The Surgeon's One-Night Baby

amount to. This isn’t just about the risk to the baby, is it? You’re scared to let go with me. Why?’

‘It’s for your benefit,’ he bit out.

‘What is it you think I need protecting from? You? In case you’ve forgotten, I know the other side of you. That kid who I think is more of the real you than you’ve ever allowed anyone else to see. A good, kind kid.’

‘Then your memory isn’t what you think it is,’ he mocked derisively.

‘It’s exactly what I think it is. Why haven’t you met someone before now, Kaspar? Had a family? You really will make a strong, good, supportive father.’

It took a little while for him to answer and, for several long moments, she wondered if he was ever going to answer her.

‘My mother is, in polite terms, an oxygen thief,’ he stated. ‘She always has been. My father was no better. So what does that make me? Their son. Their blood. The lethal mix of the worst of the both of them.’

‘I’ve said it before—you aren’t like them, Kaspar.’

‘You don’t know what I really am like.’

‘Maybe, but I don’t think you do either.’

It was a silent challenge and he could either ignore her or talk to her. She knew what she wanted him to do, but she tried not to let herself get too carried away.

‘I...don’t do emotion, Archie,’ he managed, at length. ‘I don’t connect with people. I’m not built that way. I know how destructive so-called relationships might be. How intense and violent and toxic. You say I’m not like them, but I’m still a product of them. I share their DNA and even if it wasn’t about nature, I was certainly around them long enough for it to be nurture.’

‘Is that why you’ve made a point, all these years, of never allowing yourself to get caught up with any one woman?’

‘It’s easier that way.’

‘It’s lonely,’ she refuted. ‘And it doesn’t suit you. You’re a decent guy, underneath all the playboy rubbish.’

‘Did you know that as a teenager I stole a girl from under Robbie’s nose? Not because I liked her or particularly wanted to date her but because Robbie did and I didn’t want him ditching me to spend time to with her. That was when I realised I wasn’t rounded and normal. I wasn’t the decent human being your father tried to teach me to be. I was a product of my own parents, already on the way to becoming damaged and twisted.’

‘You can’t be serious.’ Archie swing around to gawk at him. ‘That’s what you’re basing part of your argument on? Shady Sadie? Because I can tell you plenty of mean things my brother and I did to each other and so-called friends as we were growing up. It’s called a part of being a kid. And a teenager who thinks the world revolves around them.’

‘No, Archie. It’s not just that. You don’t want to know the things I did when I came out here. They weren’t part of growing up, they were out of control. Harmful.’

His face twisted painfully but she couldn’t believe it. Not of Kaspar.

‘You mean after your mother dragged you out here? Ripped you away from the tiniest bit of security you’d ever had? You played up? But look at you now. You turned your back on the Hollywood scene she’d mapped out for you and instead became a skilled surgeon, a decent person. You volunteer your time to make surgical trips to war zones to help people who really need you.’

He looked frustrated, and angry, and drained. But most of all he looked torn. She’d never seen him look that way before. Her whole body ached for him.

‘It’s not as altruistic as you think. Did you ever stop to wonder why I went from acting to surgery? Did you think that out of nowhere I developed a driving need to take after my volatile, unpredictable plastic surgeon father?’

‘Becoming a surgeon like him doesn’t also make you as...unhinged as him,’ she cried.

‘That’s where you’re wrong. I’m every bit as out of control as he was. That’s exactly why I turned my back on acting and suddenly worked to get into a good school, gain a good degree, get into med school.’

‘You got into top universities, Kaspar. Not just good schools.’

‘You’re missing the point. I wasn’t doing it because I was a good person, I did it because it was the only way I could think of to make amends for...something I did. So bad that even you couldn’t make excuses for me if you knew, Archie.’

‘Isn’t that the definition of good? How long are you going to punish yourself, though?’ she whispered. ‘What did you do that was so bad?’

The quiet was almost oppressive.

‘I fought someone, Archie. I put them in hospital because they looked at me the wrong way in a bar one night.’

Her chest stretched and ached. So that was how that story Katie had told her that night at the charity wrap party had got started. Still, she knew there had to be more to it than that.