One Night, One Unexpected Miracle

‘Why aren’t you married?’

She blinked. ‘Why aren’t you?’

‘Because it’s not on my agenda, which I think was part of the reason it went wrong before. I’d just qualified as a registrar and I had my paeds training to complete. I needed all my focus, needed to be able to follow my career wherever it took me, and to a certain extent that’s still true.’

‘So you understand, then, why I’m single.’

He smiled wryly. ‘Yeah, I guess I do.’ He got to his feet, picked up the plates and took them through to the kitchen. She could hear him rinsing them, loading them into the dishwasher, then the tap running again, and he was back.

‘I should go. You need an early night, but I’ll see you in the morning. Make sure you eat before you get up. Toast, crackers, slivers of apple—’

‘Marco, I’ll be fine,’ she said without any confidence if today was anything to go by, and got to her feet. ‘Look—I don’t want this all round the hospital. You know how people love a good juicy story.’

‘Don’t worry, I won’t talk about it. I don’t talk about private stuff, not at work, and especially not this.’

No, he didn’t. Tonight was the first time either of them had talked about their families, and it helped to explain a little of how at ease he was with the children.

He’d be a brilliant father—

‘Goodnight, Alice,’ he said softly, and bending down, he touched a gentle, tender kiss to her lips and let himself out.

A brilliant father, an amazing lover and a good husband. And she was getting horribly ahead of herself, and it was so unlikely to happen. Even if she got through the pregnancy without incident, which wasn’t likely, she’d still have to tell him about her condition, and then she’d see that look on his face and it would tear her apart.

She switched off the lights and went up to bed.

CHAPTER TWO (#u09fe4294-bb13-53a1-9ec5-2f530c80ba72)

‘MORNING.’

Alice swallowed a wave of nausea and looked up from her desk.

‘Do you ever knock?’

He went back out of the door, knocked, walked in again and smiled mischievously. ‘Good morning. There, is that better?’

She put her pen down and leant back with a sigh, stifling the urge to smile. ‘You’re supposed to wait for an answer. I assume you want something? And shut the door, please.’

He peered closer, and frowned. ‘Are you OK?’

‘Yes, I’m fine,’ she lied. ‘Thank you for last night—for looking after me—I appreciated it, but I’m fine now. So, what did you want?’

He shrugged as if he didn’t believe her, but he let it pass. ‘Just an update for you. I’ve checked the post-ops from yesterday, spent a few minutes with Amil and his parents in PICU—the boy with Crohn’s?’’

‘I do know who Amil is. How is he today?’

‘OK. He’s had a reasonable night, apparently, which is excellent news, and we should be able to move him out of there later onto a ward. Hopefully the surgery will have done the trick for now and once he’s on the mend we can hand him over to gastroenterology and see if they can get him a bit more settled on a new drug regime. So, boss lady, what’s on the agenda for today?’

She swallowed another wave of nausea and looked down at the file of notes on her desk.

‘Daisy Lawrence. She was diagnosed with malrotation of the gut as a toddler because she was having lots of stomach cramps without any other symptoms, but it wasn’t considered severe enough for surgery at the time and they adopted a watch and wait policy, but she’s flared up again, they’ve got private medical insurance and they wanted a second opinion so they chose us.’

He perched on the corner of her desk beside her and studied the notes. ‘So what are we doing? X-rays, MRI, CT?’

‘I’m not sure. I think we’ll start with a follow-through contrast scan to see what’s going on in there, so I’ve booked that with the imaging suite for this morning, and we’ll review the results and see where we go from there, but I think we need to go and meet them and examine her and talk it through.’

‘Are they here?’

She shook her head. ‘I don’t believe so. They’re not due until nine. I was just going through her notes again.’

‘So—have you had breakfast?’ he asked, and she swallowed again and shook her head.

‘I couldn’t—’

‘Well, isn’t it a good job you have me to feed you?’ he said, passing her a small packet of salty wholewheat crackers.

She eyed them with suspicion. Food? Really—?

‘Eat them,’ he instructed gently, and she tore the bag open reluctantly and tried one.

Surprisingly edible. She had another.

‘OK?’

She nodded. ‘Yes—thanks.’ She took a sip of water and had another one while he flicked through the notes.

‘Apparently watermelon is good if you feel sick,’ he told her without looking up. ‘Just a little piece. I’ve put some in the fridge in the staffroom where you keep your lunch. And you need carbs.’

‘I don’t eat carbs.’

He looked up and met her eyes. ‘I noticed. That’s why you’re feeling sick, because your blood sugar is low because you’re on one of these crazy celebrity diets where your body’s in a permanently ketogenic state. It’s bad for you.’

‘It isn’t. A ketogenic diet means I maintain a healthy weight and keep my blood sugar and cholesterol under control,’ she said, feeling a little flicker of panic because he was getting too close to the truth and she didn’t want to tell him, or at least not yet.

‘Why on earth do you need to do that? You’re not overweight, you’re under if anything, and you spend your free time in the gym.’

‘How do you know that? You’re never in there.’

‘No. I don’t do gyms, but our colleagues use them, and they talk.’

She hated the idea of people talking about her. Speculating?

‘So I keep fit—and I’m not underweight, my BMI is nineteen point five.’

‘That’s borderline underweight.’ He frowned, his voice softening. ‘Alice, is food a problem for you? Do you have an eating disorder?’

She stared at him, stunned. ‘No! Of course I don’t have an eating disorder! I’ve told you, I’m just keeping healthy—’

‘Then why don’t you eat cake if it’s someone’s birthday? Why do you always say no to snacks and biscuits? They won’t kill you occasionally if you make an exception to avoid hurting someone’s feelings.’