The Surgeon's One-Night Baby

arriage to him would look like. She didn’t know what she’d hoped he would say. It certainly hadn’t been the casual shoulder hunch he’d offered. The nonchalant, ‘Why don’t we cross that bridge when we come to it?’

There certainly hadn’t been any words of love, or even affection. There and then she’d promised herself that she would never settle for half-measures, with Kaspar or with anyone else. If she couldn’t have all of him, she wanted none. She’d done half-measures before and look where that had got her. She refused to do it again.

In her mind’s eye, Archie could see herself heading resolutely across the room. But it was no good. By the time she’d reached the door she’d stopped, her hand on the handle but still not turning around.

‘I can’t marry you, Kaspar. I’ve made that mistake before. And I can’t make you help me,’ she’d whispered again, desperately summoning the strength to turn the door handle. ‘But I’m begging you to do so.’

He had crossed the room, the heat of his body like a wall behind her, searing her as his hand had covered hers and drawn it from the cold metal.

‘Are you so sure it would be a mistake?’ The rawness in his voice had been like a rasp against her heart.

Archie had wanted to tell him that of course it would be a mistake. She’d known she shouldn’t cave. But his question had sounded so skinned, like an exposed wound, his hand had still been holding hers and she could still feel his body so close to her. She remembered dropping her head, then in defiance of all logic she’d turned and faced him.

The pinched expression on his face had taken her aback. As though she’d wounded him. As though he actually cared. She’d wondered if she could be wrong about him. If he could really want her in his life. As his wife.

She’d averted her eyes but his other hand had slid instantly beneath her chin, his fingers had tilted her head up and forced her to look at him.

‘My baby will want for nothing,’ he’d stated firmly, fiercely. ‘I’ll make sure of that. Neither will you, but your lives are here now. With me. I’m not your idiot ex-husband who let you walk away from him. I suggest you don’t make the blunder of mistaking me for him.’

She hadn’t been about to tell him that was hardly likely. That no one could mistake Kaspar for anyone but himself. His utter certainty had been mesmerising. No wonder people rarely refused him. Including her. Especially her.

‘Love should be the core of your marriage.’ The registrar smiled benevolently now. ‘Love is the reason you are here. But it also will take trust to know in your hearts that you want the best for each other.’

She tuned out again. Joe might never have been enough to compel her to leave her life for Zurich. But Kaspar was so much she wondered if she might even leave her life to follow him to the very bowels of hell.

The notion had terrified her. Kaspar didn’t love her or want her, he only wanted their baby. Abruptly she’d heard herself lashing out. Wanting to wind Kaspar the way he had done to her.

‘I should never have come here,’ she’d blurted out, hugging her laptop in front of her chest like it had been some form of body armour against Kaspar’s words. ‘I should never have told you about the baby. You ruin everything.’

She hadn’t been even remotely prepared for the look of absolute pain and devastation that had tugged at his features. She’d opened her mouth to apologise, to find some way to take it back, but then it was as though he’d sucked all the misery back in and instead a wave of fury had smashed over her, emanating from him like a thick, black, lethal cloud.

‘You won’t take my baby away, Archie.’ His ferocity had been unmistakeable. ‘You won’t shut me out of my child’s life, or leave her thinking for a single moment that I didn’t want to be there for her. This is my baby, too. I will be a part of every aspect of things. Not some weekend or holiday father but a proper dad, who is there for the first word, the first step, the first dry night.’

She’d tried to take it back. Guilt and regret had almost overwhelmed her. She’d opened her mouth to tell him she had never meant those words that had tumbled, so cruelly, out of her mouth. But the apology hadn’t come, and anyway Kaspar wouldn’t have let her.

‘This isn’t about you or me, it’s about the life of this baby,’ he’d hissed out, his voice lethal. ‘You need medical supervision, which is here, with me. This is non-negotiable.’

And that had been the end of it. Those words, uttered in what felt like a lifetime ago.

Now, a few days later, they were here, and Archie was gazing at a grim Kaspar. She gaped as the registrar beamed his widest smile yet.

‘I now declare you to be husband and wife.’

The worst thing was that a part of her was only too eager to comply.

CHAPTER EIGHT

‘DID YOU CALL that a kiss?’ Kaspar demanded as they stepped back into his...their home a scant few hours later.

He didn’t know why he was trying to tease her. Perhaps because now they were married he knew they finally needed to get past the animosity that had settled on them. Black, heavy and cold. They had to move on from it.

It was one of the reasons he’d arranged for them to have their wedding breakfast at a private, fine dining experience in one of LA’s most exclusive restaurants. It was his attempt at an olive branch, but he hadn’t accounted for how entrenched they had become.

The silence at their table, the scrape of metal against fine china, the hollow clink of crystal wine glasses, both filled with water, had only emphasised the emptiness of the day, until finally Kaspar was able to bear it no more.

‘I know you’re not sure about this marriage,’ he sighed, covering her hand lightly with his across the table, ‘and I’m sorry if you feel I pushed you into it. Seeing you in front of the minister looking so sad...well, that isn’t what I want. Please,’ he implored her, and in his eyes she saw an unexpected flash of the vulnerable, proud boy she had once known. ‘Let’s try to make this thing work, let’s try to make our home a pleasant one, if nothing else. The baby deserves that much.’

Archie’s heart sank a little. Of course it was the baby he was really worried about, but she nodded anyway, and in a small, tight voice agreed. ‘I can be pleasant.’