Louisa George - Her Doctor's Christmas Proposal

‘It was more what she didn’t say that set alarm bells ringing. I asked her outright why you had suddenly gone so cold on our relationship, she said she couldn’t tell me but that I should ask you myself. Between her garbled answers and your sizzling kiss, I’m guessing that there’s a lot more to this than you’re letting on. Something important. Something so big that you’re both running scared. My brain’s working overtime and I’m baffled. So tell me the truth, Isabel. Tell me the truth, then I’ll go. I’ll leave. Out of your life.’

Which would be a blessing and a curse. She was so conflicted she didn’t know if she never wanted to set eyes on him again or … wake up every morning in his arms. But if he ever found out why they’d split up option two would never, ever happen. He’d make sure of it. ‘It doesn’t matter any more, Sean. It was such a long time ago.’

‘It matters to me. It clearly still matters to Isla, so I’m sure it matters to you.’ He leaned closer and her senses slammed into overdrive. Memories, dark, painful memories, rampaged through her brain. Her body felt as if it were reliving the whole tragedy again. Her heart rate jittered into a stupid over-compensatory tachycardia, and she squeezed the door handle.

It was all too much.

In her scrubs pocket her phone vibrated and chimed ‘Charge of The Light Brigade’. She grabbed it, grateful of the reprieve. The labour ward. ‘Look, seriously, I’ve got to run.’

‘Doing what you do best.’ He flicked his thumb up the corridor, his voice raised. ‘Go on, Izzy. Go ahead and run. But remember this—you walked away with no explanation, you just cut me adrift. Whatever happened back then wasn’t just about you. And while I’ve thought about it over the years it’s hardly kept me awake at night, until Isla hinted at some momentous mystery that she’s sworn not to talk about, and if it involves me then I deserve to know why.’

Isabel glanced at the phone display, then up the corridor, where she saw a few heads popping out from rooms, then darting back in again.

She looked back at Sean. She thought about the dads in the delivery suites, so proud, so emotional, so raw. How they wept when holding their newborns. She thought about Tony, who’d have fought tooth and nail for his son, even if it had riled every member of hospital staff. She thought about the babies born sleeping and the need for both parents to know so much, to be involved. They cared. They loved. They broke. They grieved. Both of them, not just the mums.

So damn right Sean deserved to know. She’d hidden this information for so long, and yet he had every right to know what had happened. And once he knew then surely he’d leave? If not because it was so desperately sad, but because she had kept this from him. He’d hate her.

But the relief would be final. She’d be free from the guilt of not telling him. Just never, never of the hurt.

She opened her mouth to say the words, but her courage failed. ‘Please, just forget it. Put it behind you. Forget I ever existed. Forget it all.’

‘Really? When I see you every day? Forget this?’ He stepped closer, pinning her against the doorway, and for a moment she thought—hoped—he was going to kiss her again. His mouth was so close, his scent overpowering her. And the old feelings, the want, the desire came tumbling back. They had never had problems with the attraction; it had been all-consuming, feral, intense even then. It was the truth that she’d struggled with. Laying bare how she felt, because she was a Delamere girl after all, and she wasn’t allowed to show her emotions. Ever. She had standards, expectations to fulfil. And dating Sean Anderson hadn’t been one of them. Certainly carrying his child never was.

His breath whispered over the nape of her neck. Hot. Hungry. Sending shivers of need spiralling down her back. He was so close. Too close. Not close enough. ‘What’s the matter, Izzy? Having trouble forgetting that I exist?’

And what was the use in wanting him now? One whiff of the truth and he’d be gone.

But, it was time to tell him anyway.

‘Okay. Okay.’ She shoved him back, gave herself some air. She made sure she had full eye contact with him, looked into those ocean-blue eyes. She was struggling with her own emotions, trying to keep her voice steady and level, but failing; she could hear it rise. ‘We had to finish, Sean. I didn’t know what to do. I was sixteen and frightened and I panicked. I had to cut you out of my life once and for all. A clean break for my own sanity if not for anything else.’ She took a deep breath. ‘I was pregnant.’

He staggered back a step. Two. ‘What?’

‘Yes, Sean. With your baby.’

‘WHAT?’ THIS WASN’T what he’d expected at all. Truthfully, he’d thought she’d been embarrassed about being seen with him. A lad from the wrong side of the Delamere social circle with two very ordinary and dull parents of no use to the Delamere clan. Or perhaps a bit of angsty teenage intrigue. Or possibly some pubertal mental health issues. But this …?

He was a … father?

Sean’s first instinct was to walk and keep on walking. But he fixed his feet to the floor, because he had to hear this. All of it. ‘Pregnant? My baby? So where is it? What happened?’ Two possibilities ran through his head: one, he had a child somewhere that he had never seen. And for that he could never forgive her.

Or two, she’d had an abortion without talking it through with him. His child. Neither option was palatable.

She followed him back in to the OR and looked up at him, her startling dark green eyes glittering with tears that she righteously blinked away. With her long blonde hair pulled back into a tight ponytail she looked younger than her thirty-three years. Not the sweet delicate creature she’d been at school, but she was so much more, somehow. More beautiful. More real. Just … more. That came with confidence, he supposed, a successful career, Daddy’s backing, everyone doing Miss Delamere’s bidding her whole life.

But her cheeks seemed to hollow out as she spoke. ‘I lost it. The baby.’

‘Oh, God. I’m sorry.’ He was an obstetrician, for God’s sake, he knew it happened. But to her? To him? His gut twisted into a tight knot; so not everything had gone Isabel’s way after all.

She gave a slight nod of her head. Sadness rolled off her. ‘I had a miscarriage at eighteen weeks—’

‘Eighteen weeks? You were pregnant for over four months and didn’t tell me? Why the hell not?’

So this was why she’d become so withdrawn over those last few weeks together, refusing intimacy, finding excuses, being unavailable. This was why she’d eventually cut him off with no explanation.

She started to pace around the room, Susan’s notes still tight in her fist. ‘I didn’t know I was pregnant, not for sure. Oh, of course I suspected I was, I just hadn’t done a test—I was too scared even to pee on a stick and see my life change irrevocably in front of my eyes. I was sixteen. I didn’t want to face reality. I … well, I suppose I’d hoped that the problem would go away. I thought, hoped, that my missing periods were just irregular cycles, or due to stress, exams, trying to live up to Daddy’s expectations. Being continually on show. Having to snatch moments with you. So I didn’t want to believe—couldn’t believe … a baby? I was too young to deal with that. We both were.’

He made sure to stand stock-still, his eyes following her round the room. ‘You didn’t think to mention it? We thought you’d be safe—God knows … the naivety. You were pregnant for eighteen weeks? I don’t understand … I thought we talked about everything.’ Clearly he’d been mistaken. Back then he’d thought she was the love of his life. He’d held a candle up to her for the next five years. No woman had come close to the rose-tinted memory he’d had of how things had been between them. Clearly he’d been wrong. Very wrong. ‘You should have talked to me. Maybe I could have helped. I could have … I don’t know … maybe I could have saved it.’ Even as he said the words he knew he couldn’t have done a thing. Eighteen weeks was far too young, too fragile, too underdeveloped, even now, all these years later and with all the new technology, eighteen weeks was still too little.