Carole Mortimer - To Be A Husband

He gave that slow, lazy smile that caused an instant fluttering sensation in her chest. ‘One of the advantages of being a part-owner of a company: I’m answerable only to myself concerning the amount of time I put in at the office.’

Which meant he could hang around here all day being a pest if he chose to do so!

‘Well, some of us aren’t that lucky,’ she told him bluntly as she stopped outside her ward. ‘Goodbye again, Mr Hun—’

‘It was Jonathan earlier,’ he reminded her gruffly as he put a lightly restraining hand on her arm, letting her know he had noticed that slip in her defences earlier. ‘Gaye, there are some things I want to talk to you about—’

‘What things?’ She had become suddenly still, her expression apprehension as she stared up at him with wide green eyes.

Jonathan looked down at her with concern. ‘Gaye—You’re right,’ he said as two junior midwives went past them in the corridor, giggling and talking softly together, obviously about the two of them. ‘This isn’t the place for this. I’ll pick you up here when you finish work, and we can go for a drink somewhere and talk—’

‘No! I mean—No.’ She forced herself to remain calm. ‘I—have things to do straight after work. I—Perhaps I could meet you later,’ she went on agitatedly, not really wanting to meet him at all, but conscious of those things he might want to talk to her about. Maybe this was the reason he had been so quiet the last two days; he had been patiently biding his time, knew he only had to say the right words to get her to agree to meet him, after all. Abbie Hunter was wrong; this man wasn’t nice at all! ‘There’s a pub just around the corner from my home. The Swan. I’ll meet you there at nine-thirty,’ she told him brusquely, moving away from his restraining hand as she turned to leave.

‘Gaye...?’ Jonathan called softly after her down the corridor.

She drew in a deep breath before turning reluctantly to face him. ‘Yes?’ she sighed.

He smiled again. ‘If I arrive first, what shall I order you to drink?’

She couldn’t respond to the gentle teasing in his voice, or that smile that had affected her so much seconds earlier; she was too tense, too worried to be able to relax. What things did he want to talk to her about? What did he know?

‘If you think you know so much about me, then I suggest you guess!’ she bit out tautly, this time leaving without hindrance.

But she couldn’t resist a glance back before going through the double doors of the ward, startled as she found Jonathan still standing exactly where she had left him, a perplexed expression on his face as he returned her gaze. Why should he be the one feeling perplexed? He wasn’t the one on the defensive!

‘Nine-thirty,’ he confirmed.

Gaye gave him one last frowning look before hurrying back to work. She had thought he was trouble the first time she’d looked at him—and he had done nothing since that time to disabuse her of her belief!

CHAPTER FOUR

WHAT things was Jonathan going to find to talk to Gaye about?

He had arrived at The Swan shortly before nine-thirty, had bought a whisky for himself, and a glass of white wine for Gaye—because she looked more like a white wine drinker than beer!—and now he was left sitting on tenterhooks at a corner table of the rapidly filling public house, desperately searching his brain for something important enough to talk to her about that warranted the two of them meeting like this!

Because there was absolutely nothing he could think of! He had come out with his statement initially in sheer desperation because he couldn’t think of any other way to stop her just walking away from him, ever conscious of the fact that Abbie and Conor were due to be discharged at any time; with that his reason to visit the clinic, and see Gaye, would be gone...

But now he was left with the problem of what to talk to Gaye about! She wasn’t going to be too happy with him if—

She had arrived!

He had been keeping a surreptitious eye on the door, while at the same time trying to look as if he wasn’t really waiting for anyone, despite the obviousness of the glass of white wine. Because a part of him hadn’t been sure Gaye would turn up... And he could imagine nothing worse than having to get up and leave, with everyone else in the room aware he had been stood up. Not that it had ever happened to him before, but with Gaye he had already learnt to expect the unexpected.

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