Love Islands: Forbidden Consequences. Natalie Anderson
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know, for weeks I was in denial. I just kept saying, like some sort of total idiot, it can’t happen your first time, but of course it can and it did.’ The words were out before she realised what she had said. Maybe he hadn’t really been listening?
Slowly she opened her eyes and realised straight off that fate had not granted her a reprieve. Ben had heard and his lean face was frozen in a combination of shock and disbelief.
‘First time...?’ he prompted, in a low, dangerous voice while in his head another voice said, No, not possible.
It was simply not possible that the woman he had taken to bed that night had been...no, that was not possible.
‘It doesn’t matter.’ Her little shrug was fuel to the flame of emotion that was burning him up. The guilt was eating him up from the inside out.
‘My God, it’s true—you were a virgin, weren’t you? I was your first!’ He looked at her as though she were a live grenade someone had dropped in his lap.
‘Only...’ Oh, Lily what is wrong with you? ‘...I’ve been pretty busy since.’
He closed his eyes. Lily couldn’t take her eyes off the nerve that was clenching and unclenching beside his mouth.
‘I don’t believe it,’ he groaned as he pushed one hand deep into his thick pelt of dark hair. He opened his eyes. ‘A virgin?’ He felt a fresh slug of guilt leavened with, if he was honest, a degree of arousal. It was a silly male possessive pleasure to know he’d been her first. ‘You didn’t say a word, and why me?’
‘I thought you’d realise and, in case you haven’t noticed, you are obscenely good-looking.’ She’d hoped to lighten the mood but he didn’t even crack a smile. If he looked like this now, she thought with a delicate little shudder, imagine how he’d look if she told him the full truth. Well, that was never going to happen. ‘There’s no need to make a big thing of it. I don’t regret it. She’s the most wonderful thing that has ever happened to me. She was a beautiful baby and now...with what’s going on, all that stuff doesn’t matter now.’
Before he could respond the phone in her pocket began to vibrate—her own, not the one that Ben had given her. The sound of it was audible in the silence that had fallen.
Her hand was shaking as she reached into her bag then glanced at the screen. What she saw made her body stiffen. ‘Sorry, it’s the hospital. I have to check this.’ She turned her face to the window to hide her expression as she replied. ‘Yes, this is Lily Gray.’
She listened to the voice on the other end before giving a deep sigh of relief. ‘That’s marvellous, thank you so much, thank you.’
She turned, smiling, and responded to his arched brow with a shake of her head. ‘Sorry, it’s good news. It was the hospital to say there is a match on the register—a perfect match, they said, for Emmy. They are trying to contact him so it’s possible you won’t need to do anything.’ She frowned. Ben was not listening. He was scrolling through his own phone—perhaps he didn’t understand the significance of what she was saying. ‘Apparently this person is someone who lives here in England. They warned me the odds were incredibly remote that they would find a match. If he agrees—’
Ben slid his phone back into his pocket. ‘They’ve contacted him and he does agree.’
She looked at him, her blank look fading as he held up his phone and said softly, ‘I’ve just been contacted.’
‘You’re on the bone-marrow register?’
‘For a couple of years. A friend’s wife needed a bone-marrow transplant so I got tested.’
‘Did she get it?’
‘Yes.’
His face told her nothing but she knew, she felt a cold clutch in her belly but ignored it. Emily was going to be all right. She’d make it all right.
‘She didn’t survive, did she...?’ The impotent rage and ice-cold fear warring within her fought for an angry release. ‘You can say it, you know.’ Hearing the shrill note of irrational accusation in her voice, Lily took a steadying breath and dug into her reservoir of inner calm and found it empty.
‘I’m not going to fall apart.’ Falling apart was not an option. Emmy needed her; her mother needed her.
Studying her pale face and refusing to acknowledge the sharp stab of tenderness, he wondered if she thought saying it often enough would make it true.
‘She’ll be fine, you know, Lily.’
She nodded but couldn’t meet his eyes. She was grateful that he was saying what she wanted to hear but she couldn’t let herself believe it.
‘So what do you think she’ll make of me?’
It took her a moment to translate the emotion behind his question. Maybe because insecurity and fear were not words she associated with big, take-charge, in-control Ben.
Her tender heart ached ‘She’s two—she loves everyone.’
Ben gave a tight smile; he knew that love had to be earned. ‘If I do it wrong, tell me.’
‘There’s no handbook, just wing it. It’s what I’ve been doing for two years.’ If genes had anything to do with it, Emmy would adore him—just like her mother.
AFTER A SELF-CONSCIOUS moment Lily disentangled her fingers from Ben’s. She had no recollection of grabbing them.
‘Could you drop me back at the hospital? I’m staying the night. Mum needs some sleep.’
It occurred to Ben that so did she, but, recognising that nothing he said would make her change her mind, he kept his opinion to himself.
‘I’m seeing this Dr...?’ Ben asked, when the limo drew up outside the glass-fronted hospital entrance.
‘Sheridan,’ she supplied. ‘He’s really nice.’
‘I don’t want nice,’ he scorned. ‘I want excellent.’
‘I think he’s both,’ she said, finally releasing herself from the seat belt.
‘Let’s hope so.’
‘The appointment is at nine. Apparently it shouldn’t take long. Shall we meet up on the ward about ten? I’ll introduce you to Emmy. You do know I’m grateful for this...’
He arched a sardonic brow. ‘But...?’
She shook her head. ‘No but, it’s just... I think it might be better if we don’t tell Emmy you’re her dad straight away...’ The words she had been silently rehearsing all the way emerged in a rush.
He looked at her with cynical ice-blue eyes. ‘Better for who?’ he asked bluntly.
Lily didn’t react to the sarcasm. ‘This is a confusing place for Emmy, everything that is happening, away from all her familiar things... Maybe it would be more appropriate later when she’s feeling better...?’
Unable to maintain eye contact any longer with his accusing icy stare, she tipped her head and, reaching for the door handle, mumbled, ‘Thanks,’ as she stepped out of the car.
The anger inside him simmered. He watched her walk up the shallow flight of steps. It was transparently obvious to him she was letting him know that the door was open, probably hoping he’d walk through it.
He nodded to the driver, who restarted the engine just as she paused in front of the big glass revolving doors. From where he sat he could see her square her slender shoulders before she took that first step. A tiny but revealing gesture revealing an inner fragility he’d have preferred not to see. Then she was gone, but the image of her gathering her courage stayed