‘I have an active social life.’
‘Which basically means that you have sex with different women,’ she said gently, ‘but you don’t spend time with those women, do you, Jack? You have a massive house but you never go there. You spend time with me. In my house. Sitting in my kitchen. Chatting about everything. Being part of my life. And Lizzie’s life.’
‘You’re my friend.’
She nodded. ‘And that’s the best thing about a good marriage. I know because I saw it in my parents’ marriage. In a good marriage you are friends as well as lovers.’
He backed away and stared at her incredulously. ‘You’re proposing to me?’
‘No.’ She held her breath. ‘I’m waiting for you to propose to me, Jack. And then we can spend the rest of our lives having fantastic sex and enjoying the special friendship we’ve always had. And Lizzie gets the daddy she’s always dreamed of.’
He stared at her for a suspended moment and then he grabbed his jacket. ‘No.’ He thrust his arms into the jacket and zipped it up firmly, his jaw set in a hard line. ‘I think you’ve gone mad. For me it was just sex, Blondie—great sex, but just sex.’
‘Jack—’
His eyes blazed into hers. ‘We won’t talk about it again.’
‘Jack!’
‘I’ll go and warm the engine up.’
‘Why are men like mascara?’ Bryony murmured to herself, watching him go with tears in her eyes. ‘Because they run at the first sign of emotion.’
‘I bet Lizzie is excited about Christmas.’ Nicky handed Bryony a syringe and she slowly injected the antibiotic into the patient’s vein.
‘Of course.’ Bryony didn’t look at her. ‘It’s Christmas Eve tomorrow.’
‘What have you bought her?’
‘Oh, you know, all the usual girly things. Stuff for her hair, lots of stuff for her dolls, a new doll that she likes.’
Everything under the sun except the one thing she wanted.
A daddy.
And she still hadn’t confessed to Lizzie that Santa wasn’t going to manage to deliver her the present she wanted this year.
‘Are you all right?’ As they moved away from the patient, Nicky touched her arm. ‘You’re so quiet and you look really pale.’
‘I’m fine, really.’ Bryony gave her a wan smile. ‘Just tired and looking forward to the Christmas break.’
Nicky was frowning. ‘Well, you’ve certainly been working long hours for the past few days, thanks to Jack doing a vanishing act. Do you know where he’s gone?’
Bryony shook her head. After their night in the honeymoon suite, he’d driven her home in brooding silence, dropped her off without saying a word and then disappeared from her life. Even Sean didn’t know where he was, although he did confess that Jack had called him and told him that he needed time off.
Bryony sighed. So not only had she frightened Jack off a relationship, she’d frightened him out of her life altogether.
She’d thrown herself into her work and had seen a steady stream of fractures and bruises as people had slipped on the ice, and she’d dealt with quite a few road accidents as people stupidly decided to drive home after Christmas parties.
And that night when she tucked Lizzie in she felt a huge lump in her throat.
‘Lizzie…’ She settled herself on the edge of the bed and took a deep breath. ‘We need to talk, sweetheart.’
‘Mmm?’ Lizzie snuggled down, her beautiful round cheeks pink from excitement.
Bryony couldn’t bear the thought that she was about to dim that excitement, but she knew that she had to say something. She couldn’t let Lizzie carry on believing that Santa was going to deliver a daddy for Christmas.
‘Sweetheart, you remember your letter to Santa?’
Lizzie nodded. ‘I wrote it ages ago.’
‘I know you did.’ Bryony swallowed. ‘But you also said you did it in November because you wanted to give Santa time, because you knew it was a pretty hard present for him to find.’
‘That’s right.’ Lizzie smiled. ‘And he’s had ages.’
‘It isn’t a time thing, Lizzie,’ Bryony said softly, reached out and brushing her daughter’s face with her finger. ‘And a daddy isn’t really something that Santa can bring you.’ Tears spilled down her cheeks and she scrubbed them away quickly, not wanting her daughter to see her cry. ‘It’s up to me to find you a daddy, and so far I haven’t managed it.’ She broke off, totally choked by emotion and afraid to say anything else in case she started to sob.