CHAPTER FOURTEEN
‘GORINDA, I NEED you to speak to Dr Patel’s office again. I’m paying the damn bills for my wife’s care. I expect to be given regular updates on her condition and I’ve heard nothing in two weeks,’ Jack announced as he marched past his PA into his office.
Two damned weeks Katherine had been sulking. And he was through playing nice, with her or the obstetrician who was charging a fortune for her care. He needed to know she was okay, that was all. Was it too much to ask he be kept informed?
‘Mr Wolfe, I’ve spoken to Dr Patel’s administrator several times already.’ Jack glanced up from his desk to see his PA’s harassed expression. ‘I’m afraid she says they can’t give you updates on Mrs Wolfe’s care without your wife’s permission. It’s a matter of patient confidentiality.’
‘She specifically asked I not be informed?’ Jack demanded, the shock combining with the frustration and fury...
The last two weeks had seemed like two years. He’d waited for her to contact him, to call him, to ask him to return to the house in Mayfair.
But she hadn’t.
He wasn’t sleeping, was barely eating, the yearning to hold her, to make love to her, even to see the changes the pregnancy had made to her body, so intense he could barely function.
For two weeks he’d waited for the yearning to stop so he could return to who he had been before he had met her.
A man alone. A man apart.
But, as he stared at his PA’s flushed face, the brutal stab of rejection made him realise that Katherine had destroyed that man—somehow—so comprehensively, he didn’t feel like a success any more. He didn’t even feel happy in his own skin.
The unfulfilled desire, the physical longing that woke him from fitful dreams—leaving him hard, ready, aching and groping for her in his bed, only to find it empty—was bad enough. But the emotions he couldn’t control, the nightmares he couldn’t contain, were so much worse. The thought of a lifetime without her smile, her quick wit, her passion, or her companionship, was destroying him from within. And he didn’t know how to overcome it. Hell, he even missed her smart mouth and her absolute refusal to do as she was told.
‘Apparently she did, Mr Wolfe,’ Gorinda replied, sounding almost as weary as he felt.
So Katherine had cut him loose. She’d told him she loved him. But she’d lied.
Devastation hit him.
He thrust his fingers through his hair, only to become aware his hands were shaking. How had she come to mean so much to him when she was never meant to? And how did he make this pain stop now?
He got up from his desk to stare out at the City’s skyline—the gothic splendour of Tower Bridge, the gleaming mirrored sheen of The Shard on the opposite bank. It was a view that had once had the power to excite and motivate him, to make him proud of how far he’d come, but today, like every day for the last fortnight, the view seemed dull and listless, ostentatious and unimpressive.
‘Dr Patel’s receptionist did mention Mrs Wolfe is going to be at the clinic this morning,’ Gorinda added. ‘Perhaps you could join her there? To find out how she is?’
He swung round at the tentative suggestion to find Gorinda watching him with sympathy in her warm brown eyes.
But I don’t want to be a part of the baby’s life...
The automatic thought echoed in his head. But even thinking it felt like a lie now. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to be a part of this baby’s life, it was that he was scared to be. Sure he’d fail at fatherhood... The way he’d failed at so much else.
‘Okay,’ he heard himself say.
And suddenly it all seemed so simple.
He had to fix this. To hell with his pride, his fear of fatherhood, his fear of asking her—no, begging her—to take him back, his fear of letting her see the frightened boy instead of the man he had become... None of it meant anything any more without her.
Why had it taken him so long to realise she had always been what was missing in his life?
‘Rearrange my schedule and text me the address,’ he said as he charged back out of the office. Of course, he had absolutely no idea how he was going to fix it. Or even if he could fix it. He’d just have to wing it, he thought, with a great deal more confidence than he felt.
‘Yes, sir,’ Gorinda replied.
If Katherine didn’t want to see him, he’d just have to deal with that when he got to the clinic. But he couldn’t stay away from her... Or the baby... Not a moment longer...
‘I’m sorry, Mr Wolfe, your wife is having a private consultation.’
‘I don’t care.’
Katie shifted on the bed at the shouted comments coming from outside the ultrasound suite.
‘What on earth...?’ Dr Patel murmured as she put down the tube of gel she had been about to put on Katie’s stomach and clicked off the machine.
But before either she or Katie could do anything more the door burst open and Jack strode in.
‘Mr Wolfe! I’m sorry, you’ll have to leave...’ The doctor began, but Jack marched right past her, sat down in the chair beside the bed and lifted Katie’s hand.
‘Let me stay, Katherine. I want to meet our son,’ he said, his voice thick with desperation, his eyes wild with urgency and something else...something so naked and unguarded, she wondered for a moment if she was dreaming. If she had conjured up this moment from weeks of crying herself to sleep each night.
‘Jack...’ she finally rasped.
‘Please,’ he said, and the gentle buzz of his kiss jolted her out of her trance.
‘Could you leave us for a minute?’ she said to Dr Patel, somehow managing to remain calm while she struggled to sit up and place a sheet over her belly.
Dr Patel nodded and left the room.
‘Jack, what are you doing here?’ she managed around the painful lump in her throat.
He looked distraught, she realised. But beneath the wild intensity in his expression she could also see determination. And need.
He placed his palm on her belly and rubbed the sheet so gently, she felt tears sting her eyes. ‘I want to meet him too,’ he said. ‘Please, let me.’