CHAPTER SIX
IT WAS STILL smoking hot at eight o’clock at night as the sun sank behind the skyline of the central African capital Diana had been posted to, blazing a fiery path as it scorched everything within its reach. She put up a hand to shield her eyes as she left the hospital with her armed escort after her second day of work and walked the short distance to her hotel. She was normally good with heat, loved it in fact, but since she’d arrived here, the heat wave that had racked the country had been beyond anything she’d ever experienced. Sweltering and bone-dry, it invaded every cell, sucking out all your bodily fluids along with it.
Which would have been manageable if she hadn’t been pregnant and losing hydration to the ever-present nausea that continued to plague her. The work had been even more emotionally draining and physically taxing than she’d imagined. She’d been posted here to treat patients at the hospital and clinic who had been directly or indirectly injured in the violence between the rebels and the armed self-defense groups battling over the city. Although the arrival of international forces had stemmed the violence for now, there were still random acts of aggression taking place on civilians, and the fallout from the hostilities had provided a steady stream of patients through the hospital doors.
She had performed surgery today on a sixty-year-old man who’d stumbled upon a grenade that hadn’t been defused and almost lost a leg, done a cesarean section on a young mother and helped the other doctors work through dozens of patients suffering from everything from malaria to respiratory and skin infections. All of it had been performed in an emergency room that lacked much of the high-tech equipment she was used to, requiring instinct and ingenuity on her part to make do.
She knew what she’d seen today would haunt her for a lifetime. And that was just one day in the life of this besieged city. It was enough to break your heart, something her supervisor had counseled her about. “You need to keep your professional detachment,” he’d told her. “Even more so than you would normally do. You are going to see things here that will affect your perspective forever. Which will test your belief in your fellow man. You’ve got to move past it.”
The gleaming facade of the Lione Hotel loomed in front of them, sparkling a burned-gold color in the dying rays of the sun. She smiled her thanks to her escort and arranged to meet him the next morning. If it seemed incongruous for a five-star hotel to still be operating in this city after what it had endured, it should be noted things weren’t working entirely as usual.
There still wasn’t hot water when she went to take a shower in her lovely whitewashed room with its four-poster bed, nor was the AC working particularly well. Wanting only to drink and sleep, but knowing she had to eat for the sake of the new life growing inside her, Diana went down to the restaurant and ordered a light dinner. She managed to eat her salad and half the chicken before she gave up and took her tea out onto the terrace, which seemed to be cooler than the poorly air-conditioned restaurant.
At least the air moved out here, she thought, sinking into a chair at a table by the pool.
The terrace was deserted except for a man leaning against the facade of the restaurant smoking a cigarette. She focused her gaze on the smooth surface of the oval-shaped pool, a jewel in the center of the perfectly landscaped space. It looked heavenly. Almost good enough to inspire a trip to her room to get her bathing suit, but even that was too much energy in her current state. She sank back in the chair and looked up at the dusky sky and the different placement of the stars on this side of the world.
The man dropped the butt of his cigarette to the concrete, ground it under his foot and went back inside. The night blanketed her in silence. Her eyes fluttered shut. Exhaustion reached out to claim her with greedy, grasping hands. She wasn’t sure how much time had passed, three, four minutes, when a sixth sense made her open her eyes. A man strolled from the shadows of the building, dressed all in black. A bolt of alarm zigzagged through her, penetrating the fog she was in. Move, her brain told her. But by the time she got to her feet, her hands balled at her sides ready to engage, the tall figure had stepped into the light, not ten feet from her.
Her eyes widened. It was not an unknown assailant. It was someone much more dangerous.
“Coburn.” The word came out half croak, her eyes moving over his tall, lean body clad in black jeans and a black T-shirt. “What are you doing here?”
He stepped fully into the light, moving lithely, catlike, toward her until he was so close she could see the ominous glitter in his beautiful blue eyes. A shiver went down her spine. She was in trouble. So much trouble.
His gaze locked onto hers. “When were you going to tell me, Diana? How long did you deem it acceptable to keep from me that I’m going to be a father?”
Her heart leaped into her mouth. He knew. Of course he knew. He was here. She pushed a breath past her locked set of lungs. “How did you find out?”
“Your doctor’s office called looking for you. Apparently the new receptionist hasn’t yet learned the ropes because she let your big secret slip.”
Oh, God. Her knees went weak at the thought of how angry he must have been. Still was...
“And the hotel?” she asked weakly. “How did you find out I was here?”
“Your father. He was more than happy to address this insane behavior of yours.”
Her heart dropped. “You told him about the baby.”
His mouth compressed into a straight, forbidding line. “I did what I needed to do. And believe me, they were just as shocked as I was that you would travel halfway across the world pregnant and suffering from morning sickness to take up a physically grueling position you know you shouldn’t be doing.”
Her shoulders shot to her ears. “I don’t know anything of the kind. There is absolutely no reason why I, a perfectly healthy woman in my first trimester, shouldn’t be here.”
“No reason?” he repeated, the glint in his eyes turning positively flammable. “I stopped at the hospital and met with your supervisor. He had no idea you were pregnant. He said you’d been sick on the job yesterday and he’d been concerned but had put it down to first-day jitters.”
Her jaw dropped open. “You talked to my supervisor?”
“Didn’t you just hear me, Diana?” His lips curved in a savage twist. “I will do whatever it takes to make you see sense since you obviously can’t do it for yourself.”
Which meant what? Fury at the boundaries he’d crossed mixed with fear to render her speechless. Her gaze flicked over the clenched muscles of his jaw, the tendons and veins that stood out in stark relief against the strong column of his throat. Anger seemed to vibrate from every pore of him. He was beyond furious with her.
“Congratulations,” he rasped, reading her expression. “You have successfully diagnosed my current mood. Now answer the question, Diana. When were you going to tell me? After you had this all figured out in that structured brain of yours? After you’d worked out how we divide our paternal rights? Exactly how you want this to play out... What roles you’d like me to assume in our child’s life?” A dangerous glitter stoked his gaze. “Because I can assure you, after this stunt, it has backfired on you.”
The breath whooshed from her lungs. “Coburn, I needed time to think, time to process. You can’t blame me for that.”
“No,” he agreed tightly. “I can’t. What I can be livid about is you waltzing off to take this assignment when you knew you were carrying our baby. Without telling me.” He shook his head, a vicious expression darkening his eyes. “I knew you were selfish, but this, this was unforgivable.”
Her heart thudded in her chest. “I was going to tell you this week as soon as I got settled.”
“Instead, I found out from a receptionist I was going to be a father. A receptionist. While I was getting into my car on the corner of Fifth and Fourteenth to be precise.” He stepped closer, until she could feel the fury emanating from him. “You were afraid I would have made you cancel your trip if you’d told me.”
Her jaw dipped. He slid his fingers beneath it and brought her gaze back up to his. “Unbelievable. You are unbelievable.”
She pulled out of his grip. “I am exercising my right to be an independent human being. I was planning on consulting you with this pregnancy every step of the way.”
His mouth tightened. “Unfortunately for you, the time for consultation and negotiation is over. You gave away that right the moment you elected to leave the country without coming to me.”
The ice in his tone spoke a dire warning. She swallowed hard as it slid through her, chilling her despite the sweltering air. “You are upset,” she reasoned, laying a hand on his arm in an attempt to redirect the storm. “I agree I shouldn’t have left without telling you. Let’s sit down and talk about it.”
He looked down at her hand on his arm as if it were a pest he wanted to stomp under his feet. “No more talking. We play by my rules now.”
Her heart skipped a beat. “What does that mean?”
“It means you have ten minutes to pack your things before we leave. The jet is waiting at the airport.”