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He waved to the door. ‘Give us a minute.’
The door silently closed.
‘I know you didn’t want this. My family knew you didn’t want to be in the public eye. They respected your wishes. I didn’t know anything about it until someone came and found me a few minutes ago. When I find out who did this...which one of our friends betrayed us...’ She could actually feel him shaking. ‘And if I’m angry, they have no idea what my mother will be like. Hell hath no fury like the Queen of Corinez.’
She pushed herself free of his grasp and sat back on the bed. Her head was swimming.
‘I want to get away,’ she said blankly. ‘I want to get away from this place and all the people in it.’
Philippe flinched as if she’d just thrown a punch. She couldn’t help her words. She needed to be blunt.
Her hands twisted in her lap. She couldn’t get any heat into them at all. Her whole body was freezing.
‘Arissa.’ He sat down next to her and she held up her hand to stop him talking.
She shivered. ‘I need to tell you something.’
She could see he wanted to say so much, but he gave a wary nod of his head. ‘Okay.’
‘I never told you why I don’t want to be in the spotlight.’ She took a few deep breaths. ‘It’s not for any scandalous reason, or anything that I’ve done wrong. It’s just a part of me that I want to stay private.’
She could tell he still wanted to talk, but she wouldn’t let him. She had to finish.
‘The safe haven project. There’s more than one reason that I’m interested in it.’
‘What do you mean?’
Arissa licked her lips. ‘I was one of those babies.’ She held her breath as she could see the pieces slot into place in his brain.
‘What?’
‘I was an abandoned baby. The story I told you about one of the babies back home—that was me. I was the baby left outside the old clinic overnight. I was the baby that nearly died. I was lucky, someone found me the next morning and I was treated in hospital. I was adopted by two great people and lived a life where I felt completely loved.’ She shook her head. ‘But I have no idea who my mother was. I have no idea if she’s still alive. I have no idea if having me put her in danger, then or even now. All I know is that I’ve never gone looking for her, and she’s never come looking for me.’
Philippe had gone so pale he looked almost grey. But she couldn’t stop talking. Now she’d started she had to get it all out.
A tear slid down her face. ‘I understand safe haven in a way that others might not.’ She pressed a hand to her chest. ‘Sometimes at night I dream of all the reasons a mother would abandon a baby—and not all of them are about the cost of healthcare. What if they’re in an abusive relationship? What if having a baby would put them more at risk? What if they’ve been raped? What if they have mental health issues? What if they are entirely alone and have no support? There are a million reasons why a mother leaves her baby.’
Her hands were shaking now as she tried to keep a handle on her emotions. ‘The safe haven project is so important to me. I go hand in hand with it. But what now, Philippe? What if the press dig deeper, they find out my background? What if I become a focal point for them and safe haven is considered some kind of gimmick, instead of the important service we want it to be? What if, when they focus on me, they intrude into my patients’ lives and families with sick children start getting harassed?’
She stopped for a second as Philippe’s pale face changed into a frown, then lifted her chin and looked him in the eye. ‘I won’t do that to my patients, Philippe. I won’t expose them to that—having a sick kid is hard enough. Plus, I don’t want the safe haven project rubbished.’ She put her hand on her chest and looked at him again.
Another tear slipped down her cheek. All those reasons were good reasons. She knew that. But she still hadn’t mentioned what was at the heart of it all. She drew herself up. ‘But as well as all that, I want privacy, Philippe. I don’t want people examining my background. Asking stories around the place I lived when I was a kid. My parents were my parents. That’s their spot in my life. They weren’t rich. We struggled at times. Do you think I want to be splashed across the papers as the abandoned baby from the poor family? Then I won’t be good enough, they won’t be good enough. I won’t have that. I can’t have that.’ She pointed at the paper. ‘These are today’s headlines. I can only imagine what they’ll say tomorrow if they start digging.’
It was almost as if the world were working against her. A few seconds later she recognised a face on screen. Amal. A little kid she’d worked with in Washington with leukaemia. He was sitting in his wheelchair, beaming at someone. ‘I love Dr Arissa,’ he said, waving at what seemed like a camera phone.
The feed switched to the news anchor. ‘Well, there’s a thumbs up from one of her patients,’ he said, beaming inanely towards her.
‘No,’ she breathed as more tears streaked down her face. It was everything she’d feared. ‘How on earth did they do that? How did they get hold of Amal so quickly?’
Philippe looked horrified. He glanced at his watch. ‘The press pictures must have leaked hours ago when we were all in bed. The story must have gone global.’ His brow creased. ‘But I have no idea how they found him.’
She turned on Philippe, her voice rising. ‘You promised me that there would be no publicity here.’ She shook her head, ‘And I, like a fool, believed you.’ She was angry with herself again. She met his gaze. ‘I believed you because I wanted to believe you. Because I trusted you. Because you had me swept up in some kind of—’ she threw her hands out in frustration ‘—made-up fairy tale.’
She walked over to the dressing room and started pulling out her case. Now she’d started she couldn’t stop. ‘But this isn’t for me. This isn’t my life.’ She couldn’t stop shaking her head as she gestured towards the television screen. ‘I won’t allow them to do that to me—or my patients.’
‘Arissa, please stop. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I’m sorry that this has happened to you.’ He was at her side, holding onto her arm. He looked just as upset as she was.
She’d already flung her suitcase wide and started to throw things haphazardly inside.
Their picture flashed up on the screen together again and she froze. It was that look. That look that had passed between them. His hand on her cheek and her hand on top of it. It made her heart twist inside her chest. There—for all the world to see—was the look of love that had passed between them. It wrenched at her in ways she didn’t even want to admit to.
There was another of them midway down the stairs, her arm tucked into his elbow. The smile on his face as he looked at her. One of them dancing in the middle of the ballroom floor with eyes only for each other.
Philippe let out an exasperated sound. ‘There’s more?’
She’d only seen the first one that had made the newspaper front page. She hadn’t seen the rest. Then another flashed up of them on their first day in Corinez, sitting in the coffee shop together, laughing.
He shook his head. ‘I thought someone recognised us that day,’ he growled.
She’d felt it. She’d felt it every time she was in his company. But now she was seeing it through someone else’s eyes. The way they looked at each other, the way they interacted, the way they laughed together, and, instead of making her happy, it made her want to cry.
She couldn’t have this. She couldn’t live a life that inspected her every breath, her every thought. She couldn’t have a life that destroyed the privacy of her patients. She wasn’t cut out for this—no matter how much her heart was tearing in two.
Philippe’s hand appeared at her arm. ‘Let me do something about this. Let me release a statement. I won’t let them treat you like this. I won’t let them expose your patients like this. They have no right.’
She shook her head. ‘
But they think they have every right. Isn’t that what free speech is about?’
He gestured towards the TV. ‘I’ll speak to someone at the station. I’ll tell them they had no right to use those photographs or to discuss you—or to contact your patients.’
She kept packing her clothes. ‘You can’t control the world, Philippe. You can’t control what people think, and say.’ She looked to the TV where the woman in pink was talking incessantly. ‘I do a job that I love. I don’t want to be pushed out. But I have to protect my patients.’ She stepped right up to him. ‘I want privacy to live my life. But I demand privacy for my patients.’ She shook her head. ‘And there’s no chance of getting it here.’
She gave a wry laugh as another headline flashed up. ‘They even had me down as your bride. How ridiculous is that? We’ve only known each other a few weeks.’
He moved closer, his eyes serious. ‘Not that ridiculous.’
Her skin prickled. ‘What?’
Philippe sucked in a breath. This day was just snowballing out of control. First the leak, then Arissa’s reaction, followed by her revelation. She was an abandoned baby—just like the one he’d treated. The one he’d lost. Arissa could have been lost if someone hadn’t come across her. And the thought of that happening made his heart ache. He lowered his head and shook it.
He watched as she continued to throw things haphazardly into her case. Some clothes were missing the case completely. He hated that he’d caused any of this. He was furious that someone from the press had dared to track down one of her patients. She had every right to be angry, and that made him even sadder.
Because all of a sudden, he knew exactly how much Arissa Cotter meant to him. Love. The word he may have mentioned casually, but now he knew just how much he meant it.
After his experience a few years ago he’d thought he’d built an impenetrable wall around his heart. But it seemed he was wrong. Slowly but surely, this beautiful woman with the world of hurt in her eyes had found a way into his heart.
But look what he’d done to her.
He tried to keep his voice steady. ‘Where do you plan on going?’
Something flashed across her face. She was angry with him, but she was hurt too.
She shrugged. ‘I have no idea.’
He stepped forward and put one hand on the case. ‘Wait. At least until tomorrow. The first safe haven cot is getting installed then. Wait and see it through.’
