Читать книгу Nyc Angels & Gold Coast Angels Collection - Lynne Marshall - Страница 19

‘JACK!’

Blake was delighted to see him. ‘Janey got hurt.’

‘I’m fine,’ Janey insisted. ‘I fell over, ice skating.’ She rolled up her sleeve and showed a rather spectacular bruise, as Nina came through to the lounge and he saw the tension on her face.

‘Great, isn’t it?’ She rolled her eyes. ‘I’m sending her back black and blue.’

‘It was an accident, ice skating,’ Jack calmly pointed out.

‘It will be fine, Nina,’ Janey said, and he heard the younger sister trying to reassure the older, actually heard the rare tenderness in Janey’s voice. And despite appearances, despite the horrible things she said at times, Jack realised Janey really did love Nina.

‘So how did you all go?’ Jack followed her into the bedroom where Nina was packing.

‘Okay, I guess, but Janey took herself off to bed at eight last night and this morning she didn’t want to talk. Still, it was fun ice skating till she fell. How was your night?’

‘Yeah, okay.’ He didn’t even have to be evasive, Nina simply didn’t want the details.

Everyone was trying to ignore that the small holiday was over, trying to pretend that everything was fine. It was Blake who couldn’t hold out.

‘I don’t want to go back.’

Jack was loading up the car when Blake said it.

‘I know,’ Nina answered, as she always did, because Blake never wanted to go back, only this time it was different. ‘Couldn’t we stay another night?’ Janey asked.

‘We can’t,’ Nina replied. ‘Blake’s got school tomorrow and we’ve got to go and sort things out.’

Nina watched as Jack locked up the house and when he climbed into the car and drove off, he didn’t really say much. For once it was Janey who was talking.

‘What are we doing tonight?’

‘Sleeping,’ Nina said. ‘And we can set up your bedroom.’

‘Jack can do that,’ Janey said.

‘Uh-oh …’ Jack shook his head. ‘I’ve got to head home once I’ve dropped you guys off.’ He glanced in the mirror as he said it and saw Janey’s frown, but didn’t pay too much attention to it.

‘I think I might go back to Barbara’s tonight.’ Janey’s voice from the back seat broke into her thoughts.

‘Barbara’s?’ Nina swung around. ‘I thought the whole point of running away was because you didn’t want to ever go back there!’

‘Yeah, well, I’ve changed my mind.’

‘Janey …’ Nina was struggling to keep exasperation out of her voice. ‘Let’s just leave things as they are. We can have a nice night, just the two of us, and sort things out, talk things out …’

Jack glanced in the mirror again and saw that Janey was back to looking out of the window, realising then that the last thing Janey wanted was another night alone with Nina.

Why?

He said nothing, just kept driving, but his mind was working overtime.

Why wouldn’t Janey want a night alone with her big sister? He went through things just as he would with a patient, doing his best to take all the emotion out—except it was impossible to extract emotion from this equation.

Janey was back to scowling and as they approached Manhattan Blake started to cry.

‘I’ll see you in a couple of weeks.’ Nina daren’t say it might be sooner, not until she had spoken with his social worker. There was an appointment next week for them to come and see her flat—the wheels tended to move really slowly when a child wasn’t in danger. Jack said nothing. He really didn’t know how to deal with the situation. He could see Janey’s angry expression in the rear-view mirror, could almost feel the daggers she was hurling at him embedding in his back.

‘Just here,’ Nina said as they approached the house where Blake lived, and Jack wondered how she did this every fortnight. Saying goodbye once was bad enough, but having to do it week in and week out must kill her. He helped her to get Blake’s case out of the boot and saw her pale face as she did her best to stay calm for Blake, who was really crying now and clinging to her.

‘Of course you can show me your poster.’ She glanced up at Jack. ‘I might be a while.’

‘Take your time.’

‘Can Jack come and see it?’ Blake asked hopefully, but Jack shook his head.

‘I’m going to wait in the car.’

Nina didn’t blame him. He wasn’t trying to impress Blake, or be his best friend, or proxy father, but she felt the sting of his rejection and it compounded her thoughts that she must end this soon, because after just one weekend Blake already hero-worshipped him. He’d already had enough loss in his life and she didn’t want him falling in love with Jack, only to lose him too.

In fact, Jack would’ve loved to have made this transition easier for Blake, would have happily gone in and looked at his hockey posters, but he had a feeling that there was a rather more difficult conversation to be had and that it was about to take place.

Jack’s instincts were rarely wrong.

‘Happy now?’ Janey demanded as soon as he got into the car. ‘You give him the best weekend, driving around in your flash Jag, and then drop him back …’ She was going ballistic and Jack just sat there. ‘Mr Nice Guy!’ Janey sneered, and Jack sat there as she told him how he thought he was better than them, better looking than them and that he was messing around with her sister.

Jack anticipated what would come next, warned Janey that if she spoke like that again, he would get out of the car and go and get Nina, which was when Janey burst into tears. In the end there was no need for a long talk—all Jack really had to do was listen.

‘Can you tell Nina this?’ Jack asked.

‘No,’ Janey sobbed. ‘Because she panics about everything, she feels guilty about everything. I know you think she’s good at her job, and calm about things, but she loses her temper when it comes to us and she’ll go crazy when she finds out …’

And Jack smiled an invisible smile, because Nina would do that. ‘I’m scared she’ll get into trouble and lose her job or something.’

‘Your sister is not going to get into trouble,’ Jack assured her, ‘and neither are you—you’ve done nothing wrong.’ He was very certain on that. ‘Can I speak with Nina about it?’ he asked. ‘I can come back to the apartment and we can talk about it tonight …’

‘No!’ Janey begged, her hand moving to open the door.

‘Don’t run off, Janey.’ Jack was stern and she shrank back in the seat. He would have spoken some more but all too soon Nina was coming out of the house, doing her best not to cry, waving to a tearful Blake, and somehow Jack had to sort this, would sort this, but he wondered how best to go about it. Nina was going to freak, he knew that, which meant Janey was likely to run again …

‘Please don’t say anything,’ Janey begged as Nina got into the car, all falsely bright and cheerful.

‘Right.’ She smiled at Janey. ‘Let’s get back to the flat.’

Except there was no way Jack was going to drop the two of them off at Nina’s flat.

‘We could go back to my place,’ he suggested.

‘No.’ Nina was adamant. ‘I want to have some time with Janey before we go to the social worker in the morning.’

Jack drove through the wet streets, his mind working overtime, but as they drove past Central Park he knew what to do and Jack indicated and turned into the hospital.

‘Do you need to check on someone?’ Nina asked as Jack slid into his reserved parking spot.

‘No,’ Jack said. ‘I want to get Janey’s elbow examined.’

‘It’s just a bruise,’ Nina said. ‘I know I made a fuss, but I was just worried about having to face the social worker tomorrow with Janey covered in bruises. I was being ridiculous. She’s fifteen, she fell, ice skating …’

‘Still, it’s better to get it all documented,’ Jack said, getting out of the car and holding the door open for Janey.

Nina frowned, surprised that Jack thought it necessary, but more surprised that Janey so willingly got out of the car.

They walked into Emergency and Jack had a word with one of the nurses to ask which doctors were on.

‘She doesn’t need to see the Head of Emergency,’ Nina said, when she heard Jack asking for Lewis to examine Janey.

‘He’s a great guy,’ Jack said. ‘I trust him implicitly.’ He gave Janey a thin smile. ‘I’ll just go and have a word with him. Nina, why don’t you get Janey into a gown? He’ll need to examine her for range of movement …’

He wanted Lewis to see Janey, and with good reason. Not only was Lewis an excellent doctor and trusted colleague, but he would understand more than most the complexities of dealing with a very troubled young girl.

‘I’d rather you hear it from Janey.’ Jack spoke briefly with Lewis. ‘Assuming, that is, that she talks, but basically we’re not here about her elbow.’

‘Right.’ Lewis nodded.

‘And if she doesn’t talk to you,’ Jack said, ‘then maybe she might need a night of observation waiting for the orthos to have a look.’

‘Let’s just see how it goes,’ Lewis suggested. ‘She’s here with her sister?’

‘Nina Wilson, the social worker.’ Jack nodded. ‘She thinks that I’ve brought Janey here just to get her arm examined, but whatever happens I’m going to have to step in. I’m just hoping that Janey will talk to you.’

‘Sure.’ Lewis nodded. ‘How about you introduce me?’ Lewis called for one of the senior nurses to go in with him and smiled and introduced himself to an anxious-looking Janey.

‘Okay,’ Jack said. ‘Nina and I are going to go and get a coffee. As I said, Lewis is a friend of mine, you’re in very good hands.’

It was only then that it dawned on Nina what was happening, or maybe it had started to a couple of moments before. She was about to say no, to insist she was staying with Janey, but she realised then that there was another reason that Jack had brought them here.

She had seen scenarios like this on endless occasions. She was being removed from Janey to give her sister a chance to talk.

‘Sure!’ Nina choked back the sudden tears that were threatening. ‘I could use a coffee.’

Nina waited till they were well away from the cubicle before she spoke. ‘Jack, what’s going on?’

‘Just come in here and have a seat, Nina.’

‘You think I did it.’

‘Nina.’ He shook his head. ‘Not for a second did it enter my head that you’d hurt your sister.’ Then he was honest. ‘I did wonder why she didn’t want to spend a night with you, but I think we both know that I don’t jump to conclusions.’

He didn’t know whether to tell her just yet, but at that moment a nurse popped her head out. ‘Jack, Janey wants you to be in there when she speaks to Lewis.’

Nina stood.

‘She wants me,’ Jack said.

‘Why not me?’ Nina demanded. ‘Why can’t she speak to me?’

‘Because she’s been trying to spare your feelings,’ Jack said. ‘Because she doesn’t love me and she knows I’m not going to get upset or angry or do anything rash, so just have a seat, Nina, and I’ll be back to you as soon as I can.’

‘Have you any idea how hard this is?’ she demanded. ‘You gave me no clue. All weekend you never gave a hint you were going to do this.’

‘I didn’t know then,’ Jack said, and he was just so matter-of-fact and calm about everything. ‘Nina, she said something in the car that I can’t ignore but, please, you just have to trust that I am doing the very best I can for both you and Janey, and right now that means that I’ve got to go.’

It killed Nina to sit there not knowing what was going on. What on earth had Janey said in the car? Had she threatened to self-harm or was she doing drugs? She’d certainly been withdrawn at times. Or maybe she was pregnant? Nina sat there for what felt like an eternity before Jack finally returned, his face grim. He gave her a thin smile and then took a seat next to her.

‘She’s fine.’

Nina blew out her breath. ‘But?’

Jack looked at her tense face and the bundle of passion that was Nina and didn’t blame Janey a bit for not wanting to be the one to tell her.

‘Barbara, her foster-mother, has got a new boyfriend, Vince …’

‘Oh, God!’ Nina stood. She just wanted to dash out there, to be with Janey, but again Jack was stern.

‘Sit down, Nina, you need to hear this. First of all, nothing has happened, well, not what you’re dreading, at least I don’t think so, but you need to listen and then calm down and then you can go in and speak to Janey.’

‘So he hasn’t touched her?’

‘He’s tried to.’

Jack was very calm and annoyingly matter-of-fact, but sadly he dealt with this type of problem all too often, and though it was upsetting a cool head was needed. Jack was very good at that, except as he went through it with Nina he felt his anger starting to rise, an anger that he had to work hard to keep in check. The detachment that made this job easier for Jack was dissipating by the moment as he told Nina all that had happened.

‘When you took Blake inside, she got very angry with me, told me I didn’t care, that I’d made things harder for Blake, all that sort of thing.’ Nina nodded, because that sounded very like Janey. ‘Then she said I was up myself with my flash car and my good looks …’ Nina frowned. ‘Then she made a couple of suggestions and I told her that if she carried on like that I would get out of the car and go and get you.’

‘Suggestions?’

‘She was testing me, Nina, being deliberately provocative, and when I was having no part of it she broke down and started to cry. You know teenage girls do that sometimes, and most guys in an authoritative position know how to deal with that.’

Nina started to cry, because of all the things she’d dreaded hearing, this was the one she’d dreaded the most.

‘Vince has been coming in to say goodnight to her.’ Nina started to retch and he handed her the bin as she struggled to take breaths. She heard stuff like this every day, but it killed her to think it had happened to Janey. ‘She didn’t like it and she told Barbara, but then she got told off, because Barbara said it was nice that her boyfriend was making an effort. He’s been creeping Janey out and she felt that she had to start getting dressed in the bathroom, because he was always finding an excuse to come into her room. Even when she was sent to bed early, or late, or whatever, he’d come in. He’s tried a couple of times to kiss her, made a few inappropriate comments, and basically she’s been fending him off.’

‘I’ll kill him.’ Nina could hardly breathe. She wanted to go there right now, right this minute, and she told Jack exactly what she’d do when she got there. Jack just sat there as she ranted on for a while till she got back to Janey. ‘Why couldn’t she tell me?’

‘Because she didn’t want to watch you retching into a bin, because she knew you’d get upset and feel guilty, that you’d think it was your fault …’

‘It is, though,’ Nina sobbed. ‘It’s my job to protect—’

‘Nina!’ Jack was firm. ‘You are not allowed to have your sister as a client for a very good reason. Right now the hospital social worker is coming down to see her, and it will all be dealt with properly. The main thing is, she is not going back there.’

‘Can I speak to her?’

‘In a moment, when you’ve calmed down.’

It actually took more than a moment for Nina to calm down. She couldn’t stop crying and Lewis came in and had a word with her and confirmed all that Jack had said. ‘She’s fine, just relieved that she’s told someone. In fact, she’s more worried about you.’

‘I’ve calmed down now,’ Nina said, and she looked at Jack. ‘I’m actually glad that she told you. I’d have reacted terribly. It’s just impossible to think of it as another job. It’s different when it’s your family.’

‘Of course it is,’ Jack said. ‘You should go and see her.’

Nina nodded.

She was determined to be calm when she walked in there, but she burst into tears when she cuddled Janey, and Janey burst into tears too. After a few minutes they calmed down and a while later, Jack popped his head in.

‘How are things?’

‘Better,’ Janey said, and then her eyes filled up with fresh tears. ‘I’m sorry for all the things I said.’

‘Yeah, well, you had a good reason,’ Jack said. ‘But what’s wrong with my car?’

Janey even managed her first laugh since her arrival at Angel’s. ‘How was she when you told her?’ Janey nodded in the direction of Nina.

‘Pretty much as you’d expect!’

‘I am here,’ Nina said. ‘I took it quite well.’

‘Oh, God!’ Jack impersonated her, and Janey smiled. ‘I handed her the bin …’

‘I wasn’t that bad.’

‘You were fine.’ Jack smiled.

‘Thank you,’ Nina said. He really had been marvellous. ‘We’re going to be here ages, so you might as well go home. Thank you so much for everything.’

‘I’ll stick around for a while.’

‘You really don’t have to.’

‘It’s fine.’

It was a very long night. Things like this were dealt with thoroughly and given that Barbara had two other foster-children, Child Protection went around to speak with the family, but Vince was out and Barbara angrily denied there had been anything inappropriate taking place, Nina was informed by her friend and colleague. ‘She’s very angry with Janey,’ Lorianna told her. ‘The usual stuff, but don’t worry …’

‘I want my sister and my brother in my care.’

‘It sounds as if Blake is doing fine.’

‘No!’ Nina said. ‘Blake is not fine, Blake is being looked after but he’s not being loved. He’s clingy and needy and he needs to be with his family.’

Jack listened to her fighting for her brother and sister, saw the determination in Nina’s eyes and that she would not back off, would not wait for the department to take its time. This was going to be dealt with, and soon, she told Lorianna.

Jack went and got a drink from the water cooler and just stood and looked around the familiar department, except everything felt unfamiliar. He was glad to be there, glad to have helped, and despite Nina insisting that he go home, Jack actually didn’t want to, he really wanted to be here and see things through.

‘I thought you were off.’ Alex caught up with him at the water cooler. ‘How come you’re here?’

‘Personal stuff,’ Jack said, but it was more than personal, it actually felt like family—better than family, in fact.

No one tried to spare anyone’s feelings in his family. There were, Jack had long since concluded, no feelings to spare.

Imagine Nina when she met his family—she’d run a mile, Jack knew it. Still, he wasn’t going to talk about that with Alex. Instead, he asked about another young patient who, thanks to a certain young woman, had been on his mind of late.

‘How’s Tommy doing?’

‘He’s had a good weekend,’ Alex said. ‘They’re starting the treatment tomorrow and hopefully there will be a good response. We should be able to buy him some time.’

‘Surgery?’

Alex grimaced. ‘I think time is all we can hope for.’

‘But do you think it could be an option …’ Jack knew he was pushing things, knew what Alex’s problem was, but Alex wasn’t in the mood to open up either. ‘You’ve done similar surgery before.’

‘Thanks for that, Jack,’ Alex snapped, but still Jack wouldn’t back off.

‘If you want to talk …’

‘Again—thanks.’

‘I mean it, Alex.’

But Alex stalked off. Jack had clearly got to him, but just as he was pondering how better to discuss things, Jack was distracted by an irate man storming through the department. ‘Where is she?’ Security was pulling him back, keeping him well away from the patients, and Jack walked over to the waiting room where the man was still ranting. Unable to calm him down, Security took him outside.

‘She’s a lying bitch,’ he shouted, and Jack looked at him, felt the anger he’d never felt before slowly building. ‘Janey’s a liar, I never laid a finger on her …’

And while Jack should have been thinking about his career, the newspapers, the hospital, his role, none of that entered his head. Instead, he just stared at the piece of filth that had tried to touch Nina’s little sister and as detached and dispassionate as he could be at times, tonight just wasn’t one of those times.

‘It was her that came on to me,’ Vince shouted, ‘flaunting her …’ He didn’t get to finish.

Jack’s fist met his jaw, and two rather startled security guards had to let Vince go. After all, they could hardly hold him as the Head of Paediatrics hit him.

And that was what greeted Nina’s eyes when she walked outside.

Vince sprang and lunged at Jack, who met him with his fist again, and Nina stood there just a little bit torn, because she abhorred violence, there really was no place for it in Nina’s book, but seeing Jack’s fist mid swing and one blackening eye, seeing someone for the first time truly fighting for her family, seeing Jack doing to Vince what she could have so easily done herself, she was hard placed not to stand there cheering.

Still, the fight was broken up quickly and when Vince shouted he that was going to press charges, Nina saw a very different Jack from the one she thought she knew. He was being held back by Security, telling Vince to go ahead, that he was looking forward to seeing him in court where he could explain himself …

Of course there was no chance of keeping things quiet.

Not a hope. It was all around the hospital by the time Jack’s closing eye was being treated with an ice pack and even though Nina had tried to keep it from Janey, of course gossip was rife in the corridors and she’d heard people talking.

‘Did he hit him?’ Janey was sitting on a hospital trolley and was absolutely delighted. ‘Did Jack really hit him? That’s brilliant!’

‘It is so not brilliant,’ Nina scolded. ‘There’s no excuse for violence.’

And there would be ramifications for it too, Nina fretted when she had a word with Lewis a little later. ‘Do you think he’ll get into trouble?’

‘Who, Jack?’ Lewis shook his head. ‘Not a chance. Really, it’s the other guy who needs to be worried. I tell you, I cheered inside. Sometimes in this job you’d love to forget the law …’

‘I know,’ Nina said. ‘Except we don’t!’ She really couldn’t get her head around it, but Lewis was talking about Janey now.

‘I’ve spoken to Social Services and given you already have reprieve access with her, we could send Janey home with you tonight, but I’ve spoken at length with Lorianna and we both agree that if we do a case meeting in the morning, once they’ve spoken with Blake’s case worker, it might just push things along. It’s not the hospital department we’re dealing with, but we might stand more of a chance of moving things along than you’ll have once Janey is home.’

‘I know.’

‘So let’s keep Janey here and we’ll roll the ball a bit harder tomorrow morning.’

He’d been marvellous and again Nina thanked him, before going in to say goodnight to Janey. Jack stood with his keys, trying not to yawn as she said goodbye.

‘Jack’s going to give me a lift home. We both need to get some rest. It’s going to be a busy day tomorrow,’ Nina said, and she saw the worry return to Janey’s face.

‘And I am going to do everything I can to make sure that you and Blake are home with me as soon as possible.’

‘Do you think it will happen? Do you think we’ll all be together?’ Janey asked, and Nina thought for a moment, not as a frantic sister but as the social worker she was. She was their sister who finally had a three-bedroomed flat, an older sister who, though it would be incredibly strained financially, actually could support them, there were no protective issues, the children wanted to be there and finally, after all these years, Nina was able to look her sister in the eye and give her real hope.

‘I do,’ Nina said. ‘I actually do.’ And she gave Janey a cuddle, knew that nothing was guaranteed, but for the first time Nina allowed herself to get excited. She didn’t say it, didn’t want to make a promise that she might not get to keep, but she thought it. Janey, I swear you and Blake are coming home to me.

Jack was quiet on the drive home and quiet again when she told him he could just drop her off there.

‘I want to talk to you, Nina.’

He followed her in.

‘Thanks again for tonight—’

‘Things will get sorted now,’ Jack said. ‘I’m sorry Janey had to go through all that …’ He saw her struggle to blink back the tears, moved in to hold her, but she shrugged him off.

‘I’m really not up for talking, Jack.’

‘Fair enough.’ His mouth grazed hers, his eyes open and watching hers close, not in bliss but in reluctant acceptance.

He felt her tongue in his mouth and her hands move down to his crotch, he heard her fake moan to arouse when she realised that he wasn’t hard, and if Jack had been angry before, he was furious now.

‘Don’t …’ She heard the anger in his voice as he removed her hand. ‘Don’t you ever just go through the motions with me.’

He saw the burn on her cheeks as his fury built inside and he struggled to contain it.

‘Did I earn it tonight?’ Jack asked, and he struggled not to shout. ‘Are you just trying to get it over and done with?’

‘Leave if you don’t like it.’

And he saw her gutter mouth come out for him, because that was where she’d almost been, saw the scared angry kid she had once been. ‘When you say you haven’t had a relationship for a long time …’ She pushed past him, but he caught her. ‘When was the last time you had sex, Nina?’

‘Friday night, from memory.’ She opened the door. ‘Just leave.’

‘Before then,’ Jack said. ‘Before us.’

Nina stood holding the door open, but Jack would not move.

‘A while.’ Nina shrugged.

‘Oh, I think it was a while,’ Jack said. ‘I’d say about six years. Is that what the pro bono centre did for you? They got you off the streets …’

‘I wasn’t a hooker, Jack,’ she snarled, ‘if that’s what you’re thinking.’ He saw all the anger shooting from her eyes and it was merited. ‘But there can be a lot of favours to pay for sleeping on a friend’s couch …’ And then she started to cry.

‘And was I the first since that time?’ She just stood there.

‘What was I supposed to say?’ Nina shouted. ‘That you’re the first person I’ve even considered fancying, that for two years I’ve had a thing for you …?’ She just looked at him. ‘You’d have run a mile.’

Jack didn’t know how to deal with this. He just stood there confused, because it had been so much more than sex that night.

‘Can you please leave?’ she said when he walked over to her. ‘I mean it,’ she said, still holding the door. ‘Jack, can you leave?’

And, given what she’d just told him, Jack had no choice but to respect her wishes, no choice really but to do as she asked and leave.

Jack was angry.

More than angry and there wasn’t even an actual person he could pin it on. He had been angry enough with what had happened to Janey, but that it had happened to Nina, that there hadn’t been an older sister looking out for her, that she had been left to her own devices had Jack’s mind working overtime.

There was no one he could speak to about it either.

Jack tried to imagine the reaction of his parents if he tried to talk about what had happened with Nina.

The sneers, the turning up of their noses.

But he knew that the last thing Nina needed was to see that. He had to deal with this himself, had to work out how best to handle it.

Nina’s cheeks fired the next morning when she saw him in the corridor and she just brushed past him. They fired up again a few hours later when her intercom buzzed and Jack was at her door.

And she blushed even more when he sat in the chair where she’d, er, once approached him. And then he did the impossible, just as he had the first time he’d come to her office. Jack made her laugh.

‘Is the chair okay or do you want me on the mat again?’

‘Very funny, Jack.’ She laughed, but she was still cringing about what she had told him last night.

‘Nina, don’t ignore me in the corridor again. I told you, I don’t do awkward,’ Jack said, simply addressing the situation between them.

‘Thank you.’

And then Jack got to another reason he was there.

‘I heard their might be some news.’

There was. The news was still fluttering in her chest, still new and shiny and hard to take in, and she hadn’t actually said the words out loud yet.

‘I’ve got custody …’ She was shaking just saying it. All those years of study and work and scrimping and saving, just to get to this point, and finally, sooner than expected, she could say it. ‘It’s temporary custody for now, but they’ve been to look at the flat, and apparently Blake isn’t happy where he is.’ She hated so much what they had all been through. ‘They’re not horrible people or anything, they’re just older and can’t deal with him …’

‘You’ve got them now.’ Jack came and leant on the desk beside her chair. ‘They’re good kids.’

‘They are!’ Nina was adamant on that. ‘I know Janey can be a handful, but I’m really going to work on her. I’m going to show the department just how much better she is with me.’

And he knew he had to step back here, that it wasn’t his place to tell her how to raise them. After all, what would he know? Professionally, yes, he had his opinion, but on family …? He thought of his own family, the complete dysfunction behind the smiling façade, but more than that he needed to do some serious thinking.

Serious thinking.

‘Say hi to them for me.’ He gave a thin smile. ‘Tell them I’ll come by and see them some time soon.’

‘I think we need some time together …’ She saw him frown, saw the slight startlement in his eyes and realised he’d misunderstood what she had said, that he must have thought she was working out a way to schedule some alone time for them, so she made things a little clearer. ‘Not us.’ God, it hurt to lose him. ‘Me and the kids. We need some time to settle in with each other and …’ She gave him a smile when she felt like weeping. ‘Really, Jack, it might just confuse things if you keep coming round.’

‘Yeah, well, I told Blake that I’d get him a Rangers top,’ Jack said.

‘You can give that to me at work.’

‘And I also said to Janey that I’d check in and see that she was okay, wherever she was … so, tough, I’m coming round.’

He walked back through the hospital and popped into ICU before heading for home, and for Jack things couldn’t be more confusing.

He was being dumped and surely he should be sighing with relief, cracking open the champagne and celebrating, because Jack Carter with a twenty-five-year-old, anti-fashion girlfriend, who came with two messed-up kids in tow was so not part of the plan.

And he was still confused when he got home and looked around his tastefully furnished apartment, because all it looked was sterile. He looked into the mirror as he shaved the next morning, saw the fading bruise and decided that if he saw Vince again he’d happily repeat the experience.

He wanted something more from this relationship, wanted something he had never known, and, no, he didn’t understand it.