Their Pregnancy Gift. Kate Hardy

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       CHAPTER TWO

      ‘DARLING? SAD NEWS, I’m afraid. Stephen died last night.’

      Alex replayed his mother’s message on his voicemail for the tenth time. It still hadn’t quite sunk in. Stephen was dead. His father was dead. At the rather less than ripe old age of fifty-seven.

      So if Alex had inherited the faulty gene and he followed Stephen’s pattern, that meant he had twenty-two years of life left—the last five years of which really wouldn’t be worth living.

      He swallowed hard. It was an ‘if’, admittedly, but there was still a fifty per cent chance that he had the gene. Scary odds. The simple toss of a coin.

      He picked up the phone to call his parents, but then put it down again. What could he say? How could you really be sorry for the death of someone you barely knew, had met twice and who had never really acknowledged you as his child? It’d be just a platitude. Meaningless. And his relationship with his parents had been seriously strained since his mother had dropped the bombshell eight months ago that his father wasn’t actually his father, and his biological father had advanced Huntington’s disease. Right now Alex wasn’t in the mood for polite awkwardness, and he didn’t want to make the situation worse by accidentally saying something wrong.

      And there was nobody—absolutely nobody—he could talk to about this. He was an only child; and he’d distanced himself from everyone in his life since learning the news. He’d broken his engagement to Lara, and avoided all his friends, even his best friend Tom, until they’d got the message and stopped calling him. So being alone now was completely his own fault: but, on the other hand, how could he have been unfair enough to dump his worries on any of them?

      My dad isn’t actually my dad, and my ‘real’ dad—who I’ve never met—might have passed on a genetic disease that’ll leave me a drooling, shambling wreck when I’m only in my fifties.

      How could he possibly have married Lara, knowing that she would end up having to be his carer rather than his partner? How could he have denied her the chance to have children, too—because, if he had the faulty gene, there was a fifty per cent chance of passing that same gene on to his children and condemning them to an illness that still had no cure?

      Lara had clearly thought the same, because Alex had seen a very different side of her when he’d told her the news. Of course she’d been sympathetic when the bombshell had first dropped—but he’d noticed her backing away a little more each day, once they’d looked up the symptoms of Huntington’s and seen what the end stage was like.

      She hadn’t wanted to come to America with him, either, saying she was too busy at work—but he’d seen the real reason in her eyes. She was afraid of facing what might be ahead for them. Alex hadn’t wanted her to stay with him out of duty, especially once he’d seen the burden that Stephen’s partner Catriona carried. But he knew that if Lara broke their engagement, people would judge her harshly and see her as the woman who hadn’t been prepared to stand by her man. That wasn’t fair, because Huntington’s was a horrible disease and it would be a massive burden. So he’d done the right thing by both of them and ended it. And it had underlined for him that he’d be spending the rest of his life on his own. It wasn’t fair to ask someone to share a future that could be so, so difficult.

      He’d heard through the grapevine that Lara had met someone else. He hoped her new partner would give her the shiny, hopeful future he hadn’t been able to promise her. Though right now his own hopes of a shiny, hopeful future had just taken another battering.

      The only thing he could do was head for the gym and push himself in the weights room until he was too physically exhausted to think. And please let tomorrow be a better day.

      * * *

      Danielle was half tempted to throw her glass of water over Alex Morgan. For pity’s sake. He’d agreed to meet her to sort out the ward’s Christmas meal. It shouldn’t take too long. Surely he could manage his dislike of her for that short a time and actually pay attention to what she needed to discuss with him?

      But just for a moment there was something in his expression. As if he’d been sucked into a black hole and there was no way out.

      Maybe this wasn’t about him not wanting to deal with her.

      Her fixer instincts kicked in. ‘Are you all right?’ she asked.

      Sheer panic flashed over his face and was swiftly hidden before he drawled, ‘Why do you ask?’

      ‘Because,’ she said, ‘I’ve asked you the same question three times now and you still haven’t replied.’

      ‘It’s been a busy day,’ he said.

      ‘About the same as mine.’ Maybe it really was that simple, after all, and she was just making excuses for him. The guy didn’t like her and wasn’t even bothering to hide it. And she’d had enough. It was time to face this head on and sort it out. ‘Look, do you have a problem working with me? Have I done something to upset you?’

      He looked surprised. ‘No, nothing like that.’

      Seriously? Did he not know he behaved as if she was the horrible child who’d had a screaming tantrum and popped all the balloons at his birthday party before stamping on his presents and tipping his cake onto the floor?

      Or maybe he was one of those bright but emotionally clueless men and he didn’t mean anything by his behaviour after all. OK. This was her cue to change the subject and talk about the Christmas meal again. Except she remembered that look of utter devastation in his eyes and it made her decide to take a risk. She chose her words carefully. ‘Alex, I know you don’t really socialise with the team, and it’s absolutely none of my business why you choose not to, but right now you seem really unhappy and as if you could do with a friend.’

      * * *

      That was an understatement.

      Except Alex had chosen to push his friends away. Just as he’d chosen to make sure he kept all interactions with his colleagues strictly professional since he’d started at Muswell Hill Hospital.

      ‘Just so you know,’ Dani said, ‘I’m not a gossip. Anything you decide to tell me will stay with me.’

      It was tempting to confide in her. So very, very tempting. Her warmth and kindness drew him.

      In other circumstances, Alex would’ve already asked Dani out. He liked the way she was at work, friendly and kind with everyone, reassuring their patients and giving the junior СКАЧАТЬ