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Keep reading for an excerpt from Reunited with Her Secret Prince by Susanne Hampton.
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Life and love in the world of modern medicine.
Escape to the world where life and love play out against a high-pressured medical backdrop.
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Reunited with Her Secret Prince
by Susanne Hampton
PROLOGUE
IT WAS THE twelfth of June, a perfect summer’s day in the northern hemisphere, and one that nurse Libby McDonald would never forget.
It was the day her life changed for ever. Perched precariously on the edge of her bed, she struggled to fill her lungs with air as her emotions threatened to overwhelm her. Her life was suddenly spinning out of control and Libby was powerless to change anything, which was completely at odds with her character. She was, without exception, calm even in the most stressful times but this was not Cardiology or the ER and she was not triaging patients; she was suddenly trying to triage her escalating fears. And failing miserably.
Her emerald green eyes darted from the test results to the floor and back again as her fingers nervously tapped on the side of her bed, making a sound barely audible above the beating of her heart. It was as though if she didn’t stare too long in the direction of the test strip, it wouldn’t be real. But it was real. There were no faint lines. There was no ambiguity about it. Libby was going to have the baby of the man who had exited her life as mysteriously as he had entered it.
The boldness of the two lines on the pregnancy test were almost screaming the result at her.
And reminding her of her poor judgement when she fell in love so quickly and realised in hindsight that while she had thought he was everything she was looking for and more, she had fallen in love with a man she really didn’t know at all.
Her life would most definitely be nothing close to the ‘white picket fence’ perfect one that she had imagined. The one where she was happily married to the man of her dreams, living in a rustic cottage by the ocean with a baby on the way. In reality, while Libby had a baby on the way, she was renting a condo in Oakland, about 20 minutes from San Francisco and not not too far from her retired parents. And she was still paying off her student loan while trying to save for a car to replace the ageing one in the driveway.
There was nothing perfect about her life in her mind, at least not any more. Less than two months earlier she had thought it was as perfect as any woman could dream possible when she’d unexpectedly found herself falling in love. He was a six-foot-two dark-haired, handsome and charismatic doctor and they had been working together at the hospital for almost a month when she had taken a leap of faith and changed their relationship status from colleagues to lovers by inviting him home late one night. While it had been out of character for Libby since they hadn’t been actually dating, it had felt right.
They had spent many hours working together in ER and they had been sharing lunch whenever possible and having lengthy discussions about their mutual love of medicine over late-night coffee when ER was quiet and they could steal away to the twenty-four-hour cafeteria. He had encouraged Libby to consider specialising in Cardiology when she’d told him how much she enjoyed rotations in that department and he had gone so far as to find out the next study intake for her.
She had tried to hide her growing feelings for him but at times that had been almost impossible. Observing him with patients, many seen under extreme duress, Libby’s admiration had grown by the day. He had been equally as kind and caring as he was thorough and responsive, and she had watched as his knowledge and experience had changed the outcomes for many critically ill patients. Her professional respect had blossomed into something so much more.
Libby could not help but notice that his demeanour had seemed a little sombre and distant at times, but his mood had always seemed to lift when he’d seen her and she’d felt like she was floating whenever he was around.
She had only dated two men before him, one just out of college for a year before they’d both realised they were better off as friends and then there had been another six-month relationship with a medical student that had been set up by their mothers. When it had ended it had broken their respective mothers’ hearts but not their own. And neither relationship had been overly passionate, closer to lukewarm, so she had decided to concentrate on her studies and her career.
But that fateful night when she had acted on her growing feelings, he had made her believe she was the only woman in the world. The way he’d held her and made love to her had made her naively trust that he was the man who would love her for ever. As she’d lain in the warmth of his tender embrace, with the dappled moonlight shining through the open drapes, listening to him gently sleeping, she’d hoped that since they had crossed over from colleagues to lovers, she would learn more about his life outside the hospital and over time something of his family, his past and his dreams for the future.
Libby had thought in her heart she had found the one.
But the opportunity to le
arn anything about him outside medicine had never come as the next morning she had awoken to find him gone. His side of her bed had been cold and empty and she’d soon learned the devastating truth that he had left town. He had given notice at the hospital that morning via email and disappeared. Very quickly she’d discovered he was not the one.
Almost eight weeks later she was facing the biggest challenge of her twenty-nine years and the fact that the one night they had shared had changed her life from nurse to single mother despite them taking precautions. There would be no better half to help her. No partner to share the joy and the pain.
Libby no longer cared to know anything about the man, his life or his past. What she did know was that she would have to face this alone and she also knew that she could never again allow her emotions to cloud her judgement. And never let her heart rule her head.
