Partners by Contract (18 page)

‘Oh, it’s all right for me to stand on the sidelines, worrying if you were going to get out alive! How like a man!’ Phoebe sneered scornfully.

‘Why does the word “perverse” spring to mind?’ Connor didn’t wait for Will to shake his head in genuine confusion at the talk of pregnancy before he rounded, self-righteously furious, on Phoebe.

‘I find your comments pretty rich, coming from someone who spent three years of her life with only a mosquito net between her and a machine-gun.’

‘There’s no comparison!’ she flared indignantly.

‘You’re not wrong there—you were in much more danger.’

‘Don’t try and divert attention.’

‘From what? What am I meant to be apologising for—being alive?’

He watched in horror as Phoebe’s face suddenly crumbled, the full works—quivering lip, swimming eyes. Suddenly, having the last word didn’t seem so important.

‘How can you say that when I...? We’ve been sitting
here, thinking you could be... They wouldn’t tell me anything. I thought you were dead! What would I do if you...?’ She shut her eyes tight and shook her head slowly from side to side before burying her face in her hands. Then she began to weep in earnest.

‘Take these,’ Connor instructed tersely, as he handed his crutches to Will before limping over to where Phoebe stood. He wrapped his arms around her hunched, heaving shoulders and drew her into the warmth of his body. Phoebe was aware that she ought to make some sort of effort to free herself, but she couldn’t. This was where she wanted to be, in his arms. She had a compelling need to hear him tell her that everything would be all right—even if she knew deep down it wasn’t true. She couldn’t think past the moment, and at that moment all that mattered was that she had Connor back whole and safe.

‘Sorry,’ he soothed lovingly, his chin propped on the glossy crown of her head. ‘I was an idiot, it didn’t occur to me... Am I forgiven?’

‘Promise never to scare me like that again?’ came the suspicious, muffled response.

‘Cross my heart and hope to—’

‘Don’t say it!’ she warned, lifting her head to glare at him.

Connor grinned as she wrapped her arms around him. He bent his head to kiss her. The kiss went on for some time and might have gone on longer had Will not knocked over a pile of magazines as he was making a tactful exit.

‘Sorry!’ Will apologised awkwardly, stacking the magazines haphazardly on a table.

Phoebe shot out of Connor’s arms, her cheeks crimson. Connor responded in a much more leisurely fashion to his partner’s voice.

‘And if you’re going to ask me not to tell Trish,’ Will
added warningly, ‘forget it. She’ll get it out of me in two seconds flat.’

‘We weren’t going to ask you—’ Connor began.

‘It might not be such a bad idea,’ Phoebe cut in quickly.

She avoided Connor’s sharp, probing glance and bent to retrieve a magazine Will had missed.

‘Does this mean you’ll be accepting the partnership offer?’ Will sounded flatteringly delighted at the prospect. ‘And don’t worry—you being pregnant doesn’t alter anything.’

Phoebe, flushing to the roots of her hair, sent a see-what-you’ve-done-now look towards Connor. He grinned back imperturbably.

‘I’m not pregnant, Will.’ Even as she said it she realised she couldn’t be unequivocal about that. With the events that had occurred since their love-making this was the first time she had seriously contemplated the possible consequences of their afternoon of passion.

Phoebe had always found it inexplicable that intelligent, seemingly rational individuals could arrive in her consulting room in a panic about the consequences of unprotected sex. Now she’d been there and done it herself—T-shirt in the post—it no longer seemed so mysterious.

It seemed it was her day for revelations. She also knew with total certainty that there was no way she was going to be taking the morning-after pill. Connor’s baby could only ever be a gift.

‘You’re not?’ Will sounded quite disappointed.

‘I’m surprised the offer is still open, considering the sort of cool—or lack of it—I’ve shown in a crisis situation today.’

‘But today is different.’ He shot a quick glance towards Connor. ‘It was personal.’

Phoebe flushed, opened her mouth and closed it again,
recognising that after the passionate clinch she’d just exchanged with Connor she was in no position to dispute this cheerful claim.

At least Will hadn’t noticed she hadn’t actually answered his question. Pity the same couldn’t be said for Connor, she mused, shifting uncomfortably under the intensity of his questioning regard.

‘Come on, you two, I’ll give you a lift.’

‘I’ve got my car.’ Though she couldn’t actually recall driving it here in the wake of the ambulances, which was pretty scary.

‘And here it’s staying,’ Will responded in an uncharacteristically forceful manner. ‘You’re in no condition to drive.’ He transferred his attention to Connor. ‘I’m surprised they didn’t want to keep you in for overnight obs—’

‘The chemical wasn’t a real nasty—no long-term damage.’

‘Even so...’

‘Who’s taking evening surgery—Alan?’

Will ignored this blatant diversionary tactic. ‘They did want you to stay in, didn’t they?’

‘Con, is that true?’ Phoebe clasped her hand to her forehead, able to see straight off from his shifty expression that Will had got it right.

‘They might have suggested I might like to accept their hospitality for the night,’ Con conceded.

‘But you knew better,’ Phoebe bit back sarcastically.

‘In this instance, yes,’ he responded stubbornly. ‘They were only playing it safe. I’m absolutely fine.’

‘I’ll remind you of that when you collapse, shall I?’

* * *

Connor didn’t collapse at any point during the night—but he didn’t sleep much either.

Phoebe reached for the watch on Connor’s wrist. He murmured sleepily, but didn’t wake. The silvery hands read four-thirty. With a contented sigh she rolled over onto her stomach and, chin resting in her cupped hands, looked lovingly at the shadowy outline of his long, lean form in the darkness.

Her mind drifted back over their love-making. Just the thought of it increased the warm glow deep in her belly to an actual ache. There was no such thing, she realised with a sense of wonder, as too much of Connor. Either that, she reflected a wry smile tugging her tender lips into a lazy smile, or I’ve a serious hormonal imbalance.

When Will had dropped her off at the cottage with strict instructions to take as much time as she needed off work, she’d been aware of the two men talking. Though she hadn’t turned around, she’d known that Connor had left the vehicle and followed her.

Amazingly, she’d got her key in the door first go. Dry-throated, she’d turned to face the silent figure she’d sensed behind her. Her stomach had been tight and quivery with anticipation. In the hazy light of dusk his face had been a shadowy, pale blur.

‘Do you want to come in?’ she asked.

Connor’s response was a guttural sound—very caveman, she thought as his impetuous response carried her inside. She felt his hands in her hair, on her face. Caveman had quite a lot to recommend it, she decided hazily as his hands skimmed very lightly over her body, making her tremble and gasp audibly.

‘Be careful!’ she belatedly reminded him, slurring as if she’d had too much to drink. ‘Your crutches...’

‘You know what I think?’

Phoebe blinked. The expression on Con’s face was rivetingly primitive. She gulped and shook her head dumbly.
‘I think we can dispense with crutches.’ Her body showed a tendency to sway toward him. She blamed it on his smile—it was definitely having a deleterious effect on her balance, which had been pretty shaky to begin with.

The entrance hall of the cottage was very small and Connor, by any standards, was a particularly large, powerfully built man, so the combination was confusion on a debilitating scale. Phoebe trained her eyes a point midway up his chest. Any higher and she might say something she’d very likely regret!

‘That would be very ill-advised, Connor,’ she responded primly.

He threw the crutches with childish deliberation—how very male—to the far end of the hallway. She started, not because she was particularly surprised—this was after all the same man who had just discharged himself against medical advice—but because it made a lot of noise.

She sighed. ‘I suppose you’d better lean on me. It’s not actually far to the bedroom.’ She risked a fleeting glance through the sweep of her lashes, quite ignorant of the flirtatious factor in the gesture. She felt daring and scared witless simultaneously. Outright invitations didn’t come a whole lot more outright than that!

He hadn’t responded, although the muscular wall of his chest, which was actually only a tempting whisper away from her fingers, had gone rather rigid.

‘But, of course, you know where the bedroom is—you own the place.’ Phoebe heard the brainless tinkly laugh that emerged from her mouth, and almost groaned.

She was starting to wonder what she’d do if he didn’t respond positively to her invitation when he exhaled gustily as though he’d forgotten to breathe. Taking her chin in his fingers, he tilted her head upwards.

‘Let’s work on the theory that I know nothing,’ he
rasped huskily. The suggestive smile that lifted one corner of his mouth in a seriously sexy, lopsided smile triggered a hormonal rush that acted like a blowtorch on Phoebe’s skin.

‘There are some gaps in my education, too,’ she confided, drawing his solidly muscular arm across her shoulders. ‘Perhaps we could work out some sort of mutual exchange of information...?’ she mused daringly.

A responsive Connor immediately indicated that he was in strongly favour of this scheme.

Recalling the laughter and tender teasing kisses that had accompanied their shaky transfer to the bedroom, it brought a rush of hot emotional tears to her eyes. Determinedly she brushed them away, and with infinite care slid off the bed.

Quietly she pulled on her clothes and haphazardly filled her holdall with a random selection of possessions. Speed was essential. This wasn’t something she could let herself think about. If she thought too much, she might weaken...wait another day, which might become another week. Inevitably the guilt would eat away at their happiness, she was sure of it.

In the bathroom she washed her face and tried not to look at her wan reflection in the mirror. This is the right thing to do, she kept telling herself over and over. Why, she wondered dully, did doing the right thing often make a person feel so unutterably miserable?

Having dragged a comb fairly viciously through her hair, she unzipped her bag and unceremonially brushed all the toiletries from the top of the marble-topped washstand on top of her crumbled clothes.

‘Going somewhere?’

With a startled gasp she spun around. Connor’s tall figure was framed in the doorway, radiating an air of steely
menace. She distractedly noted that he’d paused long enough to pull on a pair of boxer shorts and a T-shirt. The thin cotton clung to the contours of his powerful torso, but stopped above waist level, revealing a flat six-pack.

‘I tried not to wake you,’ she heard herself say stupidly.

‘Unluckily for you, I’m a light sleeper.’ A disillusioned sneer twisted his pale, bloodless lips as he manoeuvred past the linen basket, leaning heavily on one elbow crutch.

‘Oh, Con...!’ she sighed, clasping her hands tightly across her breasts. ‘Don’t be like this,’ she pleaded wearily. ‘You know it has to happen this way.’

Connor’s jaw clenched, his nostrils flared contemptuously. ‘Know? The only thing I know is that you were going to slip furtively away without saying a word,’ he corrected her cuttingly. ‘Or were you going to leave a note this time?’ He continued to radiate simmering animosity as he glared down at her from the vantage point of superior height.

‘I...I don’t know...’ she confessed miserably.

‘Last night felt like a lot of things.’ The way his angry eyes slid suggestively over her slim figure made her tremble. ‘But goodbye wasn’t one of them, Phoebe!’ he drawled with blistering scorn.

Phoebe bit her lips and flushed darkly. ‘Don’t you see?’ she cried. ‘It’s because last night was so...so
perfect
that I have to go now.’

The furrow above his aquiline nose deepened, drawing his brows into a straight line. His eyes blazed, scornfully incredulous, beneath.

‘Are you saying you’re running away because last night was perfect?’

Phoebe nodded unhappily and Connor moved his head slowly in a gesture of total bafflement.

‘I think I must be missing something here. Is there supposed to be some sort of cock-eyed logic in that remark?’

‘When I think about us I want to remember last night.’ There was an escalating note of desperation in her voice as she sought to convince him that her immediate departure was essential.

‘What makes you think there can’t be lots of nights like last night, and mornings and afternoons...?’

Phoebe released a long shuddering sigh. ‘Penny,’ she responded sadly.

Even though Connor had been half expecting this response, it hit him hard. He closed his eyes and for a split second his body slumped heavily. Then with a deep breath he straightened up. His eyes were hard and uncompromising as they came to rest on her face.

‘A failed marriage is never something to celebrate,’ he said quietly, ‘but neither is it a reason to spend the rest of your life wearing a hair shirt. That almost smacks of self-indulgence. You may not believe this, Phoebe, but Penny and I were way past the mutual recriminations stage. If she’d lived I really think we’d still be friends. For God’s sake, Phoebe,’ he appealed huskily, ‘I made a mistake. Am I—are we—supposed to suffer for that mistake for the rest our lives?’

‘I don’t know, Con,’ she returned honestly. This wasn’t entirely about logic, it was about a gut feeling. ‘I just know that any future we’d have together is always going to be tainted. I’d always have a reproachful ghost looking over my shoulder. It will cast a shadow over every moment of happiness we have. I can’t live like that, and no matter what you say,’ she insisted passionately, ‘I know you feel the same way. Guilt has a way of poisoning relationships.’