The Fatherhood Affair

She could understand their withdrawal, however regrettable she found it now. ‘You’re saying I isolated myself.’

‘Completely.’

‘Except for you.’

He gave her a dry smile. ‘I persisted.’

She wondered why. She had looked at herself in a mirror. Admittedly the stitched gash on the side of her scalp didn’t help her hairstyle. She did have nice eyes and a good figure, but she was not the type of woman who would automatically create a sensation wherever she went. Damien only had to enter the ward and general conversation faded out as every eye swivelled to follow him.

On the other hand, all she had to do was look into Damien’s eyes to know he wanted her. Very much.

And she wanted him.

Every time she saw him she felt the strong kick of response inside her. It wasn’t so much how handsome he was or how splendid he looked in his tailored suits. There was more to Damien than superficial charisma. It was what happened between them, the tug of feeling, a response that was evidently grounded in a long knowledge of each other.

‘I must have been a trial to you,’ she stated flatly.

He shrugged. ‘You were grieving.’

For her son.

But what about her husband?

Damien wouldn’t talk about him. She supposed that was natural if he wanted her for himself. Why remind her of the man she had married? Nevertheless, it made Natalie feel as though she was trapped in a dark area, unable to move forward with the confidence she should have.

‘You have a faraway look in your eyes,’ Damien observed. ‘What are you thinking?’

‘Speculating about the future.’

‘Am I in it?’

Her eyes danced teasingly. Perhaps it was a female instinct to like him being a little bit uncertain of her, but she quickly chided herself for being unkind in the face of his unswerving devotion. ‘How could you not be,’ she said lightly, ‘in some form or other?’

She expected him to smile. It surprised her that he didn’t. ‘You could cut me out of your life like this,’ he said, using his finger to demonstrate the action of a guillotine. ‘You’ve done it to...others.’

She winced. ‘Was I so bad, Damien?’

He took her hand. His eyes were hooded as he fanned his fingers over her knuckles, arousing the sensitivity she always felt at his touch. ‘We all carry some emotional baggage which turns out to be garbage, Natalie,’ he said. ‘At the moment, you’re free of it. When your memory returns, it will colour your reactions and responses.’

‘To you, as well?’

‘Yes, certainly. To me.’ He lifted his gaze and seared her heart with the agonised conflict that raged inside him. ‘I don’t want it to happen, Natalie. But it will.’

‘Will it be a...bad...reaction? To you, I mean.’

He paused fractionally, then gave a firm answer. ‘Yes. It will be a bad reaction.’

‘So what does that mean?’ she asked, perplexed.

She couldn’t imagine why she should turn on this man. There did not seem to be any reasonable explanation. She waited expectantly for Damien to give her an answer. When his reply came, it was nothing she could possibly have anticipated.

‘It means,’ he said slowly, as if he had an infinity of pain, ‘that I have limited time ... maybe ... between one or two days and a couple of months before your memory is fully restored. In

that period of time I have to fulfil my life.’

The blaze of purpose, resolution and desire coming from his deeply recessed eyes lent such impact to his words, Natalie was struck by the need for an instant response, an assurance to him, a defence of the fair-minded person she felt herself to be. Through whatever eyes she had seen him before, the man she saw now was a man she wanted in her life.

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about, Damien, but I promise you this. I won’t forget what you’ve done for me, nor the way you’ve stuck by me through everything.’