Her Doctor's Christmas Proposal

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 chance 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 underdeveloped, 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.’

He wasn’t sure he wanted any more details. He had enough to get his head around, but he couldn’t help asking the questions. ‘So who else helped you? There must have been someone else? An adult? Surely?’

‘Evie, our housekeeper.’

‘The one who turned me away when I came round that time? Not your parents?’ He could see from Isabel’s closed-off reaction that she hadn’t involved them, just as she hadn’t involved him. He didn’t know whether that made him feel any better or just … just lost. Cut off from her life. After everything he’d believed, he really hadn’t known her at all. ‘They still don’t know? Even now?’

‘No. Evie took me to a hospital across town and they sorted me out. Because I was sixteen the doctors didn’t have to tell my parents. I never did. They were away at the time, they wouldn’t have understood. It would have distressed them. The scandal—’

‘Of course. We always have to be careful about what our Melbourne royalty think.’ He didn’t care a jot about them now and he hadn’t back then. They’d cosseted their daughters and he’d struggled to get much time alone with her despite his best efforts; over-protective, she’d called them. Of course, he knew better now. But even so, Isabel had been nothing more than a pawn in their celebrity status paraded at every available opportunity, the golden girl. The darling Delamere daughter who couldn’t do any wrong.

No … that wasn’t what he’d believed at the time, only the intervening years had made him rethink his young and foolish impression of her. When they were together he’d come to love a deep, sensitive girl, not a materialistic, shallow Delamere. But then she’d cut him off and he’d been gutted to find out she was the same as her parents after all. But this news … and to keep it to herself all that time. Who the hell was she? ‘And that’s why you broke off our relationship? That’s why you sent my ring back to me? No explanation.’

She fiddled with her left ring finger as if that ring were still there. ‘I didn’t know what else to do, to be honest, I was stressed out, grieving. I’d lost my baby. It felt like a punishment, you see. I hadn’t wanted him, but then, when I lost him I wanted him so badly. And seeing you, telling you, would have brought back all that pain. I wasn’t strong enough to relive it again.’ She’d walked towards him, her hand now on his arm. ‘I’m sorry, Sean. I should have told you.’

‘Yes, you should have.’ He shook his arm free from her touch. He couldn’t bear to feel her, to smell her intoxicating scent. To see those beautiful, sad eyes. And to know that she’d let him live all those years without telling him the truth.

He forced himself to look at her. To imagine what must have been going through her head at that time. The fear, the pain, the confusion. The grief. It must have been so terrifying for a young girl. But still he couldn’t fathom why all of that had been a reason to shut herself off from him. To keep all this from him.

She looked right back at him, not a young girl any longer. She was a beautiful, successful woman with tears swimming in her eyes—tears that did not fall. She wiped them away. It was the first time he’d seen any emotion from her in the months that he’d been here. Now, and when she’d kissed him back in Melbourne. There had been a few emotions skittering across her face back then: fear mainly, and a raw need. ‘Please, Sean. Please say something.’

He didn’t know what to say. How to feel. Right now, he was just angry. Empty. No … just angry. It was as if a huge chunk of his past had been a lie. He should have known about this. He should have been allowed to know this. ‘I’ve spent all these years wondering what turned you from being such a happy, loving girlfriend to a cold and distant one literally overnight. I thought it was something I’d done and I went over and over everything until I was lost. Or that you’d had a nervous breakdown. Or that I wasn’t good enough for you. I tried to see you but had the door closed in my face so many times I gave up. You refused to answer my calls. I tried hard to understand what was happening. In the end I just presumed your parents had somehow found out and banned you from seeing me.’

‘They wouldn’t have done that.’

‘Wouldn’t they? You weren’t exactly thrilled at the prospect of telling them we were an item. Let’s keep it a secret, you said. Our secret love. It seems you had a lot of secrets back then, Isabel.’

She flinched, so she must have remembered saying words he’d believed at the time were heartfelt. ‘I didn’t want to cause you any pain. There wasn’t anything you could do. I thought it would be for the best, for both of us. Just put it all behind us.’

‘I could have grieved, Isabel, I could have helped you with that.’ He held her gaze. ‘So was it? For the best?’

She shook her head. ‘No. Not for me, anyway.’

‘And not for me, either. I’m sorry, Isabel. I’m sorry you had to go through that, I know how hard it must have been. But …’ And it was a hell of a big but … what was he supposed to do now? Why hadn’t she told him? Even though she’d lost their baby, did that mean she’d had to throw their love aside too? He couldn’t think straight. Just looking at her brought back hurt, and more, stacked alongside the fact that he’d been a dad. He’d had a son. And he hadn’t even known.

Words failed him. ‘I can’t imagine your state of mind, you’re right. But one thing is for sure. If I’d known something like that that deeply involved someone else, someone I’d professed to care about—to love, even—I’d have mentioned it.’

She hung her head. ‘It was a long time ago. We have to move on, Sean.’

‘Easy for you to say, Isabel.’ He was loud now, he knew his anger was spilling into his voice, his face, but he didn’t much care. ‘You’ve had many years to get over this. It’s in your past. But this, this is my present right now. So you’ll excuse me if I take a little time to come to terms with it all. I had a son? Wow. It would have been nice to know that.’

‘Oh, yes? Well, it was horrible. I was distraught, traumatised. I was a young girl, for God’s sake.’ Her voice was shaky now, like her hands. ‘You know what makes it all so much worse? You. Seeing you brings it all back, and I don’t want to think about it any more. It hurts. Okay? It hurts, so I wish you’d never found me.’

You have no idea what she’s been through, Isla had said when she’d encouraged him to come all this way to confront Isabel. Don’t hurt her. No? He didn’t want to do that. He didn’t want to make her relive that pain.

But he didn’t want to be with her either. Right now he didn’t even want to breathe the same air as her. Not after this.

A difficult silence wrapped around them like the foggy December day outside.

Her hand covered his. ‘I didn’t mean to hurt you, Sean. I’m sorry for leaving you to wonder all those years.’

‘Yeah. Well, so you should be. Keep out of my way, Isabel. I mean it. Keep out of my way.’ And without so much as looking at her again he stalked out of the room.

‘You’ve had a major operation and a big shock to your body. Three units of blood. That’s an awful lot to get over.’ Isabel gave Susan Patterson what she hoped was a reassuring smile. Twenty-four hours post-op many patients felt as if they’d been hit by a truck. But because they always, always put their babies first they tried to recover far too quickly. ‘The good news is, you’re making an excellent recovery. Your blood pressure is stable and your blood results are fine. We’re going to move you from High Dependency back to the ward so you can be in with the other mums, and we’ll bring baby up to be with you. He’s ready to leave SCBU now. Between you both you’ve kept us on our toes, but things are definitely on the way up. He’s a little fighter, that one.’

‘He’s got a good set of lungs, I’ll give him that.’ Susan gave a weak smile back. Kicking back the covers, she tried to climb out of bed. But when her feet hit the floor she grabbed onto the bed table for stability. She was still a little pale, and Isabel made a note to keep an eye on that. It wasn’t just haemoglobin she needed to watch, it was Susan’s desire to do too much too soon.

‘Hey, there’s no hurry. Rest easy. I’ll ask a nurse to come help you have a shower. That scar’s in a tricky place, so you need to support it when you move. And remember, Caesareans do take longer to recover from, so don’t expect too much from yourself.’ Glancing at the chart, she realised Susan’s baby was still listed as Baby Patterson. ‘Have you thought of a name for that gorgeous wee boy yet?’

Doing as she was told, Susan sat down on the side of the bed; a little more colour crept into her cheeks. ‘We had thought about something Christmassy like Joseph or Noel, but as he was early we had to change all that. If he’d been a girl I’d have called him Isabel.’ Her cheeks pinked more. ‘After you, because you did such a great job of saving us both. But instead we thought we’d choose Isaac. It has the Is in it—and that’ll remind us of you. I guess you get that all the time?’

Isabel felt her smile blossom from the inside. ‘Actually, not very often at all. It’s very nice of you. Thank you. I’m honoured.’

‘Oh, and Sean as a middle name. After Dr Anderson.’

Sean. Of course. Why not? She forced the smile to stay in place. ‘Oh. Lovely. I’m sure he’ll be thrilled.’

And she’d got through ten whole minutes without thinking about him, just to be reminded all over again.

Last night had been filled with internal recriminations that had intensified in direct proportion to her wine consumption. From: she should have told him years ago, to … she was glad she’d kept that pain from him, to … how dared he be so angry? She’d been the one going through the miscarriage. She could choose who she disclosed that information to.

But the way he’d looked at her had hurt the most. He’d shut down. Shut her out. The light and the vibrancy that she’d always seen in him had been extinguished. He hadn’t even been able to look at her. And that had been her fault.

And now … now that she thought about it, she realised that he had a very disturbing effect on her. Even after all the intervening years she still found just looking at him made her mouth water, made her heart ache for more. Thinking about that kiss made her …

‘Isabel? Dr Delamere?’

‘Oh, sorry. I was miles away.’ Now she couldn’t even focus on her job properly. First and last time she’d let that happen. It was Maggie, one of the ward clerks. ‘I have a message from Jacob. He wants to see you in his office, as soon as you can.’

‘Oh, fine, thank you.’ Isabel turned to excuse herself from her patient. ‘I’m sorry, Susan, but Jacob’s the boss around here, so I’d better get going. I’m off to Paris tomorrow for a conference with him. But I’m so glad we managed to get you on the road to recovery before I go.’

‘Paris? Lucky you.’ The new mum looked almost wistful.

‘No. You have a husband and a lovely family. I’d say you are the luckier woman right now.’ Isabel tried to put all thoughts of Sean out of her mind. Once upon a faraway innocent time she’d dreamt of having what Susan had: a husband and family. But the thought of risking her heart again left her more than cold. Terrified, in fact. She just knew she couldn’t survive that kind of loss again.

So seven days away from Sean would be the perfect antidote. She could lose herself in the bright lights and the Christmas markets and the lovely amazingness that she’d heard Paris was—oh, yes, and she had work to do, at least, for the first few days. ‘I’ll pop in this evening, Susan, to make sure you’re okay before I head off. In the meantime, be good and rest up.’