‘Tori…’
‘Strawberry Fields at two o’clock,’ she said, heading to the cab rank already and calling back over her shoulder. ‘That’s the bit I most want to see in Central Park. Or back at your apartment at six.’
And she was gone before he could even argue.
She was asleep when he found her, right where she’d said she’d be, in Central Park, snoozing on a bench in the weak autumn sunlight, with a bag of uneaten bagels on her knee. He touched her on the shoulder and she opened her eyes and smiled at him.
He thought back to the number of dates he’d had to interrupt for medical necessity. There’d always been reproof. But Tori was smiling at him as if this was a whole new date.
‘Hey, it’s only two o’clock,’ she said. ‘Well done. All fixed?’
‘Piece of cake,’ he said. ‘Catheter went in like a dream.’ In fact, it had been a nightmare, but it was okay now. Jancey was out of pain and asleep.
She searched his face, and he thought she saw the truth, but she said nothing. No recriminations. No questions
A woman in a million.
‘So what were you dreaming of?’ he asked.
‘Names.’
‘Names?’
‘Baby names,’ she said, as if he was a little bit thick. ‘For some reason now I’m in Strawberry Fields I’m thinking Jude. But I’m also thinking maybe Elizabeth for my mother?’
‘You don’t sound sure.’
‘And why would I be sure? This baby’s the size of a peanut, and do you know how many books there are on children’s names? If you help me we’ll barely get through them.’
‘Do you want me to help?’
There was a moment’s silence, and then, carefully, as if she was bestowing a huge honour on him, she broke her bagel in half.
‘Share,’ she said. ‘That’s why I’m here. Though I have to say if your mother was Gertie it’s not going to happen.’
‘It’s not, but I don’t think I want anyone called after my mother anyway.’
‘That’s right, she was a horror,’ Tori said cheerfully, bestowing his parentage the attention it deserved. Which in itself was strangely healing. ‘That makes life easier. Can we go to Tiffany’s now?’
So they went to Tiffany’s, a place Jake had never been to. Yes, it was famous, but it was definitely a girl place. He felt like waiting outside, only then he couldn’t watch Tori enjoy herself, which was growing more and more unthinkable.
So in he went. The doorman welcomed them and the unobtrusive staff watched with indulgent eyes. Of all the women in here Tori stood out. She was a woman with no rings on her fingers, nothing, no jewellery at all.
But Tori wasn’t looking at anything she might buy. She was intent on the fantasy.
‘Oh, wow,’ she breathed, as she reached a display case of tiaras that must be worth a king’s ransom. Or several kings’ ransoms, he thought, as he checked out the prices.
‘Aren’t they wonderful,’ Tori said, giggling. ‘What if you were wearing it and it fell off in the mud?’
‘I don’t think there’s any mud where any of these are going.’
‘No,’ she said, suddenly disapproving. ‘They’ll be worn once a year, maybe, twice tops, and the rest of the time they’ll be stuck in a safe. There they’ll just sit until something like the fire happens, and what a waste.’
She had a different perspective, he thought, as he watched her move from jewel to jewel. She was loving looking at these beautiful things, but there was no wistfulness in her eyes at all.
She’d lost everything, and yet she wanted nothing.
‘Look at this,’ she breathed, and he looked more closely and was as stunned as she was.
It was the most amazing ring he’d ever seen. Its centre was a diamond, perfectly cut as a heart, and so large it took his breath away. Every facet glistened and sparkled. On the outer edge of the heart were five rubies, set into white gold to glitter at each extremity. Surrounding them was a ring of smaller diamonds; though, thinking on, they were only small in comparison to the central stone.
The ring was ostentatious and it was ridiculous and it’d take more muscle than most women had in their ring finger to wear it without complaint-but for all that it was quite extraordinarily lovely. And it didn’t even have a price tag.
‘Oh, wow,’ Tori breathed. ‘What a knuckle duster.’ She giggled again-and then she looked sideways at it. ‘You know, it’s like something absolutely exquisite, but blown up,’ she said slowly. ‘A little version would be just perfect, but this… It’s wonderful but it’s crazy.’
‘You’d never want something like this.’
‘Are you kidding?’ Again came that infectious chuckle. ‘What’s not to want? Mind, I’d have to find me a sheikh, and sheikhs are in small supply where I come from.’
‘Do you have any jewellery at all?’ he asked, but almost as the words left his mouth he knew he shouldn’t have asked. She’d been working when the fire came through. Nothing had been saved.
Toby, the erstwhile fiancé, had a lot to answer for. Again, Jake found himself dealing with anger.
But the fire was history. Tori had moved on and so should he. And luckily Tori hadn’t heard the question. Her attention was caught yet again.
‘Oh…’
She was peering into a different display section now, where opulence had given way to a far more demure kind of beauty. She seemed totally captivated, not amused this time, but rather stunned.
She was gazing at a Celtic love knot, wrought in gold with silver threads woven through. Compared to the jewellery they’d just looked at, this was tiny, but it was no less beautiful. Slivers of diamond were scattered through the knot, like stones set into rope. It looked rough, almost as though it had been hewn from the earth already formed. It hung on a simple silver chain, and Jake looked at it and then looked at Tori, and her eyes were shining with unshed tears.
‘It’s like my mother’s,’ she whispered. ‘It’s not the same but it’s so close. She wore it always. And it was burned.’ She managed a watery smile. ‘I need to buy it,’ she said simply, and an assistant was sliding it out of the display case before she finished speaking.
Tori reached to touch it with hands that trembled. She ran her fingers across its intricate surface, almost reverently.
‘I’ll take it,’ she said and she hadn’t even looked at the price.
‘Tori…’
She was hardly aware of him. This chain had been a part of her past that was somehow being restored, Jake thought, as he watched her face, and he was feeling just a bit emotional himself. And he knew what he wanted to do. He’d been thinking it ever since he’d walked into the place, and now was the right time.
‘Will you let me?’ he asked, and he laid his hand over hers. ‘It would be my honour and my pleasure-and my pride as well-to buy this for you.’
She turned, puzzled. ‘Why?’
‘You’re the mother of my baby, ’he said simply and surely. In truth there were many emotions at play here, and the fact that Tori was pregnant was only a tiny part of the whole, but it was all he could understand right now.
‘I need to do something to mark this,’ he said softly, though the assistant had melted discreetly away. ‘It’s a piece of jewellery that reminds you of what’s lost. Can it also be something to mark what’s to come?’
She looked up at him then through a mist of tears. She gave a wavering smile-and she sniffed. Oh, for heaven’s sake, he was feeling teary himself. Whoa, that wasn’t going to happen. What was this woman doing to him?
He got practical by handing over a handkerchief. Distracted, she gazed down at it in disbelief. ‘A handkerchief?’
‘What’s wrong with a handkerchief?’
‘Guys do this in romance novels,’ she said faintly. ‘Not in real life. What sort of modern male carries handkerchiefs?’
‘Men who get their laundry done?’ But she wasn’t listening. She was buying time, he thought, fighting to get her emotion
s in order. She turned her back on him and blew her nose, and when she turned back she had her face straight-or almost. Her eyes were still shimmering.
How had he ever thought she was plain? he wondered. She was quite extraordinarily beautiful.
He wanted her. He wanted her so badly…
‘But I can…I can afford it,’ she said breathlessly. ‘Easily. There’s no need for you to pay.’
‘I know that, but still…will you grant me the honour of buying it for you.’
‘There you go again,’ she said darkly. ‘Romance novels have a lot to answer for. If I didn’t know you made such a lousy five-minute dater I’d suspect you’d been taking chivalry lessons.’
‘No lessons,’ he said. ‘Put it on.’ He lifted it from the velvet and held it out.
Silently she turned so he could fasten it around her neck. He clipped the hook closed, and then, because the temptation was irresistible, he bent and kissed her, lightly on the nape of her neck. Her skin felt smooth and lovely, and for an instant…for just an instant, he felt her lean into him, let herself relax against him, trust him.
‘Jake…’
He wanted to kiss her properly, as he needed to kiss her, as she deserved to be kissed, but her moment of weakness was gone. She tugged away, apparently to look in the mirror, but he knew it was more than that. He’d felt her body stiffen.
He’d felt her fear.
Bad move, he thought. Very bad move, considering what he was thinking.
The assistant had melted away again in the emotional stuff-how did they know to do that?-but as Tori moved to the mirror she materialised again, beaming her approval.
‘Will madam take it?’
‘Madam’s taking it,’ Tori said softly, and a slight tremor ran through her, a tremor she couldn’t disguise. ‘Madam fell in love with romance novels when she was thirteen years old and she knows when she’s hooked.’
‘Does this mean you’ll let me buy it for you?’ Jake asked.
‘Why yes,’ she said softly. ‘Yes, I believe it does.’
They bought Chinese takeaway and took it back to the apartment for dinner because Tori was simply too tired to go on.
Jake usually ate at his kitchen bench. His dining table was covered in journals, half-written papers, important work in progress.
He could sort it and stack it neatly, he thought, but that could take half an hour. Or he could make Tori eat at the kitchen bench.
But if this was the only night he had to persuade her, then he needed to move fast. So he cleared the table by the simple expedient of tipping it lengthways. It worked a treat. Hey, when was the last time he’d seen this table? It had cost him a bomb. It was a great table.
Or maybe not, he conceded, thinking on. The table was of cool-grey lacquer, designed to match the apartment’s cool-grey walls. He remembered Tori’s scathing comments about grey. Hmm.
Tori was looking at the mess as they ate, bemused. ‘It’ll take you days to get that back in order.’
‘I have days.’ He’d have all the time in the world after she went home, he thought. If she went home.
How to broach it again?
He didn’t for a while. They shared their food. They both had soda-he’d have liked a beer but Jancey’s catheter might mean he’d be called out again. They listened to music. She liked his music. That was something the decorator hadn’t chosen.
‘What time’s your plane tomorrow?’ he asked.
‘Late afternoon. I figure I’ll sleep in.’
‘No more sightseeing?’
‘I hear Soho’s good,’ she said. ‘But maybe not. You need to go to work, right?’
He did. He’d been trying to figure out how not to need to go to work, but case lists for Monday were always the most complex. If he cancelled, patients would be sent home.
‘You can’t let them down,’ Tori said softly, and he knew she understood.
He was doing a rapid assessment of cases in his head but it wasn’t helping. He’d seen Jack Carver in the cardiac ward on Friday. Jack had severe ulceration on his legs, so severe amputation was becoming an option. He needed shunts to restore blood supply back so they could heal, but he had a cardiac condition and diabetic complications as well. When Jake had done the initial assessment-something he usually avoided but he seemed to be doing it more in the weeks since he’d met Tori-Jack’s wife had been holding her husband’s hand as though if she let go he’d drown.
‘Please,’ she’d said to him. ‘Jack’s all I have. Make him well.’
The risk of Jack losing his leg-or worse-was increasing every day he waited. He couldn’t reschedule, Jake thought grimly. No matter what he wanted personally, he needed to be there tomorrow.
And Jancey would be watching the door, waiting for him. He couldn’t let Jancey down.
‘I could have done with some warning of your visit,’ he growled, but Tori shook her head.
‘I suspect you’d still be as busy even if you were expecting me, and I didn’t want to interrupt your life. I don’t want to interrupt your life. Soho will just be shops. I might go on my own or I might just sleep, but either way, I can take a cab to the airport. I don’t need your company.’
But her voice wobbled a little at that, and he noticed her fingers crept to the chain at her throat.
‘You should stay,’ he said strongly.
‘I need to go home. I need to start my life as I need to go on.’
‘Why not stay here?’
‘We already talked about that.’
‘I’d like to marry you.’
There was a sharp intake of breath. But… ‘You’ve said that before,’ she whispered, still touching her chain. ‘Just because I’m having your baby, it doesn’t make it any better.’
‘I think I love you.’
She gazed across the table at him, seemingly bemused. Seemingly astounded. ‘You think?’
‘I don’t know,’ he admitted. ‘Hell, Tori, I haven’t done this before.’
‘Done what?’
‘Become involved.’
‘You sound like it’s happened against your will.’
‘Well, what do you think?’ he said, raking his hair. ‘I don’t have a clue how I’m feeling. But we’re going to be parents. You need to rebuild anyway. You’ve lost everything…’
And finally she reacted with something apart from shock. ‘I haven’t lost everything,’ she retorted, and she tilted her chin and met his gaze levelly and calmly.
‘Okay, you’ve got your dogs,’ he conceded.
‘I’ve got my home.’
‘A relocatable.’
‘I have my community.’ The emotion now was suddenly pure, unmitigated anger. ‘I have my work,’ she said, struggling to stay calm. ‘You have your work, too. It’s important, as my work’s important. But I have more. I have place. My parents lived and worked at Combadeen and so do I. I know every family rebuilding on the ridge. My parents are buried in the Combadeen cemetery. I’ve buried my dogs behind our house. Okay, I’ve been stunned, shocked, gutted by the fires and their aftermath but I’m handling it. And I’m moving on to make a home for myself, in my place, not in some sterile, grey, designer shoebox on the seventeenth floor of a thirty storey tower block.’
‘It’s not-’
‘A shoebox? Yes, it is,’ she retorted. ‘They’re all shoeboxes. It’s what’s around them that matters, and what’s in them. Here, you’d be at work all day every day, and the shoebox would close in on me.’
‘You could work part-time. We could get somewhere a bit bigger. Hell, Tori, you need looking after.’
‘I don’t need looking after.’
‘You’re pregnant.’
‘And I still don’t need looking after.’ Her anger was building rather than subsiding. ‘I have a community who cares. I have friends and I have colleagues. You’ve seen me at a point where I was at my lowest, where the resources of the whole district were stretched to the limit, but don’t judge me on that. Don’t judge Combadeen b
y that. There’s not one person in Combadeen who’d suggest I live in a grey monument to solitude and go crazy!’
‘You wouldn’t go crazy.’
‘I would if I lived here,’ she said, rising and glowering. ‘So would you, but you don’t live here either. You use it to crash or to study or to take a shower. No one lives in places like this. Living… Jake, you don’t know what living is, and I’m surely not raising my child teaching him this life is normal.’
She closed her eyes then, and she swayed. He was on his feet in an instant, surging around the table to hold her, but her eyes snapped open and she stepped away.
‘No,’ she said. ‘Don’t.’
‘Don’t?’
‘Don’t touch me,’ she whispered. ‘I was a fool to come. The truth was I wanted to see you, as well as needing to tell you about our baby, but it was wrong. You and me… No. There’s no you and me.’
‘Tori…’
‘You’re alone,’ she whispered. ‘And that’s the way you want it. But if I’m alone I’d curl up and die. I need people. I need dogs. I need…life.’
She sighed then and steadied.
‘I’m sorry, Jake,’ she said. ‘Getting angry was dumb. Yelling at you is dumb. You’re doing the best you can.’ She shook her head as if clearing fog. ‘Okay, here’s confession time,’ she said. ‘I’m trying desperately not to fall in love with you. You say you might love me? Well, maybe I know that I could love you. And you know what that means? If I came here, then you’d risk me clinging.’
He didn’t understand. ‘Why would you cling? You have your work.’
‘I’m not talking about my work. I’m talking about needing you, and you needing me. You’re fine with the idea of looking after me. Could you ever admit that you need me?’
‘I…’ There was deathly silence.
‘No,’ she said, and she was fighting now for the composure she’d lost. ‘Enough. This is dumb talk, and we both know it. We’re two mature professionals-we can handle this. Your work is waiting, and my life is waiting. So please, Jake…’
Dating The Millionaire Doctor Page 14
