Carole Mortimer - Fated Attraction

‘Then your wife——’

‘I’m not married,’ he bit out curtly.

Jane couldn’t help but wonder why that was. Unless, as she had presumed earlier, he had been married and divorced. It was the most likely explanation. For a man who supposedly lived alone he had been in a hurry to get there earlier.

Something about this man raised her curiosity, possibly because she sensed there was no artifice in him—not even the one of politeness! Jordan would find him brash in the extreme, but then Jordan could be brash himself on occasion.

‘Nevertheless,’ she said firmly, ‘the X-rays will take some time, and I really mustn’t keep you any longer.’

‘You——’

‘Don’t bother to dress, Miss Smith.’ The nurse came back into the room, straightening up Jane’s discarded clothes. ‘We need you undressed for the X-ray, anyway.’

Jane had had no intention of even attempting to put her clothes back on in front of Raff Quinlan, even if she hadn’t been hurting so badly that the nausea was never far away.

Perhaps the hospital just wasn’t busy, or maybe it was the time of night, but the X-rays were completed and a diagnosis given within a matter of minutes; there were no bones broken, only the severe bruising. But even that was enough to make Jane shudder at the thought of putting her clothes on again.

Some of her distress must have shown on the paleness of her face.

‘Of course, I think we should offer you a bed for the night,’ the young doctor smiled encouragingly. ‘If only as a precaution.’

For ‘offer her a bed’ Jane knew he meant admit her to the hospital, and she had no desire to spend the night in a hospital ward. But she was sure the doctor was as aware as she was that the address she had given them was that of a hotel, a hotel she had actually booked out of earlier today.

‘Is that really necessary?’ Far from leaving, Raff had gone with her to the X-ray department, and then stayed right by her side while the doctor gave her his verdict on her injuries. Now he spoke with a quiet authority. ‘As long as Miss Smith has someone to take care of her, couldn’t she be allowed to leave?’

The doctor looked slightly irritated by this interruption, obviously still not quite convinced of the other man’s innocence in the affair, although he was holding a tight check on any more even veiled accusations of that nature. ‘I suppose so,’ he accepted slowly. ‘But as she——’

‘Miss Smith has somewhere to go,’ Raff told him arrogantly.

Even Jane looked at him in some surprise. If that ‘somewhere’ was his home, then he could forget it; she may be weak but she wasn’t helpless.

But if seeming to agree to that suggestion would get her out of here without too much fuss she could always make other arrangements once they were outside. After all, she didn’t have to go anywhere, do anything she didn’t want to do. After years of being ordered around she was finally free to make her own choices. Even if the majority of them this last week had been a disaster!

‘Miss Smith? Miss Smith?’ The doctor repeated his query more firmly at her wandering attention.

She looked up to find them all looking at her—the nurse kindly, the doctor enquiringly, Raff Quinlan challengingly. It was the latter that now held her attention.

‘Is Mr Quinlan’s suggestion agreeable to you?’ the doctor persisted.

The poor man was still half convinced she had taken a beating from Raff Quinlan!

And Raff was still fully aware of the unspoken accusation.

‘Yes, it’s agreeable to me,’ Jane finally answered, much to Raff’s unspoken but felt relief, and the doctor’s chagrin.

But he seemed to be resigned to her decision as he stood up to leave. ‘If you have any further trouble, don’t hesitate to either come back here or see your own doctor,’ he advised.

‘By ‘‘further trouble’’, I suppose he meant any more beatings from me,’ Raff muttered grimly in the darkness, Jane now seated next to him in the Jaguar, their departure from the hospital made without further incident after the nurse had carefully helped her to dress.

In truth Jane felt slightly lethargic now, the doctor having prescribed pain-killers to at least help ease some of her discomfort. The last thing she felt like doing now was sorting out a hotel for the night. But it had to be done. Raff Quinlan’s ruffled feelings over the doctor’s implications was the least of her worries for the moment.

She looked about her in the darkness, realising they were fast leaving town—Raff’s home, wherever it was, seeming to be far from the hotels of London.

‘If you pull over at the next corner, I can get a taxi back to a hotel,’ she told him sleepily, those tablets, whatever they were, making her feel very tired.

He didn’t even glance at her. ‘I said you had somewhere to go,’ he said tersely. ‘And you do. You also have someone to ‘‘take care of you’’.’

‘You?’ Jane scorned, her lids becoming so heavy now she could barely keep them open.

‘If necessary,’ he nodded abruptly.

‘It isn’t,’ she said drily.

He gave her a scathing glance. ‘Forgive me if I disagree with you.’

Her mouth tightened at the insult. ‘No.’

‘My dear young lady …’

‘I’m not your dear anything,’ Jane snapped. ‘And I have no wish to go to your home.’

His mouth twisted. ‘You talk as if you usually expect your wishes to be carried out without question.’

Perhaps she did, but she had a feeling, from the little she had learnt of this man this evening, that he rarely considered anyone else’s wishes but his own!

‘I want you to stop the car immediately so that I don’t have too far to walk before I can get a taxi back into town,’ she told him firmly, although she was aware that her voice sounded less than convincing, and that she was feeling sleepier and sleepier by the moment.

Raff Quinlan laughed softly. ‘You don’t look capable of standing on your feet, let alone walking anywhere.’

‘I am—capable, of doing—whatever I have to—do …’

It was the last thing she remembered saying, sleep finally overcoming her as she slumped down in the car seat.

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