Читать книгу Hollywood Hills Collection - Lynne Marshall, Amalie Berlin - Страница 23

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

IT WAS THE oddest week.

No Cleo to chat to.

All her routines felt shot and she didn’t know how to tell Zack the news.

Beth had returned from her honeymoon and they had a girls’ night in to go through the photos and videos.

The tamest girls’ night in—they were all pregnant now, not that Freya let on.

She was detoxing too, she told them!

‘The photos are amazing,’ Beth said. ‘Except these ones.’

There was Zack striding down the stairs and people turning and frowning in annoyance as he messed up the shot.

And Freya found herself laughing quietly and said that she wanted a copy.

‘I can have the crowd edited out,’ Beth offered.

The crowd being her friends!

‘No, no,’ Freya said. ‘I like it.’

So much so that when they were all talking husbands she snapped a photo of it onto her phone.

After that it was a weekend for thinking. Freya knew that she had to tell Zack and she went by his office on the Monday morning but got cold feet.

‘What I can do for you, Freya?’ Zack said.

There were so many possible answers to that question that they even shared a smile, and Freya made up something about the Canadian hockey player. It served its purpose and diverted them back to work, and Zack got cross but it was clear the lust remained.

Freya was now swiping oolong tea every time she went past one of the waiting rooms just to keep hydrated as she was throwing up so often.

‘How are you?’ James stopped by her office.

Lately he seemed to be doing that a lot.

‘I’m fine.’

‘That doesn’t mean anything with you,’ James said, and finally he told her what was on his mind. ‘You’ve lost weight.’

‘James...’ Freya took a breath. ‘Every time I drop a couple of pounds it doesn’t have to mean that I’m back to sticking my fingers down my throat.’

‘I didn’t say that. I asked if you were okay.’

‘Well, I am.’

‘Good.’

‘And while we’re discussing the great white elephant of my eating disorder,’ Freya said, ‘I’m going to start taking clients. I’m having some cards made up. If you want me to see them elsewhere...’

‘Are you sure you’re not taking on too much?’

‘Do I ever ask you that?’

‘Actually, yes,’ James said. ‘I’ve got to go. I’ve got interviews but I’ll let the others know that you’re taking on clients and if they have anyone who might benefit from a referral.’ He gave a roll of his eyes. ‘That’s half my patient list, actually. I don’t think you’ll ever need to advertise.’ He turned at the sound of Zack’s footsteps coming down the corridor. ‘I’m just about to start interviewing for your replacement.’

‘Not now,’ Zack clipped. ‘I’ve got a patient to see.’

He was dreading it.

It was the last-chance saloon for this little mite and his parents knew it.

All night he had been up late, speaking with colleagues, going over and over the ultrasounds with the best brains he knew, and the response had been the same. Zack would take on more than most, which was why his stats came in low, but in this...

Zack sat with the twenty-year-old mother and the twenty-two-year-old father and he told them as best as he could that their son would die.

‘Please,’ Rachael begged. ‘Can you at least try...?’

And he went through it all over again, how the damage was too much and that his system was collapsing.

‘He’d very likely die on the operating table, or shortly post-operatively,’ Zack said. ‘Or he can die in your arms.’

Zack could have gone then but he stayed and spoke with them extensively and made sure they understood he wasn’t simply giving up on their son.

Sometimes you didn’t get a choice.

Like ten years to this day when his brother had died.

It was not a good day at the office!

Freya tried not to notice Stephanie’s raised eyebrows as she came out of one of the patients’ very luxurious restrooms. She hadn’t been able to make it to the staff one.

Oh, no. If Stephanie mentioned to James that she’d seen Freya dash off to vomit, he’d have her back in rehab by the end of the week.

And there was Zack, handing over his pagers.

‘I’m not on call tonight,’ Zack said to Stephanie.

‘I’ll call if there’s anything urgent with one of your patients—’

‘I said that I’m not on call tonight.’ Zack made things clear to Stephanie. ‘I’m going to get blind.’

‘Oh.’

He was as grey as she’d seen him and they didn’t bother with small talk as they walked out to their cars.

‘Freya...’ he called her over as she climbed into her car.

‘Yes?’

She turned and looked up at him and Zack stared back and he honestly didn’t know what to say, he hadn’t even meant to call out to her.

He needed her tonight.

Sex, yes, but he wanted all the rest tonight too. Hell, he’d even take the green smoothie.

Just because he didn’t want to move in it didn’t mean he had wanted it to end, and he was kicking himself for doing what he did best—put on his boots and get out.

‘How have you been since Cleo?’

He didn’t get to know that, Freya decided. ‘It happens.’ She went to walk off and then remembered what she’d heard. ‘I heard that you lost a patient today. I’m sorry.’

‘It happens,’ Zack said, but it nearly killed him when it did, especially one so tiny.

Especially today.

And she looked at his eyes and he said not a word of that but she knew him, and she could feel the want between them.

And that was why she cried each night. She was crazy about this guy.

‘You’ve lost weight,’ Zack said.

‘Oh, here we go. Have you been talking to James?’

‘No,’ Zack said. ‘Is he worried?’

‘James is always worried.’

‘Does he have reason to be?’

‘No.’

‘Freya, I know I didn’t end things very well.’

‘There was nothing to end, Zack. It was sex, we both agreed to that and no more, and as good as it was...’

Their eyes met at the memory and Zack looked very deep into her eyes. She could not believe his gall.

Yes, his eyes were asking her for that.

‘You are kidding me,’ Freya said. Did he really think they were going to have sex?

She wanted to so much.

To just ignore that she was completely incapable of not wanting a relationship with this man and to take the good they had.

It would be too much for her heart to bear, though. She had to tell him about the baby, but she could see his anguish today so Freya chose not to now. She abruptly pulled back from telling him and got angry instead.

“You know what, Zack? We should have kept it at one night. Life was so much easier when I didn’t know your name.’

Freya climbed into her car and reversed out angrily.

She wanted him—oh, my, she wanted him.

But even if they had kept it at one night, she’d still be in trouble.

Freya drove towards home and hoped she wasn’t too late to let Cleo out and then she remembered that Cleo wasn’t there any more.

And so instead of knowing that patient black eyes awaited her, Freya had the joy of chatting with herself on the drive home.

She had to tell Zack.

Or not.

He’d be gone in a few weeks.

And she’d been considering donor eggs and donor sperm after all.

But the donors chose anonymity and it would be her baby’s right to know, and Zack had the right to know too.

He’d find out anyway soon.

Stephanie was gossiping, Freya knew, and she trusted Zack wouldn’t just assume her eating disorder was back.

They had both messed up that first night but it wasn’t a disaster. Freya had it all under control.

She was thirty-one, she’d planned to be a single mom.

Zack deserved to know and he also deserved to know that she neither needed nor expected nothing from him.

Freya took the exit and then joined the traffic heading into the city.

She left her car with the valet and walked into the hotel and went straight to the elevators. Down a familiar corridor she walked, but with a different type of anticipation knotting her stomach now as she tried to guess his reaction.

There was a ‘Do not disturb’ sign on the door and Freya ignored it and knocked.

‘Read the sign,’ came his deep, surly voice in response to her knock on the door.

‘Zack, it’s...’ Freya started, and then she had the appalling thought that he might be in there with someone he might have met in the elevator or bar and was banging his brains out, as was clearly his chosen stress response. But then the door opened and he had on only a towel, and then she glanced over his wet, naked shoulder and saw that, no, there was no one else in his suite.

‘I’m just in the middle of a phone call,’ Zack said.

‘Do you want me to wait outside?’ Freya offered.

‘No, no,’ he said, and as she walked into his suite he caught her off guard and pulled her in. ‘Thank God,’ Zack breathed into her ear, and then his mouth was on hers in a hungry kiss and she got a slab of wet muscle pressed into her. It took Freya a second to register that he had assumed she was taking him up on his earlier offer.

‘Zack...’

‘I won’t be long,’ Zack mouthed, and put his finger to his lips and then walked over to the bed and picked up the phone he had left there. ‘Sorry, Mum, it was just the maid.’

He gave her a wink and took her right back to their first conversation and straight back to when all they had been was sex. Freya stood there, her dress damp from his freshly showered body, and she tasted him as she licked her lips. She was unsure what to do as Zack carried on the conversation and she could actually see the tension in his back as he tried to keep his patience as he spoke with his mum.

‘Alice has a right to have a life...it’s been ten years,’ Zack said. ‘She’s allowed to go out on his anniversary. We don’t have to sit behind the curtains to grieve.’

Oh, God, it was the anniversary of his brother’s death, Freya realised as he spoke on.

On top of it all he was dealing with that today.

He went over and got out another glass and went to pour her some wine from an open bottle.

Freya shook her head and he held up some water and she nodded.

‘Why don’t we at least try it tomorrow?’ Zack said. ‘It’s all set up and we can speak face to face wherever I am in the world.’

He gave Freya a smile that said, thank God he wasn’t video chatting with his parents today, because the towel was lifting and Freya, who hadn’t properly smiled in a long time, found that she was.

He put ice and lemon in her water and then, while dealing with this very difficult conversation, he came over and placed it down on the desk. And there was one little problem, Freya realised.

Well, there were many, many problems, but he thought she was there for sex and the sight of him naked and a taste of his tongue, and, as his hand slid around her waist, she was turned on.

Okay, sex tonight, and she’d tell him tomorrow, Freya thought, and she stood.

Or, should she just write ‘I’M PREGNANT’ on the little hotel pad now and pass him a note?

Zack was just finishing up the conversation as his fingers worked her breasts. Her thick nipples told him she was just on the edge of getting her period and he loved the intensity of a woman’s orgasm then.

He turned off the phone and was just so relieved that call was over and especially that she was here and his response told her so.

This kiss was as fierce as their first. It was actually more so because it toppled her back onto the bed.

‘Freya.’ He said it like a moan. He was kissing her face, her mouth, her ears and just pressing her into the bed. Her legs were over the edge and he was roughly parting them and just tearing at her knickers but Freya was hungrily kissing him back.

She was holding his face just to keep it still enough for her mouth and then she gave in and held onto his shoulders as Zack seared inside.

His feet were on the floor and his elbows were each side of her head.

He thrust in hard and the friction they generated meant neither would last. Her legs wrapped around him as all the hurts of past weeks were gathered into an intense peak.

Freya came, a beat before he did, and it was a come so deep that it demanded him now and Zack spilled into her.

‘God, but I needed you tonight.’ He really did, so much so that he had been planning to head to Freya’s because living like this wasn’t working. ‘What made you change your mind and come over?’

He saw her rapid blink.

‘Freya?’

‘I came here to talk to you...’

‘What?’

He replayed the events and Zack pulled out and got up and whipped a towel around his hips and looked at her as she pulled down her dress.

‘I didn’t force you?’

‘Zack,’ Freya said, ‘I might not have come with the intention of sex but I was a very willing participant.’

‘But you came here to talk?’

‘Yes.’

He was still going over it in his head. ‘For a moment there I thought...’

‘Thought what?’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ Zack said. ‘What did you want to talk about?’

‘I’m pregnant.’ It came out faster than she’d intended.

It just came out.

He hadn’t had even a hint that she was and there was no lead in, no warning, she just hit him right with it.

‘You choose your moments, don’t you?’ Zack said.

‘I thought I’d tell you when you weren’t working...’

‘I lost a six-week-old today, I’ve got my parents on the phone, crying about St Toby and all the grandchildren they haven’t got. Should I ring them back and tell them I’m going to be a father?’ He went on, ‘But do you know what, Freya? I wouldn’t do that to them on a day like today!’

‘I didn’t know it was the anniversary of your brother,’ Freya said. ‘We don’t know enough about each other to do specific dates.’

‘I lost a six-week-old today!’ Zack said. ‘How’s that for a specific day because his parents will remember it for ever!’

‘Zack?’

‘You know for a moment there, I thought...’

‘What?’

He shook his head. He had honestly, for a moment there, thought that Freya had got him.

That the woman he had first met had come to his room and that they were back to the beginning but with history and understanding now.

That maybe, just maybe he’d met someone who things might work out with, but he had only just been starting to think like that and now Freya had her voice on.

‘Now, I know it’s a lot to take in, Zack, but—’

‘Don’t do your psychologist voice with me,’ he warned. ‘Don’t tell me it’s a major life-changing event, but that soon I’ll—’

‘It doesn’t have to mean a major life change.’

He looked at her.

‘Er...do I have a say here?’ Zack checked, but there was still a warning note to his voice. Was she popping by to tell him she was on her way to get a termination?

‘That’s why I’m here, Zack.’

‘Stop calling me Zack in that voice,’ he hissed. Freya was using her patient and reasonable and very together voice and it was driving him insane.

‘I’m not having a termination.’

Zack looked at her as she told him how things would be, as Freya, because it was Freya, dealt with all the current things on her to-do list.

‘I was already looking into fertility treatments and donors—’

‘Oh, so I’ve done my job, then.’

‘You’re being petulant.’

‘I feel petulant,’ Zack said.

‘I’m just saying that I’ve thought this through and there’s no need for you to get worked up. I can more than cope with single motherhood.’

‘That’s good to know,’ Zack said, but with an edge. ‘And do I get to see my child in this plan you’ve made?’

‘If you choose to, then I’m sure we can sort that out.’

‘You’ve really thought this through.’

‘I have,’ Freya said. ‘So when I have your thoughts we can make plans or not.’

‘Are you worried, upset?’ Zack checked. ‘You were just getting back into psychology.’

‘I don’t see that one has to exclude the other.’

‘Are you—?’

‘Zack, I’m thirty-one,’ Freya interrupted his questions. ‘I was already planning on single parenthood. I’m not going to fall in a heap.’

‘You don’t like it when the tables are turned, do you?’ Zack said. ‘You want my thoughts, yet you refuse to give yours.’

‘Ask away,’ Freya said.

‘Okay, what about us?’

‘You’ve made it clear that it’s just sex you want from me.’ Freya put her nose in the air as if she disapproved.

‘You don’t want sex?’ Zack asked, and she didn’t answer. ‘Well,’ he said.

Freya pressed her lips together. She didn’t know this mood. He was arrogant and angry yet there was this twist of a smile on his face that she didn’t get.

Zack carried on. ‘With all this sexual attraction do Mommy and Daddy do it when you drop the baby off?’

‘I don’t know where this is leading, Zack.’

Oh, my God, Zack thought, she’d just used that voice again.

‘Well, you’ve been so busy sorting it out I just wondered if that was covered already. Curious...’ Freya could see that black smile was there and it wasn’t the news he seemed annoyed with but her.

Freya.

The woman, Freya knew, that he didn’t want to have a relationship with.

‘What about the two of us?’

‘No,’ Freya said. ‘I lived through my parents’ unhappy marriage. I’m not inflicting it on my child.’

‘You jump straight to marriage.’ His grin was incredulous now!

‘I’m saying that I don’t want a marriage, I want to do this on my own. Of course you’ll be entitled to access.’

‘Do you know what I like about you, Freya?’ Zack said. ‘You’ve got it all worked out.’

Freya looked at him.

‘Do you know what I don’t like about you, Freya? That you’ve got it all worked out without me.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘That’s okay.’ Zack shrugged. ‘I’m not in the mood for explaining. Well, thank you for dropping by.’

He stood and went to the door.

‘Are you asking me to leave?’

‘Yes.’ Zack said. ‘Pay attention to the sign next time. If it says don’t disturb, don’t disturb.’

‘But we need to talk.’

‘We already have.’

‘I need your thoughts.’

‘Well, you can’t have them yet.’

He didn’t have a clue what they were.