CHAPTER TWO

      A SURROGATE.

      Cal stood up, needing to move, needing to pace, needing to do something. His rampaging thoughts battered his already overloaded brain, which struggled to absorb the astonishing news. A child.

      An apologetic expression passed over Tess’s face. ‘I’m sorry to totally stun you like that but there’s no shockproof way of delivering the news.’ She hauled herself out of the chair and picked up the packet of Tim Tams. ‘Here, take them all. You look like you need them more than I do.’

      Caught in her understanding gaze, he distractedly bit into a biscuit. It tasted like cardboard, his body unable to experience anything other than shock. He was going to be an uncle.

      The uncle of an orphan. The realisation thundered through him as he spun away from her and continued pacing. He suddenly stopped and swung back, taking a really close look at Tess. Her honey smooth skin shone with lustrous good health and her egg-blue singlet curved over voluptuous breasts. Heated blood shot through him, straight to his groin.

      Stunned by his reaction, he pulled his gaze to her belly, forcing the doctor in him to appraise the pregnancy, which she carried low.

      Primigravidas may experience lightening and engagement at thirty-six weeks. The information he’d absorbed long ago when he’d been a medical student pushed up from the recesses of his mind and forced down the unwanted lust. ‘Exactly when is the baby due?’

      She brushed back her fringe. ‘I’m thirty-seven weeks.’

      ‘So you’re due any day.’ He couldn’t stop the rising inflection of his voice as an edge of panic tightened his chest.

      She smiled her quiet, serene smile. ‘Or in three weeks’ time, yes.’

      He ran his hand frantically through his hair as if that would help him make sense of it all. Yesterday his world had been familiar. Today it was as if he’d landed on an alien planet.

      Unspoken thoughts tumbled from his mouth. ‘But I don’t understand. Why didn’t we know?’

      You hadn’t spoken to your brother in three years, since you accused him of throwing away his life. He ignored the voice of reason. ‘James could have at least told our parents. Hell, they live in the same country.’

      Sympathy wove across her cheeks. ‘James and Carolyn wanted your parents to meet, hold and love Oscar before—’

      He started. ‘Is that the child’s name?’ It triggered a faint memory from his childhood—the imaginary friend he and James had created to solve disputes between them.

      ‘Yes. Oscar Callum.’

      Guilt ripped at Callum and he tried to shrug it off. ‘You were saying they wanted mum and dad to meet him before what?’

      She sucked in her cheeks. ‘Before they learned of his unorthodox birth.’ Her gaze dropped away. ‘Before the press got wind of it.’

      The money. Dad’s money. It was an inescapable fact that the Halroyd millions often generated intense media interest and it was no secret that James had taken a low profile to avoid media intrusion in his life. He stared at the woman in front of him, struck by a sudden thought. ‘Is there money involved?’

      Her chin tilted up sharply. ‘It’s exactly that attitude which made Carolyn and James decide to hold off telling you. Money played no part in this. I did it out of love.’

      If gold sparks were daggers, her eyes would have knifed him clean through the heart. Love. He swallowed a groan. He didn’t believe in love. His job didn’t allow for it and Felicity had crushed any remaining thoughts. But now wasn’t the time for a philosophical discussion about whether love existed or not.

      A baby was coming into his family in the next few weeks and nothing he could do would change that. Every plan he’d made for the immediate future swirled in his mind like dust in the wind, being carried further and further away from him. He wanted to put his hand out and grab on tight to all his arrangements but there was nothing to hold onto. Everything had changed.

      He sucked in a deep breath and slowly all the confusion in his mind cleared. This was no different from triage at Frontline. Decisions had to be made and priorities needed to be set. He knew immediately what he had to do.

      Tess could almost see the cogs of Callum’s mind working behind those enigmatic dark grey eyes. As tall as James was short and as dark as James had been fair, Callum was the physical opposite of his fraternal twin. But the differences didn’t stop there.

      James had never made her heart pound or her stomach somersault. He’d been her best friend’s husband, a kind man, a great doctor and the brother she’d never had. She thought back to her ill-fated relationship with Curtis. Not even in their halcyon early days had she ever felt quite this weirdly agitated and tingly.

      She pushed away these new sensations and focused on what she knew about Callum, which wasn’t much as James had only ever mentioned him in passing. His biological uncle isn’t exactly the ‘kick a footy to the kid’ type of guy.

      Callum’s suddenly brisk, businesslike voice broke into her thoughts. ‘So you’re booked into the Women’s Hospital in Melbourne to have my nephew?’

      The ‘take-charge’ doctor had replaced the bewildered man and his question surprised her. ‘Ah, no, I planned to have the baby here.’

      He raised his black brows. ‘So Narranbool Bush Hospital has acquired a neonatal intensive care unit since I last visited.’

      She ignored his sarcasm. ‘Narranbool District Hospital has probably lost beds since you were last in the country. It’s a constant battle to keep country hospitals open, accredited and debt free. With sixty births a year we hardly qualify for an NICU.’

      He folded his arms, his eyes darkening. ‘My point exactly. We need to get you down to Melbourne tomorrow as soon as the funeral is over. You can stay in the east wing of my parents’ house in Toorak and then you’re close to the Women’s when you go into labour.’

      Her blood pounded in her head as her hands started to shake. She fisted them closed to steady them against the cocktail of emotions that pounded her. Her worst fear of what Carolyn had always jokingly referred to as ‘Halroyd organisation’ was swinging into action faster than she’d thought possible.

      She kept her voice steady against all her fears about the Halroyds taking over that had plagued her from the moment she’d learned of her friends’ deaths. She was a surrogate, not family. ‘I don’t want to stay in the east wing.’