Читать книгу Christmas Brides And Babies Collection - Rebecca Winters - Страница 22

OLIVER STARED AT ELLA, not quite believing what he was hearing.

He’d proposed to her—and she’d refused.

‘Why?’ he asked.

‘I’m not marrying you just for the baby’s sake. And I’m perfectly happy for my baby to be an O’Brien.’ Her expression was closed.

‘But—this is my baby, too.’ He looked at her, shocked. ‘Or are you telling me…?’

She blew out a breath. ‘Now I know what your ex did, I can understand why you’re worrying that it’s history repeating itself, but don’t you know me better than that?’

He’d thought he knew her. But maybe he didn’t. And maybe she did have one thing in common with Justine, then: her feelings for him weren’t the same as his for her. ‘I asked you to marry me.’

‘For the baby’s sake.’ She swallowed hard. ‘Like your mother—’ She stopped abruptly.

‘What about my mother?’

‘Nothing.’

‘It doesn’t sound like nothing to me.’

‘All right—if you must know,’ Ella said, ‘she wants the baby.’

‘What?’ He’d never heard anything more ridiculous in his life. His mother didn’t even know about the baby.

‘Provided you have a paternity test first to make quite sure it’s yours,’ Ella continued. ‘And then you’ll sue me for custody.’

This was getting more and more surreal. ‘What? Why?’

‘Because Darrington babies have a position to maintain.’

‘That’s ridiculous. Of course my mother wouldn’t say anything like that,’ Oliver said. ‘And when did she say anything to you? I was with you nearly all the time at Darrington.’

‘Not all the time. Not when I’d gone to splash my face with water.’

‘You’re saying my mother accosted you in the bathroom?’ That definitely wasn’t his mother’s style.

‘She’d been watching me and she’d worked out that I was going green around the lilies. And I was the first person you’d brought there in years, so there was obviously a reason why you wanted them to meet me.’

Oliver shook his head, unable to take this in.

‘Believe what you like,’ she said. ‘But I’m not marrying you.’ She turned away.

Oliver raked a hand through his hair. What the hell was going on? ‘Ella—’

‘I could do with some rest,’ she said.

Because she’d just had a car crash and a nasty scare about the baby. And she’d been here at the hospital all night, keeping Georgie company until Leo arrived from New York.

Of course she could do with some rest. She must be exhausted, physically and mentally and emotionally.

Maybe that was why she was flinging around these wild accusations—she was sleep-deprived and still worried sick about the baby, and saying the first thing that came into her head instead of thinking about it. Maybe if he gave her some space and some time to sleep, she’d get her head round things and talk this over sensibly with him.

‘I’ll arrange for you to be moved to a side room,’ he said stiffly, and left the treatment room.

‘Is everything OK?’ Annabelle asked, coming over to him as he strode through the department.

‘With the baby? Yes.’

She frowned. ‘Is Ella all right?’

‘She needs to be moved to a side room and kept in overnight for observation,’ Oliver said. ‘Excuse me.’

‘Oliver—’

‘Not now,’ he said, and headed for his office. And for once he actually closed his door. Usually he was happy to be interrupted by any member of staff who needed him, but right now he needed to lose himself in paperwork and not have to deal with another human being.

He was halfway through a pile of admin when his phone buzzed; he glanced at the screen.

Darrington Hall.

Why were his parents calling him?

For a moment, he thought about just ignoring the call. But then again it might be important. With a sigh, he answered.

‘Oliver. I was just checking if you were coming home for Christmas,’ his mother said.

He nearly laughed. Darrington Hall hadn’t been ‘home’ for a long, long time. ‘I’m afraid not,’ he said. ‘I’m on duty.’

‘Can’t you change it?’

‘No,’ he said. But something was eating at him. Had his mother really had a fight with Ella outside the bathroom? He’d thought at the time that Ella had been gone a long while. And she’d been very cool with him after that. If his mother had just warned her off him, that would explain why she’d gone cold on him. ‘Mama—did you tell Ella you wanted her to have a paternity test?’

‘I… Why would I do that?’

He noticed that his mother hadn’t denied all knowledge of Ella being pregnant. He was pretty sure that Ella wouldn’t have volunteered the information willingly, the way she had with her own family. And he knew exactly what would’ve driven his mother to talk about a paternity test. ‘Justine,’ he said succinctly.

‘Well, I don’t want to see you trapped again.’

It was the nearest his mother would get to admitting what she’d said. ‘Ella isn’t trying to trap me,’ Oliver said. She’d just refused to marry him. He paused. Now he thought about it, that stuff about Darrington babies having a position to maintain sounded just like the sort of thing his mother would say. ‘What position does a Darrington baby have to maintain?’

‘I don’t know what you mean.’

That definitely sounded like bluster. ‘Mother, I’m not the heir to Darrington.’

‘You will be if Edward and Prudence don’t get their skates on and produce a boy.’

He let that pass. ‘And, for the record, I have no intention of suing Ella for custody.’

‘Custody?’

‘Yes. Did you tell her we wanted custody? Because Darrington babies have a position to maintain?’ he repeated.

‘I—Oliver, you know it would be for the best. We could hire a nanny. There’s plenty of space here—’

‘No,’ he cut in. ‘Ella is the mother of my child, and the baby stays with her.’

‘I see.’ His mother’s tone became frosty.

He sighed. ‘Mama, I know we don’t see eye-to-eye about my job. But I’ve been either a medical student or a qualified doctor for seventeen years now. Half a lifetime, almost. I’m not going to change my mind about what I do. And you need to start trusting me, because I’m doing what’s right for me.’

‘But, Oliver, Ella’s—’

‘Ella’s lovely,’ he said, ‘as you’d know if you actually gave her a chance, the way Ned and Prue did. Think about it. Yes, things went wrong with Justine. On paper she was the perfect match, and you pushed us together—and it went wrong. This time, I’m making my own choice. I don’t care if Ella’s parents don’t have the same pedigree that you do. It doesn’t matter where you come from, Mama—what matters is who you are and how you treat other people.’

And he hadn’t treated Ella very kindly just now.

‘I’m going to be a father,’ he said quietly. ‘And I’d like my baby to know both sets of grandparents. Properly. I’d like to build some bridges with you and Papa. But in turn you need to respect that I’m old enough and wise enough to make my own decisions.’

‘And your own mistakes?’ the Countess asked coldly.

‘Ella isn’t a mistake,’ he said. ‘And neither is my career.’

‘So you’re giving me an ultimatum?’

‘No. I’m giving you a chance to get to know the woman I love, and our baby,’ he said. ‘It’s not going to happen overnight and we’re all going to have to learn to compromise a bit, but I guess that’s part of what being a real family means.’

‘Oliver…’

‘I’m on leave at New Year,’ he said. ‘Maybe we could start with lunch. Something small, informal and friendly. Just you, Papa, Ned and Prue and the girls, and us. Nobody else. Just family. You can get to know Ella a bit better—and we’ll take it from there.’

‘Just family, New Year,’ the Countess echoed.

‘A new year and a new beginning,’ he said softly.

For a long time, she said nothing, and he thought she was going to throw it all back in his face.

But then she sighed. ‘All right.’

‘Good. I’ll speak to you soon,’ he said.

But, more importantly, he needed to talk to Ella. To apologise for ever having doubted her. He wasn’t going to take her an armful of flowers—apart from the fact that there was a ban on flowers while the vomiting bug was still around, flowers weren’t going to fix things. The only way to fix things was by total honesty.

He just hoped that she’d hear him out.

When he went back onto the ward, Annabelle was there. ‘Which room is Ella in?’ he asked.

‘I’m not entirely sure I should tell you,’ she said, narrowing her eyes at him. ‘At the moment, Oliver Darrington, I’d quite like to shake you until your teeth rattle.’

He blinked, not used to his head nurse being so fierce. ‘What have I done?’

She scoffed. ‘Are you really that dense? You made Ella cry.’

He winced. ‘I need to talk to her.’

‘You need,’ Annabelle said crisply, ‘to grovel.’

‘That, too,’ he said.

‘She’s in here.’ Annabelle indicated the side room. ‘But if you make her cry any more, I’ll throw you out personally, and I don’t care if you’re the Assistant Head of Obstetrics.’

‘You won’t have to do that,’ Oliver said.

‘Hmm,’ Annabelle said, and watched him as he walked into the room.

He closed the door behind him, noting that Ella was in tears.

‘Hey,’ he said softly.

She looked at him and scrubbed at her eyes with the back of one hand. ‘What do you want?’

‘To talk. To apologise.’ He paused. ‘Annabelle says I need to grovel.’

Ella’s face was tight. ‘It doesn’t matter.’

‘Why are you crying?’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ she repeated.

‘Yes, it does,’ he said. ‘Are you crying because I walked out?’

She didn’t answer.

‘Because, earlier,’ he said, ‘you seemed to think that me walking out on you would make you happy. What do you want, Ella?’

‘Something you can’t give me,’ she said. ‘You don’t do relationships. I was stupid to think that maybe I could change your mind on that score, especially now I know why you don’t date anyone more than twice.’

‘But that’s what I want, too,’ he said, coming to sit beside her. ‘I want a proper relationship. I want to be a proper family. With you.’

‘Your family will never accept me,’ she said. ‘Your brother and Prue are nice, but your mum hates me and your dad despises me, so it’s never going to work. It’s just going to cause endless rows between you and them, and that’s going to make things difficult between you and me.’

‘My parents,’ he said, ‘are difficult, but they’re going to learn to change. And I’m sorry that my mother harangued you outside the bathroom and said I’d insist on custody after a paternity test.’

She frowned. ‘But you said she wouldn’t say things like that.’

‘I didn’t want to think she’d say it,’ he said, ‘but what you said rang pretty true. Oh, and she’s sorry, by the way.’

Ella stared at him, looking surprised. ‘You’ve spoken to your mother?’

‘Technically, she rang me,’ he said. ‘So I asked her about what she’d said to you. And I told her very bluntly that you’re the mother of my child and the baby stays with you.’

‘So you’re not going to sue me for custody?’

‘I was rather hoping,’ he said, ‘that we could do better than that. That we could be a family.’

She shook her head. ‘I’m not marrying you for the baby’s sake, Oliver. That won’t work, either. We’ll end up resenting each other and it won’t be good for the baby.’

‘That isn’t why I asked you, actually,’ he said. ‘I asked you because I want to marry you for you. Because I love you.’

She scoffed. ‘We had a one-night stand with consequences neither of us was expecting. That’s not love, Oliver.’

‘Agreed, but that’s got nothing to do with it. I’ve known you for eighteen months,’ he said. ‘The first moment I saw you, I noticed you. That glorious hair, those beautiful eyes, and a mouth that made my knees weak.’

She looked stunned.

‘And then I got to know this bright, warm midwife who’s a joy to work with,’ Oliver continued. ‘She’s great with the mums and makes them all feel a million times better when they’re panicking, she’s great at explaining things to our trainees and gives them confidence when they don’t think they can do things, and she thinks on her feet so she can second-guess what senior staff need, too—and I admit, that’s why I didn’t ask you out months ago, because I know I’m rubbish at relationships and I didn’t want to mess up things at work. But then it was the night of the ball—and yes, I’m shallow, because it’s the first time I saw you all dressed up and I couldn’t think straight. Especially when I danced with you. I wanted to go and reclaim you from every other guy you danced with,’ he told her.

‘Really?’

‘Really,’ he confirmed. ‘I couldn’t resist you. And then it got complicated, because I realised what I’d done, and I’d messed everything up, and I didn’t know how to make things right between us again.’

‘And then I told you about the baby—and that must’ve brought back memories of Justine,’ she said quietly.

‘It did, though I never doubted you for a second and I don’t want you to do a paternity test. The night of the party, when you made me feel you really believed in me and supported me—I’ve never had that from anyone before. It threw me. And it made me realise that maybe you were the one I could trust with my heart. Except then you started avoiding me, and when I asked you to marry me you said no.’

‘Because you never said a word about your feelings,’ she said. ‘I thought you were asking me to marry you out of duty, just because you thought it was the right thing to do. You said we got on well and we could give the baby a stable home—but that’s not enough, Oliver. You need love as well, to make a family.’

‘I’m not very good at talking about my feelings,’ he said. ‘But I do love you, Ella. And I do want to be a family with you and the baby. Not like the way I grew up, with my parents very distant and leaving most of the care to hired staff. I want to take the baby to the park with you, and feed the ducks together, and read bedtime stories, and be there in the playground on the first day our little one starts school.’

‘The local school?’ she checked.

‘Definitely the local school,’ he said. ‘I want to be a family with you and our baby.’

He meant it, Ella realised.

Oliver really did love her. He wanted to make a life with her and the baby—not because he thought it was the right thing to do, but because he wanted to be with them. That day on the ward when he’d talked about taking their baby to see Santa: that had been the real Oliver. The hidden Oliver.

Ella felt her heart contract sharply. ‘I love you, too, Oliver,’ she said. ‘I fell for you months ago.’

‘But you never said anything.’

‘I thought I was out of your league,’ she said. ‘The hospital rumour mill said you only ever dated supermodels.’

He laughed. ‘Hardly. Anyway, you could hold your own against any supermodel.’

‘I’m too short and too curvy,’ she said.

‘No way. You’re beautiful,’ he said. ‘And I don’t want a supermodel. I want you. I love you.’

She stroked his face. ‘I love you, too.’

‘Even though I’m a grumpy control freak?’

‘Even though you’re a grumpy control freak,’ she said. ‘And I guess that’s why I called you today when I started bleeding, because I trust you and I knew you’d be there for me. Just as I hope you know I’ll always be there for you.’

‘Then I’ll ask you the same question I asked earlier, except this time I’ll do it properly.’ He knelt down on one knee. ‘Ella O’Brien, you’re the love of my life and I want to make a family with you—will you marry me?’

And this time she knew he meant it. That this was going to be a real marriage, not papering over the cracks. ‘Yes.’

There was a rap on the door and Annabelle came in. She frowned as she took in the tears on Ella’s face. ‘Oliver Darrington, I warned you not to make Ella cry,’ she said, putting her hands on her hips. ‘And you didn’t listen. So that’s it. Out.’

‘Annabelle, I’m not crying because I’m miserable,’ Ella said, hastily. ‘I’m crying because I’m happy.’

Annabelle looked confused. ‘So he grovelled?’

‘I probably still need to do a bit more grovelling,’ Oliver admitted, ‘but we’re getting there—and we’re looking for a matron of honour. I don’t suppose you know anyone who might be up for the job? Someone, say, in this room?’

Annabelle’s jaw dropped and she stared at each of them in turn. ‘You’re getting married?’

‘You’re the first to know,’ Ella said. ‘Would you be our matron of honour?’

‘And godmother to Baby Darrington?’ Oliver added.

Annabelle smiled. ‘Absolutely yes. To both.’