Love Islands…The Collection. Jane PorterЧитать онлайн книгу.
her pale face and refusing to acknowledge the sharp stab of tenderness, he wondered if she thought saying it often enough would make it true.
‘She’ll be fine, you know, Lily.’
She nodded but couldn’t meet his eyes. She was grateful that he was saying what she wanted to hear but she couldn’t let herself believe it.
‘So what do you think she’ll make of me?’
It took her a moment to translate the emotion behind his question. Maybe because insecurity and fear were not words she associated with big, take-charge, in-control Ben.
Her tender heart ached ‘She’s two—she loves everyone.’
Ben gave a tight smile; he knew that love had to be earned. ‘If I do it wrong, tell me.’
‘There’s no handbook, just wing it. It’s what I’ve been doing for two years.’ If genes had anything to do with it, Emmy would adore him—just like her mother.
AFTER A SELF-CONSCIOUS moment Lily disentangled her fingers from Ben’s. She had no recollection of grabbing them.
‘Could you drop me back at the hospital? I’m staying the night. Mum needs some sleep.’
It occurred to Ben that so did she, but, recognising that nothing he said would make her change her mind, he kept his opinion to himself.
‘I’m seeing this Dr...?’ Ben asked, when the limo drew up outside the glass-fronted hospital entrance.
‘Sheridan,’ she supplied. ‘He’s really nice.’
‘I don’t want nice,’ he scorned. ‘I want excellent.’
‘I think he’s both,’ she said, finally releasing herself from the seat belt.
‘Let’s hope so.’
‘The appointment is at nine. Apparently it shouldn’t take long. Shall we meet up on the ward about ten? I’ll introduce you to Emmy. You do know I’m grateful for this...’
He arched a sardonic brow. ‘But...?’
She shook her head. ‘No but, it’s just... I think it might be better if we don’t tell Emmy you’re her dad straight away...’ The words she had been silently rehearsing all the way emerged in a rush.
He looked at her with cynical ice-blue eyes. ‘Better for who?’ he asked bluntly.
Lily didn’t react to the sarcasm. ‘This is a confusing place for Emmy, everything that is happening, away from all her familiar things... Maybe it would be more appropriate later when she’s feeling better...?’
Unable to maintain eye contact any longer with his accusing icy stare, she tipped her head and, reaching for the door handle, mumbled, ‘Thanks,’ as she stepped out of the car.
The anger inside him simmered. He watched her walk up the shallow flight of steps. It was transparently obvious to him she was letting him know that the door was open, probably hoping he’d walk through it.
He nodded to the driver, who restarted the engine just as she paused in front of the big glass revolving doors. From where he sat he could see her square her slender shoulders before she took that first step. A tiny but revealing gesture revealing an inner fragility he’d have preferred not to see. Then she was gone, but the image of her gathering her courage stayed with him.
Lily was standing the other side of the door when Ben was buzzed in. His arrival had the effect of a mild electric shock on her exhausted body.
He had lost the formal suit and was wearing a black leather jacket that hung open to reveal a contour-clinging top tucked into the belted waistline of black jeans that emphasised the length of his legs and hinted at the muscularity of his powerful thighs.
The overall effect was darkly dangerous and sinfully sexy without lessening his natural air of authority. Without turning her head to look Lily knew that the young nurse who appeared from the office was having her own appraising moment.
‘You’re here.’ She bit her lip, stating the obvious. Their eyes clashed, but, other than the tension visible in the taut lines of his face, she struggled to read anything from his expression.
‘So far so good, apparently. They’re set to take the bone marrow this afternoon.’ He had anticipated it would be more complicated, but all they needed apparently was a sterile environment and a local anaesthetic.
The smile that lit up her face made him uneasy.
‘There is a long way to go,’ he cautioned and saw her smile wobble. He stifled the urge to say something that would bring it back—there was no point being unrealistic.
If he’d had any doubts about the gravity of this situation, his daughter’s doctor had dispelled them. The man had not made promises, but if he had Ben would have treated such reassurances with extreme scepticism.
The doctor in charge of his father’s case had promised that he would be home by the weekend. Jack Warrender had never seen the weekend, dying of undiagnosed meningitis with only his teenage son at his bedside. His wife had been out of the room taking the inevitable important call.
When she had returned the only emotion to cross her features had been discomfort. ‘You’re too old to cry, Ben. Be a man... Have you seen my gloves anywhere?’
Ben had always believed until that day that, even though his mother put her career ahead of everything else, she did care for them. That belief died along with his father.
‘Did he say anything?’ his mother had asked Ben at the funeral, as though the thought had just occurred to her. ‘Your father? Before he died?’
‘No,’ Ben had lied. Not to save her, but because he didn’t want to repeat the dying words his father had whispered...
‘Marriage is a prison sentence, boy. A prison sentence. Don’t do it.’
It remained the only advice his father had ever given him.
Lily closed her eyes briefly and let out a long sigh of relief. ‘Good.’ Sometimes words really weren’t adequate.
It wasn’t until she opened her eyes and followed the direction of his gaze that she realised she was literally wringing her hands.
She tucked them self-consciously behind her back while his attention switched to the young nurse who, with a pretty smile, explained the entire hand-washing and gowning-up routine to him.
‘And if there’s anything you need...’ she touched the identity badge pinned to the lapel of her dress, her smile loosing several hundred watts of brilliance, and her manner became visibly more professional as she turned her head to include Lily ‘... I’ll be in the office until one-thirty.’
Together they walked to Emmy’s room in taut silence, both locked in their own thoughts.
‘This is it.’ She paused outside her daughter’s room and turned to face him, tilting her head back. Crazily, even at a time like this, she felt the strong tug of attraction between them and was ashamed of her response to his raw maleness.
‘Are you ready?’
The question produced a hard look and a long pause.
‘You can change your mind if you want to.’ Lily struggled to keep her voice free from inflection as she went to close the half-open door—this had to be his choice.
Ben leaned across her, his hand covering hers. ‘I’m ready.’
Lily fought the weird compulsion to leave