Dating the Millionaire Doctor (13 page)

She was carrying his child. She was alone and she was pregnant.

She had to stay—but he couldn't force her.

‘I didn't mean to scare you,' he said, and she flashed him a look of mistrust.

‘This is new territory for both of us,' she murmured. ‘Scary territory.'

‘People do it all the time.'

‘Not me. Not us.' Then she shrugged. ‘Look, this has been a big shock to throw at you. It's after midnight. You must be exhausted. I know I am. I'm staying tomorrow so if you want to talk about it again…'

‘You're staying tomorrow?'

‘I have a flight booked the day after. I thought I'd take two days after the delivery, one to tell you and one to let you come to terms with it and yell.'

She was only half joking. She'd expected anger?

There was anger, he thought, but the anger wasn't at her. It was at himself. He'd met her when she was at her most vulnerable. Why had he ever touched her?

‘We can't undo it,' she said, evenly and steadily, seemingly
forcing herself to be calm. ‘I'm sorry to give you this responsibility you don't want. I'm not sorry for me, though, so don't you be sorry for me either. I'm a big girl and I can cope with this. In fact, I intend to love this baby. I suspect all Combadeen will love it.' She rose. ‘Can I catch a cab back at the hospital?

‘Where are you staying?'

She told him and he frowned. ‘It's Saturday night. That whole district parties. There's no way you'll sleep.'

‘It looked fine.'

‘When did you arrive?'

‘Four. I came to the hospital almost straightaway.'

‘And I made you wait…' He was trying to get jumbled thoughts into order but it was like herding ants. All he could see was Tori's pale face, and all he could register was that this woman was carrying his child.

‘Tell you what,' he said, noting her too-big eyes, the effort bravado was costing her, knowing half of her wanted to run. ‘My apartment's got a great settee in the living room. There's more than enough sleeping space for two. I bought the place knowing I needed to sleep any time, so quiet's where it's at.'

‘I don't want to stay with you.'

‘You can trust me, Tori,' he said, gently but inexorably. ‘Don't you?'

She stared at him for a long moment, a moment that stretched on into something far beyond trust for a night shared. It stretched into something that was important for their future. Shared parenting? And something more, he thought, but that was suddenly somewhere he didn't want to go. Not yet. Not ever?

‘Let's get a cab,' he said, focusing on practicalities, because practicalities were all he could bear to think about. ‘I'll take you to your hotel. If I'm exaggerating—if you think you can sleep there—then I'll leave you and we'll meet in the
morning. But if what I say is true, will you trust me enough to bring your gear back to my apartment? Separate rooms, Tori. Nothing you don't want, I promise.'

‘And you'll let me leave?'

‘I don't have a choice.'

‘No,' she said heavily. ‘You don't.'

 

He was right, her hotel was appalling. They went back to his apartment. Jake slept on the settee. Tori slept in his room.

‘I'll spend the night pacing,' he told her when she objected. ‘So I might as well pace on the balcony. Once upon a time a man could go through a couple of packets of smokes in this situation. Now it's traffic fumes or nothing.'

She was so tired she hardly smiled. So he made up the settee for himself, and Tori lay in Jake's bed and thought she was so tired she should sleep, but sleep was a long time coming.

The bed was really comfortable and really big. Big enough to entertain?

There'd have been women. Of course there must have been women.

But none of them had stayed very long, she thought. This place was almost clinically austere.

Her little relocatable home had been austere and beige. This place was austere and grey.

Maybe it was chic, but she hated it just the same as she'd hated the drabness of her relocatable. It was cool and grey and impersonal.

She missed her dogs.

The dogs were fine. They'd hardly miss her. But there was no one—nothing—to hug.

There was silence from the sitting room. Maybe Jake wasn't serious about pacing. Maybe he'd said that to make her think he was taking her news seriously—that he thought it was a big deal.

He'd accepted it so smoothly. Maybe it had even happened before.

That was unthinkable.

But why should she lie here and want this baby to be as new and as wonderful an experience for Jake as it was for her?

It couldn't be, she thought. She and her baby would be in Australia. Jake would be here.

She'd organise videos.

Not of the birth, though, she thought hastily. There was no way she was going there. She'd do that on her own.

By herself. There was a bleak thought.

Jet lag was insidious, she decided. Exhaustion was making her depressed, or maybe it was this appalling apartment. Jake had prints on the wall—charcoal sketches of something avant garde. Horrible. In the moonlight she couldn't see detail; she could only see the vague outline of garish figures.

Thinking on, it wasn't even moonlight. It was the glare of a million buildings, lit at night with a million neon signs.

How could she be homesick when she'd been away for less than a week?

No matter; she was. She wanted the dogs. She wanted to hear the birds in the trees outside her window.

She wanted for Jake to be not right through that door and for that door not to be closed.

‘Go to sleep,' she told herself firmly, desperately. ‘Now.'

Pigs might fly.

 

Jake had learned from years of being on call to hit the pillow and summon sleep. Self-preservation had taught him the knack. It had never failed him—until now.

He'd never had Tori sleeping right through the wall until now.

He'd never been told he'd be a father until now.

He wanted…

He didn't know what he wanted.

He wanted Tori.

If you made a woman pregnant you married her.
It was an old dictum—did it still apply?

She'd already refused him.

He didn't know the first thing about relationships. Where to start?

By taking tomorrow off. Yeah, okay, he thought wryly, good one. It was his rostered day off anyway. Very magnanimous. He could do a quick check-in at the hospital before she woke and then he'd show her New York.

But Monday he had a list longer than his arm, and it was too late to delegate. She'd be on her own then.

He could probably cut it a bit. Get home at a reasonable hour.

To find the little wife waiting for him, with supper served and his slippers warmed?

Tori was right. It was a ludicrous concept. Only it had to be thought of. She had to stay.

Why?

He had a sudden vision of himself, aged about seven. Summer holidays. His mother off with one of her lovers. He in his grandparents' mausoleum of a house on Long Island.

Lonely as hell.

Tori was having his baby, and his kid wasn't going to be lonely. If he was going to be a father, he wanted his kid here, whether Tori agreed or not.

His kid?

He'd never thought of being a father. He'd had such a solitary upbringing; he'd simply expected more of the same.

He'd reacted calmly enough to Tori's news. Or more. He'd been so stunned that all he could feel was concern for Tori. To think past that to fatherhood itself…

He'd have a daughter? A son?

The idea was so overwhelming he couldn't take it in.

He let it swirl for a while, trying to figure things out, but no matter how he looked at it, one thing stood out. This child would
not
have his upbringing. His mother telling lies about his father. His parents continents apart.

She had to stay.

He'd marry the mother of his child.

 

She slept until ten, and when she woke Jake was standing over her, lean and long and gorgeous, wearing a sleek business suit, a crisp white shirt and a crimson tie. What the…

She glanced from him to the clock—and yelped.

He grinned and set toast on the bedside table, then sat on the side of the bed. It was such a familiar thing to do that she practically yelped again.

‘Feel up to breakfast?' he said and smiled, and she thought, This man is the father of my child. That was such a seriously sexy, seriously wonderful thing to think that her toes practically curled.

But what was with the suit?

‘You're dressed up, why?' she managed.

‘I've been into the hospital so I could clear the rest of the day.'

‘I thought you had today off.'

‘I don't do off days, but I'm free now. Moving on… You don't look like you have morning sickness,' he said, and she hauled her thoughts back to earth. Or almost back to earth.

‘I'm only sick if I move fast.'

‘Then don't move fast.'

‘I won't.'

He leaned forwards and took the pillows from the spare side of the bed, then wedged them behind her. And there it was again, that blast of caring. And of maleness. And of…want?

Down, girl, she told herself fiercely. You have twenty-four
hours left of this man. There's no use lusting after something—someone—you can't have.

But she was definitely lusting.

He was handing over tea and she had to take it, even though there was suddenly a really big part of her that wanted to fling the tea onto his cool-grey carpet, grab him and haul him back onto his own pillows. He was the father of her baby.…

‘So have you ever been to New York?' he asked, and she blinked and had a couple of sips of tea and mustered her hormones into some sort of corral. But the boundaries she put around them looked frail. Very frail indeed.

‘No,' she managed, and her voice came out a squeak and she had to try again.

‘So where have you been?' He handed over toast. Her fingers brushed his and she practically yelped all over again. She had to get herself under control.

‘Um, Sydney?' she ventured.

‘Is that the furthest?' he demanded, astounded.

‘Yeah,' she said, defensive, and then because she didn't want him to think she hadn't travelled because she was a wimp, she told him the rest. ‘Mum died when Micki and I were small. Dad had the veterinary practice up and we helped him, after school, every holiday. I thought I might travel for a bit after vet school but by the time I finished, Dad had Parkinson's. Micki's marriage was in trouble and she was in Perth. She couldn't help. If I hadn't stayed Dad would have had to sell up and it'd have broken his heart.' She paused and then added quietly, ‘Though if he sold up maybe he'd still be alive.'

‘Hey, Tori, don't.' He smiled, coaxing her to let it go. ‘You can't beat yourself up over decisions like that. And you're here now,' he said. ‘Your first overseas experience. You need to stay for more than a day.'

‘No.' The thought terrified her.

‘Not necessarily with me.'

‘I'd mess with your life,' she said and glanced at the spare side of the bed.

‘There's no one.'

‘I didn't mean that.'

‘Okay, you didn't mean that, but I'm telling you anyway. If you want to sleep in my bed for the next month—'

‘No!'

‘No?'

‘No,' she said, and she sounded desperate but there wasn't anything she could do about it. ‘I need to get up now.'

‘If you need to sleep, then sleep.'

‘If I've only got one day in New York, I'm not sleeping.'

‘You should take more.'

‘I'm house-training Itsy,' she said. ‘I can't take more.'

‘Tori…'

‘I haven't come to interfere with your life. I've just come to tell you and then to go.'

‘I can't see that I can let you go.'

‘You don't have a choice,' she said, trying hard to sound firm and sure and confident. Was he planning on locking her up until this baby was born? Ha! She'd thrown him, she thought. She'd had a month to get used to the idea of a baby. He'd had less than a day.

‘So I'll get up and you can point me to the Statue of Liberty,' she said, moving right on.

‘Is that what you want to see?'

‘And the Empire State Building, and Central Park and Tiffany's.'

‘Tiffany's?' he said blankly.

‘My very favourite movie in the whole world. Don't you just love Audrey Hepburn?'

‘Like life itself,' he said promptly, and she giggled and ate a bit of toast and thought, This could be okay. She'd do the
tourist thing, maybe they'd meet for dinner tonight; they'd discuss practicalities like just how much access he wanted and how they were going to figure it out, and then she'd head back to Australia and get on with it.

‘I'll go put on my walking shoes,' he said.

‘You don't have to come with me,' she said, startled. ‘I'm guessing you'll already have seen the Statue of Liberty.'

‘I might have,' he agreed. ‘But she's worth a second look. And to be honest, I've never once been inside Tiffany's.'

T
HEY
did the Empire State Building. They had to queue for two hours but at the top she gasped and decreed the view was worth every minute. She produced a camera and took the shots every tourist took, but she insisted on having him front and centre.

‘This is your town,' she said. ‘I'm visiting Jake's Manhattan. This is Jake with the Statue of Liberty in the background. Very nice.'

A tourist offered to take a shot of them together and she beamed. ‘That'll be good for later,' she decreed, handing over her camera.

‘Later?' He held her tightly as the German gentleman lined up the shot—because holding her close seemed the right thing to do. Also it was a good excuse to keep her near him. He hadn't forgotten how good she felt. His body was reminding him every time she came within touching distance.

He could hardly understand her smile, he thought. She must be jet-lagged. She was facing an uncertain future alone and, here she was, cheerfully soaking up every minute of her two-day visit.

She was gorgeous.

But then… ‘This will be a shot of Mummy and Daddy for our baby's first album,' she told him as he held her—and desire gave way to something else entirely, a range of
emotions he couldn't begin to understand. But he kept her still, and when he saw the resulting picture he thought no one would know by his fixed smile that he felt as if he'd been punched.

But he did feel as though he'd been punched. No matter how many traffic fumes he'd inhaled last night, he didn't have his head round this.

This lovely, vibrant woman was carrying his baby.

And she was only here until tomorrow.

Would he go to Australia for the birth? He must, he thought, as Tori went back to snapping views. And what if something happened early? A miscarriage. A problem later in the pregnancy? What sort of antenatal care would she get in Combadeen?

How could he let her go back to Australia?

But how could he not? He had no hold on her. They'd had, what, a two-day relationship. There was no way a future could be based on that.

But still…

Still, he didn't know what to think.

Finally viewed out, Tori headed to the elevators. A big guy, overweight and overbearing, barged into the elevator beside Tori and pushed her backwards. He saw Tori's hand instinctively move to protect a bump that wasn't there yet, and he wanted to move his body in between them and thump the guy into the bargain.

He wanted to say, ‘That's my kid in there. Watch it.'

More. He wanted to say, ‘That's my woman, and I'll thump anyone who touches her.'

Only, of course, he didn't. He was civilised and careful; he was a senior medico with a responsible job; he was someone who taught nonaggressive solutions to his staff when patients were violent.

More. He was a guy who walked alone.

But he still wanted to punch the guy's lights out.

His phone rang while he was thinking of it. He answered it as he always did.

‘Dr. Hunter?'

‘Speaking.'

‘Jancey Ian? Her intrathecal catheter's packed up.'

He paused as the rest of the elevator streamed out around them. Swearing under his breath.

Jancey was a tiny African-American woman in her mid-seventies and she had advanced bone metastases. He'd inserted morphine and local anaesthetic via an intrathecal catheter to stop pain that had been almost unbearable.

But not only did Jancey have crumbling vertebrae from the cancer, she also had severe arthritis. It had taken skill, experience and luck to get the drugs flowing to just the right spot. It'd be a miracle if any of the junior doctors on duty could get the catheter back in.

‘Level of pain?' he asked, knowing already what the answer would be.

‘Bad.' Mardi Fry was the senior nurse on the ward. If she said
bad
it must be hellish.

‘I can't…'

‘You can.' Tori was suddenly in front of him, facing him down. She'd only heard his side of the conversation, but obviously she'd guessed the rest. ‘I'm an unexpected and un-invited guest, and I'm a very happy tourist. Don't you dare leave someone in pain because of me. I'll take a cab to Central Park. Meet me there if you can.'

‘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 emotions 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.'