Dating The Millionaire Doctor(26)

How had he ever thought she was plain? he wondered. She was quite extraordinarily beautiful.

He wanted her. He wanted her so badly …

'But I can … I can afford it,' she said breathlessly. 'Easily. There's no need for you to pay.'

'I know that, but still … will you grant me the honour of buying it for you.'

'There you go again,' she said darkly. 'Romance novels have a lot to  answer for. If I didn't know you made such a lousy five-minute dater I'd  suspect you'd been taking chivalry lessons.'

'No lessons,' he said. 'Put it on.' He lifted it from the velvet and held it out.

Silently she turned so he could fasten it around her neck. He clipped  the hook closed, and then, because the temptation was irresistible, he  bent and kissed her, lightly on the nape of her neck. Her skin felt  smooth and lovely, and for an instant … for just an instant, he felt her  lean into him, let herself relax against him, trust him.

'Jake … '

He wanted to kiss her properly, as he needed to kiss her, as she  deserved to be kissed, but her moment of weakness was gone. She tugged  away, apparently to look in the mirror, but he knew it was more than  that. He'd felt her body stiffen.

He'd felt her fear.

Bad move, he thought. Very bad move, considering what he was thinking.

The assistant had melted away again in the emotional stuff-how did they  know to do that?-but as Tori moved to the mirror she materialised again,  beaming her approval.

'Will madam take it?'

'Madam's taking it,' Tori said softly, and a slight tremor ran through  her, a tremor she couldn't disguise. 'Madam fell in love with romance  novels when she was thirteen years old and she knows when she's hooked.'

'Does this mean you'll let me buy it for you?' Jake asked.

'Why yes,' she said softly. 'Yes, I believe it does.'         

     



 



They bought Chinese takeaway and took it back to the apartment for dinner because Tori was simply too tired to go on.

Jake usually ate at his kitchen bench. His dining table was covered in  journals, half-written papers, important work in progress.

He could sort it and stack it neatly, he thought, but that could take  half an hour. Or he could make Tori eat at the kitchen bench.

But if this was the only night he had to persuade her, then he needed to  move fast. So he cleared the table by the simple expedient of tipping  it lengthways. It worked a treat. Hey, when was the last time he'd seen  this table? It had cost him a bomb. It was a great table.

Or maybe not, he conceded, thinking on. The table was of cool-grey  lacquer, designed to match the apartment's cool-grey walls. He  remembered Tori's scathing comments about grey. Hmm.

Tori was looking at the mess as they ate, bemused. 'It'll take you days to get that back in order.'

'I have days.' He'd have all the time in the world after she went home, he thought. If she went home.

How to broach it again?

He didn't for a while. They shared their food. They both had soda-he'd  have liked a beer but Jancey's catheter might mean he'd be called out  again. They listened to music. She liked his music. That was something  the decorator hadn't chosen.

'What time's your plane tomorrow?' he asked.

'Late afternoon. I figure I'll sleep in.'

'No more sightseeing?'

'I hear Soho's good,' she said. 'But maybe not. You need to go to work, right?'

He did. He'd been trying to figure out how not to need to go to work,  but case lists for Monday were always the most complex. If he cancelled,  patients would be sent home.

'You can't let them down,' Tori said softly, and he knew she understood.

He was doing a rapid assessment of cases in his head but it wasn't  helping. He'd seen Jack Carver in the cardiac ward on Friday. Jack had  severe ulceration on his legs, so severe amputation was becoming an  option. He needed shunts to restore blood supply back so they could  heal, but he had a cardiac condition and diabetic complications as well.  When Jake had done the initial assessment-something he usually avoided  but he seemed to be doing it more in the weeks since he'd met  Tori-Jack's wife had been holding her husband's hand as though if she  let go he'd drown.

'Please,' she'd said to him. 'Jack's all I have. Make him well.'

The risk of Jack losing his leg-or worse-was increasing every day he  waited. He couldn't reschedule, Jake thought grimly. No matter what he  wanted personally, he needed to be there tomorrow.

And Jancey would be watching the door, waiting for him. He couldn't let Jancey down.

'I could have done with some warning of your visit,' he growled, but Tori shook her head.

'I suspect you'd still be as busy even if you were expecting me, and I  didn't want to interrupt your life. I don't want to interrupt your life.  Soho will just be shops. I might go on my own or I might just sleep,  but either way, I can take a cab to the airport. I don't need your  company.'

But her voice wobbled a little at that, and he noticed her fingers crept to the chain at her throat.

'You should stay,' he said strongly.

'I need to go home. I need to start my life as I need to go on.'

'Why not stay here?'

'We already talked about that.'

'I'd like to marry you.'

There was a sharp intake of breath. But …  'You've said that before,' she  whispered, still touching her chain. 'Just because I'm having your baby,  it doesn't make it any better.'

'I think I love you.'

She gazed across the table at him, seemingly bemused. Seemingly astounded. 'You think?'

'I don't know,' he admitted. 'Hell, Tori, I haven't done this before.'

'Done what?'

'Become involved.'

'You sound like it's happened against your will.'

'Well, what do you think?' he said, raking his hair. 'I don't have a  clue how I'm feeling. But we're going to be parents. You need to rebuild  anyway. You've lost everything … '

And finally she reacted with something apart from shock. 'I haven't lost  everything,' she retorted, and she tilted her chin and met his gaze  levelly and calmly.

'Okay, you've got your dogs,' he conceded.

'I've got my home.'

'A relocatable.'

'I have my community.' The emotion now was suddenly pure, unmitigated  anger. 'I have my work,' she said, struggling to stay calm. 'You have  your work, too. It's important, as my work's important. But I have more.  I have place. My parents lived and worked at Combadeen and so do I. I  know every family rebuilding on the ridge. My parents are buried in the  Combadeen cemetery. I've buried my dogs behind our house. Okay, I've  been stunned, shocked, gutted by the fires and their aftermath but I'm  handling it. And I'm moving on to make a home for myself, in my place,  not in some sterile, grey, designer shoebox on the seventeenth floor of a  thirty storey tower block.'         

     



 

'It's not-'

'A shoebox? Yes, it is,' she retorted. 'They're all shoeboxes. It's  what's around them that matters, and what's in them. Here, you'd be at  work all day every day, and the shoebox would close in on me.'

'You could work part-time. We could get somewhere a bit bigger. Hell, Tori, you need looking after.'

'I don't need looking after.'

'You're pregnant.'

'And I still don't need looking after.' Her anger was building rather  than subsiding. 'I have a community who cares. I have friends and I have  colleagues. You've seen me at a point where I was at my lowest, where  the resources of the whole district were stretched to the limit, but  don't judge me on that. Don't judge Combadeen by that. There's not one  person in Combadeen who'd suggest I live in a grey monument to solitude  and go crazy!'

'You wouldn't go crazy.'

'I would if I lived here,' she said, rising and glowering. 'So would  you, but you don't live here either. You use it to crash or to study or  to take a shower. No one lives in places like this. Living …  Jake, you  don't know what living is, and I'm surely not raising my child teaching  him this life is normal.'

She closed her eyes then, and she swayed. He was on his feet in an  instant, surging around the table to hold her, but her eyes snapped open  and she stepped away.

'No,' she said. 'Don't.'

'Don't?'

'Don't touch me,' she whispered. 'I was a fool to come. The truth was I  wanted to see you, as well as needing to tell you about our baby, but it  was wrong. You and me …  No. There's no you and me.'

'Tori … '

'You're alone,' she whispered. 'And that's the way you want it. But if  I'm alone I'd curl up and die. I need people. I need dogs. I need … life.'

She sighed then and steadied.

'I'm sorry, Jake,' she said. 'Getting angry was dumb. Yelling at you is  dumb. You're doing the best you can.' She shook her head as if clearing  fog. 'Okay, here's confession time,' she said. 'I'm trying desperately  not to fall in love with you. You say you might love me? Well, maybe I  know that I could love you. And you know what that means? If I came  here, then you'd risk me clinging.'

He didn't understand. 'Why would you cling? You have your work.'

'I'm not talking about my work. I'm talking about needing you, and you  needing me. You're fine with the idea of looking after me. Could you  ever admit that you need me?'

'I … ' There was deathly silence.

'No,' she said, and she was fighting now for the composure she'd lost.  'Enough. This is dumb talk, and we both know it. We're two mature  professionals-we can handle this. Your work is waiting, and my life is  waiting. So please, Jake … '