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He nodded. ‘So I’ve decided to leave the hospital. Run Shaw Industries full time.’
She could almost hear the silence. Almost feel the seconds, painfully ticking by. She mustn’t do all the things she wanted to do—rage at him, cry and beg him not to do this. Greg wouldn’t listen. He was driven by the practical. She had to be calm. ‘This… Are you sure, Greg?’
‘Sure’s a luxury that even I can’t afford.’
There was some hope, then. ‘Perhaps you should think about it a little more. Not do anything hasty.’
‘I have to make a choice. You yourself said that I can’t go on like this. I’m not doing either of my jobs to the best of my ability.’
‘But you love medicine. This is what you studied for. Everything you’ve worked for. You can’t just give it up.’
‘There are other doctors.’
‘Not as good as you.’
He curled his arm around her shoulders. ‘Thanks for the vote of confidence. But there are other doctors, and the hospital will fill the vacancy easily. I’m the only one who can keep Shaw Industries going.’
‘They’ve managed without you all these years.’ Jess hated that damned company. Wished it would crumble into dust.
‘That was when my father was alive. Jess, he’s left me this responsibility. I can’t not shoulder it.’
Why not? There wasn’t any point in asking him. It was his father’s first and last gesture of confidence in Greg, and he could pass that up about as easily as he could wave a magic wand and cure all ills. He might be good, but he wasn’t that good.
‘I know it’s not what you expected, Jess. But this is the way forward. I can provide for you and the child.’
‘Don’t use me as an excuse for doing this. If you needed to provide for us, you could do it on a doctor’s salary. And you don’t. I can provide for myself and the baby. We’ve been through all this already.’ She glared at him.
A muscle at the side of his face twitched. ‘I’m not. But it’s a fact, Jess. Like it or not, I’m in a position to be able to provide for my family.’
And try stopping him. Greg’s mind was obviously made up on this point, and arguing about it with him would get her nowhere.
‘The baby needs your time, too.’
‘And this doesn’t facilitate that? I’ve just cut my work commitments in half.’
But it was the wrong half. Couldn’t he see that?
‘The baby needs you.’ She couldn’t explain it. She’d clung on to the hope that Greg could be a better father than his own had been. Wondered if maybe, over time, he could show her how being in a family with him might work. Now she was beginning to doubt it.
He sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose as if he had a headache. ‘Jess, you’re making this complicated. I’m not telling you where you ought to work or what you should do. Shaw Industries isn’t just a faceless, evil conglomerate, you know.’
‘I dare say it isn’t.’ Jess frowned. That was how it appeared to her, and she was going to need a fair bit of convincing to think any other way.
‘Do you know what we do?’
‘Engineering?’ Something like that. Jess hadn’t taken a great deal of notice.
‘Yeah, design and engineering. It started out when my father invented a drill head—which doesn’t sound very exciting, but it was ground-breaking in a number of different areas. The basic design has applications of all sorts, it’s even used downstairs in the operating theatre here.’ He looked at her steadily. ‘It might not be as much of a medical breakthrough as Lister made, but every little helps.’
He had an answer for everything. Everything apart from what would happen to his soul if he was separated from the job he loved, the one he’d chosen, and started to trudge in the treacly footsteps of his father.
‘Is this really what you want to do, Greg?’
‘It’s what I have to do. At some point you have to choose whether what you want is more important than where you can do the most good. It’s not about being happy, it’s about doing the right thing.’
It sounded like a life sentence. A life behind bars, for something he hadn’t done. Jess could think of nothing more to say to him. She was going to have to wave him goodbye and think about baking a cake with a file in it. Trouble was, Greg didn’t seem to want to escape.
‘This’ll be okay, Jess. We can make this work. Let me show you.’
