Falling For The Single Dad Surgeon (A Summer In São Paulo Book 2)

by Charlotte Hawkes

  For a moment, her sister just watched her. Studied her.

  ‘The second difference is you, Livvy,’ she said at last. ‘It’s how you feel about each man. You could never have contemplated changing any part of what you do for Enrico. But your heart hasn’t been in it at all since Jake left. That’s your main difference.’

  ‘It’s my career, my life, and I love what I do.’

  She always had loved it. So why didn’t it hold quite the same power that it had before?

  ‘I know that,’ Maria acknowledged. ‘But we both know you’re going to change it, anyway. For your baby. Besides, no one is saying give up your career completely.’

  ‘Then, what?’ Flávia asked.

  Her head was a mess from all the back and forth. If only she knew what she really thought. What Jake really thought.

  ‘You can keep doing your work in the sanctuary, and you can raise awareness. Just give up going into the pits for the collections. You said Cesar was thinking about doing so because he was getting old and his grip was weakening. Isn’t that why Fabio and Raoul have been drafted in? To start taking on that side of it? And there are two other employees now, aren’t there?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So, there you go. You ease back on the hands-on, just like Cesar is. But no one’s asking you to give up the sanctuary altogether, Livvy. We all know it’s part of who you are, and what you love.’

  And it was odd, wasn’t it, that the suggestion didn’t fill her with indignation, like it would have even two months ago. But still, something bubbled away inside her. Low yet lethal.

  She tried to articulate it, but the words wouldn’t come.

  ‘What if I’m not cut out for it?’ she settled for instead. ‘What if I give it up for him, for the baby, and then I end up resenting him for it?’

  ‘You won’t.’

  She almost envied Maria her certainty, because her own fears were starting to eat away inside her.

  ‘You can’t know that.’

  ‘I can.’

  ‘How?’

  And the beat hung between them for such an interminably long moment.

  ‘Because you’re not our mother,’ Maria said quietly. Angrily.

  Everything around Flávia started to spin, and it was impossible to keep the pleading from her voice. All this time, she’d thought Maria hadn’t known her deepest fears.

  ‘How can you be so sure?’ she whispered.

  ‘Because I am. Because you’re a completely different person than her. You’re a loyal sister, a loving aunt and a compassionate woman. You love your job, but you didn’t put it ahead of your family... Well, sometimes you did, but nothing like the way that she did.’

  And despite everything, they both laughed, albeit weakly.

  ‘You’re not like her, Livvy. You never were. But especially not now.’

  Flávia didn’t know how long they stood together, whilst she absorbed what her sister was telling her. She might look tough but deep down she wasn’t, she never had been, and right now she didn’t even feel herself. She felt stripped down, fragile, broken. Just like the delicate back of her beloved bushmasters.

  But finally, finally, she lifted her eyes and looked at Maria.

  ‘So I decide to do that...to throttle back on the hands-on work at the sanctuary. Then what?’ And there was no way she could keep the shake from her voice.

  ‘Then you call Jake and set out what you’ve decided, and you tell him that you love him.’

  ‘I don’t know. That’s a scary idea.’

  ‘Scary?’ Maria laughed. ‘Telling him you love him is scary? You got bitten, several times over the years, and yet you went back in with those bushmasters of yours each time. Surely, that’s scary?’

  ‘Not if Jake walks away from me. He already has done once.’

  ‘Because you sent him away.’ Maria blew out a deep breath. ‘I don’t know, that’s just my two cents’ worth. But ultimately, Flávia, it’s down to you.’

  And the words echoed through Flávia’s head all afternoon and all the way home.

  Ultimately, it was down to her.

  * * *

  Jake leaned on his car as the kids were let out of school, waiting at a distance the way that Brady had asked him to do. Still, he didn’t miss the march from the building, or the tightly locked jaw.

  ‘How was your day?’

  ‘Three words,’ Brady bit out mutinously as he practically threw himself into the vehicle. ‘Brazil. Right. Now.’

  Each word was punctuated by the little lad counting a finger in mid-air. The worst of it was Jake couldn’t agree more. But he couldn’t say that; it was his job to make his nephew feel better.

  ‘Listen, mate,’ he offered, ‘I’m sorry that it was a bad day, but—’

  ‘I want to go home.’

  ‘This is home...’

  ‘No. Home was in São Paulo. I miss those weekends in the rainforest,’ Brady cut in, his eyes locking with Jake’s in challenge. ‘I miss Julianna and Marcie, and Vovô Eduardo. And I miss Maria and Luis. Most of all, I miss Flávia.’

  ‘I miss Flávia, too, mate,’ Jake answered before he could even stop himself.

  Even the closing soirée had been hell, being back in that hotel ballroom. Everything had looked the same, from the same tablecloths to the same people in the same evening clothes.

  But it hadn’t been anywhere near the same. Because Flávia hadn’t been there.

  ‘Then why are we even here?’ Brady demanded, yanking Jake back to the present.

  That was a good question.

  ‘It isn’t as black and white as you think,’ Jake began. ‘There’s your school, my job...’

  He stopped, running out of excuses, and Brady narrowed his eyes at him, for all the world looking at least twice his seven years.

  ‘I hate this school, so what does it matter if I go to school out there instead? And if you really wanted to, you could change jobs and work out in Brazil.’

  ‘Me going to work out there isn’t that simple.’ Jake shook his head, holding on to the only part that he could of what his young nephew had said. ‘It’s complicated.’

  ‘Mummy always said that’s what adults say when they don’t want to explain something. I’m not a little kid,’ he spat out.

  ‘I know you like to think you’re mature and understand life and the world around you,’ Jake cut in firmly, shutting the conversation down. ‘But that’s exactly what you are, Brady—a kid. Something you have to understand is that adults know more than you do. And that we know what’s best.’

  ‘This is so unfair!’ Brady cried, but at least the conversation was over.

  So why did he feel so bad about it?

  It felt like they’d made such progress in their relationship whilst they’d been in Brazil, but returning home had cost them, had propelled it all backwards.

  Far from the engaged, social boy that his nephew had been when Flávia was around, as soon as they’d got home to London, Brady had started locking himself in his room and working on projects alone. No amount of cajoling had brought him out—not even Oz’s famous cooking—and all the nature programmes that Jake had sat watching, just so that he could keep connecting with his nephew, was going to waste.

  And he needed Flávia. Though not to resolve the problem for Brady...so much as to resolve the problem with himself.

  How many times had he replayed that last conversation, trying to read every nuance? Trying to understand the fear which had made him say what he’d said. Words which, in his head, had sounded so logical and well-considered, but which had haunted him as a mistake ever since.

  But there was one other thing stuck in his head.

  Flávia’s expression when she’d been talking to the doctor, and then the way she’d looked at him.

  There had been something ther
e—something he’d missed—but no matter how many times he replayed it, Jake couldn’t get a handle on it.

  His mind was still stuck on it when he pulled the car into the drive and shut off the engine to talk to Brady, but the boy was already snatching at the lever, practically hurling himself out of the vehicle and racing to the front door when he jabbed his finger at the hi-tech security lock.

  Jake was fractions of a second away from letting Brady just run away when an image of Flávia popped into his head. A memory of her crouched down in front of the boy, talking to him on the same level, never dismissing his opinions or feelings.

  With a sigh, he followed Brady up the stairs. He couldn’t give up. He wouldn’t.

  Jake raked his hand through his hair and stared at the solid piece of wood as though willing it to open in front of his very eyes.

  Maybe for Flávia it would have done so. But it didn’t open for him.

  He lifted his hand, second-guessed himself, and then—at last—he knocked on Brady’s door, trying to affect an upbeat tone.

  ‘You okay in there, mate?’

  The door opened unexpectedly, nearly making Jake stumble back in surprise. A piece of paper was thrust out.

  ‘I need you to give this to Flávia.’

  ‘Flávia?’ Even her name made something leap inside of him. ‘You want me to send this to her?’

  ‘No.’ Brady clucked his tongue irritably. ‘I want you to give this to her when you see her. It’ll mean more.’

  Jake raked his hand through his hair.

  ‘I told you, I won’t be seeing her again, Brady.’

  ‘Why not?’ Brady looked mutinous.

  ‘Because I won’t be returning to Brazil.’

  There was no reason for his heart to thud so heavily, so leaden, in his chest at the finality of the statement. No reason at all.

  ‘Why can’t you be a surgeon out there? They have hospitals, too.’

  Jake was sure he could actually hear Flávia’s voice in his head, light and happy, telling him to keep cool. He gritted his teeth and tried to sound understanding.

  ‘You know the answer.’

  ‘If you really wanted to, you could change your job.’ Brady looked so sad, so lost, that Jake’s chest pulled—taut and painful. ‘I’d rather be out there than back here.’

  The worst of it was that Jake felt the same way. For a long moment, the two of them stood in their respective positions, eyeing each other up.

  If he was going to win back the connections they’d started to make in Brazil, then it occurred to him that he was going to have to be a little more truthful with Brady.

  ‘Flávia is incredible. She made an impact on both of us—her whole family did—and I understand why you want to go back there. But I’m trying to protect you. You might not understand now but, trust me, one day you will.’

  He sounded like those clichéd films, but what else was he supposed to say to a seven-year-old kid? He could hardly go into detail, could he?

  Brady eyed him critically, his small brow furrowing into tight lines.

  ‘Because she got bitten by a snake?’

  Jake hesitated. He hadn’t thought Brady had known, but he supposed it was too much to think that he hadn’t been talking about it with Julianna and Marcie. Typical of Brady to keep it inside all this time, though.

  ‘That’s part of it,’ he acknowledged at last.

  ‘Were you frightened she might die? Like Mummy?’

  God, the kid is too astute for his own good sometimes.

  It took him a while to answer.

  ‘Yes, mate. I was.’

  ‘Me, too,’ Brady whispered.

  Without warning, the boy took a step forward and threw his arms around Jake’s waist. Startled, it took Jake a moment to react, but when he did, it felt like the last obstacles between them were starting to crumble away.

  And Flávia was somehow at the centre of it all again.

  ‘That’s why I don’t think it’s a good idea to go back out there,’ Jake said after he’d carried the boy downstairs and settled him on the couch.

  Maybe it was time to do what Flávia had kept suggesting, and talk.

  ‘Why?’ Brady pressed, and Jake drew in a steadying breath.

  ‘Well, what if we did? What if we had Flávia in our lives and she got bitten again? And what if she didn’t get better this time?’

  ‘You mean, what if she died?’ Brady looked at him solemnly.

  The thought was sickening, but Jake forced himself to answer.

  ‘Yeah, mate. What if she did?’

  His nephew continued to gaze at him, solemn and unblinking.

  ‘What if she didn’t?’ he asked at last. ‘But, what if we stayed here and then you got sick, like Mummy, and you died. Who would look after me then? I don’t want to live with Grandma and Granddad. I know I’m not supposed to say it, but I don’t like them.’

  ‘Is that what you think about?’ Jake demanded.

  It made sense, he supposed, given all that the kid had been through. But he hated that he hadn’t realised Brady feared it. Hadn’t thought about it.

  No doubt Flávia had. That was yet another reason why she had been so good for them.

  Still, doing it for Brady wasn’t a good enough reason to go out to Brazil. If he was going to fight for Flávia, then he’d better be damned sure he was doing it for the right reasons.

  And the simple truth was that he was.

  Brady was right, of course. He could use Flávia’s career as an excuse for anything if it suited him, and it had, because he’d been afraid of the way he felt about her. He’d spent so many years detaching himself from feeling anything that he’d refused to admit what had been staring him in the face.

  She’d broken defences he hadn’t even known he’d had, and she’d helped him connect with his nephew in a way he would never have managed left to his own devices. She’d mellowed him. More than that, she’d thawed him.

  And it had taken Brady’s boldness to stop him from being so scared of admitting it.

  Carefully, thoughtfully, Jake turned the paper slowly around and looked at it. A frog?

  ‘What is it, anyway?’

  ‘She’ll know what it means.’

  ‘Right.’ Jake pressed his lips together.

  To his surprise, Brady relented slightly.

  ‘It’s a strawberry poison dart frog, and it’s a super-parent. Just like Flávia.’

  ‘It’s perfect for her.’ Jake grinned conspiratorially. ‘So I guess we’d better book a couple of plane tickets and go and give it to her.’

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  PASSPORT. TICKETS. MONEY. Check.

  Flávia lowered her small cabin bag onto the ground and wheeled it out into the corridor. She was locking the door to her apartment when she heard the ping of the lift doors opening out of sight. But there was no way she could have anticipated seeing Jake walk around the corner.

  Everything stopped. Her legs. Her heart. Her brain.

  She had no idea how long she stood there, immobile, just watching him stride up the corridor towards her.

  ‘Going somewhere?’

  His dry, sure voice floated in the air, and then everything kick-started inside her again, with a jolt.

  ‘What are you doing back here?’ She was running hot, then cold, then hot again, and she barely recognised her own voice.

  ‘I’m back here for you,’ he responded simply, and the certain, unequivocal nature of it seemed to steal her breath away.

  ‘Why?’ she demanded hoarsely as emotions spiralled through her, too fast and too many to grasp.

  But she recognised one of them. Hope. Why else would Jake be here, if not for her? Yet, at the same time, she could remember with painful clarity all the things they’d said to each other before he’d left Bra
zil last time.

  And she knew the one thing he didn’t. That she was carrying his baby.

  ‘I’m guessing for the same reason you were heading to London.’

  It was so simple, so direct, it made her heart stop for a second time in as many moments.

  ‘How do you know?’

  He half shrugged.

  ‘I went to your sister’s house as soon as I landed, thinking you’d either be in the rainforest or there. She told me.’

  Her heart raced. Or stopped. She wasn’t sure which.

  ‘What else did she tell you?’

  ‘That she was glad I’d come. That I should leave Brady with her whilst I found you, and that whatever else happened I should know that much.’

  ‘I see,’ Flávia managed, for want of anything better to say.

  And then he moved closer, the air around them drawing that much thicker, that much tighter.

  ‘I don’t think you do see, Flávia,’ he rasped. ‘Not completely. And that’s my fault for not saying it before. For not having the guts to say it before.’

  ‘To say what before?’

  He didn’t answer, leaving her heart to thud. Long and slow and heavy.

  ‘You told me that you couldn’t put your desires ahead of Brady’s needs,’ she pressed on eventually. ‘And I understand that. I get it.’

  Jake took another step forward, his eyes holding hers so that she couldn’t have dragged them away even if she’d wanted to.

  ‘Only, what I feel for you is more than mere desire,’ he murmured. ‘It’s much deeper than that.’

  She wasn’t sure when her soul left her body, but it was almost as though she was floating above the scene. Watching herself having this conversation, but too numb—too wound up with desperate anticipation—to actually feel part of it.

  ‘Then...what?’

  ‘I love you, Flávia Maura,’ he told her simply, as if he hadn’t just flipped her entire world upside down. Inside out. ‘I can’t imagine my life without you.’

  Heat shot through Flávia’s chest, plunging it into fire, like ramming it into a blast furnace. Then, just as quickly, doused it in an icy shower.

  ‘Wait, Jake, before you say anything—’