AllFreeNovel
Share Us
There was a ruthless gleam of determination in his eyes. ‘If they think you’re giving them what they want they back off just enough to give you room to manoeuvre. If you hide behind a ten-foot-high electric fence they’ll move heaven and earth to find what you’re hiding. It’s a balancing act, and I’m good at it—trust me!’ It was an order, not an invitation.
‘But I don’t need any lessons in handling the media,’ she told him, bewilderment in her eyes. ‘They’re not interested in junior doctors—unless we manage to kill off a patient.’ Her only claim to fame had been her association with Sam, and that was about to end.
‘They’ll be interested in my wife.’
Fortunately, she was already sitting down. For one brief, glorious second she thought he meant he loved her. Then reality stepped in and the explanation for his extraordinary statement presented itself. The anticlimax made her want to weep.
She might be pregnant, and after Ben he wasn’t taking any chances. Sam wasn’t going to lose his child a second time. She’d seen his paternal instincts at work, and she wasn’t about to underestimate them.
‘Oh, no!’ she groaned, closing her eyes. The cab came to a halt.
‘I’m impressed by how well you’re managing to restrain your delight.’ He paid off the cab driver and waited stiffly for her to get out of the vehicle. Lindy cast a swift sideways look at his face. Remote but determined just about covered it.
This was going to be a very painful process. She was about to refuse something she wanted more than anything in the world. She didn’t want to marry Sam for the sake of a baby, even if it did exist. If she couldn’t have his love, she didn’t want anything.
They walked in silence for a few minutes. A jogger, recognising Sam, produced a pen and asked him to sign her hand.
‘I’ll never wash again!’ she declared as she ran off.
The words made Lindy recall that she been strangely reluctant to step under the shower earlier that day. She hadn’t wanted to wash away the scent of Sam that had lingered on her skin.
‘The chances of my being pregnant are slim,’ Lindy said, pausing beneath a beech tree. He mustn’t see how badly I want to go along with this idea, she thought. ‘I know you think you’re super-fertile…’ The light laugh went completely wrong.
She caught a leaf and began rubbing off the greenery with her thumb to expose the delicate skeleton. Then, experiencing a pang of regret that she’d thoughtlessly destroyed something beautiful, she crumpled it in her hand and dropped it on the ground.
‘It’s happened to you before, though. You had a child?’
She looked up sharply. ‘You want to know about that?’ His expression was impossible to read.
‘It seemed you wanted to tell me earlier. You have chapter and verse on my developing years…’
‘That’s a bit of an exaggeration, Sam.’
‘What’s wrong, Rosalind? Don’t you trust me with your secrets?’
He had her there. ‘There’s not a lot to tell.’ She gave a shrug. ‘A fairly common, if sordid, tale.’ She couldn’t prevent the bitterness creeping into her voice. ‘I went to medical school at eighteen, and to say I was green would be understating the case. He was my personal tutor. You could say he took his task a little too literally.’
Now it was hard to see what had attracted her. He’d been a man of the world in her young eyes—sophisticated, worldly.
‘I found out he was married when I told him about the baby. He already had children.’ She swallowed to clear her throat. ‘He became…’ Her expression grew distant. ‘He was angry. He asked me if I could prove it was his.’
A spasm moved Sam’s lips and his hands clenched into fists. ‘The child?’
It was hard to meet his peculiarly intense gaze. She swallowed again and shook her head.
‘You had a termination?’
‘No!’ she denied fiercely. ‘That was what Paul told me to do. He even offered to pay,’ she told him bleakly. ‘No, I lost the baby early on. It all happened so quickly, Mum and Dad never even knew. Anna was in London—she was a dancer then. She looked after me and later Hope came.’ A shudder rippled through her body.
‘You thought I was like that bastard?’ The anger in his voice made her tense.
She knew it must seem the greatest insult imaginable to him. Knowing now what sort of man Sam was, she could well appreciate his outrage.
‘You have to understand, Sam, I haven’t been able to trust my judgement since then.’ Her voice trembled with the intensity of her feelings. ‘When you didn’t deny Magda’s lies, I felt as if the same thing was happening all over again. The things I said to you were all the things I’d wished over the years I had said to Paul. I didn’t say anything, you see, when he said all those vile things to me. I just stood there. I should have defended myself, but I was paralysed. I’d been so frightened when I found out about the baby, but I kept telling myself that Paul would make it all right.’
