The Surgeon's Convenient Fiancée (Medical Romance) (12 page)

His hand stroked down over her hip, then up to her breast, his palm moving gently over the soft, yielding flesh, the movement bringing such pleasure to her that she felt her knees go weak, and she leaned her weight against him.

Shay pulled back from her, supporting her weight against his body. The expression of intense desire and warmth in his expression told her all that she needed to know of what he was feeling, and she did not feel surprise when he said huskily, ‘I wish I could take you to bed.’ He smiled down at her, so that she felt as though she were melting into him, with no vestiges of will left. I love you, she wanted to say. Instead, she stared back at him mutely, a half-smile on her face, knowing that she must look as dazed as she felt.

‘That’s…rather difficult right now,’ she said. Having had the obvious stated, they both began to laugh, so that in a moment they were laughing helplessly.

Shay turned the large key that was in the lock of the heavy wood door to the room. ‘Am I to take that,’ he said, grinning down at her as he grasped her upper arms, ‘as wholehearted consent, Ms Warwick?’

‘I…well…’ she said. ‘I would rather not commit myself at this moment. What I mean is…it is not outside the realms of possibility…but, please, do not take that as actual consent…’ She began to laugh again, moved by the comic expression on his face as he took her hand and walked with her to the very large sofa that flanked one side of the fireplace.

‘I can see that you are very adept at prevarication, Ms Warwick,’ he said mockingly, as he sat down and pulled her down beside him.

‘Just being practical,’ she answered back. ‘And, please, don’t tease me by calling me Ms Warwick, because I shall have to retaliate by calling you sir, and that would completely destroy the mood, which I’m rather enjoying.’

‘Very well,’ he said, stroking her face, holding her cheek with his hand, moving his thumb sensually over her parted lips. Then very slowly he brought his face down to hers, while he held her still in his grasp, so that she felt herself trembling inside with anticipation, her lips parting to receive him.

Gently he moved his mouth on hers as she fell against him. Then she knew that she did not have to tell him how she felt. Her body was giving her away, with every responsive move that she made. Indeed, she was a person in a desert dying of thirst, in sight of that which could save her.

Abruptly she moved back from him, jumped to her feet and looked down at him. With her back to the fireplace, they looked at each other for a long moment while she tried to get her breathing to a normal rate and to find her voice.

‘I…think we’re getting a little ahead of ourselves, Shay,’ she said. Although she desperately wanted to be in his arms, she had the feeling that this was too soon. Besides, she felt she was somewhat out of her depth and did not know how to proceed.

‘Perhaps,’ he said. ‘Perhaps not. I want you. I prefer to be honest.’

‘Tell me that on a freezing, wet Monday morning when work is hectic, you’ve arrived late, been up most of the night working and you have a cold,’ she said, more agitated by his words than she wanted to admit. She wanted to take him with open arms, yet something held her back. Perhaps it was that he had told her he did not trust love. ‘We’ve had too much wine.’

He laughed. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘That gives me plenty of opportunity…the wet Monday thing.’

Deirdre smiled back, regaining some of the sense of fun that had been with them not long before, and went to unlock the door and open it. If Fleur and Mungo came down, she did not want them to find her behind a locked door. As she returned to the fireside, Shay stood up to meet her.

‘I will ask you, Deirdre,’ he said quietly, taking her hands. ‘I promise you that.’

‘I’ll deal with that when it arises,’ she said with dignity, so that he laughed again.

‘I shall look forward to the exchange,’ he
said. ‘Now, how about that second cup of coffee that I was going to make?’

‘Yes, please. Let me help you.’

He took her hand and led her through the house to the kitchen, where she and the children had helped earlier to prepare the dinner, which had indeed been of leftover turkey in a delicious white sauce, served with Basmati rice and an assortment of fresh vegetables. Deirdre refrained from commenting on things she saw in the house, apart from her initial remark that it was a lovely place when they had arrived.

‘You could get the cups out,’ he said, indicating a cupboard. ‘Tell me how things are going with custody of the children.’ The last remark he added casually as he filled an electric kettle with water. ‘You told me that their grandmother wanted to make you guardian in the event of her death.’

‘Yes,’ Deirdre said, placing two cups and saucers on the counter top. ‘Anyway, I’ve agreed…because I don’t see what else I can do.’ She fumbled in a drawer for teaspoons, not sure how much more she should tell him of her private affairs, wanting to blurt it all
out but wondering if he was just being polite in showing an interest. Her first instinct was that he genuinely wanted to know. Of course, she had already told him a lot.

There was a tension of awareness between them now, strong where it had been more tentative before. It was both physical and emotional. She sensed that when she looked at him her feelings would be there in her eyes.

‘Of course,’ she went on, ‘I may never need to take that on in actuality, because Fiona’s in good health, even though she’s in her mid-seventies, and Mungo’s almost fourteen and Fleur’s twelve…I expect I told you that before.’ Deirdre turned to face him, watching him spoon ground coffee into a glass coffee-maker.

‘Yes, but, please, go on,’ he said. ‘I want to know.’

‘Well, these days a child is adult at sixteen, can leave home—as you know,’ she went on. ‘If Mungo goes to university, that’s only four more years to go…six with Fleur. Of course, in terms of my own life, it’s a long time.’

Shay stopped what he was doing and turned to look at her. To her he looked
overwhelmingly attractive in the loose white shirt that he was wearing, unbuttoned at the neck, and black trousers that fitted his taut figure to perfection. Having been in his arms, she was having difficulty staying back from him. Of course, she didn’t have to. She had only to say the word… But there was little privacy for them.

‘Yes,’ he agreed. They looked at each other, attuned to the realization that she did not want to wait to have a life of her own. ‘I understand that the stepfather isn’t happy with that? You being the guardian?’

‘No,’ she said tensely, wishing he wouldn’t look at her so astutely. The colour was rising in her cheeks. ‘He isn’t. He’s fighting it. I…I feel so sad for the children because he doesn’t care about them. He pretends when he feels he has to, to keep up appearances or to impress someone. Not that the children want him to care, because they don’t like him, but you would hope that their mother’s husband would mean something.’ There was a catch in her voice.

‘Don’t get yourself upset, sweetheart,’ he said quietly. ‘None of that was of your
making, so don’t feel you have to take that on. It’s not like my situation, where I think I brought a lot of it on myself.’

That was the first time he had called her sweetheart, or used any sort of endearment, and for some reason it brought a lump to her throat. ‘Another thing,’ she said, unthinkingly, ‘Fiona’s lawyer said my chances were less because I wasn’t married, and Jerry could get married and strengthen his case that way. I know he has someone, but he pretends he hasn’t. When it’s to his advantage, she’ll come out into the open, I suspect.’

Flushed and far from calm, she became aware that she was talking too much. Shay stood and looked at her intently, consideringly, while the kettle emitted a shrill whistle, unheeded.

‘Jerry’s lawyer accused me of wanting custody of the children so that I could get some of their money,’ she went on hotly, clenching her fists. ‘That’s not true. Until very recently, I had no idea at all that they had been left so much money. It…it’s all so awful.’

‘I shouldn’t have brought it up, love,’ he said, coming over to her. As he stood looking
down at her, not doing anything, the tension built up so that she felt she would scream at him.

‘Are you…are you going to kiss me, or what?’ she said challengingly, ‘Because I can’t stand this tension. It seems to exude from you.’

Shay gave her a slow, sensual smile that made her heart do strange things. ‘At least half of it is coming from you,’ he said.

‘Shall I…um…? Shall I pour the…um…?’ She made a motion, indicating the boiling kettle.

‘No, I’ll do it when I’m ready,’ he said. ‘And, yes, I am going to kiss you, but first of all I want to ask you a question. Sorry it’s not a wet Monday, but I can’t wait. Will you be my lover…my mistress?’

Before she could utter a sound, he kissed her, a slow, sensual kiss that left her without resistance.

‘I’ll consider it,’ she said weakly.

‘Let me know before you leave here tonight,’ he said, holding her at arm’s length. The kitchen was gradually filling up with steam.

‘What if I don’t?’ she challenged.

‘I’ll turn into a toad and neither of us will have another chance.’

Deirdre stared back at him, her pupils widening. His words had sent a strange chill through her, because she had been thinking a lot just lately about never having another chance at so many things. In her short life she had discovered that very often opportunities did not wait.

‘Hey,’ he said softly, grasping her arms and giving her a little shake, tuning in instantly to her mood. ‘I can wait…’

‘But you don’t believe in love.’

‘I said I don’t trust it,’ he said, still holding her by the arms, still looking down at her. ‘Not that I don’t, necessarily, believe in it.’

‘You’re…you’re splitting hairs,’ she said.

‘Maybe.’

‘We’d better make the coffee,’ she said. ‘If the kids come in, they’ll think we’re having a steam bath.’

She deliberately pulled away from him, putting some distance between them, shattered by his request and the inherent contradiction that he wanted to know soon, yet he
could wait. Put subtly or baldly, it was the same. He wanted her. She wanted him. Yet she wanted him to love her, if only because she felt she was falling in love with him. Instinctively, she wanted to accept him on any terms—perhaps she was being juvenile to expect him to love her. ‘Better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.’ She could not remember who had said that, but it was part of her family lore of literature and poetry, deeply ingrained in her psyche.

At last Shay made the coffee, while she looked on restlessly. Happy in his company, she still wanted to commit herself in some way, but was not sure what to say.

‘Dad!’ Mark came silently into the kitchen. ‘Could we have some hot chocolate, please? The three of us? I could make it.’

‘I’ll make it,’ Shay offered, ‘and we’ll bring it up to you. How are the computer games going?’

‘Just great,’ Mark said enthusiastically.

Deirdre and Shay drank their coffee in the kitchen, while he made three mugs of hot chocolate and Deirdre got a tray ready.
‘Could I take it upstairs?’ she said. ‘I’d like to see what they’re doing.’

‘Sure,’ he said.

Mark had a sitting room-cum-study next to his bedroom, Shay informed her, where he did his schoolwork. He had a computer and his own television and audio equipment, so that he could have privacy if he wanted it.

‘Mark seems like a very nice boy,’ she had remarked to Shay when his son had gone upstairs again.

‘He is, most of the time,’ Shay had agreed. ‘He’s had a lot of material things, but a bit of a rough deal when it comes to parental attention. I’ve tried hard, but the reality of my job is that I have to be away from him a fair amount. Since Tony—Antonia—left, I’ve cut back on my work hours as much as possible but, as you know, when you’re a surgeon you have to be available for emergencies and post-op care, elective cases, and so on. It’s a labour-intensive job. There’s a fine balance between delegating and being responsible oneself.’

‘I understand,’ she had said. The mention of his wife left her with an unfamiliar feeling
of jealousy, an emotion that she despised and which she seldom felt. In spite of his denial, perhaps he still cared for Antonia, and would have her back instantly if she were to offer.

The prospect of it left her with a curious feeling of bleakness. Knowing him had shown her a glimpse of a life that had, up to the time of their meeting, not seemed a reality for her, a life in which she was attracted to an intelligent, kind, devastatingly attractive professional man who wanted her—sexually, if not in any other way. Just thinking about him when they were not together left her in a state of pleasurably agitated awe. Yet he was really the most down-to-earth man, easy to talk to, who actually listened with all his attention. That was a quality in itself that was very attractive, beyond measure. Very few people were good listeners, she had discovered. In order to be a good listener, you had to care about other people, not be focused on yourself all the time.

‘It’s a pity he’s an only child. Maybe if he had siblings he wouldn’t be so lonely, although I know that relationships between siblings are not all sweetness and light.’ He
turned to grin at her as he made the drinks with hot milk. ‘On the positive side, he has good friends…apart from those he got into trouble with. They’ve stuck with him through bad times.’

As Deirdre climbed the stairs, carefully carrying the tray holding three mugs of hot chocolate, her thoughts and emotions were churning as she thought over what Shay had said about wanting her. It appeared that she could become his lover immediately, if she wanted to. No doubt he would invite her to his apartment in the city, where they could be alone, when the children were otherwise supervised. The very thought of going there to meet him, or being taken there in his car, filled her with nervousness and longing. Was it the right thing for her? They had known each other for such a short time. And did wanting something so much make it right for you?

What she had learnt in life was that you could not go on second-guessing yourself. At some point you had to make a decision and, having made it, take the plunge. If it turned out to be wrong for you, you had to
acknowledge that and cut your losses, telling yourself that the decision had been right for you at the time you had made it, with the knowledge that you had had at your disposal.