analyze her reaction, she murmured, her voice deeper, huskier, “Ryan is with his nanny at our hotel. They both got too tired and Ryan was crying nonstop and disturbing everyone, I had to send them away.” Agitation spread across her features like a shadow. “I thought I’d bring them back as soon as I got an appointment with you. But the hotel’s near the airport, and at this time of day, even if I’d told Rose to come as soon as I knew you’d see me, it would have taken her too long to get here. I didn’t even tell her, because Mr. Elkaateb said you had only minutes to spare. That’s why I said an hour won’t do….”
He raised a hand, stopped her anxiety in its tracks. “I’m going home on my private jet, so the timing of my departure is up to me. Call your nanny and have her bring Ryan over.”
Her eyes widened. “Oh, God, thank you …”
A hand wave again stopped her. He hated the vulnerability and helplessness gratitude engendered in others, was loathe to be on its receiving end. Hers took his usual discomfort to new levels.
She nodded, accepting that he wanted none of it, dived into her purse for her phone.
In moments, with her eyes fixed on him, she said, “Rose.” She paused as the woman on the other side burst out talking. Realizing he must hear the woman, Gwen shot him an apologetic, even … shy glance. “Yes, I did. Get Ryan here ASAP.”
He barely stopped himself at a touch of her forearm. “Tell her to take her time. I’ll wait.”
The look she gave him then, the beauty of her tremulous smile, twisted another red-hot poker in his gut. He had to get away from her before he did something they’d both regret.
He turned away, headed back to the desk and blindly started gathering the files he’d scattered.
When she ended her phone call, without looking up he asked the question burning a hole in his chest, trying to sound nonchalant, “Isn’t your husband coming? Or is he back home?”
He needed to see her with her husband. He had to have that image of her with her man burned into his mind, to erase the one he had of her with him.
She didn’t answer him for what felt like an eternity. His perception sharpened and time warped with her near.
He forced himself to keep rearranging the desk, didn’t raise his eyes to read on her face the proof of her involvement with another. He should, to sever his own inexplicable and ongoing one. He couldn’t. It would be bad enough to hear it in her voice as she mentioned her husband, the father of her child.
When her answer finally came, it was subdued, almost inaudible. He almost missed it. Almost.
His heart kicked his ribs so hard that he felt both would be bruised. His eyes jerked up to her.
She’d said, “I don’t have a husband.”
He didn’t know when or how he’d crossed the distance back to her. He found himself standing before her again, the revelation reverberating in his head, in his whole being.
He heard himself rasp, “You’re divorced?”
She escaped his eyes, the slanting rays of sunset turning hers into bottomless aquamarines. “I was never married.”
He could only stare at her.
A long moment later, he voiced his bewilderment. “I thought you were engaged when I saw you at that conference.”
He thought, indeed. He’d thought of nothing else until he’d forced himself into self-inflicted amnesia.
Color rushed back into her cheeks, making his lips itch to taste that tide of peach. “I was. We … split up soon afterward …” She snatched a look back at him, her lips lifting with a faint twist of humor. “Sort of on the grounds of irreconcilable scientific differences.”
Suddenly he felt like putting his fist through the nearest wall.
B’haggej’ jaheem … in the name of hell! He’d walked away because he’d believed she would marry that Kyle Langstrom. And she hadn’t.
Frustration charred his blood as realizations swamped him, of what he’d wasted when he hadn’t pursued her, hadn’t at least followed up on her news. He would have found out she hadn’t married that … that person. But that didn’t necessarily mean that …
“He’s not the father of your child?”
She ended that suspicion with a simple, “No.”
Before delight overtook him, another realization quashed it.
She might not have married Langstrom, but she had a man in her life. He had to know. “Then who is your child’s father?”
She shrugged, unease thickening her voice. “Is this about Ryan’s condition? Do you think knowing his father is important for managing it or for his prognosis?”
He was tempted to say yes, to make it imperative for her to answer him. The temptation passed, and integrity, damn it to hell, took over. He exhaled his frustration with the code he could never break. “No, knowing the source of a congenital malformation has no bearing on the course of treatment or prognosis.”
“Then I don’t see how bringing up his father is relevant.”
She didn’t want to talk about this. She was right not to. He’d never dreamed of pursuing private information from anyone, let alone the parent of a prospective patient. But this was her, the one woman he had to know everything about.
He already knew everything that was relevant to him. From her work, he’d formed a thorough knowledge of her intellect and capabilities. Instinct provided the rest, about her nature and character and their compatibility to his. What remained was the status of any personal relationship she might have.
And yet, there was a legitimate reason for him to ask about the father. “It’s relevant because the father of your child should be here, especially if your child’s condition is as serious as you believe. As his father, he has equal right to decide his course of treatment, if there is any, and an equal stake in his future.”
Concession crept in her eyes. It was still a long moment later when she spoke, making him feel as if the words caused her internal damage on their way out. “Ryan … doesn’t have a father.”
And all he could ask himself now was when? When would that woman stop slamming him with shocks? When would she stop giving him fragments of answers that only raise more maddening questions?
“You mean he’s not a part of your lives? Is he gone? Dead?”
What? the shout rang inside his head. Just tell me.
Her eyes shot up to his. She must be as attuned to him as he was to her. He’d kept his tone even, his demeanor neutral. But she must have sensed the vehemence of his frustration.
She finally exhaled. “I had Ryan from a donor.”
This time he did stagger back a step.
There was no end to her surprises.
But
