gave a shrug. ‘I just knew that I wanted to get away.’
He looked at her through slightly narrowed, assessing eyes. ‘Why?’
‘Lots of reasons,’ Freya said. ‘I had a bit of a rough year. Well, not myself, exactly...’ She didn’t know why it was so hard simply to say it. ‘My best friend lost a baby last year... Andrew.’
‘Were you present at the birth?’ Richard asked.
‘Not at the actual birth, but I was there on admission,’ Freya said. ‘Alison ended up having a crash Caesarean. She came in a week before her due date, everything about the pregnancy had been fine, and then I went to check the foetal heart-rate...’ She paused a moment as she recalled it. ‘At first I thought I had picked up Alison’s...’
She didn’t, of course, need to explain to him that the mother’s heart-rate was usually a lot slower than the baby’s.
‘But then I knew the heart-rate was the baby’s...’
‘Not good.’
‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘My senior, Betty, was there, and a doctor was there within a minute, and everything was set in motion. We got her straight upstairs to Theatre. I didn’t go in. Betty knew I was too involved. He was born flat and was resuscitated but died two days later. Cord compression and meconium aspiration...’ Freya screwed her eyes closed for just a second but then opened them and gave an uncomfortable shrug. ‘Anyway, it was a difficult time.’
‘Did she blame you?’
‘Oh, no—nothing like that. It was more...’ Freya didn’t know how to describe how she’d felt when she didn’t really know herself.
‘You blamed yourself?’
‘A bit,’ Freya said. ‘Well, I questioned myself. It made me realise that being so involved with my patients isn’t always ideal.’
‘So you came to nice, anonymous London?’
‘It wasn’t just because of that,’ Freya said, ‘but it is nice to be not so involved with the patients.’
‘I’m sorry—you don’t get to do a job like yours and not get involved.’
‘It’s not that easy...’
‘I never said anything about easy.’
That annoyed her. Richard was too brusque, too direct, and he had hit a nerve.
‘You don’t know me.’
‘I’m trying to.’
It was a rare admission for him, because while he might be talking about getting involved professionally, he certainly did his best not to on the personal front.
‘You cannot do this job, Freya, and not care. Or rather, you cannot do this job in the way you want to do it and not care.’
He signalled for the bill and then remembered that they still hadn’t had The Talk.
It didn’t seem so important now. Freya was off to Scotland tomorrow and he to Moscow. And she certainly wasn’t jumping up and down demanding to know when they would see each other again as they headed to the Underground.
‘You really don’t have to see me home,’ Freya said.
‘I’m not,’ Richard said. ‘I believe in equality—it’s your turn to see me to my door.’
UH-OH!
Freya woke to a very un-lumpy mattress—in fact, she felt as if she was wrapped in cotton wool. And then she heard Richard speaking into the phone.
Her one and only one-night stand was over.
And, instead of regretting it, she smiled as she lay there, recalling last night.
They had arrived back at his gorgeous apartment and he’d poured them a drink and headed off for a shower.
She’d ended up in there with him.
And then they’d taken their drinks to bed.
Oh, it had been bliss.
She lay there listening to his lovely deep voice.
‘No, I’m away until Tuesday, so I can’t,’ he said. ‘How is Mrs Eames?’
As soon as the call ended, his phone went again.
‘No,’ he said, very brusquely. ‘You cannot come and stay.’
Freya wondered if it was an ex, trying to get her toes back past the bedroom door, but she blinked when he spoke again.
‘Mother, I have a friend staying at the flat while I’m away.’ Pause. ‘I do. Currently she’s living in a terrible rental and I’ve loaned her the place for a few days. So, no, you can’t come and stay. If you need a break from your fiancé then I suggest that perhaps you actually speak to him about that fact, rather than go away.’
Another pause and Freya rolled over and looked at him, not even politely attempting to pretend she was asleep.
‘What do you mean, you don’t believe me?’ he said. ‘Freya, would you tell my mother that my place is yours for a few days?’
Gosh, what a way to meet the parents, Freya thought as he handed her his phone.
‘Hello, Mrs...’ Freya didn’t know what to call her, given she had divorced Mr Lewis three husbands ago.
‘Amanda,’ the woman said for her. ‘So you’re staying at Richard’s?’
‘Just for a wee while,’ Freya said. ‘While my landlord’s sorting...’
‘Pardon?’ his mother said.
Richard took back the phone.
‘So you see there is no spare room at the inn. I’ll talk to you when I’m back from Moscow.’
He ended the call and his phone rang yet again.
‘Work,’ he muttered, and Freya didn’t blame him a bit when he turned it off.
‘Thanks for that!’ Freya said with an edge, more than a little annoyed to have been put in that position and at his jab about her home.
‘I never said you were my lover,’ he pointed out, ‘just that my apartment wasn’t free. Anyway, she can afford a hotel.’
‘Fair enough.’ Freya said, but she was still sulking a little.
‘I am so tired of her dramas.’
Freya
