The Legendary Playboy Surgeon (12 page)

He would stay, he decided. They couldn’t leave things like this. They needed to talk about it.

But where would he start?

How on earth could he hope to undo even part of so much damage?

He’d been horrified enough that Kate had lived with an abusive father but he’d been confident that he could handle that.

Fix her, even.

But this—the knowledge that she’d been
raped
...that she could only bear a man’s intimate touch by distancing herself as though she was performing an autopsy?

That had been overwhelming. He didn’t think he could have been any more shocked but he had been, when Kate had mentioned the baby.

Pregnant as the result of a rape? Unthinkable.

What had she done? Had the pregnancy terminated? Had the baby adopted? Had a miscarriage because her father had beaten her up when he’d found out about the pregnancy?

Did it actually matter?

No. What mattered was that it seemed to have been as damaging as the rape because Connor had known that, however it had been conceived, that baby had been loved.

I lost it
, was all she’d said. And she’d lost so much more than that, hadn’t she? She’d lost—or maybe she’d never discovered—the joys of sex. She’d lost a part of her family. She might have been broken in a different way from what he had been but the result was
eerily similar. An aversion to the kind of closeness that could bring pain in its wake. He was better off than she was, though, wasn’t he? At least the release and pleasure of sex was something he’d enjoyed all his adult life.

Yes. Kate’s history was worse than his own. All the more disturbing because he could understand the space it had left her in. A walled-off space.

A barrier that was far more solid than the door of that bathroom.

Kate didn’t want him to still be there when she came out and Connor could finally understand why Kate had such a need to be in control of what was around her. It was why her house was so perfect and why she kept people at such a distance.

If he was still there, he would be undermining that control and that would hardly be a good place to start, would it?

Besides, he needed to think.

And think he did. Long and hard. His head told him to back away.

But his heart wasn’t going to let him do that.

Funny how you could see something when it was happening to somebody else and it was only then that you recognised it was happening to you.

Kate was crippled by the fear of emotional pain that came from loving someone and losing them. She couldn’t even go through the motions of expressing love physically because she had distanced herself from love far more than he had. But she was missing out on the most important thing that life had to offer.

Not sex, though that was a part of it, certainly.

Kate was missing out on the joy of sharing her life. Of a loving relationship that brightened joy and dimmed sorrow. The strength that could come from being with someone who could understand. Who could give—and receive—love.

And so was he.

They could both get so much more out of life by taking that risk.

And maybe...just maybe...they could take it together.

* * *

He didn’t get a chance to get near Kate on Monday morning because he’d had such an early start for that bone-marrow collection procedure. And he’d felt far worse than he’d expected so he’d had no choice other than to go home for the day.

He’d come back this morning only to be told how awful he looked and, if he was limping that badly, there was no way he’d stay on his feet long enough to be able to operate safely.

So he’d slept. He’d taken the painkillers and slept well enough for the healing process to get properly under way. He might still be limping a bit but he could move.

He was moving. It was late in the day but, if he was in luck or it was meant to be, maybe Kate was working late. More slowly than he would have liked, Connor made his way down to the pathology department.

* * *

The look on Kate’s face would have frightened anybody. This had been a bad idea, after all, but it was too late to do anything about it.

Kevin Graham had followed her directions and turned up, after hours as instructed, to visit his daughter.

He was a much bigger man than Bella had anticipated and he looked nothing like she had expected. His clothes were scruffy and his face was hard and he smelled like...like...

‘You’ve been drinking,’ Bella gasped. ‘You told me you were doing the twelve steps. That you hadn’t had anything to drink for years.’

‘Hadn’t.’ Kevin walked further into the lab, his gait only mildly unsteady. He waved a paper bag he was holding in one hand, screwed up at the top so he didn’t lose his grip on the bottle it contained. ‘Just needed a bit of, you know, Dutch courage.’ He was smiling but it didn’t do anything to make him a more appealing figure. ‘Hello, Katherine. Long time no see. How’s things?’

‘Get out,’ Kate snarled. ‘Bella, get on the phone over there and call Security.’

‘Don’t do that.’ Kevin’s eyes narrowed as he walked closer. ‘That wouldn’t be very friendly, would it? Didn’t the girl tell you that I just wanted to say I was sorry?’

Kate took a step back. ‘
Sorry?
What for? Murdering my mother?’

Bella’s jaw dropped. ‘Oh, my God...you’re a
murderer
?’ She turned to Kate. ‘I didn’t know. I’m sorry, Kate. I really didn’t know...’

‘No.’ The word was clipped. ‘But now you do.’

‘I’m
sorry
. OK?’ Kevin raised his voice. ‘I’ve done my time. You have to at least let me say that I’m sorry.’

‘I don’t have to do anything.’ Kate’s voice was cold. ‘I don’t want to hear you or see you ever again. Get out of here. Get out of my life.’

Kevin swore loudly and viciously. ‘I might have known,’ he said. ‘I’m wasting my time, aren’t I? You’re not going to listen to a thing I say. You’re just like your mother. Won’t listen. Won’t do as you’re told.’ Kevin was moving again. Walking towards Kate, who was edging behind an island bench in the middle of the lab. She looked terrified.

Bella had had enough. She had caused this horrible situation and she was going to do something about it. She darted in front of Kevin.

‘Get out,’ she said. ‘You can’t stay here. You shouldn’t have come.’ She glared at the man. Her grandfather? No. It was unbelievable.

Kevin’s hand shot out so fast Bella didn’t see it coming. The slap was enough to knock her off her feet and make her ears ring. She pushed herself up. Kate was trying to reach the phone on the wall near the door. Kevin was clearly planning to prevent her. Bella stepped behind him but Kevin must have heard her coming because he turned and gave her a shove that sent her flying again.

‘Get out, Bella,’ Kate shouted. ‘Get help.
Now
.’

* * *

Connor was halfway along a deserted corridor in the basement of St Pat’s when he saw a figure hurtle through the department door and fall to the floor, uttering a cry of pure fear. Ignoring the stab of pain, Connor picked up speed until he was running.

He could see it was Bella but that wasn’t what made him run faster.

Instinct told him that it was Kate who was in trouble somehow.

He’d put his life on the line if that’s what it would take to keep Kate safe.

He couldn’t do anything else.

Because it was in that moment of time that he realised just how much he loved her.

CHAPTER TEN

‘
C
ONNOR
...
’ Bella was sobbing. ‘He’s trying to kill her.’

Connor didn’t even slow down as he reached the door.
‘Who?’

‘Her father.’ Bella was fumbling for her phone, trying to flip it open.

There was the sound of glass smashing within the lab. Connor pushed the door open with a bang and then stopped to get his bearings and see what was going on.

Kate was behind an island bench. The intruder was on the other side, using his arm to sweep a microscope and racks of glass vials to the floor with a vicious jerk of his arm. Then he saw Connor.

‘Who the hell are you? Get out. This is between me and my kid.’

‘Deal with Kate and you deal with me,’ Connor told him.

‘Ooh...’ The sound had an unpleasant, suggestive tone. ‘Fancy her, do you? You’d better watch out. She’s a bolshie little cow. Just like her mother was.’

Raising his arm, the man hit the side of the bench with something he was holding in his hand. A bottle. Connor could see the jagged edges of the weapon like knives protruding from shreds of brown paper. He waved it in front of him, jabbing towards Connor. And then his head turned towards Kate and Connor knew what he was planning.

‘Get down, Kate,’ he yelled. ‘Get on the floor.’

He couldn’t stop to consider her aversion to being shouted at or ordered around. This was for her safety, for God’s sake...

Except she wasn’t moving. She was staring at Connor and he could see the desperation in her face. Without thinking, he launched himself into a rugby-style tackle that would have earned praise on a football field.

He wasn’t tackling the angry, drunk man, however. Connor launched himself at Kate. He reached her and caught her body, taking her with him for the rest of the fall, just as the half-broken bottle was hurled at the space she’d been standing in. He felt the buttons pop off the white coat she was wearing and knew her glasses had gone flying.

He heard a howl of rage from the man and new missiles were being found and thrown. Connor kept his body on top of Kate’s. Holding her still. Something hard hit him painfully on one shoulder and he tried to curve himself to cover more of Kate. She lay rigid beneath him. He would have to let her go so that he could get up and deal with their attacker but not just yet. Not until there was a pause in this ferocious onslaught.

And then Connor heard new sounds. Shouting and banging. He raised his head to see two burly security men storming into the lab. Bella was peering round the edge of the door behind them, her face as white as a sheet. It took only moments for the security men to overpower the man.

‘Who is this creep?’ one of them asked. ‘And how the hell did he get down here?’

‘It was my fault.’ Bella wasn’t crying now. She looked agonised as she crept into the lab. ‘Kate? Where are you? Oh, God...are you all right?’

Connor eased himself off Kate but didn’t take his weight completely off her body. He knelt over her, reaching for her face with his hands. Holding it so that she had to meet his searching gaze.

‘You’re safe,’ he said softly. ‘You know that, don’t you?’

* * *

She felt safe.

How ridiculous was that? Her worst nightmare had just happened, having to confront her father again in one of his blind, drunken rages. He was still there, breathing the same air that she was. Connor had yelled at her. He’d thrown himself at her and it should have felt like a physical assault and yet Kate felt completely safe.

Because it had been Connor who had grabbed her. Because he was here. Because he was looking at her like...like her safety was the only thing that mattered in the whole world.

And you could only look like that if you loved someone.

As much as she loved him?

Kate let Connor help her up. He found her glasses, fortunately unbroken, and handed them to her to put back on. She didn’t want to lose the touch of his body so soon, though, so she stood close to Connor, pressed to his side, grateful for the arm that came around her and didn’t move again.

‘I’m fine,’ she told Bella, although she wasn’t sure how true that was. Her legs felt oddly shaky. Her hands were trembling. It had been quite a mission to settle her glasses into the right spot on the top of her nose.

‘So who is this guy?’ The security man asked again.

‘I’m her
father
,’ Kevin snarled.

‘No.’ Kate sucked in a jagged breath. ‘You’ve never been a father to me. I knew that even before you murdered my mother.’

‘Whoa...’
The younger security guard looked shocked. ‘This guy’s a murderer? Good thing we’ve got the cops on the way.’

‘You’ll find he’s probably on parole,’ Kate told them. ‘He was on parole once before, years ago, and got locked up again because he beat someone senseless in the first pub he went into.’

‘Doubt he’ll ever be getting out again, then,’ the older guard said. He jerked Kevin in front of him to start him walking. ‘We’ll take him outside.’ He looked back as he reached the door. ‘The police will be wanting a statement from you guys. Don’t go away yet, will you?’ He took another look at Kate. ‘Will you be OK? Want us to send someone else down to stay with you?’

Kate pressed closer to Connor. ‘I’ll be OK.’

‘She will be,’ Connor growled. ‘I intend to make sure of it.’

* * *

The pathology department was being sealed off with wide, bright red ‘Crime Scene’ taped from one side of the doorframe to the other.

Bella watched with some dismay. She’d already been here far longer than she liked. She should never have come in the first place. She certainly shouldn’t have suggested that Kevin Graham come here to make contact with his long-lost daughter. The sooner she could escape the better but, as far as she knew, that door to the main corridor was the only exit.

‘Aren’t we allowed to go home?’ she asked.

‘We don’t want anything moved until the scene’s been photographed,’ a police officer explained. ‘And some fingerprint evidence has been collected. That tape’s to keep people out, not to keep you in, though it would be better if we all stayed in this office until they’ve finished. It shouldn’t take long.’

‘All’ was two police officers, Bella, Connor and Kate. There were only two chairs in Kate’s office. Kate was sitting in one and Bella in the other. Connor had a hip hitched onto the desk, and the leg touching the floor was also touching Kate’s chair. Touching Kate, even? Bella tilted her head to try and see but, instead, she caught Kate’s glance.

A new wave of misery made her cheeks flush and her eyes sting. This was all her fault and if it hadn’t been for Connor happening to come along at the right moment, it could have been a tragedy.

‘So your father was found guilty of manslaughter?’ A police officer had been taking notes busily for a while now.

‘The jury had no hesitation in convicting him,’ Kate told them. ‘Not that I attended the trial, but my brother did. A neighbour from across the road heard the argument and could actually see him pushing Mum across the room. She fell down the stairs, hit her head and died two days later without regaining consciousness.’ Kate’s voice was remarkably steady but Bella saw the way Connor reached down to squeeze her shoulder. ‘David also gave evidence about the abuse we’d suffered as children.’

Bella hung her head. If only she’d known. She could understand now that kind of secret pact Kate and her father had shared. And no wonder they hadn’t wanted to talk about it. It was horrible to think that you were related to a monster like that. An addiction to the alcohol that fuelled the rages was no excuse at all.

‘He got sentenced to fifteen years,’ Kate was saying now. ‘He managed to get parole after twelve by convincing the board that he was sober and he’d stay that way. He lasted two days, I believe, before he got into a fight at a pub and nearly killed someone else.’

‘He’ll never get out this time,’ the police officer assured her. ‘No judge is going to take a risk like that.’

‘Good.’ Kate looked up at Connor as though she could sense him watching her. The eye contact held for a significant beat of time. Long enough to make Bella hold her breath for a moment.

Was she missing something here? Were they...?

Kate’s gaze swung to meet her own and Bella blushed.

‘I’m so sorry.’ She’d lost count of how many times she’d said it now but she’d keep saying it for as long as she needed to. And she would never, ever, meddle with anyone else’s business again.

‘I’m still confused about how he found out where Kate worked,’ a police officer said.

‘It was me,’ Bella sighed. She told them all about the phone call she’d had from her grandfather that she’d kept secret from Kate and about her texted instructions for the meeting she’d set up.

‘He really sounded sorry,’ she said. ‘And I believed him. And I know that Kate’s always so fair and that if people deserve it, they will always get a second chance.’

They were looking at each other again, Kate and Connor. And this time there was more than a hint of a smile on both their faces. A private, significant sort of smile.

By the time the police had finished the interview, the photographer and fingerprint technician were also finished and they were told they were free to go home.

‘We’ll be in touch if we need anything more before the trial date gets set.’

Bella stood up to follow the police officers. When she turned to see if Kate was going to come home with her, she found Connor and Kate looking at each other.
Again
. And this time they were holding hands.

Bella had to clear her throat to get noticed.

‘You go on,’ Kate told her. ‘I need a minute or two to get my head together and maybe tidy up a bit.’

Bella hesitated.

‘It’s OK,’ Connor said. ‘I’ll look after her.’

He would, too. Bella could see the way he was looking at Kate and for the first time since this whole horrible thing had happened Bella could feel a bubble of something good inside. Something was going on between Kate and Conner that hadn’t been there before.

Something really
good
.

She really did need to get out and give them some time alone but still she hesitated.

‘It’s OK, Bells,’ Kate said. ‘I’m not mad at you. You honestly believe the best of people and most of the time it’s a very good trait to have. And, you know, you might have just done us all a favour.’

‘What?’
The word came out as a surprised squeak.

‘It sounds like they’re going to lock Kevin up and throw the key away this time and that’s going to keep us all safe. You brought things out into the open and that’s probably where they should have been all along. Secrets can be destructive.’

She looked up at Connor and smiled and Bella knew she was really, really in the way now.

‘I’m going,’ she announced. ‘I’m going to ring Mum and Dad and confess before they hear about it from anyone else. Especially the police. I’ll see you later.’

The ‘Crime Scene—Do Not Disturb’ tape had been torn off one side of the doorframe. Bella paused and looked over her shoulder to see Connor closing the door of Kate’s office. Then she saw his hands reach for the
venetian-blind control, shutting the office into a completely private space.

Bella’s lips twitched. This couldn’t be counted as meddling, could it?

She picked up the end of the red tape and stuck it back on the doorframe. The cleaners and anybody else would just have to wait a while.

* * *

Kate watched Connor close and lock the door of her office and close the blinds. Giving them privacy.

This was the furthest he’d been away from her since he’d barrelled into her with that rugby tackle that had probably saved her from getting half a broken bottle in her face.

The memory of how real the danger she’d been in had been seemed to be causing some kind of delayed reaction now that it was finally all over and everybody else had gone. Kate was trembling all over.

‘Oh, Katie...’ The tenderness in Connor’s voice undid her completely.

Kate took his outstretched hands and let him pull her to her feet and into his arms.

‘Hold me,’ she whispered. ‘Please... I want to feel safe.’

‘You
are
safe,’ Connor whispered back. ‘I’m here. I’m not going anywhere. I love you, Kate.’

Safe. Yes, despite the trembling, Kate did still feel safe. Safer than she’d ever felt in her life because, for the first time, she wasn’t totally responsible for her own safety like she had been when she’d been keeping those dark secrets. Connor knew almost everything about her and...he loved her?

Kate had to pull back to look into his face and search for confirmation of those miraculous words.

And it was there. In the way he was looking at her. In the love she could see in his eyes. In the way his hands were holding her. Loosely now, so that his hands could stroke her body.

‘I should never have let you send me away the other night but I didn’t know what to say. Or do. I’m so sorry, Kate.’

She shook her head. He had nothing to be sorry for.

‘I didn’t want you to think I was trying to take control. To tell you what to do. I didn’t know what to do. I needed to think. To figure things out.’

He sounded
so
sincere. So...confident?

‘And did you? Figure things out?’

Connor nodded slowly. ‘I reckon. I wasn’t sure until I was standing outside the department and I saw Bella and I knew you were in danger and then I
knew
.’

‘Knew what?’

‘How much I love you.’

Kate’s vision misted. ‘I love you, too, Connor. You’re...amazing.’

A hint of a smile tugged at his lips. ‘It’s going to be all right, you know.’

‘What is?’

‘Us. Life. We both know what it’s like
not
to be loved. We’ve both been too scared to take the risk of loving someone in case it happened again, but it’s not going to happen again, Katie. Not ever. I can’t
not
love you, do you understand? Not
ever
.’

‘Oh...’ Kate breathed. ‘I understand.’ Of course she did. It was the way she felt about Connor. Her love for him was a part of every cell of her being. If it went away, she would cease to exist.