Читать книгу Hollywood Hills Collection - Lynne Marshall, Amalie Berlin - Страница 22

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

IT HURT.

Far, far more than the end of any other relationship ever had.

Even though Zack would insist that it hadn’t been a relationship because he didn’t do that type of thing.

‘Men!’ Freya said to Cleo as they stood in the little patch of garden early one morning, more than a week after their row.

She carried her back up the stairs and, instead of driving to work, Freya decided that she would run. She hadn’t run all week, she’d been huddled on the sofa at night with Cleo and busy with work by day.

It was time to get back on track with her schedules. She had a change of clothes at work so she pulled on her running gear and put in her earphones and did what she loved to do. She arrived at work all hot and sweaty and stood bent over in the stunning foyer.

‘James will have you using the side entrance,’ Zack said as he went past, and Freya actually laughed.

She wasn’t the prettiest sight for such expensive surroundings but she felt better for a run and glad that she and Zack were almost at the point they could acknowledge each other in passing.

There was a meeting with James this morning and Zack would be there so Freya wasn’t looking forward to it one bit.

She walked into the changing rooms and they were like a luxury spa. There was soft music and fluffy towels and Freya stepped under the delicious jets of water, and then everything shifted.

Her legs started to shake and Freya went dizzy. She didn’t even turn off the taps, she just stepped out and grabbed at a towel then sat on the bench with her head down.

‘Freya?’

She could hear Stephanie’s voice and it seemed to be coming from a long way off, except her face was right next to her ear.

‘I’m okay,’ Freya said.

‘You’re ever so white.’

‘I just need a moment,’ Freya said. ‘Could you get me some tea?’

The waiting rooms all had oolong tea, kept warm by a candle, and little glasses and so it was just a couple of moments before Stephanie returned.

By then Freya had put on a robe and was a bit more together. ‘Sorry about that,’ she said.

‘It’s fine.’ Stephanie smiled. ‘I saw that you ran in. Maybe you overdid it.’

‘Maybe,’ Freya said, and she felt a twist of indignation because she knew the implication behind Stephanie’s words. She had, in fact, underdone things this week but it was always there, the feeling that everyone was waiting for her to slide back into ways of old.

Even James, Freya thought.

They made no mention of her past, it was a subject he avoided, but she could always see the concern in his eyes.

She didn’t need it.

And it was one of the things she had loved about Zack. He hadn’t raised his eyes at her ways, he had let her be, and she missed him so much.

So much.

Over and over she tried to tell herself it had just been a few weeks, that you couldn’t fall in love in that time, and certainly it wasn’t love if it was unrequited.

‘I’m fine now,’ Freya said, and put down the little cup but she knew she was going to throw up. ‘Honestly.’

Please, go now, she thought.

Freya walked to the toilet and closed the door and she wished Stephanie would leave as she threw up the tea as quietly as she could.

No, Freya thought, she hadn’t overdone her run—the nausea and dizzy spells were for different reasons altogether.

How the hell could she ever tell Zack that she was pregnant?

Freya put on her grey dress with capped sleeves and did her hair and make-up and then she had another glass of tea and that one was nice.

Feeling a whole lot better, she arrived at the meeting room.

‘Where’s Zack?’

‘He’s talking to your good friend Mila about another patient.’

Freya ignored the dig and James got down to business and said he would, as of today, be starting to put out the feelers for a new cardiac surgeon to replace Zack. ‘Already?’

‘Well, if they have to give notice. I just asked Zack if he’d go on a month-to-month contract but he said no, he’s out of here at the end of March.

‘And it’s February today.’ James said.

So it was.

‘Morning.’ Zack came into the meeting room with no apologies for being late and she and James shared a small smile.

He was such an arrogant bastard.

Even down to the fact they were having this meeting in a meeting room when usually they’d be in James’s office for such things.

Zack played second fiddle to no one.

‘I can’t stay long,’ Zack said. ‘I’ve got a patient that’s not doing well on NICU.’

‘I heard,’ James said. ‘Are you going to operate?’

‘I don’t know. I’ve just spoken with Mila and we’re trying to schedule Bright Hope patients. I want to squeeze an ablation onto the end of the Sunday list on the fourteenth.’

‘That’s Valentine’s Day.’ James raised an eyebrow. ‘Won’t you want to be finishing up early?’

‘Same as any other day to me,’ Zack responded. ‘I’m an incurable unromantic.’

James took a call and it would seem that it was a personal one because he excused himself and took it outside the office, leaving Freya bristling beside Zack.

‘Can you not do that?’

‘What?’

‘Consistently point out...’ She was so incensed. ‘I get you don’t do romance but your little digs are unnecessary.’

‘I wasn’t digging, Freya.’ Zack gave a bored eye-roll at her drama. ‘I’ve used the same line for ten years. I’m not changing anything for your benefit.’

That was a dig at the breakfast she’d made him.

Oh, yes, it was because there was a small smirk on his lips as she opened her mouth to argue.

Then she closed it and then, to hell with it, she said it. ‘I’d run out of coffee.’

‘What on earth are you talking about?’ Zack asked.

He knew full well!

‘You overthink everything,’ he said.

‘No, I don’t.’

They were sulking and turned on and now staring ahead as they sniped, and both wanted to be down on the floor.

He had told James with absolute certainty that he would not be staying on after March, but the certainty had been in his voice only.

‘Freya.’ James came back into the meeting room and his voice had them both turn around. ‘That was Red.’

‘Red?’ Freya frowned. ‘Why would he call you?’

‘Because he can’t get through on your phone.’

Red had James’s number in case Freya was away and there was an emergency.

‘He thinks you ought to go home. Cleo’s not well,’ James told her. ‘I’ll drive you.’

‘I don’t need you to drive me,’ Freya snapped, and got up. ‘I can drive myself.’

But she’d run to work this morning.

‘What’s going on?’ Zack asked James when Freya had left, as if he didn’t know, as if just last week a fat pug hadn’t been asleep on his feet and then stood on his chest, baring her teeth at him.

‘Her dog’s not well,’ James said. ‘She’s a vicious little thing.’

Freya or Cleo? Zack nearly said, but stopped himself. It was getting harder and harder to separate things, and he was glad when James gave up on the meeting.

‘Can we do this tomorrow?’ James asked.

‘I’m in Theatre all day tomorrow.’

‘Well, I’ve got a list this evening.’ James was distracted and so too was Zack. ‘We’ll work out a time later.’

‘Will she be okay?’ Zack asked.

‘Cleo?’ James said, and Zack frowned as if he had no idea who James was talking about. ‘Oh, you mean Freya. I think so, though you never really know with Freya. She always says that she’s fine.’

Zack found her coming out of the changing room, where Freya had left her phone.

‘You haven’t got your car,’ Zack said. ‘Do you want me to drive you?’

‘No, thank you,’ Freya said. ‘You’re busy today. I’ll get Stephanie to call for a car.’

Stephanie did so. ‘Are you still not feeling well?’ she enquired, and Freya wished she was more like Zack and simply didn’t answer questions that she didn’t want to.

‘I’m much better. Thanks for all your help this morning,’ Freya said. ‘I just got a call and my dog’s sick.’

‘Cleo?’

‘Yes.’

Freya knew that Red wouldn’t call without good reason and she was right.

The vet was there and Cleo lay on the sofa and her little tail thumped when she saw Freya.

‘She got all breathless,’ Red said, and then the vet told her things weren’t going to get better.

‘She’s comfortable. We can take her back to the clinic and put her on some diuretics...’

‘No.’ Freya shook her head. ‘She hates being away from here.’ It was why she didn’t put her in boarding kennels and why she’d be grateful forever to Red because in the last year of an old dog’s life she’d stayed home every night.

It was time, but not for Freya.

‘Can I have a day with her?’ Freya asked. ‘Can you do it here?’

‘I’ll come by with Kathy at the end of surgery,’ he said, and Freya nodded. Kathy was her favourite nurse at the vet’s.

She thanked the vet and she thanked Red and saw them all out, and then she sat on the sofa with her best friend who’d seen her so far on her journey.

‘I’m not getting another puppy,’ Freya told her. ‘I could never love it as much as you.’ She buried her face in Cleo’s black fur. ‘And I don’t think it would be very fair on the baby.’ She looked into loving black eyes. ‘Shall we find out?’

Poor Cleo had been listening to her rabbit on about it for days now and it didn’t seem very fair that she died not knowing for sure.

And so she peed on the stick and came out a few moments later.

‘I am,’ she said to Cleo, and she accepted her lick and gave Cleo a kiss as the news sank in.

She was pregnant by a man who had hauled on his boots at the first sniff of commitment.

A man she was seriously head over heels about.

But more than that.

She was pregnant.

But more than that...

Freya wanted to be.

* * *

Zack knew that James had an evening theatre list and he actually drove past Freya’s and wondered if he should go up.

It was odd, but when James had said that Cleo was vicious, Zack had wanted to laugh. That morning, back in her bed, he’d thought Cleo had been warning him to be nice to her mistress. Instead, it had just been a demented dog.

It was her demented dog, though, who had been with her through all the hard times. He saw Freya come down the stairs, carrying Cleo and chatting to her as she did her business and then back up the stairs they went.

And a little while later he saw a couple come down carrying a bundle in a blanket and he knew it was the vet and assistant and that Cleo had just been euthanised.

Zack, who never got close to anyone, was tearing up over a dog, or was it over Freya and how devastated she must feel right now?

This would not end up in bed, Zack told himself as he got out of the car. He was knocking on a door as a friend.

Or maybe it would end in bed, he amended, but only if she so chose.

Yet the woman who answered it didn’t just surprise him—Freya shocked him.

‘Yes?’

She was pale and rather angry looking but what floored Zack was that she was absolutely dry-eyed.

‘I heard that your dog wasn’t well...’

‘And?’

‘Freya?’

‘What do you want, Zack?’ Freya asked. ‘Do you think sex is going to help?’ She looked at him. ‘You do, don’t you?’

‘I get what works for me might not for you. I’m just checking if you’re okay.’

‘Well, as you can see, I am.’

She slammed the door on him.

Screw you, Freya thought.

Oh, she wanted him but, more than that, she wanted Cleo tonight.

Her phone buzzed and it was a text from Mila.

James told me about Cleo.

Then it buzzed again and it was James.

Do you want me to stop by?

No, thanks, I’m fine.

How many ways could she say it?

Red came and drank all her beer and he cried and then he did all the stuff with the bowls and leads and things for her.

And finally a teary Red headed off and it left Freya alone in her apartment minus Cleo, and that had never happened before.

She’d done everything right by her, Freya told herself. Cleo had had the best possible last day.

There was only one thing about this day Freya regretted.

That Zack wasn’t there.

Not for the sex, or the possible progression of them, and not because she had found out she was pregnant...

It would have helped to have him here tonight.

Just that.