‘Did you know that as a teenager I stole a girl from under Robbie’s nose? Not because I liked her or particularly wanted to date her but because Robbie did and I didn’t want him ditching me to spend time to with her. That was when I realised I wasn’t rounded and normal. I wasn’t the decent human being your father tried to teach me to be. I was a product of my own parents, already on the way to becoming damaged and twisted.’
‘You can’t be serious.’ Archie swing around to gawk at him. ‘That’s what you’re basing part of your argument on? Shady Sadie? Because I can tell you plenty of mean things my brother and I did to each other and so-called friends as we were growing up. It’s called a part of being a kid. And a teenager who thinks the world revolves around them.’
‘No, Archie. It’s not just that. You don’t want to know the things I did when I came out here. They weren’t part of growing up, they were out of control. Harmful.’
His face twisted painfully but she couldn’t believe it. Not of Kaspar.
‘You mean after your mother dragged you out here? Ripped you away from the tiniest bit of security you’d ever had? You played up? But look at you now. You turned your back on the Hollywood scene she’d mapped out for you and instead became a skilled surgeon, a decent person. You volunteer your time to make surgical trips to war zones to help people who really need you.’
He looked frustrated, and angry, and drained. But most of all he looked torn. She’d never seen him look that way before. Her whole body ached for him.
‘It’s not as altruistic as you think. Did you ever stop to wonder why I went from acting to surgery? Did you think that out of nowhere I developed a driving need to take after my volatile, unpredictable plastic surgeon father?’
‘Becoming a surgeon like him doesn’t also make you as...unhinged as him,’ she cried.
‘That’s where you’re wrong. I’m every bit as out of control as he was. That’s exactly why I turned my back on acting and suddenly worked to get into a good school, gain a good degree, get into med school.’
‘You got into top universities, Kaspar. Not just good schools.’
‘You’re missing the point. I wasn’t doing it because I was a good person, I did it because it was the only way I could think of to make amends for...something I did. So bad that even you couldn’t make excuses for me if you knew, Archie.’
‘Isn’t that the definition of good? How long are you going to punish yourself, though?’ she whispered. ‘What did you do that was so bad?’
The quiet was almost oppressive.
‘I fought someone, Archie. I put them in hospital because they looked at me the wrong way in a bar one night.’
Her chest stretched and ached. So that was how that story Katie had told her that night at the charity wrap party had got started. Still, she knew there had to be more to it than that.
‘How old were you?’
‘Old enough to know better.’
‘How old?’ she demanded.
‘Seventeen.’
‘And the other guy?’
‘Twenty-five, though I didn’t know that at the time. I saw them in court.’
Her stomach lifted and dropped.
‘Them?’
‘There was another lad.’ Kaspar lifted his shoulders. ‘But he was almost too drunk to walk. He’d just been swinging a piece of wood around.’
‘A piece of wood in a bar? And no one did anything?’
‘We were outside by then, in a back alley.’
‘And all because they looked at you the wrong way? I don’t understand.’
Kaspar gritted his teeth, obviously hating every moment of the story but determined to tell her, to make her understand why he was so damaged.
‘We were in a bar, a bit of a dive. As they passed me, one of them tripped over my bar stool. He pushed me off it and told me to apologise. I refused and they suggested taking it outside and I didn’t have the sense to say no.’
‘So there were two of them and one of them was wielding a plank of wood. My God, Kaspar, you could have been killed. Surely you were just defending yourself?’
‘No, I wasn’t drunk. They were. I could have walked away. I should have.’
‘You were seventeen,’ she cried. ‘It was a mistake.’
‘I hospitalised the guy. They were both swinging at me and I saw red. I made a kick—one kick, Archie—and I broke his jaw. He needed reconstructive surgery.’
‘God, Kaspar.’ Her fingers were pressed to her mouth.
‘In one stupid, drunken, angry moment I’d changed some stranger’s life.’
‘It...it was one kick, Kaspar.’
‘Exactly. What if I’d really lost control and not been able to stop even there?’
For a moment she couldn’t respond and then, suddenly, it was easy.
‘But you didn’t lose control. You stopped. One kick, unfortunately well placed but hardly premeditated or unprovoked. What did the judge say?’
‘It doesn’t matter what he said. It’s what I know that counts.’
‘So he said it was self-defence?’ she guessed.
‘The guy was wasted, he probably couldn’t have hurt me, but still the judge dismissed the case,’ Kaspar said contemptuously.
‘Because even a drunken guy could get lucky if he’d, say, picked up a bar stool, or a glass ashtray, or who knows what else,’ she argued. ‘What did the judge say?’
He eyed her reluctantly.
‘That there were too many witnesses who had told him how those men were acting up all night, were always in there, acting that way. He said I was the innocent party and he let me walk away scot-free.’
‘Only you didn’t walk away scot-free, did you? You changed your whole life because of that one incident. Your whole new career choice was based on that moment, wasn’t it? Because of the surgeons who repaired that lad’s face? They’re who you wanted to become?’
‘It was a hell of a lot better than the out-of-touch, diva-like actor that I was becoming.’
‘It was self-sacrificing.’
‘Hardly,’ he snorted. ‘I knew if I turned my back on the lucrative deal my mother had just made with a major studio, she’d never forgive me. Two birds, one stone.’
It was pointless arguing. She knew the truth and she felt sure Kaspar did, too, deep down. Instead, she reached her hand out, placing her palm on his chest, feeling the heat and thrumming of his heartbeat.
Drawing strength from it.
‘You didn’t just become an average doctor, Kaspar, you became one of the top surgeons in the world. A pioneer in your field. You’re even more famous than some of Hollywood’s best A-listers. And what’s more, you save lives. Do you really believe you’re still damaged? Out of control? Just like your parents?’
‘It isn’t what I believe, Archie,’ he bit out, remorse etched into every contour of his face. ‘It’s what I know.’
‘You’re wrong.’ She shook her head vigorously but she already knew Kaspar wasn’t listening.
She’d lost him. Again.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
‘THIRTY-TWO WEEKS.’ Catherine, as Archie had finally come to know her, smiled as she finished up the examination. ‘And you’re doing really well.’
‘The cerclage is okay?’
‘It’s fine. If anything, it appears to have lengthened the cervix and reversed the funnelling that we were seeing before. It’s a great sign but it can be temporary so don’t think it’s a green light to start running marathons or anything.’
‘So I keep limiting the physical activity.’ Archie nodded. ‘Got it.’
‘And I understand it must be difficult, but you’re keeping the sexual activity gentle and less frequent? No more than a couple of times a week?’
She nodded, but couldn’t bring herself to look at Kaspar, her face feeling like it
probably resembled some kid’s rosy-cheeked doll. They’d both agreed it would raise fewer questions if they didn’t try to explain the situtation.
‘Again, use protection,’ Catherine continued blithely. ‘More to reduce risk of infection than as contraception.’
Archie forced a laugh. The same joke as last time and just as awkward.
‘So now that we’re getting closer to the due date—’ it felt incredible good saying that ‘—what can I expect?’
Catherine glanced at Kaspar as if assessing how much he might have told the concerned mum-to-be, then continued professionally as if Archie were any other patient and not one with a renowned OMS sitting next to her.
‘If your baby was born right now, barring any health troubles in the womb, it would have a very good chance of surviving and of continuing life with no long-term health problems. One of the most common concerns would be under-development of the respiratory system.’
‘Which is one of the reasons we previously considered steroid injections?’ Archie prompted.
‘Right. However, your body seemed to have been adjusting well to the cerclage so we decided not to go ahead. I think that decision has proved correct given how good it all looks now.’
‘So if I go into labour now?’
‘If you go into labour now we would still try progesterone or pessaries to try to delay the birth. Every additional day the baby is in there now, he or she is gaining that all-important weight and strengthening internal systems. But as I say, birth at thirty-two weeks has a very good survival rate. Depending on the baby, he or she may spend as little as a week in NICU if feeding and breathing are going OK.’
‘And if he can’t?’
‘If he or she can’t—’ Catherine’s continued care not to give the gender away continued to delight Archie ‘—then he or she will remain in the NICU with a feeding tube and a respirator for as many weeks or even months as might be necessary. But we’ll cross that bridge if and when we come to it.’
‘Right.’ Archie nodded, her eyes sliding across to Kaspar, who looked remarkably stiff in his chair. She couldn’t stop a smile. Expectant father mode, not skilled surgeon mode. It was so very endearing. She might even say he looked...content.
‘There’s a medical charity event this weekend...’ she began, as Catherine nodded in recognition.
‘Kaspar’s the patron, I know. You want to know if I recommend going?’
‘Yes.’
‘I don’t see why not, depending on how you feel on the day. As long as you take it easy, aren’t planning on running around madly getting ready or dancing a jive.’
‘Definitely not.’ Archie laughed, although maybe it was time for her to show Kaspar a flash of the old, confident Archie.
The one she’d felt returning over recent months. Thanks, ironically, to Kaspar. She’d spent so many years putting him on a pedestal and thinking, somehow, that his lack of interest in her had been because she wasn’t pretty, feminine, sexy enough. Especially given Shady Sadie’s maturing fifteen-year-old body compared to her thirteen-year-old one. But from that first charity wrap party when he’d homed in on her to the golf course the other day when he hadn’t been able to keep from kissing her, Archie was beginning to realise that she had more allure, more dynamism, more power than she’d realised.
If Kaspar could resist her then perhaps it was simply because she wasn’t trying hard enough to be his undoing. And that sounded like the kind of fun challenge she was more than willing to take up. Perhaps tonight she could remind him what he was missing. That she wasn’t just the mother of his baby but a woman in her own right, too.
‘Then I’ll probably see you there,’ said Catherine with a smile.
Archie adopted her most beatific smile, not willing to give Kaspar any forewarning of what was to come.
‘I look forward to it.’
* * *
Leaning on the bar, an untouched tumbler of some of the most expensive brandy money could buy in hand, Kaspar leaned back against the bar and watched Archie from across the room.
It was a scene that seemed all too familiar to him. An echo of the charity wrap party that had started all of this.
Only this time, instead of having to watch her fend off a couple of admirers on the dance floor and being able to glower in peace, he was forced to pin a smile on his face as she sparkled and floated, as though she was on some kind of mission.
She charmed every single person who stopped to talk to her, particularly the men despite, or perhaps because of, her pregnancy radiance.
And all the while she made sure she was absolutely anywhere but by his side.
It was his own fault, of course. He had no idea what had happened the other day in Catherine’s office but Archie had walked out a very different woman. And yet, in many ways, altogether too familiar. More confident, more vivacious, a grown-up version of the Little Ant he’d known. She’d been adamant about accompanying him to this party, and hadn’t let any of his, albeit half-hearted, objections deter her.
He was letting her dictate to him. Worse, he was comfortable with it.
To a degree anyway.
Kaspar refused to accept it was because a part of him secretly wanted the world to know the truth. That he was about to become a father. That he, the feckless Surgeon Prince, was quietly content being married to the mother of his baby.
It made no sense.
Archie had even begun to tease him and galled by his constant inability to master his desire around her, he’d determined that tonight he would keep his distance. Allow her to weave her magic of the people in his social circle and the press alike, without his physical presence, which inevitably meant him placing a guarding hand on her here and there. And he knew exactly where that always led to.
Perhaps a part of him had expected her to fail, even hoped she would. Just so that he could finally have a reason to tell himself that this perfect image he’d had of Archie was flawed. That she couldn’t possibly be as perfect for him as his mind—and body—seemed to want to believe, and thus she might stop invading his dreams every night. Stop making his body react in ways it had no business reacting when he saw her.
So there she was, working the room and channelling more and more the spirit and boldness he’d begun to remember. And he, for his part, was standing here staring at her like some lovesick puppy.
It would not do.
In a minute he would turn around. He would find a decent medical conversation and he would throw himself into it, as he always did.
In a minute.
The only thing tempering his immense frustration was that at least the distance afforded him the pleasure of observing, and appreciating, Archie at his leisure. And there was certainly plenty to appreciate in her stunning blue, floor-length ballgown with silver straps that hooked over silky smooth shoulders to cross over beneath her breasts and frame her burgeoning baby bump. Radiant and beautiful. And his.
But she couldn’t be.
He could only bring her trouble. His parents’ miserable marriage wasn’t something he ever wanted to risk inflicting on any woman, but certainly not Archie. And not their child. He had spent too many years terrified, lonely, numb, before he’d met Robbie. Before the Coates family had welcomed him into their safe fold.
They could have seen him as an unwanted entanglement. Yet they had welcomed him. Because he’d wanted to be there. Because he’d craved that life, that stability. And now Archie had returned to him. The fact that she was pregnant with his baby after a one-night stand should have been the greatest unwanted complication of all. Instead, he’d welcomed her. Wanted to be with her. Craved her.
Another man had crossed the room now to greet her, her obvious state of pregnancy apparently not putting him off in the slightest as he leaned in a little too closely to whisper in Archie’s ear. As though the guy didn’t care for the fact that Archie was
his. And Archie tipped back her head so that the glorious long line of her elegant neck was exposed, and laughed unashamedly.
Kaspar didn’t recall moving from the bar, but suddenly he was across the room in an instant, the blood bubbling and popping in his veins. The man didn’t even stay long enough to introduce himself, although Kaspar supposed the baring of his teeth in what wouldn’t have passed for a smile might have had something to do with it.
‘Shall we dance?’
‘Are you intending to chase off any male who dares to talk to me, as though you’re some dog peeing on a post to mark its territory?’ she enquired archly.
He shrugged, unrepentant.
‘If I need to.’
‘I see.’
Half amusement, half chastisement. Still, Kaspar merely held out his hand. A command rather than a request.
She eyed him, a touch incredulously.
‘I’m pregnant.’
‘Funnily enough, I hadn’t forgotten.’
‘Don’t be facetious.’ She bit her lip. ‘I have a bump. The press will photograph us. It will look silly.’
His bump. His baby.
‘It would never look silly,’ he ground out fiercely. ‘Besides, isn’t this why you insisted we come here tonight? Why else put yourself through this ordeal if not to show the world?’
Without waiting for her to agree, he took her hand and led her to the dance floor. People moved out of their way, one pair of curious eyes after another locking onto them, wondering if this was where he was going to make his unspoken statement to the world. Necks craning to see how his Hollywood royalty mother was taking it.
But he ignored them. No one else mattered anyway. It all simply fell away until there was nothing but the feel of Archie in his arms. At last. Her fingers curled into his, her delicate scent filling his nostrils, their baby cradled in her belly and pressed against him.
They moved together so sinuously, so harmoniously that it felt as though they were melding, just as they had done before. It felt comfortable, and good, and right. They danced until the meal was served, a sumptuous feast, which he couldn’t remember tasting a morsel of, and some polite, inane conversation that flowed out of his head instantly. He could only remember the feel of Archie’s bare skin as his hand rested on her back, or the way she leaned slightly against him, or her hand within his.
The Surgeon's One-Night Baby Page 14
