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worse than that—much worse—she’d taken a sick baby away from her adoring father. She’d seen the pain in Rafael’s eyes as she’d walked away with their daughter in her arms. He hadn’t expected to see her alive again. How painful would that have been? He had every right to hate her for that.
Abbie had had Ella in her arms and she’d still cried all the way to New York.
So Rafael had shut himself away. She’d guessed that by how distant he’d sounded when she’d tried to call him. By how impersonal his email correspondence had rapidly become. He’d buried himself in his work to the extent that when Abbie had reached out in the darkest days, so far away and so lonely and so desperate for support, the response she’d received had seemed cold and clinical. As if his emotional involvement with both herself and Ella was a thing of the past.
Was it all over?
It wouldn’t be fair to try and get any further clues from Ethan.
It was Rafael that Abbie needed to talk to.
Needed to see. The longing was getting stronger by the minute, as if her body realised that the distance between them was closing rapidly. She still loved her husband. Yes, they had pushed each other away and there was a lot to forgive on both sides, but the love was still there. It always would be.
Rafael would welcome Ella back into his life, she had no doubt at all about that. But would she be welcome?
The prospect of the rift between them never healing was terrifying.
With a huge effort, Abbie tried to find some inner strength. To feel positive. She even managed to find a smile to offer Ethan.
‘So what else is happening? Have Leo and Lizzie set a date for the wedding yet?’
‘Yes. It’s going to be the last Saturday in April.’
‘What? Good grief...that’s only a couple of weeks away.’
‘Tell me about it. A quiet affair might have been easily organised but the kind of splash that goes with a high-society wedding at Claridge’s? I’m trying to stay well out of it all.’
Abbie smiled. ‘Good luck with that.’
Ethan snorted. ‘Yeah... I haven’t been entirely successful. Lizzie’s managed to talk me into being best man. And that means I’ll have to come up with some kind of speech.’
‘I’m sure you can do it. Even with a tight deadline. But why are they in such a rush?’
Ethan shrugged. ‘Guess they didn’t want to wait. They’re in love.’
There was something in Ethan’s tone that made the conversation dry up completely at this point. Abbie didn’t know the story behind why the Hunter brothers had been estranged for so many years but, like everyone else associated with the clinic, she was aware of the tension that still lingered between the men. The fact that Lizzie had been the one to persuade Ethan to be best man was evidence that things still weren’t easy.
Was that all there was to whatever was remaining unspoken? Was Ethan happy for Leo or did he have doubts that the marriage would succeed? Maybe she and Rafael were being seen as an example of marrying in haste and repenting at leisure.
The lump in Abbie’s throat made it too hard to take a new breath. To try and distract herself she leaned over Ella and stroked her baby’s cheek softly with her forefinger.
The welling up of love she had for her child wasn’t enough to distract her completely. She and Rafael had been in love like that once. Not very long ago, in fact. They should still be in the honeymoon phase of their marriage but look at where they were now.
What should have been a perfect union so quickly blessed with a beautiful child had been blown apart by a cruel twist of fate.
And now Abbie was returning to where it had all happened.
The pieces of that perfect life were going to be in the same place again.
What remained to be seen was whether it was going to be possible to put them back together again.
A glance through the tinted glass of the ambulance windows showed that they were passing Regent’s Park. There were taxis and double-decker buses nose to tail around them. Definitely London. Home. God, it was good to be back. She could even see the big square brick building on the end of Harley Street coming up—a close neighbour of the Hunter Clinic.
Ethan followed her line of vision.
‘Have you missed it?’
‘So much.’ But it felt distant. Like part of previous life. How hard was it going to be to find her way back?
‘Are you ready to come back to work? We desperately need you as soon as you can manage and I know that they’ve been holding their breath to get you back on board at the Lighthouse.’
‘I could start tomorrow.’
‘Really? That would be terrific. But won’t you need time to get Ella settled?’
Abbie’s smile was poignant. ‘The oncology ward at the Lighthouse is more of a home for Ella than anywhere else. She’s spent most of her life in there. And the staff are like a huge collection of aunties and grannies. The sooner we get things back to normal, the better for both of us, I think.’
For all of us, she amended silently.
* * *
Rafael de Luca stripped off his bloodied gloves and dropped them in the bin. Then he pulled at his mask, breaking the strings and bending the wire that strengthened the top hem as he sent it after the gloves.
Finally, he could take a deep breath of unfiltered, fresh-feeling air. Not just because the mask was gone but because the gruelling surgery that had kept him on his feet for so many hours he’d lost count was over.
They’d done well. The team he’d gathered around him to perform this complex operation had been outstanding. In an ideal world they were maybe not exactly who he would have chosen to work so closely with but the choice of his perfect partner had been taken away when Abbie had gone, hadn’t it?
The ‘dream team,’ they’d been known as at the Hunter Clinic. Such perfect partners in the operating theatre, it had seemed inevitable that they would find they were a perfect match outside work hours as well.
Ha...
So much for fate. And so much for a distraction from his modus operandi these days. That momentary flash of recognising what had been missing from his theatre today was as far as he would allow it to go. And that had only happened because he was so incredibly exhausted. His back ached abominably from standing in one position for far too long. His eyes ached from peering through microscopic lenses for the fine work and a generalised ache in his head from such prolonged and fierce concentration was gaining vigour.
With his gown removed and balled up to join the other disposable items in the bin, Rafael could push open the double doors and exit Theatre. With some time in hand before checking on young Anoosheh in Recovery and no concerned family to go and talk to, he could do what he most wanted and go and stand under a hot shower for a considerable period of time. He needed a shave, too.
There would be reporters anxious to hear how the surgery had gone but nobody would expect him to front up to a camera until he’d had time to clean up properly. And maybe he wouldn’t have to do it at all. Rafael could see Ethan Hunter waiting outside Theatre. Far better that the media dealt with the man who was not only one of the owners of the Hunter Clinic but in charge of the charity side of the business and directly responsible for Anoosheh being brought to London for her life-changing surgery.
‘Rafael... How did it go?’
‘Good.’ He nodded his greeting. ‘As good as we could have hoped for. The tumour is gone. She has a titanium plate in her jaw and we’ve reconstructed her nasal passages. There’s more work to be done, of course. When she’s recovered from this.’ The finer work of