must have caught her staring, because she chuckled. ‘Ah, yes, you’ve noticed Mr Willoughby. I don’t blame you. We all think he’s gorgeous! Just beware, though, you don’t fall for his charms.’
Leah blinked. ‘What? Oh, no, I wouldn’t. I—’
‘He’s gone out on dates with quite a few members of staff and he likes to play the field, if you know what I mean? Not that I want to talk badly about someone I work with—he’s a really nice guy, actually—but he’s quite the heartbreaker.’
Molly was talking to her in that all-girls-together-against-men way, so Leah played along.
‘I understand perfectly.’ She nodded as if she were a wise old woman. But for some strange reason it hurt to think that she was one in a long line of conquests. She’d hoped that because she’d indulged in once-in-a-lifetime behaviour maybe he had, too.
How many others had he slept with? He was a Lothario and she’d fallen for his charms and given him everything. It was the oldest trick in the book. Knowing that made her feel even more glum that her hot one-night stand was definitely not going to settle for a woman who was about to become a mother, no matter how hot the sex with her had been!
She resigned herself to seeing no more of that kind of action with him. They’d had one night and one night it would stay—never to be repeated. She was just a notch on his bedpost and she would not pine after him, despite how he had made her feel. She had a future ahead of her. It was never going to be with him. It was a good thing that she had thrown away his telephone number.
‘What else is there to see?’ Leah walked away from the trauma, wanting to move on from Ben. To stop staring at him as if she was hypnotised. In more ways than one.
She felt foolish for thinking that there’d been more to her one-night stand. That her night with Ben, even though a one-off, had somehow had more meaning to it than any one-night stand other people might have. That theirs had been different. That it hadn’t just been a tacky get-together so that both people could scratch an itch.
But apparently it had. Sleeping with a woman for one night was normal behaviour for him, it seemed, and she was just one more in a long line of women who’d probably thought for a brief moment that they were special.
It had felt good to feel special. She’d never really had that. Had never been wanted. So it had felt good to let herself believe that maybe she did have something that he wanted. She did have value.
But it had just been sex. All he’d wanted was release. It hadn’t been her in particular. Any woman would have done.
And he’d used her—the way he probably used all women.
Even if he had made the bed for her afterwards.
Leah felt a little sick, but it was a feeling she was used to. The realisation that she wasn’t special.
She never had been. Not in her entire life. She’d had to make her own happiness.
I should be used to it.
Which was why she had a surrogate. Leah had always wanted a family and, knowing she couldn’t get one the normal way, by having one herself, she had decided to take matters into her own hands and find her own happiness.
She could only ever rely on herself not to let her down.
Because anyone she had allowed to get close had always let her down.
The thought of having to rely on a surrogate had seemed an almost impossible task. How could she not suspect that the surrogate would change her mind? That she’d want to keep the baby for herself? She’d got her mind so twisted on all the things that could go wrong she’d even considered not doing it!
Until Sally had offered. Her best friend Sally. Who already had three children of her own. Whose family was already complete. Sally had loved her enough to offer to do this.
So, okay, maybe she had one person in her corner.
And when the baby was born Leah would have two. Sally and the baby. And the baby would be her own flesh and blood. From her egg. Used after months of injections and hormones to help her ovaries produce an egg that was in a healthy enough condition to use.
It had been important that the baby was her own. Because she’d never had a family. No mum or dad. No siblings. No friendly aunts or uncles or grandparents.
Leah had had the care system. And it had been horrible. And her yearning for a family had become so strong since she’d become an adult and started working in medicine.
Seeing what other people had.
Seeing what she could have if she were brave enough to try.
And now she would be a mother soon.
And she was going to let no one, most especially not Mr Ben Willoughby, ruin that for her.
Ben peered closer at the X-ray. There were clear fractures of the distal end of the ulna and radius. Thankfully they weren’t displaced. The motorcyclist had put his arms out to break his fall when he’d come off his bike. He’d need to get an orthopaedic consult to make sure what treatment was needed. Most probably an open reduction and internal fixation with plates and screws.
He was just about to pick up the phone to call Orthopaedics when Leah came to sit beside him.
‘Hi.’
He turned to look at her with a smile. It had been a pleasant surprise to learn that she was his new locum, and if he was honest about it he was quite pleased. He’d wanted to hear from her again and get to know her a bit more, and now that she was here for the next few months he’d get that chance.
Which is a first for me...
He gazed at her more intently, trying to work out why this woman intrigued him. Apart from the obvious gorgeousness that she didn’t seem to know she had. Perhaps it was that smiley persona? Perhaps it was the way she could blush so innocently and yet also be a siren in bed? That clash and juxtaposition of opposites was completely messing with his head.
Maybe it was her eyes? They twinkled and shone with a brightness he’d never noticed before in a woman. Maybe it was the way she couldn’t hide what she was feeling—everything was written there for him to see on her face.
And, looking at her now, he could sense she had something to tell him. She was biting her lower lip. Out of anxiety, clearly, but all it did was pull his focus to her mouth, her full lips, and he felt a physical yearning to reach out and brush his thumb over her lower lip, to free it, and then pull her face towards his and...
‘I need to talk to you.’
Oh. Conversations like this never end well.
And the reason he knew that was because it was usually him saying stuff like that. Trying to tell some woman he’d dated for one night to stop calling him. That he wasn’t interested. That she really ought to start looking elsewhere because he wouldn’t be going out with her again. He always tried to be nice about it, though. Polite. Kind.
Was she really going to do that to him?
