Christmas at the Castello(9)

At least Coburn had never cheated on her. She sat back as the maid came  to clear her soup bowl. He'd waited until they'd ended their marriage  to drink his fill. Which satisfied his code of honor. As long as he was  in a relationship, he never strayed, even if, as Rory had joked to her  about his friend's philandering ways when they'd first met, it was only  one night. Not once during their turbulent union  had he ever  indicated interest in another woman, despite the way they'd shamelessly  thrown themselves at him.

It should have quieted her insecurities, but they'd been far too deeply ingrained to elude.

Her mother scrunched up her angularly attractive face. "I don't like  the idea of you over there in that wild country, Diana. Anything could  happen to you and we are so far away. I wish you'd reconsider."

"I am needed there." She gave her mother a pained look. "We've been over this."         

     



 

"The situation was never this bad," her father broke in, a bullish look  on his face. "Yes, the city is more stable now, but the rebels have  still been conducting raids, and conditions could deteriorate  overnight."

Diana was well aware of the situation she was walking into. She'd come  to terms with the danger when she'd made the decision to commit. And  although her nerves were growing every day at the thought of what she  was about to face-a mental and physical challenge that would surely  change her life-she was determined to follow through.

"I'm not changing my mind."

"I rather thought so." Her father grimaced at her from across the  solid, ornately carved mahogany table. "So I reached out to a contact of  mine there and arranged for you to stay in the Lione Hotel instead of  the usual accommodations. It's minutes to the hospital and has the best  security you can hope for right now. Someone will walk you back and  forth each day."

Diana stared at him in disbelief as the maid set the steaming main  course down in front of her. "Dammit, Father, this is my life. You can't  just do things like that."

"I wouldn't have to if you weren't being so foolhardy."

"Part of this experience is bonding with the other doctors I'm working with. I want to stay with them."

"There is another doctor staying at the Lione. Bond with him."

She gave him an exasperated look. "You have to stop interfering in my life."

Her father picked up his fork and pointed it at her. "Do you know how  many foreign-aid workers have been kidnapped from that area in the past  six months? It is staggering, Diana. If you won't do this for yourself,  do it for your mother and me so we don't spend every day and night  worrying about you."

Worrying about your half-a-million-dollar investment in your only  child, she corrected flippantly to herself. But the real hint of concern  in her father's voice made her soften. It wasn't fair to make them  worry.

"Fine." She picked up her fork and matched his aggressive joust with  one of her own. "But do not make one more phone call, one more inquiry  on my behalf to anyone, or I will stay with the others."

"Fine." Her father dug into his beef with a satisfied nod. Diana looked  down at hers, her stomach doing a slow roll at the smell of the spicy  dish. She cut a piece of the meat. A wave of perspiration swept over  her, blanketing her forehead in a thin layer of sweat.

Oh, no. Bile rose in her throat. She swallowed it back down, pushed her  chair out and ran for the bathroom. She barely made it inside and to  the toilet before she was brutally, gut-wrenchingly sick. Her insides  heaving until there was nothing left inside her, she remained kneeling  on the bathroom floor draped over the toilet until finally, her head  stopped spinning and she could sit up.

What bloody bad timing. She grabbed some toilet paper and wiped it over  her brow. She never got sick, never got the flu. Coburn used to call  her stomach cast-iron, which made it all the more ironic her succumbing  to it now with days to go before she had to get on a plane for a  multiday trip.

Deciding she was in the safe zone, she got to her feet and washed her  hands. The fact that this was the third day in a row she'd suffered a  low-grade and now acute nausea penetrated her consciousness. Her  uninhibited encounter with Coburn filled her head.

They'd used a condom. They'd always used condoms because she couldn't  tolerate the birth control pill and the last thing she and Coburn had  needed was a baby at this point in their careers. To complicate their  marriage.

It must be the flu.

She went back to the dining room, where her parents insisted she stay  the night. But a sixth sense told her she couldn't be here right now.  She asked them to call her a cab instead and went home, where Beth  fussed over her and made her a cup of tea, then put her to bed.

She tried to sleep but her head was spinning as if a circus was going  on inside it. What if it wasn't the flu? What if she was pregnant?

A giant knot formed in her stomach. She stared out the window at the  big oak tree swaying back and forth in the darkness, high winds  signaling the imminent arrival of a classic East Coast electrical storm.  If she'd thought what had happened upon seeing her ex again had been a  disaster, that was nothing compared with the possibilities raging  through her head. Nothing.         

     



 

She spent two days in denial. On the third, she had a scheduled  appointment with her doctor to receive a final shot she needed for her  trip. Joanne Gibson, her GP and a former colleague, gave her a frown as  she entered the examining room.

"You look thin. Have you been ill?"

Diana sat down in a chair, the tiny room seeming to close in on her at  the question. "Could you add a-" she could barely get the words out  "-pregnancy test to the list?"

Joanne's face lit up. "Really? Are you and Coburn back to-?" The look  on Diana's face stopped her cold. "What a stupid thing to say," her  doctor mumbled. "Of course we can do that."

They did the pregnancy test first because Joanne wanted to make sure  the shot she was giving her was fine if she was pregnant. Diana stared  at the wall, examining the cracks in the plaster until she'd memorized  every last one. She could not be pregnant. This could not be happening  to her now, not when she was about to walk away from everything she  knew. It could not.

Joanne came back a short while later, a studied blank look on her face.  Diana's heart seized in her chest. She knew that look. It was the one  she used when she had tricky news to give to a patient.

"You are pregnant," her doctor confirmed quietly. "I take it this was unexpected?"

Disastrous. Untenable was more like it. She wanted to be happy. She  wanted to be a mother. Hell, she wanted to be a pediatric surgeon. Of  course she wanted kids. But now? With Coburn? A haze of unreality spread  over her that was so thick, so unnavigable, she couldn't claw her way  through it.

"There are options, you know."

"No." She barked the word out. That was not an option. Ever.

"Okay. I'd like to examine you, then. Just to make sure everything is  okay. And since you have a rare blood condition in your family, I'd like  to take some tests for that."

Diana nodded. She somehow made her way through the next half hour  without screaming, without losing her composure as Joanne examined her,  because she was too numb to feel anything. This was supposed to be her  time. Her chance at a new life. And she had messed it up royally over  her lust for a man who had already wreaked havoc on her life for long  enough.

Oh. My. God.

Joanne sent her off with a promise to deliver the test results in a few  days. Diana found herself in the park across the street with a cup of  peppermint tea in her hand, sitting on a bench while she watched the  dark crimson and orange leaves fall off the trees as fall set in. It was  just enough normalcy to convince her she hadn't entered some alternate  universe where condoms failed on the one night you had sex with your ex  whom you were now tied to for at least the next two decades.

Anger spread through her, slowly overtaking the numbness. How could  this happen? Because it was clearly her problem. Coburn had washed his  hands of her that night at his place, had made it clear she meant  nothing to him. He would support this baby, no doubt; he was that kind  of a man. But if she could have dreamed up the worst possible scenario  of anything and thrown it at her husband, it would not have made Coburn  any greener than the thought of a baby.

Her stomach lurched, protesting even the tea. She set the cup down and  breathed in through her nose. Her husband hadn't even been capable of  talking about a baby when she'd broached the subject casually to test  the waters because she'd known someday it was in the cards for her.  Whether it had something to do with his tumultuous, on-again, off-again  relationship with his brother, Harrison, or his aloof family upbringing,  she wasn't sure. She'd just gotten the message loud and clear it wasn't  on his agenda.