Only this time it was much, much worse. Because with each week that had gone by she’d managed to persuade herself that she was exaggerating quite how good he’d been. Quite how skilled.
But that repeat performance last week had offered her a whole host of new experiences and, even more galling, had only proved to her that her imagination hadn’
t been overselling Malachi’s talent in playing her body. If anything, her memories had seriously underplayed his artistry and the devastating effect he had on her.
And, for all her posturing, the simple truth was that she longed for more. She craved it. And that couldn’t be a good thing to want with the man who was supposed to have been her rebound one-night stand.
What if marriage to Malachi wasn’t so bad after all?
You’re just having a wobble, she told herself firmly, heading for the nurses’ station, which was mercifully deserted, and gripping hold of the melamine surface so hard that her knuckles went white.
She was having a scan this afternoon. No doubt that was why seeing Caleb’s mother had frightened her when she thought about having the baby alone.
As much as she might like to pretend otherwise, she was already watching the door for Malachi, and it didn’t matter that it was at least four hours too early. He’d told her it was ‘all or nothing’, but she didn’t know whether to believe him. A part of her hoped he would be there. But now she’d seen Caleb and his mother and she’d realised that it was foolish of her to assume Malachi would come after she’d told him he didn’t have to.
And yet it had frightened her to think that he might not.
What she ought to focus on was the fact that she wasn’t Caleb’s mother, and Malachi wasn’t this Tom. There was no reason for her to panic and rush into a marriage neither of them would have even considered if she hadn’t been pregnant, as though this was last century.
She ignored the tiny voice needling her, telling her that any woman who didn’t consider marriage to a man as successful and stunning and all-round masculine as Malachi Gunn had to be a little bit mad.
‘Saskia?’
The shrill sound of Babette had Saskia squeezing her eyes shut. Was there no shift she could work in this hospital without that woman seeming to dog her?
‘Are you all right? You aren’t going to faint again, are you?’
Plastering a bright smile on her face, Saskia squared her shoulders and spun around.
‘No, Babette, I’m quite all right.’
The woman didn’t even have the decency to disguise her disappointment.
‘Your concern is really quite touching, though.’
And she strode off to her next patient before Babette could answer.
* * *
Mercifully, the rest of the morning passed quickly. Between rounds and routine jobs she also saw several chest infections, some minor injuries, an undescended testicle and a hip misalignment. Just the kind of busy morning to keep her brain perfectly occupied.
So by the time she’d made sure everything was handed over for the next half hour or so, there were a mere ten minutes until her scan.
And no sign of Malachi.
Her heart beat out a frenetic rhythm in her chest and her stomach dipped, but she told herself that she was fine, and rubbed her hand gently over her abdomen. It was startling how, despite her pregnancy not starting to show yet, she felt attached to her baby. He or she wasn’t even planned, and yet she already couldn’t imagine not being pregnant.
And in less than an hour she would be meeting her baby for the first time, as it were.
Alone? Or would Malachi come even after everything she’d said?
She wondered what he was thinking. How he might feel. She’d had three months to get her head around it. And it was growing inside her body—she could feel the changes even if she couldn’t see them. But Malachi had barely had a week to get used to the idea.
It should have taken her less than ninety seconds to get to the ultrasound unit, yet she dawdled, her eyes darting over every face, the back of every head, as she made her way along the corridor.
The wave of nausea which began to swell inside her had nothing to do with morning sickness.
He really wasn’t coming, and it was all her own fault.