Alison Roberts - The Honourable Maverick

‘The bastard. Dammit, I wish we hadn’t let him go unscathed. If we’d had any idea…’

Ellie’s head shake was determined. ‘No. It would only have made things worse. He’d win in the end. Somehow. He always does.’

‘Not this time.’

Good heavens, he made it sound like a promise but, sadly, it wasn’t one that Ellie could afford to accept. Not for herself or the baby. Or for Max and his friends. They all had careers within the medical world. Damage could be done on all sorts of levels.

‘I’m going to get well away,’ she assured Max. ‘Out of the country. I’ll change my name and start again somewhere he’ll never find us.’

‘Uh-uh.’ The negative sound had a ring of finality.

‘What?’

‘You can’t let him win.’

‘I can’t fight. I tried. I even threatened him if he wouldn’t leave me alone and guess what? I lost my job. He managed to make me look totally incompetent in Theatre and laid an official complaint. Nobody would listen to my side and I got shifted sideways to work in a geriatric ward and even that wasn’t enough for him.’

Max said nothing but he was listening hard.

‘He was always there. Ready to make things better if I co-operated. There were apologies and promises and threats. Flowers and phone calls and endless text messages that all looked completely innocent on their own. He’d be waiting for me when I finished a shift sometimes and I’d never know whether he’d choose 6 a.m. or midnight. My flatmate, Sarah, got freaked out so I left town. I got a job in Wellington. Sarah left a few weeks later. Said she was still freaked because Marcus kept turning up, wanting to know where I was, and she couldn’t cope, not when she had Josh to think about.’

Max nodded. ‘I met Josh. Nice kid.’

‘Did you know he’s Sarah’s nephew, not her son?’

‘She did tell me. Her sister died in some kind of accident a couple of years ago?’

‘That’s right. Sarah was the only family member who could take him. He’s only nine so I didn’t blame her for being so worried. She blamed me, though, for the hassles Marcus caused. So much that she didn’t talk to me for months.’

‘Why didn’t you go to the police?’

‘Who would have listened to some nurse badmouthing a well-respected consultant surgeon? I’d already had a taste of his influence on people when I tried to defend my job in Theatre. I had a grudge. I had no evidence of anything other than romantic gestures and texts from a man most people considered charming.’

‘Did you know you were pregnant when you left?’

Ellie shook her head. ‘It didn’t even occur to me because I was taking a low-dose pill to control painful periods and it worked so well I often didn’t get them at all. It was months before I twigged and by then it was way too late to do anything about it…even if I…’ She trailed off with a sigh.

This was getting worse by the minute. He’d think she was weak in having gone out with Marcus in the first place. Stupid not to consider the possibility of pregnancy. Even more stupid not to go to the police and maybe he had a thing against terminations for any cause and she would have considered it very seriously, God help her, because…

‘Not the kind of man you would have picked to be the father of your baby?’ There was a wealth of understanding in Max’s voice and Ellie’s breath came out in a whoosh of relief.

‘No.’

‘Could be worse,’ Max said thoughtfully. ‘The guy’s not that bad looking.’

Ellie’s jaw sagged.

‘And he’s obviously got well above average intelligence.’

Was he trying to make a joke out of this? Unbelievable. Maybe her judgment of his character had been woefully misguided.

‘Bit on the short side,’ Max continued. His gaze rested on Ellie. ‘And you’re hardly a giant but…’ He nodded. ‘Maybe it’ll be a girl. Petite and pretty, just like her mum.’

He was smiling at her again. ‘Hey, if you’d gone to a sperm bank he would have looked pretty good on paper, wouldn’t he? I’ll bet his undesirable attributes are all due to nurture, not nature.’

The sharp flash of dismay—anger, even—that he could be belittling the nightmare she’d been living with for so many months gave way to something very different. Something rather wonderful. Something that made it OK that she loved this baby she was carrying. She didn’t have to feel ashamed. Or guilty. Or terrified of what the future might hold for her child.

He’d not only made her feel safe, this man. He’d given her…hope.

Ellie’s smile wobbled. ‘Thank you.’ ‘No worries.’ Max looked away. Was he embarrassed by the gratitude he might be seeing? ‘So, do you know if it’s a girl?’ ‘No.’

‘You weren’t tempted to ask the ultrasound technician?’

‘I haven’t had a scan.’

Too late, Ellie realised what she’d let slip as Max blinked at her. ‘Excuse me?’

‘I haven’t had a scan,’ she repeated. Did he not understand? ‘If I’d gone to an antenatal clinic my name would have been recorded. I knew Marcus was trying to find me and I couldn’t take that risk.’

‘But didn’t the hospital in Wellington get your details when you got a new job there?’

‘I didn’t get a job in a hospital. I went into the private sector. I had a job as a carer for a tetraplegic guy. I kept it up until very recently when the lifting got too much and then I finally managed to contact Sarah and she said she was going to the States and it seemed like the perfect solution so I sorted my passport and—’

‘Whoa!’ Max held up a hand. ‘Rewind. Are you saying you’ve had no antenatal care? Not even a scan?’

‘I’m twenty-eight,’ Ellie said defensively. ‘Young and healthy. I’ve had no problems. I’ve taken my own blood pressure at regular intervals and I even had the opportunity to test my own urine for protein and so on because the man I was caring for had dipsticks provided. I’ve taken all the recommended vitamin supplements and been careful with my diet. I had all the information I needed in my textbooks and I’m a nurse, for heaven’s sake. I can take care of myself. I would have got help if there’d been any indication it was needed. I’m not stupid.’

The way his eyebrows lifted suggested that Max was reserving judgement on that score. ‘How many weeks are you?’

‘Thirty-six weeks and two days.’

‘What position is the baby in?’

‘I…’ That was something Ellie had done her best to ascertain but would have to admit she hadn’t succeeded in finding out. A small bottom and a head were hard to distinguish by palpation.

‘You don’t know, do you?’

Ellie had to look away. She pressed her lips together and encouraged the small flare of resentment she could feel forming.

‘Where were you planning to give birth given your aversion to registering as a patient in a hospital?’

‘I can go to a hospital. Somewhere else. Under a different name.’

‘And if you happen to succeed in lying about your due date and actually get onto an international flight, how’s that going to work if you go into labour at thirty thousand feet? Hours away from the nearest airport?’

He was angry. With her.

And it was unbearable.

He’d made her feel safe and then he’d given her hope and now he was taking those precious moments back. Ellie had never felt this miserable in her entire life.

So utterly alone.

Max was appalled.

He’d protected Ellie and now that he knew what he’d been protecting her from, he could only be grateful that fate had put him in the right place at the right time.

And now she was going to endanger both herself and her unborn baby with this insane plan to throw herself into a lifetime of hiding and deceit.