but, as time went on, God help me, I sometimes…’ He took a breath. ‘Sometimes I hoped it was you because at least then the waiting would be over. All I needed…all I wanted^was to know you really were safe, and yet you denied me even that, Brianna.’
‘I would have called you, I would have talked to you,’ she said, her voice trembling, ‘but I knew talking to you wouldn’t help, that you wouldn’t listen.’
‘How can you say that?’ he demanded angrily. ‘Of course I would have talked, of course I would have listened!’
‘You didn’t before when I needed you to,’ she said before she could stop herself. ‘All you ever did was cut me off, change the subject, or you’d ask me…’ She swallowed convulsively, hearing the tears in her voice, and she didn’t want to cry…she so didn’t want to cry. ‘You kept asking me what was wrong, and I thought I’d go mad if you asked me that one more time because it was so obvious to me that everything was always going to be wrong, that it was never going to be right.’
‘You’re not making any sense—’
‘Because you’re not listening, just like you always don’t,’ she flared. ‘Whenever I try to talk to you, you never ever listen.’
‘Well, I want to talk now,’ he countered. ‘To talk properly with no lies, deception or half-truths, only honesty.’
She knew he was right, but talking honestly meant resurrecting everything that had happened, meant having to face it again. She hadn’t forgotten, she never would, but over the past two years she’d managed to come to a kind of acceptance, and to talk about it now…She didn’t think her heart could take that, and she shook her head.
‘Connor, this isn’t the time, or the place.’
‘Then when, Brianna?’ he exclaimed, and there was such a lacerating fury in his blue eyes that she winced. ‘When will be the time, or the place?’
She wanted to say, Never—nowhere. She wanted even more to say she wished he had never come, had never found her, but she didn’t have the courage.
‘I don’t know,’ she said wretchedly. ‘I don’t—’
She bit off the rest of what she had been about to say. The door of the nurses’ staffroom had opened, and Megan’s head had appeared hesitantly round it.
‘I’m really sorry,’ the paediatric specialist registrar began, glancing from Brianna to Connor, then back again, ‘but I’m afraid Brianna is needed in the unit.’
Brianna was hurrying towards Megan before she had even finished speaking, but when she reached the door she heard Connor clear his throat.
‘We have to talk, Brianna, and talk soon,’ he said.
She thought she nodded, but she couldn’t be sure. All she knew was she had to get away from him, and she was halfway down the corridor before Megan caught up with her.
‘Brianna—’
‘Is it Amy Renwick? Is she back from Recovery, and there’s a problem, or—?’
‘Actually, I’m afraid I lied, and you’re not needed in the unit at all,’ Megan interrupted, looking shamefaced. ‘It’s just…I was passing the nurses’ staffroom and I heard the auditor yelling at you. I wasn’t eavesdropping, honestly I wasn’t,’ she continued as Brianna stared at her in alarm. ‘It’s just the walls in this place are so thin, and you sounded…Well, you sounded really upset, and in need of rescue.’
‘I did—I was,’ Brianna said with a small smile.
‘I think you should make a formal complaint,’ Megan declared angrily. ‘It’s one thing to inspect a unit, to ask the staff questions about how it’s run, but harassing someone…’ She shook her head. ‘That’s completely out of order.’
‘Megan, I don’t want to make a complaint,’ Brianna replied. ‘My interview is over, done with, so let’s just leave it, OK?’
‘Not on your life,’ the paediatric registrar insisted. ‘If this Connor whatever his name is—’
‘Monahan. His name’s Connor Monahan.’
‘Thinks he can ride roughshod over the nursing staff, upset them, then he can think again. I can understand why you might be reluctant to make a complaint, but I’m not. I’m more than willing to march up to Admin right now, and tell them they’d better warn him to back off or they’ll have the nurses’ union on their doorstep.’
Megan would do it, too, Brianna thought, seeing the fury in her friend’s face, and it was the last thing she wanted. It was hard enough for her to deal with Connor’s reappearance in her life without having the staff in Admin gossiping about it after they’d been told all the facts, and she would have to tell them all the facts.
‘Megan, it’s got nothing to do with the nursing staff, or the unit,’ she said unhappily. ‘It’s me. It’s to do with me. You see, Connor Monahan and I…We know one another.’
Her friend gazed at her blankly for a second, then a look of horrified realisation appeared on her face.
‘Oh, lord, he’s not an ex-boyfriend of yours, is he?’ she exclaimed. ‘Oh, Brianna, I’m so sorry, what a nightmare for you.’
‘A nightmare, for sure.’ Brianna nodded. ‘But you see…’ She took a deep breath. ‘The trouble is, Connor isn’t an ex-boyfriend. He…he’s my husband.’
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