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‘Shh,’ he said in as gentle a voice as he’d ever used and she shut her eyes tightly closed, as if she couldn’t bear to meet his gaze any longer. ‘The doctor says you’re going to have to take it easy.’
‘I know,’ she said as tears began to slide from beneath her lashes.
They kept her in overnight and she was discharged into his care the following day. She tried refusing his offer of a wheelchair, telling him that she was perfectly capable of walking to the car.
‘They said to take it easy,’ she told him tartly. ‘Not to spend the next six months behaving like an invalid.’
‘I’m not taking any chances,’ came his even response, but his tone was underpinned with steel. ‘And if you won’t get in the wheelchair, then I shall be forced to pick you up and carry you across the car park—which might cause something of a stir. Up to you, Ellie.’
She glowered but made no further protest as he wheeled her to the car, and she didn’t say anything else until they were back at the apartment, when he’d sat her down on one of the squashy sofas and made her the ginger tea she loved.
She glanced up as he walked in with the tray. Her expression was steady and very calm. She drew a deep breath. ‘So what are you intending to do about your brother?’
His throat constricted. She’d gone straight for the jugular, hadn’t she? ‘My brother?’ he repeated as if it were the first time he’d ever heard that word. As if he hadn’t spent the past twenty-four hours trying to purge his mind of its existence. ‘It’s you and the baby which are on my mind right now.’
‘You’re avoiding the subject,’ she pointed out. ‘Which is par for the course for you. But I’m not going to let this drop, Alek. I’m just not. Before I went into hospital, we discovered something pretty momentous about your—’
‘I don’t have a brother,’ he cut in harshly. ‘Understand?’
Frustratedly, she shook her head. ‘I understand that you’re pig-headed and stubborn! You might not like the journalist, or the message she left—but that doesn’t mean it isn’t true. Why would she lie?’
He clenched his hands into fists and another wave of powerlessness washed over him, only this he could do something about. ‘I’m not prepared to discuss it any further.’
She shrugged, a look of resignation turning her expression stony. ‘Have it your own way. And I’m sure you’ll understand that I’m no longer prepared to share my bed with you. I’m moving back into my own bedroom.’
Alek flinched. It hurt more than it should have done, even though it came as no big surprise. Yet something made him want to try to hang on to what they had—and briefly he wondered whether it was a fear of losing her, or just a fear of losing. ‘I know the doctor advised no sex, but I can live with that,’ he said. ‘But that doesn’t mean we can’t sleep together. I can be there for you in the night if you need anything.’
She stared at him as if he’d taken leave of his senses. ‘I can call you if I need anything, Alek.’
‘But—’
‘The charade is over Alek,’ she said. ‘I’m not sleeping with a stranger any more.’
He looked at her in disbelief. ‘How can we possibly be strangers, when you know more about me than anyone else?’
‘I only know because I wore you down until you told me—and it was like getting blood from a stone. And I understand why. I realise how painful it was for you to tell me, and that what happened to you is the reason you don’t do intimacy. I get all that. But I’ve also realised that I want intimacy. Actually, I crave it. And I can’t do sex for sex’s sake. I can’t do cuddling up together at night-time either. It’s too confusing. It blurs the boundaries. It will make me start thinking we’re getting closer, but of course we won’t be and we never will.’
‘Ellie—’
‘No,’ she said firmly. ‘It’s important that I say this, so hear me out. I don’t blame you for your attitude. I understand why you are the way you are. I think I can almost understand why you don’t want to stir up all the emotional stuff of reuniting with the brother you say you don’t have—I just can’t live with it. If I were one hundred per cent fit, I think I’d be able to get you to change your mind about wanting to stay with me until after the baby is born. Because I think we both recognise that’s no longer really important, and I hope you know me well enough to realise that I’ll give you as much contact with your child as you want.’ She gave a sad sort of smile, like someone waving goodbye to a ship they knew they would never see again. ‘Ideally, I’d like to go back to the New Forest and find myself a little cottage there and live a simple life and look after myself. But obviously I can’t do that, because the doctors won’t let me and because you’re based in London.’
