.’
Sure was. A puddle crept towards the edge of the bench. Grabbing the cloth, he wiped it away. ‘You’re good at distractin
g me.’
Brain-slap. So not the thing to say. What if she did want to get together again?
He’d just fed into that line.
She stood up, straightened her body, and locked a steady gaze on him.
And the bottom fell out of his world. He had no idea what this was about, but he did know his life was about to change. For ever. ‘Out with it.’
‘I’m pregnant.’
‘Really?’ That was such an old line, and not what he’d expected from Alesha. Showed how little he knew her.
‘Really,’ she said quietly, with dignity.
‘Hang on. Not so fast.’ She was pregnant. They were having a baby. Alesha had said so. Whether it fitted in with his plans or not. What the hell was going on? He wouldn’t, couldn’t, be a parent. Kristof sank onto the stool next to the one Alesha had vacated. ‘You walk in as though you belong here to tell me I’m the father of your baby? When we always used condoms.’ Didn’t they? He couldn’t remember not using one. But they had got carried away to the point he’d known nothing but her body and the desire crashing through him.
A slow, wary nod was her reply, as she sank back down onto the stool.
‘What are your plans for this baby?’
What little colour was in her cheeks disappeared. ‘I’m keeping it. I will love it so much it won’t grow up sad and lonely like me.’ Her finger jabbed her thigh. ‘Don’t ever ask me that again. Got it?’
In spades. ‘What do you want from me?’ He had to start somewhere.
Her body jerked on the chair. ‘To acknowledge you are the father, and to take part in his or her life.’
‘That’s it?’ Disbelief whacked him. Pull the other one. ‘It’s a lot, but what about the other things? Money, somewhere to live.’ His hands slapped his hips as he charged across to the window to stare out, unseeing. The breath he drew was ragged and bitter. ‘What about marriage? You want me to commit to that as well?’
‘No-o.’ The chair crashed on the floor.
Kristof spun around to see Alesha running for the door. ‘Wait.’
