‘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 for any cause and she would have considered it very seriously, God help her, because…
‘Not the kind of man you would have picked to be the father of your baby?’ There was a wealth of understanding in Max’s voice and Ellie’s breath came out in a whoosh of relief.
‘No.’
‘Could be worse,’ Max said thoughtfully. ‘The guy’s not that bad looking.’
Ellie’s jaw sagged.
‘And he’s obviously got well above average intelligence.’
Was he trying to make a joke out of this? Unbelievable. Maybe her judgment of his character had been woefully misguided.
‘Bit on the short side,’ Max continued. His gaze rested on Ellie. ‘And you’re hardly a giant but…’ He nodded. ‘Maybe it’ll be a girl. Petite and pretty, just like her mum.’
He was smiling at her again. ‘Hey, if you’d gone to a sperm bank he would have looked pretty good on paper, wouldn’t he? I’ll bet his undesirable attributes are all due to nurture, not nature.’
The sharp flash of dismay—anger, even—that he could be belittling the nightmare she’d been living with for so many months gave way to something very different. Something rather wonderful. Something that made it OK that she loved this baby she was carrying. She didn’t have to feel ashamed. Or guilty. Or terrified of what the future might hold for her child.
He’d not only made her feel safe, this man. He’d given her…hope.
Ellie’s smile wobbled. ‘Thank you.’ ‘No worries.’ Max looked away. Was he embarrassed by the gratitude he might be seeing? ‘So, do you know if it’s a girl?’ ‘No.’
‘You weren’t tempted to