Her Doctor's Christmas Proposal Read online

  ‘He just needed me to explain a few things. Like how to behave in an emergency department. But I get it. The bloke was worried. I would have been too if I was losing my wife and my baby.’

  Guilt crawled down her spine. How would he have been? At seventeen? Quick-mouthed and aggressive? Or the self-assured, confident man he was now? She stole a quick glance in his direction. ‘You wouldn’t have acted like that. So thanks for dealing with him. And for your help in here.’

  ‘It wasn’t just me. We almost lost them both, but your quick thinking and nifty work saved both their lives. Well done.’ He threw his face mask into the bin, snapped his gloves off and faced her. ‘You look exhausted.’

  ‘Gee, thanks. I’m fine.’ She didn’t feel fine. Her legs were like jelly and her stupid heart was still pounding with its fight-or-flight response. She looked away from the notes and towards the door. Flight. Good idea. Easier to write them up in the safety of her office, which was a Sean-free zone. Snapping the folder closed, she looked up at him. ‘Actually, I’ve got to go.’

  ‘Wait, please.’

  She stepped towards the door and tried hard to look natural instead of panicked. ‘No. I have a million things to do.’

  ‘They can wait.’ His tone was urgent, determined. He was striding towards the exit now too.

  ‘No. They can’t.’

  ‘Isabel. Stop avoiding me, goddamn it!’

  He was going to ask.

  He was going to ask and she was going to lie. Because lying had been the only way to forge enough distance between her and the one thing she had promised herself she could never do again: feel something.

  She calculated that it would take precisely five seconds to get out of the chilly delivery room and away from his piercing blue-eyed gaze. For the last two months she’d managed to steer clear from any direct one-to-ones with him, shielding herself with colleagues or friends. But now, the things unsaid between them for almost seventeen years weighed heavily in the silence.

  He was going to ask and she was going to lie. Again.

  The lies were exhausting. Running was exhausting. Just as getting over Sean and that traumatic time had been. She didn’t want to have to face that again. Face him again.

  His scent filled the room. Sunshine. Spice. His heat, so familiar and yet not so.

  Seventeen years.

  God, how he’d matured into the sophisticated, beautiful man he was destined to be. But wanting answers to questions that would break her heart all over again…and his.

  She made direct eye contact with the door handle and started to move towards it again.

  ‘Izzy?’

  She would not turn round. Would. Not. ‘Don’t call me that here. It’s Isabel or Dr Delamere.’

  ‘Hello? It’s not as if anyone can hear. There’s only you and me in here. It’s so empty there’s an echo.’

  ‘I can hear.’ And I don’t want to be reminded. Although she was, every day. Every single day. Every mother, every baby. Every birth. Every stillborn. Every death.

  She made it to the door. The handle was cold and smooth. Sculpted steel, just like the way she’d fashioned her heart and her backbone. Beyond the clouded glass she could make out a bustling corridor of co-workers and clients. Safety. She squeezed the handle downwards and a whoosh of air breathed over her. ‘I’m sorry, Dr Anderson, I have a ward round to get to. I’m already late. Like I said, thanks for your help back there.’

  ‘Any time. You know that.’ His hand covered hers and a shot of electricity jolted through her. He was warm. And solid. And here; of all the maternity units he could have chosen… This time it wasn’t a coincidence. His voice was thick and deep and reached into her soul. ‘I just want one minute, Isabel. That’s all. One.’

  One minute. One lifetime. It would never be enough to bridge that time gap. Certainly not if she ever told him the answer to his question.

  ‘No, Sean, please don’t ask me again.’ She jabbed her foot into the doorway and pulled the door further open.

  Then she made fatal error number one. She turned her head and looked up at him.

  His chestnut hair was tousled from removing his surgical cap, sticking up in parts, flattened in others. Someone needed to sink their fingers in and fluff it. So not her job. Not when she was too busy trying not to look at those searching eyes. That sculptured jawline. The mouth that had given her so much pleasure almost a year ago, with one stupid, ill-thought-out stolen kiss, and…a lifetime ago. A boy turned into a man. A girl become a woman, although in truth that had happened in one night all those years ago.

  Onwards went her gaze, re-familiarising herself with lines and grooves, and learning new ones. Wide solid shoulders, the only tanned guy in a fifty-mile radius, God bless the sparse Aussie ozone layer. Toned arms that clearly did more working out than lifting three-kilogram newborns.

  His voice was close to her ear. ‘Izzy, if it was over between us… If everything was completely finished, why the hell did you kiss me?’

  Good question. Damn good question. She’d been brooding over the answer to that particular issue for the better part of the last year, ever since he’d crushed her against him in a delivery suite very similar to this one, but half a world away. It had been a feral response to a need she hadn’t ever known before. A shock, seeing him again after so long, turning up at the Melbourne hospital where she’d worked. He’d been as surprised as she had, she was sure.

  Then he’d kissed her. A snatched frenzied embrace that had told her his feelings for her had been rekindled after such a long time apart. And, oh, how she’d responded. Because, in all honesty, her feelings for him had never really waned.

  Heat prickled through her at the mere memory. Heat and guilt. But they had to put it behind them and move forward. ‘Really, Sean? Do you chase most of the women you kiss across the world? It must cost an awful lot in airfares. Still, I guess you must do well on the loyalty schemes. What do you have now, elite platinum status? Does that entitle you to fly the damn planes as well?’

  His smile was slow to come, but when it did it was devastating. ‘Most women aren’t Isabel Delamere. And none of them kiss like you do.’

  ‘I’m busy.’

  ‘You’re avoiding the issue.’

  She held his too blue, too intense gaze. She could do this. Distract him with other issues, deflect the real one. Get him off her back once and for all. She was going away tomorrow for a few days. Hopefully everything would have blown over by the time she got back. Like hell it would. She could pretend that it had. She just needed some space from him. ‘So let me get this straight. You turn up out of the blue at the same place I’m working in Melbourne—’

  ‘Pure coincidence. I was as shocked as you. Pleasantly, though. Unlike your reaction.’ The pressure of his thumb against the back of her hand increased a little, like a stroke, a caress.

  She did not want him to caress her.

  Actually she did. But that would have been fatal error number two. ‘Then after I leave there you turn up here. Also out of the blue? I don’t think so.’

  ‘Aww, you missed a whole lot out…where I didn’t see you or have any contact with you for many, many years. As far as I was concerned you were the one that got away. But also the one I got over.’ At her glare he shrugged shoulders that were broader, stronger than she remembered. ‘I put you out of my mind and did exactly what I had planned to do with my life and became a damned fine obstetrician. Then one day I turn up at my cushy new locum job at Melbourne Maternity Unit and bump into my old…flame. I never dreamt for a minute you’d be there after hearing you’d studied medicine in Sydney. I assumed you’d moved on. Like I had. But then, Delamere blood runs thick with the Yarra so I should have realized you’d be there in the bosom of your…delightful family.’ He gave a sarcastic smile. Sean had never got on with her hugely successful neurosurgeon daddy and socialite mother who ran with the It crowd in Melbourne. ‘Well, in that sumptuous penthouse apartment anyway. Cut to the chase—the first ch
ance you get: wham, bam. You kiss me.’

  ‘What?’ She dragged her hand from under his and jabbed a finger at him. ‘You kissed me first. It took me by surprise—it didn’t mean anything.’

  ‘No one kisses like that and doesn’t mean it.’

  He’d pulled her to him and she’d felt the hard outline of his body, had a crazy melting of her mind and she’d wanted to kiss him right back. Hard. Hot. And it had been the most stupid thing she’d done in a long time. Not least because it had reignited an ache she’d purged from her system. She’d purged him from her system. ‘And now you’re here to what? Taunt me? Tell me, Sean, why are you here?’

  ‘Ask your sister.’

  ‘Isla? Why? And how can I?’ There was no way Isla would ever have told Sean what had happened. She’d promised to keep that secret for ever and Isabel trusted her implicitly. Even though over the years she had caught Isla looking at her with a sad, pitiful expression. And sure, Isabel knew she’d been badly scarred by her experiences, they both had, but she was over it. She was. She’d moved on. ‘Isla is back home in Australia and I’m here. I’m hardly going to phone a heavily pregnant woman in the middle of the night just to ask why an old boyfriend is in town, am I? What did she say?’

  ‘It was more what she didn’t say that set alarm bells ringing. I asked her outright why you had suddenly gone so cold on our relationship, she said she couldn’t tell me but that I should ask you myself. Between her garbled answers and your sizzling kiss, I’m guessing that there’s a lot more to this than you’re letting on. Something important. Something so big that you’re both running scared. My brain’s working overtime and I’m baffled. So tell me the truth, Isabel. Tell me the truth, then I’ll go. I’ll leave. Out of your life.’

  Which would be a blessing and a curse. She was so conflicted she didn’t know if she never wanted to set eyes on him again or…wake up every morning in his arms. But if he ever found out why they’d split up option two would never, ever happen. He’d make sure of it. ‘It doesn’t matter any more, Sean. It was such a long time ago.’

  ‘It matters to me. It clearly still matters to Isla, so I’m sure it matters to you.’ He leaned closer and her senses slammed into overdrive. Memories, dark, painful memories, rampaged through her brain. Her body felt as if it were reliving the whole tragedy again. Her heart rate jittered into a stupid over-compensatory tachycardia, and she squeezed the door handle.

  It was all too much.

  In her scrubs pocket her phone vibrated and chimed ‘Charge of The Light Brigade’. She grabbed it, grateful of the reprieve. The labour ward. ‘Look, seriously, I’ve got to run.’

  ‘Doing what you do best.’ He flicked his thumb up the corridor, his voice raised. ‘Go on, Izzy. Go ahead and run. But remember this—you walked away with no explanation, you just cut me adrift. Whatever happened back then wasn’t just about you. And while I’ve thought about it over the years it’s hardly kept me awake at night, until Isla hinted at some momentous mystery that she’s sworn not to talk about, and if it involves me then I deserve to know why.’

  Isabel glanced at the phone display, then up the corridor, where she saw a few heads popping out from rooms, then darting back in again.

  She looked back at Sean. She thought about the dads in the delivery suites, so proud, so emotional, so raw. How they wept when holding their newborns. She thought about Tony, who’d have fought tooth and nail for his son, even if it had riled every member of hospital staff. She thought about the babies born sleeping and the need for both parents to know so much, to be involved. They cared. They loved. They broke. They grieved. Both of them, not just the mums.

  So damn right Sean deserved to know. She’d hidden this information for so long, and yet he had every right to know what had happened. And once he knew then surely he’d leave? If not because it was so desperately sad, but because she had kept this from him. He’d hate her.

  But the relief would be final. She’d be free from the guilt of not telling him. Just never, never of the hurt.

  She opened her mouth to say the words, but her courage failed. ‘Please, just forget it. Put it behind you. Forget I ever existed. Forget it all.’

  ‘Really? When I see you every day? Forget this?’ He stepped closer, pinning her against the doorway, and for a moment she thought—hoped—he was going to kiss her again. His mouth was so close, his scent overpowering her. And the old feelings, the want, the desire came tumbling back. They had never had problems with the attraction; it had been all-consuming, feral, intense even then. It was the truth that she’d struggled with. Laying bare how she felt, because she was a Delamere girl after all, and she wasn’t allowed to show her emotions. Ever. She had standards, expectations to fulfil. And dating Sean Anderson hadn’t been one of them. Certainly carrying his child never was.

  His breath whispered over the nape of her neck. Hot. Hungry. Sending shivers of need spiralling down her back. He was so close. Too close. Not close enough. ‘What’s the matter, Izzy? Having trouble forgetting that I exist?’

  And what was the use in wanting him now? One whiff of the truth and he’d be gone.

  But, it was time to tell him anyway.

  ‘Okay. Okay.’ She shoved him back, gave herself some air. She made sure she had full eye contact with him, looked into those ocean-blue eyes. She was struggling with her own emotions, trying to keep her voice steady and level, but failing; she could hear it rise. ‘We had to finish, Sean. I didn’t know what to do. I was sixteen and frightened and I panicked. I had to cut you out of my life once and for all. A clean break for my own sanity if not for anything else.’ She took a deep breath. ‘I was pregnant.’

  He staggered back a step. Two. ‘What?’

  ‘Yes, Sean. With your baby.’

  CHAPTER TWO

  ‘WHAT?’ THIS WASN’T what he’d expected at all. Truthfully, he’d thought she’d been embarrassed about being seen with him. A lad from the wrong side of the Delamere social circle with two very ordinary and dull parents of no use to the Delamere clan. Or perhaps a bit of angsty teenage intrigue. Or possibly some pubertal mental health issues. But this…?

  He was a…father?

  Sean’s first instinct was to walk and keep on walking. But he fixed his feet to the floor, because he had to hear this. All of it. ‘Pregnant? My baby? So where is it? What happened?’ Two possibilities ran through his head: one, he had a child somewhere that he had never seen. And for that he could never forgive her.

  Or two, she’d had an abortion without talking it through with him. His child. Neither option was palatable.

  She followed him back in to the OR and looked up at him, her startling dark green eyes glittering with tears that she righteously blinked away. With her long blonde hair pulled back into a tight ponytail she looked younger than her thirty-three years. Not the sweet delicate creature she’d been at school, but she was so much more, somehow. More beautiful. More real. Just…more. That came with confidence, he supposed, a successful career, Daddy’s backing, everyone doing Miss Delamere’s bidding her whole life.

  But her cheeks seemed to hollow out as she spoke. ‘I lost it. The baby.’

  ‘Oh, God. I’m sorry.’ He was an obstetrician, for God’s sake, he knew it happened. But to her? To him? His gut twisted into a tight knot; so not everything had gone Isabel’s way after all.

  She gave a slight nod of her head. Sadness rolled off her. ‘I had a miscarriage at eighteen weeks—’

  ‘Eighteen weeks? You were pregnant for over four months and didn’t tell me? Why the hell not?’

  So this was why she’d become so withdrawn over those last few weeks together, refusing intimacy, finding excuses, being unavailable. This was why she’d eventually cut him off with no explanation.

  She started to pace around the room, Susan’s notes still tight in her fist. ‘I didn’t know I was pregnant, not for sure. Oh, of course I suspected I was, I just hadn’t done a test—I was too scared even to pee on a stick and see my life change
irrevocably in front of my eyes. I was sixteen. I didn’t want to face reality. I…well, I suppose I’d hoped that the problem would go away. I thought, hoped, that my missing periods were just irregular cycles, or due to stress, exams, trying to live up to Daddy’s expectations. Being continually on show. Having to snatch moments with you. So I didn’t want to believe—couldn’t believe…a baby? I was too young to deal with that. We both were.’

  He made sure to stand stock-still, his eyes following her round the room. ‘You didn’t think to mention it? We thought you’d be safe—God knows…the naivety. You were pregnant for eighteen weeks? I don’t understand… I thought we talked about everything.’ Clearly he’d been mistaken. Back then he’d thought she was the love of his life. He’d held a candle up to her for the next five years. No woman had come close to the rose-tinted memory he’d had of how things had been between them. Clearly he’d been wrong. Very wrong. ‘You should have talked to me. Maybe I could have helped. I could have… I don’t know…maybe I could have saved it.’ Even as he said the words he knew he couldn’t have done a thing. Eighteen weeks was far too young, too fragile, too under-developed, even now, all these years later and with all the new technology, eighteen weeks was still too little.

  The light in her eyes had dimmed. It had been hard on her, he thought. A burden, living with the memory. ‘I spent many years thinking the same thing, berating myself for maybe doing something wrong. I pored over books, looked at research, but no one could have saved him, Sean. He was too premature. You, of all people, know how it is. We see it. In our jobs.’

  ‘He?’ His gut lurched. ‘I had a son?’

  She finally stopped pacing, wrapped her arms around her thin frame, like a hug. Like a barrier. But her gaze clashed with his. ‘Yes. A son. He was beautiful, Sean. Perfect. So tiny. Isla said—’

  ‘So Isla was there?’ Her sister was allowed to be there, but he wasn’t?

  ‘Yes. It all happened so fast. I was in my bathroom at my parents’ house and suddenly there was so much blood, and I must have screamed. Then Isla was there, she delivered him…’ Her head shook at the memory. ‘God love her, at twelve years of age she delivered my child onto our bathroom floor, got help and made sure I was okay. No wonder she ended up being a midwife—it’s what she was born to do.’