His Brand of Passion

‘Well, we have time,’ she finally managed. ‘I’m just over two months along. We don’t have to rush.’

‘No, of course not.’ He cracked a smile then, a real one. ‘But I’m glad, Zoe. Thank you.’

And just like that the knot dissolved and her heart started to melt. Dear Lord, she was in trouble.

But trouble felt good, she decided later that night as she slept once more in Aaron’s arms. He’d surprised her by asking her to sleep with him again, and she’d accepted with rather alarming alacrity.

Still, she slept better than she had in weeks, only to wake in the middle of the night, the room drenched in darkness, a stabbing pain deep in her middle. She curled her legs up to her chest and then gasped as the pain knifed her again, worse than ever before.

Aaron stirred, his arms tightening around her. ‘Zoe?’ he murmured sleepily. ‘Are you okay?’

‘No!’ she gasped as pain knifed through her again. Something was wrong. Something was really, really wrong. ‘Aaron…’

He was up immediately, the covers rucked around his waist as he went to switch on the light. Zoe’s vision swamped and she thought she might vomit. Aaron stared at her, his face stark-white, his hand already reaching for the phone.

‘Aaron!’ she gasped again, and that was all she could manage as she fell back against the pillows, unconscious.

CHAPTER EIGHT

‘IT WAS AN ectopic pregnancy.’

Aaron stared at the rumpled-looking doctor and tried to make sense of the words. ‘Ectopic,’ he repeated. He’d heard the word before, but he didn’t know what it meant. All he knew was the last four hours had been hellish, from the moment Zoe had woken up in his arms, gasping with pain, and then fallen unconscious.

The call to 911, the ride to the ER in an ambulance, the endless wait in a fluorescent-lit waiting room—all of it had felt like a mindless blur until now, when he was finally going to find out what had happened to Zoe—and to his child.

‘An ectopic pregnancy is one in which the embryo implants outside of the uterus,’ the doctor explained. ‘In this case, in Miss Parker’s fallopian tube. the tube ruptured, and we had to operate to remove the damaged tube as well as the embryo.’

The embryo. Aaron blinked. He meant the baby. Their baby was gone. Swallowing, he asked the question he knew mattered most. ‘Is—is Zoe all right?’

‘She’ll be fine,’ the doctor said with a tired smile. ‘She’s lost a lot of blood, and we’re giving her a transfusion. She needs rest to recover, but she will. In a few weeks, a month, she should be fine.’

A month? Aaron passed a shaky hand over his face. ‘May I see her?’

‘She’s sedated, but you can have a look in if you like. If you come back tomorrow, she should be awake and able to receive visitors.’

Aaron nodded and wordlessly followed the man down a long corridor to a hospital room. Zoe lay in bed, looking pale and small and so unbearably fragile. Her lashes feathered against her cheeks, and her breathing was slow and even, but faint, so faint.

Aaron reached out a hand to the wall to steady himself. He felt as if his whole world had shattered, exploded, in the course of a single night.

He barely remembered the ride back to his apartment; his mind was numb, blank. He stepped inside the penthouse and felt its emptiness, which he knew was ridiculous because Zoe had only been living with him for a short while. He was used to being alone. He liked being alone.

Except now he found he didn’t. Now he found he felt empty and wretched, lonely. This was what loneliness felt like, he thought as he poured himself a double shot of whisky. It felt as if his whole world had collapsed around him and there was absolutely nothing left.

He tossed back the whisky and strode towards his study. Sleep would not come tonight. He powered up his laptop and stared resolutely at the screen. At least now he could focus on work; he could remain alone, he could do what he needed to do. He need never see Zoe again.

The thought made emptiness swoop through him, air whistling right through the place where he should have had a heart.

Eight hours later Aaron was back at the hospital, gritty-eyed and dressed for work. He’d bought some flowers; originally the florist had suggested a subdued bouquet of white chrysanthemums, but Aaron didn’t want flowers meant for grief, and he didn’t think Zoe did either. He chose lilacs, like the ones in her painting. He’d stared at it this morning as he’d drunk cold, black coffee, looked around his apartment and realised how she’d made it a home. Their home. The thought made that empty space inside him ache.

Now he stood in the doorway of her room, the bouquet in hand, words bottling in his throat. She was sitting up in bed, the hospital gown emphasising the sharp bones of her clavicle. Her face was turned away from him.

‘Zoe.’ He spoke softly, but he could tell she’d heard him. She stiffened slightly, but didn’t turn towards him. He took a step in the room. ‘How are you doing?’

‘Fine.’ She faced him then, her face pale so the spattering of freckles stood out on her nose and cheeks. She smiled and shrugged, jolting Aaron out of his cautious approach. ‘Why wouldn’t I be fine?’

‘A lot of reasons, I would think.’ He put the bouquet on the table next to her. ‘These are for you.’

‘They’re very pretty. Thank you.’

He gazed at her and tried to figure out what was going on in her head. He had no idea. Her eyes were dark and fathomless, her smile fixed. She folded her hands in her lap across the starched sheets.

‘Admittedly, I feel a bit weak,’ she told him. ‘But overall I’m okay. And, really, this is probably the best outcome, don’t you think?’

‘Don’t say that.’ He spoke with instinctive sharpness, a gut-level reaction.

‘Why not? We were making the best of a bad situation, Aaron, and now we don’t have to.’

He shook his head, the tightness in his chest taking over his whole body, making it impossible to speak. Finally he managed a few words. ‘You wanted this baby.’

‘Even so. You said it yourself—my life wasn’t really set up for a baby. I wasn’t really sure how it was going to work.’

You were going to marry me. He just shook his head. ‘Zoe…’

She cut him off, her voice turning hard. ‘There’s no point pretending that this isn’t the best thing for both of us.’

He stared at her helplessly, because even though he knew there might be truth to her words he didn’t feel it. He didn’t feel it at all. ‘Don’t say that, Zoe,’ he said quietly and she lifted her face to stare at him with a blankness that made him ache all the more.

‘Why not? It’s true.’

‘It’s not true.’ His voice was a low throb. ‘I might have said we were making the best of a—a situation, but you’re still grieving. And I wish this hadn’t happened.’ He sat down next to her and reached for her hand. She pulled away. ‘Zoe, please.’

‘Do you?’ she asked dully. ‘Do you really wish this hadn’t happened, Aaron?’

He blinked, cut to the quick by her question even as he recognised its validity. ‘Of course I do. You almost died, Zoe.’

‘And the baby? Aren’t you a little bit relieved that you don’t have to deal with that anymore?’

‘No.’ He blinked hard and swallowed past the tightness in his throat. ‘No. Zoe, whatever you think, I’m not that heartless, I swear.’

She lowered her head, her hair falling forward to hide her face. ‘The doctor told me I might not be able to have any more children.’

He froze, fresh grief sweeping coldly through him. He couldn’t think of a single thing to say. ‘There must be ways,’ he finally managed.

‘Maybe with IVF, but I have a lot of scarring. The whole reason this happened in the first place was because of a burst appendix I had when I was thirteen.’ She spoke dully, as if none of it really mattered. ‘All the scarring severely limits my fertility, according to the doctor.’ She held her fingers up in claw-like quotation marks, a horrible smile twisting her face.

‘We can think about that later,’ Aaron said steadily. ‘The important thing now is to get you feeling better.’

‘I’ll never feel better.’ Her voice tore on the words and she turned away from him. Aaron felt his control slipping away from him, if he’d had it at all.

‘You will, Zoe, with time and rest. You will.’ He took a deep breath and decided they both needed to focus on practicalities for a moment. The emotion in the room was palpable and thick, choking him. ‘The doctor has said you need to rest for at least a couple of weeks.’

‘I know. I can go to Millie and Chase’s.’

‘I have another idea.’ She just stared, her face as blank as ever. ‘I thought a change of scene might be—welcome. Get away from everything here. You could spend a few weeks on St Julian’s. It’s my family’s private island.’

‘In the Caribbean? I know. It’s where Chase and Millie met.’

‘Right.’ He’d forgotten that. ‘I have a private villa on the grounds of the resort. You could stay there, enjoy some sunshine, recover.’ She didn’t speak and Aaron continued awkwardly, ‘I could stay with you for a few days. I’d have to get back to work eventually, but I could take some time off.’ Still nothing. ‘Zoe?’