She gave a silent snort.
‘Thoughts? What thoughts?’ she muttered under her breath.
She’d been home for an hour and she was still replaying the moment when all her dreams had shattered into dust. For several interminable moments her brain had turned to mush when she’d overheard Liam’s gloating conversation with his best man, Jake. Where she’d found the words to throw at her bridegroom-to-be she’d never know, especially when just the thought of them made her hands begin shaking again.
The thing that frightened her most, though, was the thought that she might not have overheard Liam—that it might have been years before she’d discovered the full extent of his duplicity.
There was a second tap at the door but she was too wrapped up in the enormity of her lucky escape to pay it much attention.
If Karen hadn’t persuaded her that they all ought to go out for a drink this evening…
‘Come on, Maggie,’ she’d wheedled. ‘I know you’re not one to make a big fuss, but at least you can share a drink with the rest of us in the house so we can say our farewells to you. After all, tomorrow you’re moving everything to Liam’s.’ Then, correctly reading Maggie’s hesitant agreement before she’d said a word, her friend had quickly added, ‘And you have to invite our gang from the department, too. We could go to that clubby sort of place that opened up recently on the other side of the high street. It could be an unofficial hen night.’
It had all been so informally arranged that if Maggie hadn’t known how much her colleagues relished the chance to escape from the traumas surrounding them in a busy accident and emergency department she’d have been surprised just how the numbers had snowballed.
She supposed she shouldn’t have been surprised that Liam and Jake had chosen the same establishment. They’d been friends since they’d met during their medical training, and not only had Liam asked Jake to be his best man but he’d been the person responsible for introducing the two of them in the first place. Anyway, Rendezvous would be the most obvious venue for such a celebration, being in such close proximity to the hospital.
It had been sheer chance that she’d been sitting out of sight on the other side of an over-exuberant arrangement of palm trees and plastic ferns, chatting to Karen while she waited for her specially concocted cocktail—courtesy of the management when they’d discovered that she was getting married in the morning…
If Liam and Jake hadn’t stopped to talk on the other side of the same display she wouldn’t have been in a position to overhear Jake ask Liam how he’d persuaded his bride-to-be to give up her long-held dream of having a large family.
‘It won’t be a problem,’ she’d heard Liam say, his airy unconcern covering her gasp of disbelief. ‘It’ll probably take Maggie several years before she twigs that nothing’s happening on the pregnancy front, and as I’ve already had two kids she’ll automatically assume that it’s her fault. And by the time she’s gone through all the tests…’
‘You mean you haven’t told her?’ Jake cut in harshly, and the icy anger in his voice raised the hairs on the back of Maggie’s neck. She’d rarely heard that edge to his tone and she’d been working with him for nearly two years. Jake Lascelles might be her senior in the accident and emergency department but he couldn’t be a more easygoing boss. Right from the first they’d become friends—friendly enough to share middle-of-the-night confidences.
‘Have I told Maggie about the vasectomy? No way!’ Liam exclaimed jocularly, completely oblivious to Maggie’s shocked exclamation. ‘She’s far too good a prospect to miss out on. The kids love her and she already dotes on them enough for me to know that she’ll be happy to keep them out of my hair. Anyway, two rug rats are enough for anyone. With Julia going off like that, I didn’t have any choice about getting dumped with custody of them, but I’m not stupid enough to want any more—not with my career taking off the way it is.’
‘But you’ve told her that you’re looking forward to having another one as soon as you can—the first of several,’ Jake argued.
Maggie could have died on the spot as she heard her private plans voiced in public. She could remember all too clearly the way she’d happily chattered to Jake during a night-shift lull, confiding that she and Liam were hoping to come back from their honeymoon with their first baby already on the way.
‘I bet you’d promise the same thing if you were looking forward to plenty of action on your honeymoon,’ Liam joked coarsely. ‘Can you imagine it? Because of her scruples about the kids being in the house, the damn woman wouldn’t even move in with me until we’re married. She’s going to be more than willing to share a bed with me if she thinks we’re trying to make babies.’
Maggie’s ears were filled with the frantic beating of her heart and she wondered whether she was going to be sick. But even though the noise seemed loud enough to fill the room, it didn’t drown out Liam’s voice as he continued inexorably to demolish all her dreams of happily-ever-after.
‘Then, by the time she finds out there’s never going to be the patter of tiny feet, the kids will be old enough for me to pack them off to boarding school and I’ll be free to play the field again. Not that she’ll know what I get up to in the sluices and linen cupboards once she gives up her job to look after the kids, but, then, what the eye doesn’t see…’
Maggie felt strangely light-headed as the extent of his duplicity became clear, and she found herself clinging to the edge of the table with white-knuckled fingers, wondering how she’d got herself into such a devastating situation.
Jake had introduced her to his old medical school friend nearly a year ago, and although she’d teased him about trying to be a matchmaker, she’d immediately been impressed by Liam’s dedication to his work—the feeling of awe she’d always felt about the complexity of cardiothoracic surgery increasing his stature in her eyes.
He didn’t have the charisma or looks that Jake had, neither did he send the same shivers down her spine, but Jake had made it perfectly clear right at the outset that there would only ever be friendship between them, so she’d had to settle for that.
Gradually, over the months of Liam’s determined pursuit, respect had grown into something more personal until she’d thought she’d known the man well enough to make the most solemn promises of her life with him.
Obviously she hadn’t known him at all, because she’d had no idea that the main reason he’d wanted her was as a nanny for his children, with the added bonus of convenient sex. Of course she knew that few couples these days waited until they were married before sleeping together. In their case, circumstances had played a major part in preventing that happening. Her flat was furnished with an unromantically small bed, and she’d been far too aware of all their colleagues surrounding them to contemplate making love there. And as for any intimacy taking place in Liam’s house, she was old-fashioned enough to feel uncomfortable about sleeping with him in his bed before they were married, because his children were in the house.
It was a decidedly chilling thought that if she hadn’t had such scruples, he might not even have thought of offering marriage at all.
An hour and a long hot shower later, the sick feeling had abated a little but she still felt strangely hollow inside with a heavy ache around her heart.
One day she’d probably be able to laugh when she remembered the expression on Liam’s face when she’d stepped out from behind the plastic flowers. Ellie and Jamie’s goldfish—the only pet Liam would let his children have because it required the least effort on his part—had gaped at her just like that last weekend.
The doorbell rang, telling her there was someone calling her from the main door of the house, but she didn’t bother buzzing down on the intercom to find out who it was. Her windows weren’t