Читать книгу Hired by Her Husband - Anne McAllister - Страница 6

WHEN THE PHONE RANG that evening, Sophy grabbed it as fast as she could. She didn’t need it waking Lily. Not just when her daughter had finally fallen asleep.

Lily’s fourth birthday party that afternoon had exhausted them both. Normally an easygoing sunny-natured child, Lily had been wound up for days in anticipation. Five of her friends and their mothers had joined them, first at the beach and then here at the house for a cookout, followed by ice cream and cake.

Lily had been on top of the world, declaring the party, “the bestest ever.” Then, in the time-honored fashion of overtired four-year-olds everywhere, she’d crashed.

It had taken a warm bath, a cuddle on Sophy’s lap, clutching her new stuffed puppy, Chloe, and half a dozen stories to unwind her.

Now finally she was asleep, sprawled in her bed, but still clinging to Chloe. And, with the house a wreck all around her, Sophy didn’t need Lily wide awake again. So at the phone’s first shrill ring, Sophy snatched it up.

“Hello?”

“Mrs. Savas?”

The voice was a man’s, one she didn’t know. But it was the name she heard that gave her a jolt. Of course her cousin and business partner Natalie was now Mrs. Savas—had been ever since her marriage to Christo last year—but Sophy wasn’t used to getting calls asking for Natalie at home. For a split second she hesitated, then said firmly, “No. I’m sorry. You’ve got the wrong number. Call back during business hours and you can speak to Natalie.”

“No. I’m not trying to reach Natalie Savas,” the man said just as firmly. “I need to reach Sophia Savas. Is this—” He paused as if he were consulting something, then read off her telephone number.

Sophy barely heard it. Her mind had stuck on Sophia Savas.

That had been her name. Once. For a few months.

Suddenly she couldn’t breathe, felt as if she’d been punched. Abruptly she sat down wordlessly, her fingers strangling the telephone.

“Hello? Are you there? Do I have the correct number?”

Sophy took a quick shallow breath. “Yes.” She was relieved that she didn’t stammer. Her voice even sounded firm to her own ears. Cool. Calm. Collected. “I’m Sophia. Sophia McKinnon,” she corrected, then added, “formerly Savas.”

But she still wasn’t convinced he had the right person.

“George Savas’s wife?”

So much for not being convinced. Sophy swallowed. “Y-yes.”

No. Maybe? She certainly didn’t think she was still George’s wife! Her brain was spinning. How could she not know?

George could have divorced her at any time in the past four years. She’d always assumed he had, though she’d never received any paperwork. Mostly she’d put it out of her mind because she’d tried to put George out of her mind.

She shouldn’t have married him in the first place. She knew that. Everybody knew that. Besides, as far as she was concerned, a divorce was irrelevant to her life. It wasn’t as if she were ever marrying again.

But maybe George was.

Sophy’s brain abruptly stopped spinning. Her fingers gripped the receiver, and she felt suddenly cold. She was surprised to feel an odd ache somewhere in the vicinity of her heart even as she assured herself she didn’t care. It didn’t matter to her if George was getting married.

But she couldn’t help wondering, had he finally fallen in love?

She had certainly never been the woman of his dreams. Had he met the woman who was? Was that why she was getting this call? Was this official-sounding man his lawyer? Was he calling to put the legal wheels in motion?

Carefully Sophy swallowed and reminded herself again that it didn’t matter to her. George didn’t matter. It wasn’t as if their marriage had been real. She’d only hoped…

And now she told herself that her reaction was only because the phone call had caught her off guard.

She mustered a steadying breath. “Yes, that’s right. Sophia Savas.”

“This is Dr. Harlowe. I’m sorry to tell you, Mrs. Savas, but there’s been an accident.”

“Are you sure about this?” Natalie asked. She and her husband, Christo, had come over the minute Sophy had rang them. Now they watched as she threw things in a duffel and tried to think what else she needed to take. “Going all the way to New York? That’s clear across the country.”

“I know where it is. And yes, I’m sure,” Sophy said with far more resolution than she felt. It had nothing to do with how far she was going. It was whom she was going to see when she got there. “He was there for me, wasn’t he?”

“Under duress,” Natalie reminded her.

“Snap,” Sophy said. There was going to be a fair amount of duress involved in this encounter, too. But she had to do it. She added her sneakers to the duffel. One thing she knew from her years in New York was that she’d have to do plenty of walking.

“I thought you were divorced,” Natalie said.

“So did I. Well, I never signed any papers. But—” she shrugged “—I guess I thought George would just take care of it.” God knew he’d taken care of everything else—including her and Lily. But that was George. It was the way he was.

“Look,” she said finally, zipping the duffel shut and raising her gaze to meet Natalie’s. “If there was any way not to do this, believe me, I wouldn’t. There’s not. According to the papers in George’s personnel file at Columbia, I’m his next of kin. He’s unconscious. They may have to do surgery. They don’t know the extent of his injuries. They’re in ‘wait and see’ mode. But if things go wrong—” She stopped, unable to bring herself to voice possibilities the doctor had outlined for her.

“Sophy,” Natalie’s voice was one of gentle warning.

Sophy swallowed, straightened and squared her shoulders. “I have to do this,” she said firmly. “When I was alone—before Lily was born—he was there.” It was true and she made herself face that fact as much as she told it to her cousin. He had married her to give Lily a father, to give her child the Savas name. “I owe him. I’m paying my debt.”

Natalie looked at her doubtfully, but then nodded. “I guess so,” she said slowly. Then her eyes flashed impatiently. “But what kind of grown man gets run over by a truck?”

A physicist too busy thinking about atom smashing to watch where he was going, Sophy thought privately. But she didn’t say that. She just told the truth.

“I don’t know. I just know I appreciate your dropping everything and coming over to stay with Lily. I’ll call you in the morning. We can arrange a time and do a video call, too.” She patted her briefcase where she’d already packed her laptop. “That way Lily can see me and it won’t be so abrupt. I hate leaving her without saying goodbye.”

She had never left Lily in four years—not for more than a few hours. Now she knew that if she woke Lily she’d end up taking her along. And that was a can of worms she didn’t intend to open.

“She’ll be fine,” Natalie assured her. “Just go. Do what needs to be done. And take care of yourself,” she advised.

“Yes. Of course. It will be fine,” Sophy assured her, picking up the briefcase as Christo hefted the duffel and headed out to the car.

Sophy allowed herself a quick side trip into Lily’s room. She stood there a moment just looking at her sleeping daughter, her dark hair tousled, her lips slightly parted. She looked like George.

No. She looked like a Savas, Sophy corrected herself. Which Lily was. George had nothing to do with it. But even as she told herself that, her gaze was drawn to the photo on the bedside table. It was a picture of baby Lily in George’s arms.

Lily might not remember him, but she certainly knew who he was. She’d demanded to know about him ever since she discovered such people as fathers existed.

Where was her father? she’d asked. “My daddy,” she said. “Who is my daddy?” Why wasn’t he here? When was he coming back?

So many questions.

For which her mother had had such inadequate answers, Sophy thought miserably now.

But how could she explain to a child what had happened? It was hard enough to explain it to herself.

She’d done her best. She’d assured her daughter of George’s love. She knew that much was true. And she’d even promised that some day Lily would meet him.

“When?” her daughter had demanded.

“Later.” Sophy kept the promise deliberately vague. “When you’re older.”

Not now. And yet, at the same time Sophy thought the words again, another thought popped into her head: What if he died?

Impossible! George had always seemed tough, impervious, imminently indestructible.

But what did she really know about the man who had so briefly been her husband? She only thought she’d known…

And what man, even a strong tough one, could fend off a truck?

“Sophy?” Natalie’s voice whispered from the door. “Christo’s waiting in the car.”

“Coming.” Quickly Sophy bent and gave her daughter a light kiss, brushed her hand over Lily’s silky hair, then sucked in a deep, desperate breath and hurried out of the room.

Natalie was waiting, watching worriedly. Sophy mustered a smile. “I’ll be back before you know it.”

“Of course you will.” Natalie gave her a quick smile in return, then wrapped Sophy in a fierce tight hug intended, Sophy knew, to supply a boatload of encouragement and support. “You don’t still love him, do you?” Natalie asked.

Sophy pulled back and shook her head. “No,” she vowed. She couldn’t. She wouldn’t! “Absolutely not.”

They weren’t giving him any painkillers.

Which would be fine, George thought, though the pounding in his head was ferocious and moving his leg and elbow made him wince, if they would just let him sleep.

But they weren’t doing that, either. Every time he fell blessedly asleep they loomed over him, poking and prodding, talking in loud kindergarten-teacher voices, shining lights in his eyes, asking him his name, how old he was, who was the president.

How idiotic was that? He could barely remember his age or who the president was when he hadn’t just got run over by a truck.

If they’d ask him how to determine the speed of light or what the properties of black holes were, he could have answered in the blink of an eye. He could talk about that for hours—or he could have provided he was able to keep his eyes open long enough.

But no one asked him that.

They went away for a while, but then came back with more needles. They did scans, tutted and muttered, asked more of their endless questions, always looking at him expectantly, then furrowed their brows, worried, when he couldn’t remember if he was thirty-four or thirty-five.

Who the hell cared?

Apparently they did.

“What month is it?” he demanded. His birthday was in November.

They looked askance when he asked them questions.

“He doesn’t know what month it is,” one murmured and made quick urgent notes on her laptop.

“Doesn’t matter,” George muttered irritably. “Is Jeremy all right?”

That was what mattered right now. That was what he saw whenever his eyes were closed—his little four-year-old dark-haired neighbor darting into the street to chase after his ball. That and—out of the corner of his eye—the truck barreling down on him.

The memory still made his breath catch. “How’s Jeremy?’ George demanded again.

“He’s fine. Barely a scratch,” the doctor said, shining a light in George’s eyes. “Already gone home. Much better off than you. Hold still and open your eyes, George, damn it.”

Ordinarily, George figured, Sam Harlowe probably had more patience with his patients. But he and Sam went back to grade school. Now Sam gripped George’s chin in firm fingers and shone his light again in George’s eyes again. It sent his head pounding through the roof and made him grit his teeth.

“As long as Jeremy’s okay,” he said through them. As soon as Sam let go of his jaw, George lay back against the pillows and deliberately shut his eyes.

“Fine. Be an ass,” Sam said gruffly. “But you’re going to stay right here and you’re going to rest. Check on him regularly,” Sam commanded the nurse. “Keep me posted on any change. The next twenty-four hours are critical.”

George’s eyes flicked open again. “I thought you said he was all right.”

“He is. The jury’s still out on you,” Sam told him gruffly. “I’ll be back.”

As that sounded more like a threat than a promise, George wanted to say he wouldn’t be here, but by the time he mustered his wits, Sam was long gone.

Annoyed, George glared after him. Then he fixed his gaze on the nurse. “You can leave, too,” he told her irritably. He’d had enough questions. Besides, his head hurt less if he shut his eyes. So he did.

He may have even slept because the next thing he knew there was a new nurse pestering him.

“So, how old are you, George?” she asked him.

George squinted at her. “Too old to be playing games. When can I go home?”

“When you’ve played our games,” the nurse said drily.

He cracked a smile at that. “I’m going to be thirty-five. It’s October. I had oatmeal for breakfast this morning. Unless it’s tomorrow already.”

“It is,” she told him.

“Then I can go home.”

“Not until Dr. Harlowe agrees.” She didn’t look up while she checked his blood pressure. When she finished she said, “I understand you’re a hero.”

George squinted at her. “Not likely.”

“You didn’t save a boy’s life?”

“I knocked him across the street.”

“So he wouldn’t get killed by a truck,” the nurse said. “That qualifies as ‘saving’ in my book. I hear he just got a few scrapes and bruises.”

“Which is what I’ve got,” George pointed out, about to nod toward the ones visible on his arm. “So I should be able to go home, too.”

“And you will,” she said. “But head injuries can be serious.”

Finally, blessedly, she—and all her persistent colleagues—left him alone. As the hours wore on eventually the hospital noises quieted. The rattle of carts in the halls diminished. Even the beeps and the clicks seemed to fade. Not the drumming in his head, though. God, it was ceaseless.

Every time he drifted off, he moved. It hurt. He shifted. Found a spot it wasn’t quite so bad. Slept. And then they woke him again. When he did sleep it was restlessly. Images, dreams, memories of Jeremy haunted his dreams. So did ones of the truck. So did the grateful, still stricken faces of Jeremy’s parents.

“We might have lost him,” Jeremy’s mother, Grace, had sobbed at his bedside earlier.

And his father, Philip, had just squeezed George’s hand in his as he’d said over and over, “You have no idea.”

Not true. George had a very good idea. There were other memories and images mingling with those of Jeremy. Memories of a baby, tiny and dark-haired. A first smile. Petal-soft skin. Trusting eyes.

She was Jeremy’s age now. Old enough to run into a street the same way Jeremy had…He tried not to think about it. Tried not to think about her. It made his throat ache and his eyes burn. He shut them once more and tried desperately to fall asleep.

He didn’t know how much sleep he finally got. His head was still pounding when the first glimmers of dawn filtered in through the window.

He’d heard footsteps come into the room earlier. There had been the sound of a nurse’s voice speaking quietly, another low murmured response, then the sound of the feet of a chair being moved.

He hadn’t opened his eyes. Had deliberately ignored it all.

All he’d thought was, please God they would go away without poking him or talking to him again. He didn’t want to be poked. He didn’t want to be civil.

He wanted to go back to sleep—but this time he didn’t want the memories to come with it. The nurse left. The conversation stopped. Yet somehow he didn’t think he was alone.

Was that Sam who’d come in? Was he standing there now, staring down at him in silence?

It was the sort of juvenile nonsensical thing they’d done as kids to try to psych the other out. Surely Sam had grown out of it by now.

George shifted—and winced as he tried to roll onto his side. His shoulder hurt like hell. Every muscle in his body protested. If Sam thought this was funny…

George flicked open his eyes and his whole being—mind and body—seemed to jerk.

It wasn’t Sam in the room. It was a woman.

George sucked in a breath. He didn’t think he made a noise. But something alerted her because she had been sitting beside his bed looking out the window, and now as he stared, dry-mouthed and disbelieving, slowly she turned and her gaze met his.

For the first time in nearly four years he and Sophy—his wife—were face-to-face.

Wife? Ha.

They might have stood side by side in a New York City judge’s office and repeated after him. They might have a legally binding document declaring them married. But it had never meant anything more than a piece of paper.

Not to her.

Not to either of them, George told himself firmly, though the pain he felt was suddenly different than before. He resisted it. Didn’t want to care. Sure as hell didn’t want to feel!

The very last thing he needed now was to have to deal with Sophy. His jaw tightened involuntarily, which, damn it, made his head hurt even worse.

“What are you doing here?” he demanded. His voice was rough, hoarse from tubes and dry hospital air. He glared at her accusingly.

“Irritating you, obviously.” Sophy’s tone was mild, but there was a concern in her gaze that belied her tone. Still, she shrugged lightly. “The hospital called me. You were unconscious. They needed next of kin’s permission to do whatever they felt needed doing.”

“You?” George stared in disbelief.

“That’s pretty much what I said when they called,” Sophy admitted candidly, crossing one long leg over the other and leaning back in the chair.

She was wearing black wool trousers and an olive green sweater. Very tasteful. Professional. Businesslike, George would have said. Not at all the Sophy of jeans and sweats and maternity tops he remembered. Only her copper-colored hair was still the same, the dark red strands glinting like new pennies in the early morning sun. He remembered running his fingers through it, burying his face in it. More thoughts he didn’t want to deal with.

“Apparently you never got around to divorcing me.” She looked at him as if asking a question.

George’s jaw tightened. “I imagined you would take care of that,” he bit out. Since she had been the one who was so keen on it. Damn, but his head was pounding. He shut his eyes.

When he opened them again it was to see that Sophy’s gaze had flickered away. But then it came back to meet his. She shook her head.

“No need,” she said easily. “I certainly wasn’t getting married again.”

And neither was he. He’d been gutted once by marriage. He had no desire to go through it again. But he wasn’t talking about that to Sophy. He couldn’t believe she was even here. Maybe that whack on the head was causing him to hallucinate.

He tried shutting his eyes again, wishing her gone. No luck. When he opened them again, she was still there.

Getting hit by a truck was small potatoes compared to dealing with Sophy. He needed all his wits and every bit of control and composure he could manage when it came to coping with her. Now he rolled onto his back again and grimaced as he tried to push himself up against the pillows.

“Probably not a good idea,” Sophy commented.

No, it wasn’t. The closer he got to vertical, the more he felt as if the top of his head was going to come off. On the other hand, he wasn’t dealing with Sophy from a position of weakness.

“You should rest,” she offered.

“I’ve been resting all night.”

“I doubt you had much,” Sophy said frankly. “The nurse said you were restless.”

“You try sleeping when they’re asking you questions.”

“They need to keep checking, you have concussion and a subdural hematoma. Not to mention,” she added, assessing him slowly as if he were a distasteful bug pinned to paper, “that you look as if you’ve been put through a meat grinder.”

“Thanks,” George muttered. Yes, it hurt, but he kept pushing himself up. He wanted to clutch his head in his hands. Instead he clutched the bedclothes until his knuckles turned white.

“For heaven’s sake, stop that! Lie down or I’ll call the nurse.”

“Be my guest,” George said. “Since it’s morning and I know my name and how old I am, maybe they’ll finally let me sign myself out of here and go home. I have things to do. Classes. Work.”

Sophy rolled her eyes. “You’re not going anywhere. You’re lucky you’re not in surgery.”

“Why should I be?” He scowled. “I don’t have any broken bones.” He was half-sitting now so he stopped pushing himself up and lifted his arm to look at his watch. His arm was bare except for the intravenous tube in the back of his hand. He gritted his teeth. “Damn it. What time is it? I have a class doing an experiment tomorrow. I need to go to work.” I need to get away from this woman—or I need to grab her and hold on to her forever.

Sophy rolled her eyes. “Like that’s going to happen.”

For a terrible moment, George thought she was responding to the words that had formed in his concussed brain. Then he realized she was talking about him going to work. He sagged in relief.

“The world doesn’t stop just because one person has an accident,” he told her irritably.

“Yours almost did.”

The baldness of her statement was like a punch to the gut. And so was the sudden change in Sophy’s expression as she said the words. There was nothing at all light or flippant about her now. She looked stricken. “You almost died, George!” She even sounded as if she cared.

He steeled himself against believing it, making himself shrug. “But I didn’t.”

All the same he knew the truth of what she said. The truck was big enough. It had been moving fast enough. If he’d been half a step slower, she would likely be right.

Would they have called Sophy if he’d died? Would she have come and planned his funeral?

He didn’t ask. He knew Sophy didn’t love him, but she didn’t hate him, either.

Once he’d even thought they actually stood a chance of making their marriage work, that she might have really come to love him.

“What happened?” she asked him now. “The nurse said you got hit saving a child.”

He was surprised she’d asked. But then he realized she might want to know why they’d tracked her down and dragged her here. It didn’t have anything to do with caring about him.

“Jeremy,” George confirmed. “He’s four. He lives down the street from me. I was walking home from work and he came running down the sidewalk to show me his new soccer ball. He dropped it so he could dribble it, but then as he got closer he kicked it harder—at me. But it—” he dragged in a harsh breath “—went into the street.”

Sophy sucked in a breath.

“There was a delivery truck coming…”

Sophy went very white. “Dear God. He’s not…?”

George shook his head, then instantly wished he hadn’t. “He’s okay. Bruised. Scraped up. But—”

“But not dead.” Sophy said it aloud. Firmly, as if to make it more believable. She seemed to breathe again, relief evident on her face. “Thank God.” And her gaze lifted as if she was in prayer.

“Yes.”

Then she lowered her gaze and looked at him. “Thank George.”

There was a sudden flatness in her tone, and George heard an unwelcome edge of finality, of inevitability. Almost of bitterness.

His teeth came together. “What? Did you want me to let him run in front of a truck?”

“Of course not!” Sophy’s eyes flashed. A deep flush of color rushed into her pale cheeks. “How could you say such a thing? I was just…recognizing what you’d done.”

“Sure you were.” He gave her a hard look, an expectant look, waiting for her to say the words that hung between them.

She wet her lips. “You saved him.”

He almost expected it to be an accusation. She had certainly made it sound that way when she’d flung the words at him the day she’d said she didn’t want to be married anymore.

“That’s what you were doing when you married me,” she’d cried bitterly. “You married me to save me!”

He had, of course. But that wasn’t the only reason. Not that she would believe it. He hadn’t replied then. He didn’t reply now. Sophy would think what she wanted.

George stared back at her stonily, dared her to make something of it.

But whatever anger she felt seemed to go out of her. She just looked at him with those wide deep green eyes for a long moment, and then she added quietly, “You are a hero.”

George snorted. “Hardly. Jeremy wouldn’t have been out there running down the street at all if he hadn’t seen me coming.”

“What? You’re saying it’s your fault?” She stared at him in disbelief.

“I’m just saying he was waiting for me.” He shrugged. “We kick the ball around together sometimes.”

“You know him well, then? He’s a friend?” Sophy sounded surprised, as if she considered it unlikely.

“We’re friends.” Jeremy with his dark hair and bright eyes had made him think about Lily. He didn’t say that, though.

Sophy’s brows lifted slightly, as if the notion that he knew who his neighbors were surprised her as well. Maybe it should. He hadn’t known any of their neighbors during the few months they’d been together.

But he hadn’t had time, had he? He’d been too busy finishing up the government project he was working on and trying to figure out how to be a husband and then, only weeks later, a father. The first had been time-consuming, but at least in his comfort zone.

Marriage and fatherhood had been completely virgin territory. He hadn’t had a clue.

Now Sophy said, “I was surprised you were back in New York.” It wasn’t a question, but he assumed that she meant it as one.

“For the past two years.”

“Uppsala didn’t appeal?”

Ah, right. Uppsala. That was where she thought he’d gone—the job he had supposedly been up for—at the University of Uppsala in Sweden.

He couldn’t have told her differently then. He hadn’t been permitted to talk about it. And there was no point in talking about it now.

“It was a two-year appointment,” he said.

That much was the truth. And though he could have continued to work on government projects, he hadn’t wanted to. He’d agreed to the earlier one before he’d ever expected to be marrying anyone. And if things had worked out between him and Sophy, he would have bowed out and never gone to Europe at all.

When their marriage crumbled, he went, grateful not to have to stay in the city, grateful to be able to put an ocean between him and the reason for his pain.

But after two years, he’d come home, back to New York though he’d had several good offers elsewhere. “This one at Columbia is tenure track,” he told her.

Not that tenure had been a factor. He’d taken the job because it appealed to him. It was research work he wanted to do, eager graduate students to mentor, a freshman class to inspire and a classload he could handle.

It had nothing to do with the fact that when he took it he’d thought Sophy and Lily were still living in the city. Nothing.

Sophy nodded. “Ah.”

“When did you leave?” he asked. At her raised brows, he said, “I did drop by. You were gone.”

“I went to California. Not long after you left,” she said. “I started a business with my cousin.”

“So I heard. My mother said she talked to you at Christo’s wedding.”

“Yes.” Then she added politely, “It was nice to see your parents again.”

George, who knew exactly what she thought of his father, said drily, “I’ll bet.”

He’d been invited to Christo’s wedding, too. He hadn’t gone because he had had no clue who his cousin Christo was marrying and no interest in flying across the country to find out. To discover later that Christo’s bride was a second cousin of Sophy’s blew his mind. He wondered what would have happened if he’d gone to the wedding, if they’d run into each other there.

Probably nothing, he thought heavily. There were times and places when things could happen. It had been the wrong time before. And now? Now it was simply too late.

Yet even knowing it, he couldn’t help saying, “What about your business? My mother said it’s called Rent-a-Bride?”

“Rent-a-Wife,” Sophy corrected. “We do things for people that they need a second person to cope with. Things wives traditionally do. Pick up dry cleaning, arrange dinner parties, ferry the kids to dental appointments and soccer games, take the dog to the vet.”

“And people pay for that?”

“They do. Very well, in fact.” She met his gaze defiantly. “I’m doing fine.”

Without you.

She didn’t have to say the words for him to hear them. “Ah. Well, good for you.”

Their gazes locked, hers more of a glare than a gaze. Then abruptly she looked away, shifted in her chair and tried to stifle a yawn. Watching her, George realized she must have had to fly all night to get here from California.

“Did you sleep?”

She bit off the yawn. “Some.” But her gaze flicked away fast enough that he knew it for the lie it was. And he felt guilty for her having been called for no reason.

“Look,” he said roughly, “I’m sorry they bothered you. I’m sorry you felt you had to drop everything and fly clear across the country to sign papers. It wasn’t necessary.”

“The doctor said it was.”

“My fault. I should have updated the contact information.”

“To whom?” Her question was as quick as it was surprising. And was she actually interested in his answer?

George shrugged. “My folks. My sister, Tallie. She and Elias and the kids live in Brooklyn.”

“Oh. Right. Of course.” Sophy shifted in the chair, sat up straighter. “I just wondered. I thought—” But she stopped, not telling him whatever it was she’d thought, and George didn’t have enough working brain cells to try to guess. “Never mind.”

“I’ll get it changed as soon as I get out of here,” he promised.

“No problem.” Sophy’s easy acceptance was unexpected. At his blink of astonishment, she shrugged. “You were there for me. It’s my turn.”

He frowned. “So this is payback?”

She spread her hands. “It’s the best I can do.”

“You don’t need to do anything!”

“Apparently not,” she said in a mild nonconfrontational tone that reminded him of a mother humoring a fractious child.

George set his teeth. He didn’t want to be humored and he damned well didn’t want Sophy patronizing him.

“Fine. It’s payback. So consider your debt paid,” he said gruffly. He’d had enough. “Now, if you don’t mind, I’d like to get some rest. And,” he went on for good measure, “as you can see, I’m conscious and I can sign my own papers now. So thank you for coming, but I can take care of things myself. You don’t need to hang around taking care of me. You can go.”

As the words left his mouth he knew he heard the echo of almost the exact words she had thrown at him nearly four years ago: I don’t need you! I’m not a mess you need to clean up. I can take care of myself. I don’t need you doing it for me. So get out of here! Leave me alone. Just go!

And from the expression on her face, Sophy knew it, too. She looked as if he’d slapped her.

“Of course,” she said stiffly and stood up, pulling her jacket off the back of the chair and putting it on.

George watched her every move. He didn’t want to. But, as usual, he couldn’t look away. From the first moment he’d seen her on his cousin Ari’s arm at a family wedding, Sophy had always had the power to draw his gaze.

She didn’t seem to notice. Something else that hadn’t changed. She zipped up her jacket and picked up her tote from the floor by the chair. Then she stood looking down at him, her expression unreadable.

George made sure his was, too. “Thank you for coming,” he said evenly. “I’m sorry you were inconvenienced.”

She inclined her head. “I’m glad you’re recovering.”

All very polite. They looked at each other in silence. For three seconds. Five. George didn’t know how long. It wasn’t going to be enough. It never would be.

He couldn’t help memorizing her even as he told himself it was a stupid thing to do. And not the first, he reminded himself grimly, where Sophy was concerned.

She gave him one last faint smile and turned away.

Her name was out of his mouth before she reached the door. “Sophy.”

She stilled, glanced back, one brow lifting quizzically.

He’d thought he could leave it at that. That he could simply let her go. But he had to ask. “How’s Lily?”

For a moment he thought she wouldn’t answer. But then the smile he hadn’t seen yet suddenly appeared on her face like the sun from behind a bank of thunderheads. Her expression softened. And she was no longer supremely self-contained, keeping him determinedly outside the castle walls. “Lily’s fine. Amazing. Bright. Funny. So smart. We had her birthday party yesterday. She’s—”

“Four.” George finished the sentence before she could. He knew exactly how old she was. Remembered every minute of the day she was born. Remembered holding her in his arms. Remembered how the mantle of responsibility felt on his shoulders—unexpected, scary, yet absolutely right.

Sophy blinked. “You remembered?”

“Of course.”

She swallowed. “Would you…like to see a picture of her?”

Would he? George nodded almost jerkily. Sophy didn’t seem to notice. She was already opening her purse and taking out her wallet. She fished out a photo and came back across the room to hand it to him.

George took one look at the child in the photo and felt his throat close.

God, she was beautiful. He’d seen some snapshots that his mother had given him from the wedding so he had an idea of what Lily was like. But this photo really captured her.

She was sitting on a beach, a bucket of sand on her lap, her face tipped back as she laughed up at whoever had taken the photo. It was like seeing a miniature Sophy, except for the hair. Lily’s was dark and wavy and, in this photo, wind-tossed. But her eyes were Sophy’s eyes—the same shape, the same color. “British sports car green,” he’d once called them. And her mouth wore a little girl’s version of the delighted, sparkling grin that, like Sophy’s, would make the world a brighter place. Her fingers were clutching the sides of the sand pail, and George remembered how her much tinier fingers had clutched his as she’d stared up at him in cross-eyed solemnity whenever he held her.

He blinked rapidly, his throat aching as he swallowed hard. When he was sure he could do it without sounding rusty, he lifted his gaze and said, “She’s very like you.”

Sophy nodded. “People say that,” she agreed. “Except her hair. She has y—Ari’s hair.”

Ari’s hair. Because Lily was Ari’s daughter. Not his.

For all that George had once dared to hope, like her mother Lily had never been his.

They both belonged to Ari—always had—no matter that his cousin had been dead since before Lily’s birth. Some things, George found, hurt more than the pounding in his head. He ran his tongue over his lips. “She looks happy.”

“She is.” Sophy’s voice was firm and confident now. “She’s a happy well-adjusted little girl. She’s actually pretty easygoing most of the time. Once she got over the three-month mark, she stopped having colic and settled down. I managed,” she added, as if it needed saying.

He supposed she thought it did. She’d had something to prove when she’d told him to get out. And she’d obviously proved it.

Now he took a breath. “I’m glad to hear it.” George took one last look at the picture then held it out to her.

“You can have it,” she said. “I can print another one. If you want it,” she added a second later, as if he might not.

“Thanks. Yes, I’d like it.” He studied it again for a long moment before turning slowly in an attempt to set it on the table next to the bed.

Sophy reached out and took it from him, standing it up against his water pitcher so he could see it if he turned his head. “There.” She stepped back again. “She can…watch over you.” As soon as she said the words, she ducked her head, as if she shouldn’t have. “You should get some rest.”

“We’ll see.”

“No ‘we’ll see.’ You should,” she said firmly.

He didn’t reply, and she seemed to realize that was something else she shouldn’t have said, that she had no right to tell him what he should or shouldn’t do. “Sorry,” she said briskly. “None of my business.” She turned toward the door again. “Goodbye.”

He almost called her back a second time. But it would simply prolong the awkwardness between them. And when you got right down it, there was nothing else.

It had been kind of her to have come—even if it was simply “payback” on her part. Still, it was more than he would have expected.

No, that was unfair.

She might not love him, but she was tenderhearted. Sophy would do the right thing for anyone she perceived to be in need—even the man she resented more than anyone on earth.

He didn’t need her, he reminded himself. He’d lived without her for nearly four years. He could live without her for the rest of his life. All he had to do was end things now as he should have done four years ago.

“Sophy!”

This time she was beyond the door and when she turned, she looked back with something akin to impatience in her gaze. “What?”

He made it clear—to both of them. “Don’t worry. It will never happen again. As soon as I get out of here, I’ll file for divorce.”