if you’re not?’ The doctor stared at her coolly over his glasses. ‘You don’t live locally, Ms Stewart; you live two hours out of Cairns in the mountains. It’s all very well for you to take risks with your own health, but bear in mind that you’re seven months pregnant. Arguing over a couple of days’ admission…’
‘Who’s arguing?’
Thank God they’d taken the blood-pressure machine off her arm, because if her reading had been high before, as Ethan’s dry tones filled the rather small cubicle Mia was sure it would be up through the roof about now. His heavy cologne mingled with the sickly antiseptic smell, his height, his presence dwarfing everything, and even the rather terse doctor seemed to take on rather more courteous tones as he addressed Ethan.
‘I was just explaining to your wife, sir—’
‘She’s not my wife,’ Ethan corrected, totally at ease as the doctor’s eyes swivelled nervously to the notes in his hands.
‘Well, your partner, then. I was trying to explain that it’s imperative she stay in hospital for a couple of days for the baby’s sake…’
‘She’s not my partner either,’ Ethan said with a slight edge. ‘She’s a friend.’
‘I’m most certainly not!’ Mia retorted. ‘A passing acquaintance would be a more apt description.’
‘Prickly, isn’t she?’ Ethan smiled and if the doctor wasn’t already gay he was certainly heading for conversion because he practically melted on the spot as Ethan turned his black eyes to him. ‘What exactly is the problem, Doctor?’
Mia’s horrified expression at Ethan’s rude intrusion should have been enough to stop the doctor in his tracks, but given both men’s backs were practically to her she lay instead welling with indignation as they proceeded to discuss her as if she weren’t in the room.
‘Her blood pressure’s high and according to her blood work she was slightly dehydrated when she arrived as well as underweight. We just want to keep her here for a couple of days to make sure everything’s progressing normally with the pregnancy.’
Mia was about to respond but held back when Ethan’s calm, measured tones appeared to support what she’d been saying.
‘What if she agreed to come back tomorrow for a check-up? Surely her own home would be the best place for her to rest?’
‘Normally, yes, but given she lives a two-hour drive away it’s out of the question. She needs to be resting, not driving a car along winding mountain roads, and if something goes wrong help isn’t easily at hand.’
‘Fair enough.’ Ethan nodded. ‘Don’t worry, Doctor, I’ll soon talk her around.’
‘You will not!’
Remembering, finally, that Mia was actually the patient, the doctor actually managed to address her. ‘I’m waiting for your GP to call through with your antenatal history, but in the meantime I want you to lie there and relax, and perhaps your “passing acquaintance” might be able to talk some sense into you.’
‘I’ll do my best!’
Alone with Ethan the fire seemed to die within her. Impossibly shy and confused, she stared again at her fingers, utterly refusing to look up, to be the one to break the oppressive silence, but, when it was clear Ethan had more staying power than her, finally Mia relented.
‘What are you doing here?’
‘I’m beginning to wonder,’ Ethan quipped. ‘I should be halfway down a bottle of whisky by now and regaling tales of Richard’s and my supposedly happy childhood…’ His voice trailed off and if she’d looked up she’d have seen his face soften slightly. ‘When I got back to the hotel I heard a woman had collapsed at the funeral. The words “blonde” and “pregnant” kind of narrowed the field.’
‘You didn’t need to come.’
‘I know,’ he admitted, ‘but I was worried about you.’
‘It’s a bit late to be worried about me, Ethan!’ She could hear the bitterness in her own voice. ‘Seven years too late, actually. You lost all right to worry about me when you walked, or rather flew, out on me without a backwards glance. You lost all right to worry about me when you arranged to have my father sacked two days later…’
‘He wasn’t sacked,’ Ethan retorted. ‘I distinctly remember signing the cheque—’
‘He was sacked!’ Mia broke in, her voice choking with emotion at the memory of her father’s strained face, the utter devastation as he’d slumped in his chair that afternoon, told Mia that after twenty years of devoted service the Carvelles had accused him of theft. ‘And worse, he was expected to be grateful that you hadn’t called the police…’
‘He was fiddling the books, Mia…’ Ethan’s voice was pure ice, his stance unequivocal, but seeing her lie back on the pillow, the swell of her stomach beneath the white sheet, witnessing firsthand the utter exhaustion and devastation on her proud face as she lay struggling to hold it together, he chose to relent.
‘I just wanted to make sure you were okay.’
‘Which I am.’
‘Not according to the doctor,’ Ethan pointed out, but his voice was gentler now. ‘He seems to think that you’re not well at all.’
‘This isn’t your problem.’
‘I know.’
‘In fact…’ Mia’s voice gave an involuntary wobble but she quickly recovered ‘…this has absolutely nothing to do with you.’
‘Thank God,’ Ethan muttered, flashing a malevolent smile, just to show he was still in control. ‘So I take it you want me to go?’
Mia nodded, not trusting herself to speak. Ethan leaving was the last thing she wanted, but it was safer, so very much safer this way.
‘I’ll let the rest of your visitors in on my way out, shall I?’
‘The rest of my visitors?’ She stared at him nonplussed, simultaneously kicking herself as she realized she’d fallen directly into his trap.
‘I thought as much,’ Ethan said with a note of triumph. ‘There’s not exactly a queue of concerned visitors outside, waiting to drive you home. What about the baby’s father?’
She could feel the sweat beading on her forehead, feel its icy rivers trickling between her breasts, her pale cheeks flushing as Ethan’s eyes bored into her, running a tongue over impossibly dry lips as she carefully chose her words.
‘He’s not in the picture any more.’
His breath hissed out, the longest silence followed by the sharpest of words. ‘Another “passing acquaintance”, I presume.’
‘Much more than that.’ She stared at him, eyes glittering in pain, honesty a breath away but she held it in.
‘So tell me, Mia, are you planning to drive yourself home?’
‘Of course. I’m fine!”
‘Not according to this you’re not.’ Picking up her chart, he skimmed his eyes down it; not like a normal person, though, Mia noted. Normal people squinted at charts upside down, made sure no one was looking as they tried to decipher what had been written, but Ethan Carvelle, damn him, was holding the chart and reading it authoritatively as if he were the blessed consultant. ‘It says here that you’re underweight, dehydrated and your blood pressure’s way too high.’
‘Of course it’s high.’ Mia’s voice was rising now. ‘I’ve spent the last few months driving up and down the mountains every day to visit Richard as well as trying to keep the gallery going…’
‘Gallery?’
‘My old studio. The one my father…’