AllFreeNovel
Share Us
‘And once the surgery is complete?’ Saskia asked.
‘We’ll remove the gas and replace it with warmed saline, remove the ports and suture the uterine openings. Then, once we’ve returned the uterus to the abdomen, we’ll close up.’
‘When will I be able to take her home?’ Malachi cut in, and the concern in his voice touched her.
‘We won’t know until we do the scan,’ her colleague advised.
‘But what are the possibilities?’ he pushed.
‘It could be anything from a couple of days to bed rest and a hospital stay for the remainder of the pregnancy—we just don’t know. But so long as the recovery is smooth you should be discharged within seventy-two hours—although we’ll want to do follow-up scans on a weekly basis.’
‘Right...’ Saskia managed weakly, and her colleague excused herself to confirm the soonest slot for surgery.
She could live with that. She could live with anything so long as it meant that her baby was going to be all right.
‘We will get through this.’ Malachi pulled her to him as they sat alone in the room. ‘Us and our baby.’
She leaned gratefully against his chest, letting the warmth of his body radiate strength into her and breathing in the woodsy scent that was essentially Malachi.
‘Thank you,’ she whispered.
‘For what?’
‘For being here. For...caring.’
His hands moved to her shoulders and he drew her away so he could look at her. ‘Did you expect anything less, zvyozdochka? It is my baby, too.’
‘I know,’ she acknowledged. ‘And I’m sorry if you thought I was trying to exclude you. I suppose I just wanted what...what my parents had, without allowing for the fact that we are different. Our circumstances are different.’
‘I can’t give you what you want,’ he murmured. ‘You want a dramatic, passionate marriage like your parents’, but...that isn’t who I am.’
‘I know,’ she began, but then the words stopped in her throat.
Did she know that? Really?
She’d thought she’d known. Only the longer she was with Malachi and the more she saw of his kindness, the more she was beginning to question her childhood. Or, at least, the version that was in her head. She talked about their great love affair as if that somehow explained their actions, and how it had ultimately impacted on her—the daughter they were meant to have loved.
Yet now—because of Malachi—she was forced to consider what love really looked like. Volatile, passionate, but ultimately destructive, as they had been? Or was Malachi’s quiet, strong steadfastness how love should really look?
But for his child, that baby that she was carrying, she reminded herself hastily. Not for her. She couldn’t afford to forget that distinction.
‘It will be who you are. One day. When you find the right person,’ she told him softly, swallowing hard and forcing an upbeat tone to try and keep the regret out of her voice. ‘Clearly that person isn’t me, but no matter what you will be welcome in your child’s life. I will never stop you being a part of that. We’ll work out a system that works for both for us, and for the baby.’
She’d thought it was the right thing to say. The balanced thing. But Malachi stiffened against her, placing his hands at her shoulders and pulling her from him.
‘Am I to thank you for your benevolence?’
His voice abraded her skin. She could feel his repressed anger through every hair follicle on her arms and neck. But she still didn’t know what she’d said wrong.
‘Even now, through all of this, you’re trying to square everything away. Tying me up like some kind of loose end.’
‘That’s not what I’m doing,’ she denied.
‘Oh, yes, zvyozdochka, that’s exactly what you’re doing,’ he seethed. ‘You’re frightened about handing over the fate of this baby to the surgeons—your colleagues—so you’re trying to control everything else instead.’
‘No...’ She shook her head, but she couldn’t deny that he had introduced an element of doubt.
Hadn’t Anouk always teased her for being a micro-manager? And Andy had been less forgiving, calling her a control freak¸ and a couple of other less palatable names.
