Zac held up his phone, which admittedly looked as if it could launch a nuclear missile. ‘Nothing I can’t handle from here. Now, go—or I’ll put you over my shoulder.’
The thought of Zac touching her and seeing how much she still wanted him was enough to galvanise her into moving. She checked on her still sleeping father and then Zac accompanied her downstairs.
He said sternly, ‘I don’t want to see you until after you’ve slept and had lunch.’
Feeling thoroughly bemused, Rose did as she was told, and had to admit that being looked after was seductive enough to be dangerous.
When she did return to the hospital later, feeling much more herself again after some sleep, followed by a long hot shower and food, she stopped in her father’s doorway and took in the sight. Zac was sitting by the bed talking to her father, who was laughing weakly at whatever Zac had just said.
They both looked up and saw her at the same time, and her father put out his hand. He already looked so much better.
‘Roisín, look who it is! Zachary Lyndon-Holt—’ Her father stopped and flushed and looked at Zac. ‘Sorry, son, it’s hard to remember you’re not—’
Zac smiled, ‘It’s fine, Mr O’Malley.’
Her father went red. ‘Stop that. It’s Séamus to you.’
Rose’s heart swelled so much she thought it might burst. Danger. Because what would happen when Zac got bored with this responsibility and went again?
She came into the room and said pointedly to Zac, ‘I’m here now. I’m sure you have things to attend to...’
His eyes flashed, but he uncoiled his big body from the chair and stretched—which didn’t help her hormone levels. Then he said pointedly, ‘A word, Rose? Before I go?’
She nodded and went out with him after he’d said goodbye to her father.
She faced him. ‘Look, Zac—’
‘No, you look. I’m not going anywhere, and this is how it’s going to happen. There’s a room for you at the hotel. We are going to take it in turns to visit your father until he’s ready to go home, and there’s nothing you can do about it.’
Rose’s mouth stayed open and Zac’s gaze dropped there for a moment. Electricity zinged between them.
His gaze came up again. ‘I’ll see you later, Rose.’
And then he turned and sauntered off and left her feeling frustrated, irritated, grateful...and generally in turmoil.
* * *
Over the following week they developed a routine. Zac would do the mornings, until after lunch, and then Rose would stay with her father until late and go to the hotel to sleep. She and Zac passed each other like relay runners in a race. They didn’t have any more conversations, but she knew the time would come when they would have to sit down and talk things through. Discuss what would happen once the baby was born.
She felt the attraction between them, but all she could think about was Zac’s rejection after that night in Italy. Even if his eyes did linger on her, it didn’t mean anything, she was only projecting her own pathetic desire onto him.
Her father had guessed that Zac was the baby’s father, but thankfully seemed inclined to let Rose and Zac off the hook for now. She felt his shrewd blue gaze on them, though, whenever they were together.
When the time came for her father to be sent home Zac had it organised with military precision. They were driven home in a luxurious people carrier—with a nurse from the hospital who was going to spend a couple of days at the house, making sure everything was set up properly for her father’s recovery.
The house had been modified in Rose’s absence, to accommodate her father’s medical requirements, and Zac had also arranged for twenty-four-seven nursing care. When she’d opened her mouth to protest, he’d just looked at her explicitly. He’d also arranged for a local woman who knew Rose and her father well to come and cook for them, and generally keep house.
Sometimes Rose didn’t know which was worse—Zac’s suffocating taking over of the situation or his animosity. She thought she’d nearly prefer it if she was struggling on her own, because she knew how to do that, but then she looked at her father in his bed, in his own home, so relaxed, and she felt churlish.
* * *
A week later Zac had more or less returned full-time to the city, but he was calling about five times a day to check in. Rose’s nerves were strung so tight that she jumped a mile high when the doorbell rang.
She went to answer it and a courier was on the other side of the door, with a big box and an envelope. When she took them from him he looked a little embarrassed and said, ‘I’m supposed to wait for a return note.’
Rose let him come in and help himself to a drink in the kitchen while she went into the quiet living room to open the box. She peeled back the tissue paper to see horribly familiar shimmering black material. She pulled out the black dress...and quickly let it drop from her hands when a wave of fresh mortification washed through her.
She remembered how it had felt to stand in front of Zac and tell him she loved him so earnestly...and the way he’d taken his hand out from under hers over her belly. As if he’d been burnt.