‘And I interrupted you.’ Ellie’s tone was full of remorse but Max smiled.
‘But don’t you see? We got the chance to play the heavies with one of them. Egotistical rule followers. The kind we didn’t know how to deal with way back then. Take my word for it, it was a bonus.’
Max’s smile was doing something very odd to Ellie.
This was the first time she had seen both sides of his mouth curl evenly. There was warmth there, unsullied by anything sad or grim. A warmth she could feel curling inside her, melting that hard knot of tension that was starting to make her back ache intolerably.
The adrenaline overload of the last thirty minutes or so was draining away to leave her utterly exhausted but that was OK because there was energy to be found in that smile, too. It really was quite extraordinary. It was just a shame she was too tired to smile back.
‘So, that’s my story.’ Max raised an eyebrow as his face settled back into rather more intent lines. ‘What’s yours, Ellie Peters?’
He knew her full name was Eleanor now but he was still calling her Ellie. She liked that. Did she want to tell him her story?
Oh…yes.
Would he think less of her when he heard it?
Quite likely.
Ellie didn’t want Max to think less of her so she didn’t say anything.
Max waited patiently as the seconds ticked past but he didn’t take his gaze off her face. Ellie shifted uncomfortably, the ache in her back getting worse. Her stomach felt odd, too. As if it was trying to decide whether there was enough in it to be worth ejecting. Fortunately, there probably wasn’t. She couldn’t actually remember the last time she’d had something to eat. Last night?
‘Was he right?’ Max asked evenly. ‘Is the baby his?’
Ellie recognised the new sensation as disappointment. She had no choice other than to let Max think less of her. She owed him honesty, if nothing else.
‘Yes.’
A whisper. A tiny word but, man, it hurt. If only it didn’t have to be the truth. Ellie’s eyes prickled with unshed tears but Max didn’t seem to react at all.
‘How did you meet him?’
‘I…I was his theatre nurse. In Auckland. He didn’t even know my name for the longest time but then he suddenly noticed me and he started being nicer to me in Theatre. Nicer to everybody, actually.’
An eyebrow as dark as those enviable eyelashes quirked. ‘He wasn’t usually nice, then? No, don’t tell me, let me guess.’ The padded elbows of the leather jacket were resting on the table and Max steepled his fingers as he spoke. ‘Bit of a temper?’ His thumbs and forefingers touched each other. ‘Instruments getting hurled around when he wasn’t happy?’ Ellie watched his middle and ring fingers make contact. ‘People getting verbally beaten up on occasion?’
Ellie’s gaze flicked up from watching his fingers. ‘How do you know?’
The steeple was gone, fingers curling into fists. ‘I know the type. Go on, what happened after this miraculous personality transplant?’
‘He…um…asked me out.’
‘And you fell into his arms?’ The words were just a little too bland and Ellie cringed.
‘No,’ she said hurriedly. ‘I wasn’t interested but…’ She sighed. ‘Marcus was very persistent and…and he can be quite charming, believe it or not.’
‘Oh, I believe it,’ Max said grimly. ‘Control freaks are notoriously capable of charming the birds out of the trees if that’s what it takes to get what they want.’
Ellie took a deep breath. She wanted to get this confession over and done with. ‘I went out with him,’ she said in a rush. ‘But only twice.’
Max leaned back in his chair. The look on his face said it all and why should she be surprised? Two dates and she got knocked up? But then he frowned.
‘He’s not a man who likes to take no for an answer, is he?’
Ellie bit her lip. She really didn’t want to talk about this. To anyone. She didn’t even want to have to think about it again.
Maybe something of the shame, and fear, of that night was in her face. Max certainly saw enough to make him curse. Softly but, oh, so vehemently.
‘The bastard. Dammit, I wish we hadn’t let him go unscathed. If we’d had any idea…’
Ellie’s head shake was determined. ‘No. It would only have made things worse. He’d win in the end. Somehow. He always does.’
‘Not this time.’
Good heavens, he made it sound like a promise but, sadly, it wasn’t one that Ellie could afford to accept. Not for herself or the baby. Or for Max and his friends. They all had careers within the medical world. Damage could be done on all sorts of levels.
‘I’m going to get well away,’ she assured Max. ‘Out of the country. I’ll change my name and start again somewhere he’ll never find us.’
‘Uh-uh.’ The negative sound had a ring of finality.
‘What?’
‘You can’t let him win.’
‘I can’t fight. I tried. I even threatened him if he wouldn’t leave me alone and guess what? I lost my job. He managed to make me look totally incompetent in Theatre and laid an official complaint. Nobody would listen to my side and I got shifted sideways to work in a geriatric ward and even that wasn’t enough for him.’
Max said nothing but he was listening hard.
‘He was always there. Ready to make things better if I co-operated. There were apologies and promises and threats. Flowers and phone calls and endless text messages that all looked completely innocent on their own. He’d be waiting for me when I finished a shift sometimes and I’d never know whether he’d choose 6 a.m. or midnight. My flatmate, Sarah, got freaked out so I left town. I got a job in Wellington. Sarah left a few weeks later. Said she was still freaked because Marcus kept turning up, wanting to know where I was, and she couldn’t cope, not when she had Josh to think about.’
Max nodded. ‘I met Josh. Nice kid.’
‘Did you know he’s Sarah’s nephew, not her son?’
‘She did tell me. Her sister died in some kind of accident a couple of years ago?’
‘That’s right. Sarah was the only family member who could take him. He’s only nine so I didn’t blame her for being so worried. She blamed me, though, for the hassles Marcus caused. So much that she didn’t talk to me for months.’
‘Why didn’t you go to the police?’
‘Who would have listened to some nurse badmouthing a well-respected consultant surgeon? I’d already had a taste of his influence on people when I tried to defend my job in Theatre. I had a grudge. I had no evidence of anything other than romantic gestures and texts from a man most people considered charming.’
‘Did you know you were pregnant when you left?’
Ellie shook her head. ‘It didn’t even occur to me because I was taking a low-dose pill to control painful periods and it worked so well I often didn’t get them at all. It was months before I twigged and by then it was way too late to do anything about it…even if I…’ She trailed off with a sigh.
This was getting worse by the minute. He’d think she was weak in having gone out with Marcus in the first place. Stupid not to consider the possibility of pregnancy. Even more stupid not to go to the police and maybe he had a thing against terminations