by Sarah Morgan
Madeleine smiled wistfully as she got to her feet. ‘That sounds like a very good idea,’ she said.
‘Yeah …’ Ben said once she’d left. Dragging a hand through his hair yet again, he added, ‘It is. I don’t know why I didn’t think of it earlier.’
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
‘AREN’T you going to the gym any more?’ Rhiannon asked two days later. ‘This is the third day in a row you’ve missed.’
Georgie scrubbed at her red eyes. ‘I don’t want to run into Ben-Break-Your-Heart Blackwood,’ she said. ‘I’m going to switch my membership to another gym.’
‘Poor you,’ Rhiannon said, as she stroked Georgie’s head. ‘He really did a good job on you, didn’t he?’
Georgie blew her nose and tucked the sodden tissue into her bra, joining the others for a lumpy potato effect. ‘I’m so dumb when it comes to dating,’ she said. ‘I’m not going on another date for six months, I swear it.’
‘That’s a long time, Georgie.’
‘I don’t care,’ she said as she got to her feet. ‘If I so much as look at a man with a view to dating him, I’m going to donate a thousand dollars to the hospital research foundation … no, make that five thousand dollars. That should make me think twice before I fall into the same trap again.’
‘Wow, that’s a lot of money,’ Rhiannon said.
Georgie set her shoulders determinedly. ‘I know, but it’ll be worth it to prove to myself that I can do it. I’m also going to pay my father back for the apartment.’
‘But why? I mean, it was a present, wasn’t it?’ Rhiannon asked.
‘That’s not the point,’ Georgie said. ‘It’s time I stood on my own two feet. It won’t hurt me to pay my own way for once.’
Irene Clark, the head nurse on the unit, pulled Georgie to one side when she came to the ward the next morning. ‘Ben asked me to tell you to meet him in his office,’ she said. ‘I think it’s about you being transferred to another unit.’
Georgie had been expecting it so it didn’t really come as much of a shock. She had considered asking for it herself but didn’t want him to think she had any qualms about working with him. ‘I’ll go down now,’ she said.
Ben picked up the thick wad of faxed results he had received and subsequently copied and sent to the police working on the investigation into Marianne Tander’s accident. He’d not long finished speaking to the investigating officer who had filled him in on the background.
As much as Ben didn’t want to see Georgie face to face, he thought she should be the first to know her suspicions had been correct after all.
Her heard her knock and called for her to come in, getting to his feet as she entered the room.
‘You wanted to see me?’ she said, nervously shifting from one foot to the other.
He frowned and noticed for the first time how red and bloodshot her eyes were. ‘Have you been crying?’ he asked.
‘No,’ she answered as her eyes moved away from his.
‘I thought you should know you were right about Marianne Tander’s injury,’ he said into the tight silence.
Her eyes came back to his. ‘Oh?’
‘I researched her medical history,’ he informed her. ‘She has metastastic disease. She’s been having chemotherapy for ovarian cancer. I confronted the husband this morning. It appears she and Jonathon made a pact. She made him promise that if she lived past Christmas, he was to help her die.’
Georgie put her hand to her throat. ‘What?’
He gave her a grim look. ‘The plan was for her to take a dose of Valium and he would place a pillow over her face, but at the last minute he couldn’t go through with it. I suspect the only reason he agreed to do it in the first place was that he didn’t think she would last past Christmas, but she did and her suffering intensified to the point where she took matters into her own hands.’
Georgie’s brow furrowed even further. ‘So what happened?’
‘Marianne Tander couldn’t walk without assistance but the morning of the accident she somehow dragged herself to the staircase in their house and threw herself down just as Mr Tander was coming out of the bathroom. He couldn’t get to her in time to stop her.’
‘Oh, my God … the head wound was from the fall, right?’
He nodded. ‘Mr Tander carried her out to his car and was on his way to the nearest hospital when due to his distraught state and the slippery conditions he briefly lost concentration and ran into the tree. When the police and ambulance arrived he panicked, wondering if they would accuse him of pushing her down the stairs, so on the spur of the moment made up the story about the other car. And, of course, luck was on his side as the roads were wet that morning and the police had been inundated with callouts to other accidents. There were no skid marks to verify his version of events. Apparently single-vehicle accidents are not always investigated unless there are concerns over injuries or death.’
Georgie sank to the chair opposite his desk. ‘So what will happen to him? Mr Tander, I mean. Will he be charged?’
He let out a sigh as he pushed the results to one side. ‘I’m not sure what charges if any will be laid,’ he said. ‘Marianne is going downhill fast. I don’t think she’ll see the week out. The cancer is so widespread I’m surprised she hasn’t already gone into organ failure.’
Georgie chewed at her bottom lip for a moment. ‘He really loves her.’
‘Yes, he really does.’
‘I was thinking about what he said when he cornered me that day,’ she said. ‘He said she’d suffered enough. Do you remember?’
He nodded. ‘That’s why I thought I’d run a check through the labs.’
Another silence tightened the air.
Georgie ran her tongue across her lips. ‘Ben, I think I should tell you I overheard you and Leila discussing your relationship the other morning. I know I shouldn’t have been eavesdropping at such a private moment but—’
‘What?’
She winced at his sharp tone. ‘I was just about to knock when I heard you both talking about putting the past aside and getting married.’
Ben stared at her. ‘You heard that?’
She winced again. ‘All of it. Sorry …’
Ben was starting to put two and two together, hope rising in his chest. ‘So that little clinch in the doctors’ room with Jules Littlemore? What was that all about?’
She bit her lip again. ‘I’m not dating Jules. I was so upset. I felt so used and wanted you think I was involved with Jules to hurt you. It was just like a replay of my relationship with Andrew, my ex. He was still in love with his previous girlfriend and when push came to shove that’s who he chose to be with.’
Another little silence measured the seconds ticking by.
‘About that transfer …’ they said in unison.
‘I’m OK about the transfer to the other unit,’ Georgie said, lowering her gaze to stare at her hands twisting in her lap. ‘I understand you don’t want to work with me since … since we …. you know …’
Ben got up from behind his desk and came to stand next to her chair. ‘Georgie, look at me.’
She dragged her gaze upwards, two big tears already making their way down her cheeks, several others following their crystal pathway.
He reached out with the pad of his thumb and blotted them one by one. ‘Why are you crying?’ he asked, his voice sounding as if it had been scraped across a gravel road.
‘B-because I stupidly fell in love with you,’ she sobbed. ‘Dumb, huh? I always do it. I fall in love with unavailable men. I never seem—’
‘I’m not unavailable.’
‘To learn from my past mist—’ She stopped and blinked at him again. ‘What did you say?’
‘I’m not for a moment thinking of going back to Leila.’
Georgie swallowed the aching lump in her throat. ‘You mean you’re … you’re not going to marry her?’
He shook his head. ‘I don’t love her. I don’t think I ever did, to tell you the truth
.’
She opened and closed her mouth, her toffee-brown eyes still looking up at him dazedly.
He pulled her to her feet and wrapping his arms around her brought her close. ‘I want to be with you, Georgie, and only you,’ he said. ‘I knew I was in trouble the first day I met you which, when you think about it, was only nine or ten days ago, but as my mother always told me—when you meet the right person you just know.’
Georgie’s heart began to race and her breathing halted as she looked up into his earnest dark blue gaze. ‘Do you mean the right person as in the right person?’ she asked.
Ben smiled down at her. ‘Yes. My father was the same when he met my mother. It must be genetic or something. I want you to be my wife. I love you. I fell for you when you knocked me off my bike, and I don’t mean just onto the road. One look into those big brown eyes of yours and I was all wrapped up, but not just with bandages.’
‘You really mean it?’ she asked, her voice squeaking in surprise and joy.
‘I adore you,’ he said. ‘I love everything about you. Your smile, that cute little nose of yours that tips up when you toss your head at me, your beautiful skin that felt so good next to mine. I could go on and on.’
‘Go on,’ she said, pressing herself closer to his hot, hard body.
His smile widened. ‘I could go on all day but I want you to promise to be my wife first. I know I should really be asking your father first, and there are lots of other issues we have to deal with, but will you do it? Will you make me the happiest man alive by agreeing to marry me?’
She threw her arms around his neck and standing on tiptoe kissed him passionately all over his face. ‘Yes, yes, yes, a thousand times …’ Her face suddenly fell and she lowered her heels back to the floor. ‘Uh-oh …’
He lifted one brow quizzically. ‘Uh-oh?’
‘Five thousand times uh-oh actually,’ she amended with a rueful grimace.
‘Five thousand, huh?’ he said rubbing at his jaw. ‘Now, that’s totally spooky.’
Her eyes widened. ‘It is?’
‘Yep,’ he said. ‘I made this promise to Madeleine Brothers that if I dated another woman in the next six months I would donate five thousand dollars to the hospital research foundation.’
Georgie’s eyes went even wider. ‘I made the same promise to Rhiannon! Oh, my gosh, maybe Madame Celestia is the real deal after all.’
‘You’re surely not serious, sweetheart?’ he asked with a tender look. ‘You told me you didn’t believe in all that stuff.’
She gave herself a mental shake and smiled up at him blissfully. ‘The only thing I’m serious about is you, even if you’re not blond.’
His eyes started to twinkle. ‘Uh-oh.’
‘Uh-oh here comes another uh-oh,’ she said with a wry smile. ‘What do you mean uh-oh?’
He released her for a moment to retrieve a family photograph sitting on his desk. He handed it to her without speaking.
Georgie looked down at the slightly faded photograph of a tall, dark-haired man who looked exactly like Ben, a petite woman who resembled Hannah standing by his side with a little baby boy with blond hair cradled in her arms.
Georgie looked up at Ben, a smile slowly spreading across her face. ‘You were blond!’ she said.
He grinned back at her. ‘Yes, but only until I was six months old.’
She nestled closer to him again, her eyes shining with delight. ‘So does this mean that any babies we have in the future will be the same?’ she asked.
He pressed a kiss to the end of her uptilted nose. ‘I guess we’ll just have to wait and see,’ he said, and smiled.
EPILOGUE
‘SO how’s the morning sickness going?’ Rhiannon asked as Georgie sank into Rhiannon’s leather sofa.
It had been a trying day, but had ended in joy. Not only were Georgie’s final exams over but Emma Stanley had returned to the hospital with baskets of chocolates for the staff to announce that she had qualified for the national athletics squad. She had recovered from Ben’s surgery with minimal neurological deficit, and had been able to start training again within a couple of months. After four years at the Institute of sport, her career now looked promising, her dreams and hopes restored.
‘I’m feeling a bit better now my fellowship exams are over,’ Georgie answered. ‘What a relief. Now I can concentrate on being barefoot and pregnant for a while. Ben’s been so good about holding off starting a family until I got my exams finished. My dad thinks he’s wonderful for being so patient and supportive.’
‘Wow, I never thought I’d hear you say that,’ Rhiannon said. ‘I thought it was going to be daggers drawn at dawn between them for the rest of your married life.’
Georgie smiled as she recalled Ben’s first awkward visit to her parents’ home and how it had taken a few months to melt the ice. ‘I can’t believe how well they get on these days,’ she said. ‘Dad told Ben he always knew he was going to be a brilliant neurosurgeon but he felt Ben needed to sharpen his focus a little. It took a while for him to admit it but now Ben agrees with him. It was failing that exam that made him really hone his skills so that he would never doubt his ability in a crisis.’
‘And, of course, your mum thinks her son-in-law is not only an extremely gifted neurosurgeon but the most romantic, gorgeous husband in the world,’ Rhiannon commented.
Georgie smiled again and, placing her hand on her slightly rounded abdomen, moved it around in a gentle stroking motion. ‘Mum’s so excited about the baby,’ she said. ‘She’s been knitting for four years in anticipation of this event and Hannah is already choosing names and laying bets on which one we’ll use. We’re down to her short list but it will be touch and go on who wins in the end.’
‘Do you want to know the sex?’ Rhiannon asked hopefully. ‘I can always get Madame Celestia to do a prenatal reading for you.’
Georgie shook her head. ‘I think I’ll wait until our ultrasound tomorrow,’ she said with another dreamy smile. ‘I just love surprises.’
The next morning Ben and Georgie looked at the screen showing them the tiny heartbeat of their baby.
‘Uh-oh,’ they said in unison.
‘That’s not one baby,’ the sonographer said somewhat unnecessarily. ‘That’s two. Congratulations. You’re having twins.’
Ben and Georgie just looked at each other and smiled.
All the characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author, and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all the incidents are pure invention.
All Rights Reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Enterprises II B.V./S.à.r.l. The text of this publication or any part thereof may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, storage in an information retrieval system, or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher.
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Mills & Boon, an imprint of Harlequin (UK) Limited, Eton House, 18-24 Paradise Road, Richmond, Surrey TW9 1SR
IN BED WITH THE BOSS
© Harlequin Enterprises II B.V./S.à.r.l. 2011
The Brazilian Boss’s Innocent Mistress © Sarah Morgan 2007
The Billionaire Boss’s Innocent Bride © Lindsay Armstrong 2008
The Surgeon Boss’s Bride © Melanie Milburne 2008
ISBN: 978-1-408-95116-3
