‘A...um...registrar? Consultant? From... I don’t know. Maybe Orthopaedics, or something?’ she asked hopefully.
‘Consultant. Emergency medicine.’
‘Oh.’
She looked about her, panicking slightly. He worked here? In this department? That wasn’t good. Oh, no, that wasn’t good at all!
‘May I ask why you’re here?’ He grinned his cheeky chappie smile and then leaned in to whisper, ‘Physically you seem to be in full working order, so...?’
She laughed. Almost hysterically. Then stopped. What to say? She could lie and say she was here visiting someone? Or maybe she could say...?
No other lies popped into her head. She was stuck with telling the truth. Because she had to. The ‘visiting someone’ lie wouldn’t help, would it? She had a job to do here. She needed the money and she’d been hoping for the possibility of the position becoming permanent.
‘I’ve...um...come here to work.’
She smiled quickly, alarmingly, then continued before he could say anything.
‘I start today. Here. In this department. As a...locum.’
She saw the dawning realisation on his face and was glad to see that he was somewhat taken aback too. That was good. It was nice to feel that they were on even footing.
He laughed. ‘You’re my new doctor?’
She matched his laugh. ‘That’s me!’
Leah watched him take this in—watched as an interesting fleet of emotions passed over his face—and felt her own heart beat faster as she realised just how much she would be working with this man over the next few months. Her one-night stand. Her boss.
Had she screwed up? Already? Or would he be the decent guy she hoped he was and let them start with a fresh new page?
That was possible, right? To pretend as if nothing had happened when in reality you knew more about a man than you should and exactly what touch would make him gasp with delight and ecstasy? They’d be able to work together as if they’d never met before.
Right?
Right?
Molly, one of the nurses, was asked to show her around as Ben had got called in to Majors. A trauma was coming in via helicopter.
Molly was about the same age as her, and was bright, friendly and chatty. She took her around Minors, showing her where everything was, who to ask for help, and what the password was for the computer system, and then she took her into Majors.
Leah couldn’t help but look at Ben as he assessed his new patient, strapped to a backboard that was being brought in by the helicopter medics. He was more than just handsome. He was breathtaking. No wonder he had caught her eye in the club last night. Broad-shouldered, flat stomach, trim waist...
And I know all the other details, too...
The tiny mole just above his left hipbone. The smoothness of his skin. The toned musculature of that inverted V below the hipbones that led down to his...
Molly 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