CAROL MARINELLI - The Midwife's One-Night Fling - The Midwife's One-Night Fling / Baby Miracle in the ER

‘I can’t imagine having a sister-in-law, let alone being that close to her.’

‘Don’t you have siblings?’ Freya asked.

‘No, there’s just me.’

‘And are you from London?’

‘Kent.’

‘Do you get back there much?’

‘Now and then,’ Richard said, and then he hesitated.

He rarely spoke about his family, but he felt no sense of her probing beyond what he was comfortable with, and actually he found it was nice to sit and chat.

‘I see my father sometimes, and my mother’s here in London. She’s just got engaged.’ He rolled his eyes, just as their meals were delivered. ‘Again.’

Then came the pepper grinder, and the parmesan cheese, and he thought certainly they would speak about the food now, or the film they were about to see—or even, as Richard usually would, get on with flirting. And yet he was still curious to hear more about her.

‘Do you miss your old job?’

‘Yes and no,’ Freya said. ‘I was often delivering the babies of people I’d been to school with, or their wives. And I know a lot of people around town. And while it’s nice knowing your patients...’

He nodded. ‘My father’s a GP. I know only too well the downside. He was never off duty—even going out for a meal like this he’d be interrupted. The only time I remember him getting away from work was if we went on holiday, and even then patients would call him for advice.’

‘I don’t mind that so much,’ Freya admitted.

Her dismissal of the intrusion aspect of things surprised him.

‘It’s more the fact of everyone knowing everyone else’s business,’ she explained. ‘And of course when a pregnancy goes wrong it’s much harder.’

‘It’s just part of the job,’ Richard said.

‘Yes, but it’s more difficult when you know the patient.’

‘Perhaps...’

To Freya, he didn’t sound as if he necessarily agreed. ‘There’s no perhaps about it.’

He opened his mouth to say something, but then changed his mind. It had been a very long day, and they were here to relax after all.

Still, there was something he really would like to know. ‘Was there a break-up involved?’ he asked.

‘Sorry?’

‘Is that the reason you left—is there an ex-Mr Freya back home...’

‘No!’ She laughed. ‘I’ve never been married, but I did break up with someone earlier in the year. It really didn’t have anything to do with my decision to leave, though.’

‘Are you sure?’ Richard frowned through disbelieving eyes.

She was very guarded and, although they were chatting easily, he sensed she was being prudent in her responses.

For once he wanted to dig for the truth from a woman.

‘Well, it might have had some influence on it,’ she admitted reluctantly. ‘There’s nothing much worse than going into a pub or a restaurant and knowing there’s a pretty good chance that your ex will be there. It was a bit messy, I guess.’

‘Who ended it?’

‘Me,’ Freya said. ‘We’d been together for ages and I just...’ She didn’t want to talk about Alison’s baby and the pregnancy that had gone wrong. But it had been that which had heralded the end for her and Malcolm. ‘I was going through a bit of a tough time and he didn’t help matters...’ She gave a thin smile. ‘And so, before even the very curl of his hair started to irk me, I ended it. I guess he wasn’t the love of my life.’

‘There’s no such thing,’ Richard declared. ‘Work is the only love of my life and I intend to remain faithful to that.’

‘How do you do it?’ Freya asked. ‘I know how wrung out I feel after an emergency, and yet you deal with them each day.’

‘It’s my oxygen,’ Richard said. ‘There’s nothing I’d rather be doing. Although,’ he admitted, ‘I don’t want to end up like my father. There has to be a balance. I go away a lot on my days off —try to get well away from the hospital.’ He gave a tight smile. ‘I have some choices that need to be made.’

‘Such as...?’

He gave a small shake of his head that told her not to go there. And when she didn’t push for more information Richard could have reached over and kissed her there and then.

He didn’t, of course, but the thought was there as their eyes locked.

Freya felt the heat spread over her cheeks as their eyes held, and yet she did not tear her gaze away.

God, he was good, Freya thought, for he turned her on without so much as a touch.

And despite her insistence that tonight was about nothing more than seeing a film, she was now heeding Stella’s warnings.

It had been lust at first sight, she knew.

And she would not be acting on it.

Freya wasn’t like that. One boyfriend at the end of school and throughout her nursing training. A gap of two years and then Malcolm.

A fling with a sexy anaesthetist was so not something Freya would do. And it would be a fling, for he’d warned her—was warning her right now—that everything she’d heard about him was true.

So she reached for her water and tried to think of something to say as she peeled her mind away from sex.

Because that was all it would be.

Sex.

Ah, but it would be sex with him .

‘So your mother’s engaged?’ Freya asked. ‘Again?’

He knew she was changing the subject.

Although they were speaking about his family, their minds had just been on sex. He wanted to feel her hair...he wanted to delve into those mixed message eyes.

She almost scalded him with a look, and behind the walls she’d put up there lurked desire.

And he liked her odd sullen moments, interspersed by the brightness of her smile.

But, no, this was not what she needed.

He might have a well-deserved reputation, but he wasn’t an utter bastard.

Freya was by her own admission a little lonely, a touch overwhelmed, and he would not be meddling with that pretty head.

So, back to her question. He had to think for a moment what it was. Ah, yes, the many loves of his mother’s life.

‘My mother is about to enter into her fourth marriage. My father isn’t quite so bad. He’s only been married and divorced twice. I doubt he’ll be taking that step again.’ He gave a tight smile. ‘Thank God! It really is hard coming up with a new speech each time.’

‘Her fourth !’

He nodded. ‘She left us when I was fifteen, and I’m now thirty-three, so it’s not quite as bad as it sounds.’ He saw her wide eyes. ‘Well, maybe it is. My mother is high-end drama and she just wasn’t cut out to be the wife of a country GP. She loathed it. And since she broke up with my father—’

He went quiet, for the first time since they had met. And then...

‘Freya?’ he said.

‘Yes?’

‘We’ve missed the film.’

‘Oh!’

She looked around the restaurant and noticed the other diners were thinning out, and then she glanced at her phone. It was coming up for eleven.

‘Do you want dessert or coffee?’ he offered.

‘No, no...’ She shook her head.

He walked her to the Underground station and there, she assumed, they would go their separate ways.

‘I’ll see you home,’ he said, when she told him where it was.

‘It’s only four stops,’ Freya protested—but not too much. She still wasn’t quite used to the Tube, and she did feel a bit nervous at night. It would be nice to have company.

Or rather it would be nice to have his company.

‘We’re here,’ Freya said as they arrived at her flat.

‘Well, I’m sorry you didn’t get to see your film.’

Freya wasn’t sorry.

‘It’s fine,’ she said, toying with whether or not to ask him in and deciding that it would be foolish at best. There was a kiss in the air—she could feel it—and as she looked up at him she wondered how that gorgeous unshaven jaw would feel pressed hard against hers.