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‘I’m not the right man for you,’ he bit out, turning his back on her and moving towards the ballroom. ‘I will always be there for our baby, but I don’t want you in the other areas of my life. Go home, Saskia. You’re free at last.’
‘I don’t want to be free.’
‘And I don’t want you here.’
As he walked away, swallowed up by the crowd and carried out of her sight, Saskia slumped back against the wall and marvelled at just how badly she’d managed to mess things up.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
‘OKAY, SO ROSIE is a ten-year-old female with a BMI of nineteen. She presented with abdominal pain and a diagnosis of non-complicated gallstone was made. Elective laparoscopic cholecystectomy has been scheduled for today.’
Saskia listened as her colleague ran through the surgery planned for the young patient.
She wouldn’t go to the surgery, and knew this briefing was for the benefit of the surgical interns in the room, but she appreciated knowing what her patient was about to face. It gave her a greater depth of un
derstanding, especially when talking to her patients later about post-op care—although of course the surgeon would have run through everything with the family.
‘We’ll place her supine, in a reverse position, at a thirty-degree angle, making a ten-millimetre incision at the umbilicus and pneumoperitoneum positions...’
Besides, work had always been her saviour when times were rough. She could always trust her job to refocus her brain and show her what really mattered. But this time was different. This time—even though she would never let her patients down or become distracted when it mattered—she couldn’t shake Malachi, or the hold he seemed to have over her.
‘And inserting two percutaneous atraumatic graspers into the abdomen via small incisions on the right side and on the mid-clavicular line...’
Her mind wandered to Rosie’s parents. For the longest time she’d thought that Kevin, her father, was less concerned about his daughter, leaving her mother to ask the questions and try to understand what was going on with their daughter.
‘The cystic duct and artery will be clipped, and the gallbladder extracted through the umbilical porthole...’
Perhaps she should have known better. She’d been a doctor long enough. But when she’d seen him take the surgeon’s hand and heard him speak, low and sure, she’d realised that he didn’t need to say much. He showed who he was, how supportive he was, by his actions, and in the way he didn’t try to control the situation, letting his wife ask all the questions she needed whilst he absorbed everything, ready to talk through it with her when they were alone. A constant tower of support for both his wife and daughter.
Much like Malachi had been for her. And for their own baby.
Why had she thought she needed words and promises from him? Instead, he showed her who he was by every action and every deed.
When she’d needed him—when there had been complications with their baby—he had been there instantly. Always. Never leaving her side, and never letting her feel she was alone.
Because he loved her.
She’d been waiting and waiting, desperate to hear him say it, angry with herself, and him, when he hadn’t. Waiting for beautiful, poetic words of love—more grandiose than anything Andy had ever said to her—which would prove to her that what was between her and Malachi was real.
She’d thought that after Andy’s betrayal she’d need Malachi to go bigger and better than anything her ex-fiancé had ever done. Suddenly, she realised her mistake.
She was an idiot.
Because Malachi had done that.
She just hadn’t been paying attention.
He had told her he loved her through every little thing he’d done for her. And for their baby. He just didn’t know how to say the words.
But she could teach him, now that she understood him better.
Although she couldn’t just go to him and tell him. After all the other things she’d said he would never believe her. She needed to prove it to him—to make that gesture she’d yearned for from him. She owed him that much.
* * *
Malachi slammed his fist down on the heavy, burr walnut desk.
He couldn’t stand it any longer.
