Sydney Harbour Hospital: Lexi's Secret

by MELANIE MILBURNE

  Sam held her close in the aftermath. He listened to the sound of her breathing slowly coming back to normal. For a moment it was easy to forget why he shouldn’t have been lying with her breasts crushed against his chest and her legs still hooked around his hips.

  ‘Oh, God,’ she said.

  Sam propped himself up on his elbows to look at her. ‘Was that an “Oh God, I just had amazing sex” or an “Oh God, what have I done?”’

  Her teeth pulled at her lip in that engaging way of hers. ‘Both …’

  He brushed the damp hair off her face with one of his hands. ‘It was always going to happen, Lexi,’ he said. ‘I think we both knew that in the car park that day.’

  She rolled out from under him and got off the bed. Her hair was all mussed up and her lips swollen from kissing. She took one of his shirts out of the closet and slipped it over her nakedness. His shirt was too big for her but Sam thought it looked far sexier on her than any lacy negligee.

  He dealt with the condom before he went to where she was standing, grasping the edges of his shirt together to cover her body. He touched her on the cheek with one of his fingers. ‘Hey,’ he said. ‘You don’t have to hide yourself from me, Lexi. I know everything there is to know about your body.’

  She gave him an agonised look. ‘You don’t … not really …’

  He frowned as he looked at her. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Sam, I feel … I feel so guilty …’

  He tipped up her chin with the same finger. ‘It was just as much my fault as yours,’ he said. ‘I should’ve turned around once I found you on board and then none of this would’ve happened.’

  She pulled his hand down from her face, stepping away from him, her arms wrapping tightly across her body again. ‘I’m not talking about just now,’ she said.

  Sam frowned as he brought her back to face him with his hands on the tops of her shoulders. ‘What are you talking about?’ he asked.

  He saw her throat go up and down and her eyes watered up, glistening with tears that threatened to fall any second. She bit her lip again, but still it trembled. Her whole body began to shake as if gripped by a fever.

  ‘Sweetheart, what’s wrong?’ he asked, holding her steady with his hands on her upper arms.

  She looked into his eyes for a long moment. ‘Sam … I had a termination,’ she said in a broken whisper. ‘I had an abortion.’

  He looked at her in a dumb silence. It took at least thirty seconds for him to process her words.

  An abortion.

  Which meant she had been pregnant at some point.

  He said the first thing that came into his head. ‘Was it mine?’

  She turned away as if he had struck her. ‘So that’s the most important thing for you to establish, is it?’ she asked.

  Sam was having trouble keeping a lid on his emotions. Lexi had been pregnant. She had been carrying his child. He had never envisaged himself as a father. It had always been in the too-hard, too-emotionally-challenging basket. And yet for a brief time, a few weeks, he had been a father, or at least a potential one. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘That was unforgiveable of me. I wasn’t thinking. Of course it was mine.’

  ‘I didn’t know what to do,’ she said, still not looking at him. ‘I was so frightened and alone. I went to your flat but you’d gone. I didn’t know who to turn to.’

  Sam thought of how it must have been for her, so young, so inexperienced and yet pretending to be so street smart. Her father wouldn’t have been much use, or her mother. What else could she have done?

  And yet …

  He had almost been a father.

  He thought of how it would be to have a son or daughter, a combination of their genes. What would their child have been like? His mind raced with images of a platinum-blonde little girl or a light brown haired little boy. Little arms and legs, fingers and toes, soft wispy hair …

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said bringing himself back to the moment with an effort. ‘I know it’s not enough but I’m truly sorry you had to go through that.’

  She looked at him then, her gaze accusatory, incisive. ‘You’re angry,’ she said. ‘You think I did the wrong thing. Go on, say it. I can handle it. You think I did the wrong thing.’

  Sam felt ambushed by emotion. He wasn’t used to dealing with this bombardment of feeling. ‘What do you expect me to say?’ he asked. ‘Congratulations on your abortion? For God’s sake, Lexi, I might act all cool and controlled most of the time but you’ve just laid a whammy on me so you’re going have to allow me a minute or two to process it.’

  Her eyes were glistening with tears as she glared at him. ‘Do you think it was easy to make that decision? I agonised over it. I cried and cried for what might have been, for what I wanted. But in the end I felt I had no choice but to do what I did. Do I think I did the right thing? Yes. Do I think I did the wrong thing? Yes. It was both the right and the wrong thing. Sometimes the hardest decisions in life are.’

  ‘The decision to terminate a pregnancy is never an easy one,’ Sam said. ‘I don’t believe any woman goes into it lightly. Even when it’s clearly the right decision even on medical grounds it can take years if not a lifetime to resolve the guilt surrounding it. But if it’s any comfort, I think you did the right thing, Lexi. You were far too young for that sort of responsibility. And, quite frankly, I’m not sure I would’ve been much help even if you had been able to tell me. I would’ve supported you, of course, but it would have been hard for both of us at that point in our lives.’

  She let out a wobbly sigh. ‘I’m so sorry …’

  Sam stepped up to her and cupped her face. ‘Don’t be,’ he said firmly. ‘It’s in the past. Let it stay there. You can’t change it.’

  ‘I’m glad I told you,’ she said on another sigh. ‘It’s been so hard keeping it to myself for all this time.’

  Sam frowned. ‘You haven’t told your fiancé?’

  Her cheeks grew pink and her eyes moved away from his. ‘I’ve wanted to … so often, but the time has never seemed right.’

  ‘Lexi,’ he said. ‘You’re marrying this guy in a matter of weeks. You need to tell him everything.’

  She flashed him a glare over her shoulder. ‘Like what happened here just now?’ she said. ‘You think I should tell him I had ex sex because I was feeling a bit lonely?’

  Sam clenched his jaw. ‘Is that what you think?’ he asked. ‘You were feeling a bit lonely so you jumped into bed with me? Lexi, you know that’s not what happened. We had sex because we can’t keep our hands off each other. It has nothing to do with loneliness, yours or mine.’

  She turned away, her body hunched as if she wanted to curl up and hide. ‘I can’t imagine you’d ever be lonely,’ she said. ‘You probably have heaps of women flocking after you wherever you go.’

  ‘I’ve had relationships,’ Sam said. ‘Nothing serious and nothing lasting. I guess I’m not built that way.’

  She turned and looked at him. ‘So you’re not thinking of marrying and having a family someday?’

  Sam shook his head. ‘Not my scene, I’m afraid. With a fifty per cent divorce rate I don’t like my chances of getting it right. I don’t want to screw up someone else’s life as well as my own.’

  ‘But your parents were happy, weren’t they?’ she asked.

  Sam thought of his father and mother and how his mother’s chronic illness had had such an impact on their relationship. How his father had limped along for the last twenty years, half alive, isolated with grief and guilt. ‘Yes, but their relationship was one of those once-in-a-lifetime ones,’ he said. ‘Not everyone can achieve that. It’s not realistic to expect there’s someone out there who will meet all of your physical and emotional needs. And speaking of physical needs, is that your stomach I can hear growling with hunger?’

  She put her hand over her stomach. ‘You can hear that?’

  ‘No, but I’m starving and I figured you might be too after all that exercise.’

  He
r face coloured up again. ‘Why does being here with you feel so right but wrong as well?’ she asked in soft voice.

  Sam brushed her cheek with his finger. ‘I think what you said a minute ago is very true. Sometimes some of life’s hardest decisions are both right and wrong at the same time. Let’s just say this is right for now and leave it at that.’

  CHAPTER NINE

  LEXI had a shower while Sam made dinner. She tried not to think about the moral implications of spending the rest of the weekend with him on his boat. It was as if she had stepped into a parallel universe, one where she and Sam were able to be together, enjoying each other’s company, taking things as they came rather than planning too far ahead.

  She looked at her engagement ring and felt like she was looking at someone else’s hand. She grappled with her conscience before she tugged the diamond off. She had to use some soap to remove it. Was that a sign of some sort? she wondered. She looked at the pale circle of skin where the ring had hidden her flesh from the sun. She knew she would have to talk to Matthew. But she wasn’t prepared to do it via email or over the phone. She needed to see him face to face to explain …

  To explain what exactly? That she was in love with another man?

  Lexi let out a sigh as she reached for a towel. There was only one man she could ever love and that was Sam. She loved him with her heart. She loved him with her mind. She loved him with her body. She felt like her life was incomplete without him in it. Being without him was like only wearing one shoe. Her life felt out of balance. The love she felt for him was the love his parents had felt for each other. A love Sam didn’t feel for her. He had made that pretty clear. His relationships were ‘nothing serious and nothing lasting’. That included her. What he was offering her was casual and temporary, a weekend of sensual delight, but then what? He would go back to his life and she would go back to hers.

  Maybe she wouldn’t have to tell Matthew. Maybe she could just let this weekend be her attempt at closure and leave it at that. She would move on with her life, get married and have babies and build a future with a man who loved her, instead of pining after a man who didn’t and never would.

  Lexi dressed in one of the new outfits she’d bought that day: a white halter-neck top and slim-fitting taupe pants. She bundled her damp hair up in a knot on top of her head, sprayed her wrists with the perfume she carried in her bag, and applied a light layer of lip gloss before joining Sam in the kitchen dining area.

  ‘That smells delicious,’ she said, sniffing the air appreciatively.

  Sam turned from the pot he was stirring and handed her a glass of wine he had poured. ‘Here you go,’ he said. ‘Dinner won’t be long.’

  Lexi took the wine and angled her head to see what he was cooking. ‘What are you making?’ she asked.

  ‘Mediterranean fish casserole,’ he said. ‘One of my colleagues in the States is married to a chef. She took me on as a project and taught me to cook a little more than the meat-and-three-veg routine I’d grown up with.’

  ‘You obviously enjoy it,’ she said.

  ‘Yes, I find it relaxing,’ he said, putting the wooden spoon on the counter. ‘What about you? Do you cook or leave it to the servants?’

  Lexi slipped back into socialite mode. ‘Of course,’ she said airily. ‘Why do something so menial when you can pay someone else to do it and clean up afterwards too?’

  ‘What if you run out of money one day?’ he asked.

  ‘As if that’s going to happen,’ she said. ‘I’m marrying a rich man, remember?’

  Lexi watched as he turned back to stirring the pot, the line of his back and shoulders now tense. She wished now she hadn’t goaded him. The atmosphere had changed to one of enmity and stiffness when before he had been so tender with her over the termination. ‘Can I help with anything?’ she asked.

  ‘It’s cool,’ he said. ‘I’ve got it all under control.’ He turned and leaned back against the counter to look at her, his eyes running over her in appraisal. ‘You look particularly beautiful,’ he said. ‘That wasn’t what you were wearing before.’

  ‘Lucky I did some shopping today,’ Lexi said. ‘Otherwise I would’ve had to go naked.’

  His eyes smouldered darkly. ‘Suits me.’

  ‘I bought just about everything else but I didn’t buy a toothbrush,’ she said. ‘I don’t suppose you happen to have a spare?’

  ‘I always keep a supply of basic necessities on board.’

  Lexi gave him a cynical look. ‘In case you get lucky.’

  His mouth tilted in a sexy smile. ‘I guess you could say today’s been my lucky day.’

  Lexi frowned and averted her gaze. ‘Sam …’

  One of his hands came down on her bare shoulder, the other touching her beneath her chin and forcing her gaze back to his. His eyes were dark and serious. ‘If you really want to go back, I’ll take you back,’ he said.

  Lexi didn’t want to go back. She didn’t ever want to go back. She wanted to stay on his boat with him for ever without the intrusion of other people telling her what she should and shouldn’t do. ‘No,’ she said in a whisper-soft voice. ‘I don’t want to go back just yet.’

  He brushed her forehead with a kiss before he stepped away to go back to his cooking. ‘Good, because I’ve had a hell of a week and I really need to clear my head.’

  Lexi watched as he went back to the simmering pot. He was frowning as he stirred the casserole, the set to his mouth almost grim. ‘You want to talk about it?’ she asked.

  One of his shoulders went up and down. ‘It’s OK. I deal with this stuff all the time—patients dying on the table because they’re too sick to survive the surgery. It’s part of the job. You win some. You lose some. But I hate losing. I never get used to it.’

  Lexi put her glass down and moved to stand behind him. She wrapped her arms around his waist and pressed her cheek to the hard wall of his back. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said softly. ‘It must be so hard for you. No one thinks of how the surgeon feels. Everyone feels sorry for the patient and the relatives, but what about the surgeon who has to try to sleep at night haunted by all those people he wasn’t able to save in time? It must be absolute agony for you.’

  He turned in the loop of her arms and brushed a wisp of hair off her forehead with a gentle finger. ‘We’re supposed to get hardened by it during our training,’ he said. ‘I’m usually good at keeping my emotions separate. I have to, otherwise it can cloud my judgement. But I lost a patient yesterday. I guess that’s why I bawled you out about the change of venue for the ball. I was in a foul mood. I’d just left a family to say goodbye to their husband and father in Theatre. He died during the procedure.’

  Lexi looked up at him in distress. ‘Oh, Sam, and I was such a cow to you.’

  He gave her a rueful smile. ‘I probably deserved it. I seem to always be baiting you. I guess I like getting a rise out of you. You’re so adorable when you’re spitting chips at me.’

  Lexi gave him a sheepish look. ‘I didn’t mean it about the hay bales and farm animals … especially the pigs. That was a bit low.’

  He grinned at her and walked her back against the table with his thighs against hers. ‘Yes, you did, you little minx,’ he growled playfully.

  Lexi shivered as his lips found her neck, nipping at the skin in little bites that sent electric shocks throughout her body. He finally came to her mouth, sealing it with a kiss that made every nerve tingle with delight.

  ‘I thought we were going to have dinner,’ she said somewhat breathlessly.

  ‘Later,’ he said.

  Lexi closed her eyes as she gave herself up to his kiss. It was tender and searching, as if he was looking for the young innocent girl she had been, as if he was trying to redress the past by retracing his steps, doing things differently this time. She kissed him back with equal tenderness, enjoying the new-found intimacy that was so much more than two grappling bodies intent on sensual pleasure but more of a meeting of two spirits who found something special
and priceless only with each other.

  Sam finally eased his mouth off hers and brushed her hair back from her forehead, giving her a bemused smile. ‘You constantly surprise me, Lexi Lockheart, do you know that?’

  Lexi gave him a shy smile in return. ‘Oh, I’m full of surprises, that’s for sure.’

  He reached for her ring hand, looking down at it before he met her eyes. ‘Where’s your engagement ring?’ he asked.

  Lexi couldn’t read his masked expression. ‘I … I took it off.’

  ‘I don’t suppose you tossed it overboard.’

  She pulled her hand out of his and stepped away from him. ‘Is that what you’d like me to do?’ she asked.

  He looked at her for a long moment. ‘What are you going to do?’

  Lexi bit her lip. ‘I’m not sure …’

  ‘Seems pretty simple and straightforward to me,’ Sam said.

  ‘Oh, really?’ she said.

  ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘You shouldn’t be marrying a man who doesn’t satisfy you.’

  Lexi put her hands on her hips. ‘How do you know he doesn’t satisfy me?’

  He gave a shrug of one shoulder as if he didn’t care either way. ‘I figure if you were getting what you need from him, you wouldn’t be here with me.’

  ‘Maybe I need more than he can give me,’ she said. ‘You said it yourself. It’s hard to find someone who meets all of your physical and emotional needs.’

  ‘Do you love him?’ Sam asked.

  Lexi let out a snort of derision. ‘Who are you to ask me about love?’ she said. ‘You don’t love anything but your career.’

  ‘Do you love him?’ He repeated the question, more forcefully this time, which put her back up.