‘Let’s go into the drawing room,’ he suggested with a smile, very casually dressed in denims and a light blue shirt, looking nothing like the famous surgeon he undoubtedly was. ‘Now, what would you like to know?’ he asked once they were both seated.
A direct man himself, Simon Forrester expected her to be equally direct. ‘I want to know what you can do to save my sister,’ she told him simply.
He raised dark eyebrows. ‘And what makes you think I can do anything?’
Her hands wrung together as she sat on the edge of her seat. ‘I just know that you can,’ she told him with feeling. ‘Don’t tell me how I know, I just do.’
Simon Forrester nodded. ‘Your father told me about this affinity you have with Marie.’
‘You don’t think it’s stupid?’
‘Not at all. It often happens with identical twins. You found several similar illnesses that occurred during your childhood, I believe, and yet I’m sure that if you really went into this deeply you would find other similarities. You and Marie are incredibly alike.’
Even down to loving the same man! ‘Then there is something you can do for her,’ she persisted. ‘I just know there is.’
‘There is a chance—’
‘I knew it!’ Her eyes glowed, there was an air of excitement about her.
‘A chance neither your father nor Marie is willing to take,’ he finished.
Sara frowned. ‘I don’t understand. Surely any chance is better than none at all?’
Simon Forrester was deadly serious now, his flirtatious air completely gone. ‘Not when there’s a chance you could be dead, or as good as.’
She went white. ‘You mean—–’
He stood up to pace the room, as if impatient with his own inability to bring a happy ending to Marie’s suffering. ‘The brain is the most sensitive organ in the body, the slightest mistake with that and—well, any number of things could happen, and do.’
‘You mean she could be paralysed?’
‘Or have permanent brain damage,’ he nodded.
‘Oh, God!’ She felt sick. Hope had been given to her only to be taken away again.
‘Yes,’ he sighed. ‘It isn’t much of a choice, is it?’
‘No.’ She swallowed hard, and stood up. ‘I think I should be on my way now. I—Thank you for giving me your time.’ She couldn’t even begin to think about eating lunch now, and she knew Simon Forrester sensed that, as he did not press her at all.
His expression was full of compassion. ‘I wish there were some sort of guarantee I could give you that I could bring Marie through an operation of this kind, but unfortunately that isn’t possible. Marie claims she would rather die than be imperfect in that way. In a way I can understand that—brain damage, of any kind, isn’t like losing an arm or a leg.’
Sara was very depressed when she arrived home, although she did her best to put on a brave face for her father.
When Dominic suddenly arrived home with Marie, a Marie obviously in agony, both Sara and her father helped to get her to her room.
‘Oh, God! Oh, God!’ she kept groaning.
‘What happened?’ their father asked Dominic anxiously once they had got Marie into bed in her darkened room, leaving her as she seemed to drift off into a restless sleep.
Dominic paced up and down the lounge. ‘Apparently the pain started in the night—–’
‘I thought so,’ Sara sighed. ‘She was very restless,’ she explained. ‘I—I went in and sat with her for a while.’
‘She didn’t tell anyone because she didn’t want us to worry,’ Dominic continued harshly. ‘She finally half collapsed with the pain just after lunch.’
‘This can’t go on.’ Sara’s father shook his head. ‘Just lately the headaches have become worse, more frequent, with much more pain. I—Oh, God, I’m afraid we’re going to lose her!’
‘No!’ Sara denied shrilly. ‘There’s the operation.’
Dominic sighed heavily. ‘Marie says no.’
‘But we can’t just let her die!’
He put a hand up to his temple. ‘I’ve tried to talk her into having the operation, but she won’t even listen to me.’