Like her own father, he could always say no.
Jack was poring over some bookwork in his London penthouse at his boutique flagship hotel when his phone buzzed on his desk. He glanced at it and gave a slow smile when he saw who was calling him at this late hour on a Saturday night. Maybe the elusive Harper Swan had changed her mind and decided to see him again and collect the earring he still had in his possession. ‘Hello there.’
He could hear her heavy breathing on the end of the line. ‘Jack, there’s no easy way to tell you this...but I’m in hospital and—’
Jack sat bolt upright in his chair, something in his chest flapping like a wind-whipped sail. ‘Are you all right? What’s wrong? Have you had an accident?’
‘Kind of...’ Harper gave an audible swallow. ‘I’d like to explain in person...if that’s okay? Are you in London right now?’
‘I am.’ He pushed back his chair and reached for his jacket and sports car keys. ‘Which hospital are you in?’
‘St Agnes’s. I’m still in A and E but—’
‘I’ll be there in a few minutes.’ Jack ended the call and then opened the second drawer in his desk. He took out the earring she had left behind after their one-night stand and slipped it into his pocket. At least now he would be able to give it to her in person.
Jack wasn’t a fan of hospitals but something about Harper’s call had set his nerves on edge. She had mentioned some sort of accident. A minor prang? A bump on the head? She must have a concussion if she’d changed her mind about seeing him. She had ignored his calls for months and, while he’d been disappointed, he hadn’t let it get to him. He wasn’t the type of man to get hung up on a woman. He had enjoyed their one night together and had hoped for a fling with her but she hadn’t seemed interested in a follow-up. Harper had been so adamant about not seeing him again she had refused to collect her earring. He knew he could have posted it or dropped it off at her office but he had kept it. He couldn’t explain why other than every time he looked at it, it reminded him of their explosive night of bed-wrecking, spine-tingling, mind-scrambling sex.
Jack also couldn’t explain why he hadn’t had a hook-up with anyone since. It was out of character for him to leave it so long but he’d been busy acquiring another property for development in Yorkshire. He hadn’t wanted any distractions while he secured the Rothwell Park deal. Turning the ancient estate into one of his boutique hotels was a dream he had harboured for months and now it was coming to fruition. Not that reliving every second of that night of passion with Harper wasn’t a distraction in itself. He had found it near impossible to get her out of his mind. Was it because she had walked away without begging for a follow-up date like every other woman he’d met? The challenge of winning Harper over was like a background thrum in his blood. He tried to ignore the niggling sense of failing at a goal he had set himself. A box that hadn’t been ticked to his satisfaction. Not that he viewed any woman as a prize or trophy he could win, but because something about Harper got to him in a way no other woman ever had.
Once he arrived at the hospital, Jack was led by a nurse to the A and E cubicle Harper was in. ‘Here she is.’ The nurse gave a briskly efficient smile. ‘We’re waiting on an orderly to collect her. He shouldn’t be too long now.’
Harper was lying on the hospital gurney on her side, her features pinched and white and racked with pain. Sweat poured down her face and in one of her hands she had a blue stress ball that she was squeezing so hard it was bulging in between her fingers like a squashed plum. But then a flood of colour entered her cheeks. ‘Jack...’ Her voice was a strangled whisper, her grey-green eyes not quite willing to meet his. ‘I’msosorry...’
Jack took her other hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. ‘Hey, you. What’s going on?’
‘I don’t know how to tell you this...’ She bit her lip so hard he was worried it would split and bleed. ‘I thought it was backache. I had no idea. I truly didn’t. I didn’t think it was possible to not know, to not recognise the signs. I didn’t evenhaveany signs that I can remember.’
‘Signs? What are you talking about?’
‘I thought it was cancer. Can you believe that?’ She bit off a self-deprecating laugh and pulled her hand out of his and pushed her sweat-soaked hair back off her face. ‘I thought the doctor was going to tell me I had inoperable cancer. That I was dying at the ripe old age of twenty-seven.’
A fist of fear clutched at Jack’s guts. ‘You don’t have cancer...do you?’
‘No...’ She bit her lip again and squeezed the stress ball hard, her features contorting in pain. ‘I feel so stupid. How am I going to explain this to everyone? To Aerin and Ruby? We have weddings booked solidly for the next two months, including Ruby’s and Lucas’s. Summer is our busiest time of year. I mean, it’s like a bad dream or something. I can’t believe this has happened to me of all people.’
The cubicle curtain was twitched aside and the nurse reappeared. ‘The orderly is on his way now to take you to the maternity ward.’
Maternity ward?The words were like a bomb going off in Jack’s head.Ba-boom.His thoughts flying everywhere like shrapnel. He whipped around so quickly to face the nurse he almost knocked over the portable blood pressure machine. He reached out to steady it with a shaking hand. ‘Maternity?’ His voice came out hoarse, his heart thumping as if he needed to be admitted himself. To the cardiac unit.
‘I was trying to tell you...’ Harper said, with a frustrated eye-roll.
‘Tell me what?’
‘I’m having a baby.’
Harper was pregnant?
Jack let the words sink into his brain. She was having a baby. A sharp prick of disappointment stabbed him in the gut. Harper was having someone else’s baby. Not that he was keen on having a family or anything himself, but still. She had moved on and found someone else and got pregnant. But what did that news have to do with him? She didn’t look as if she was very far along. Was she in the early stages? He knew that pregnancy could trigger appalling nausea in some women that required hospital admission. Why, then, had she called him? He wasn’t her next of kin, he wasn’t her partner—he wasn’t strictly speaking even a friend. It didn’t make sense. She had friends and family, surely? And what about her partner, the father of her baby? That was who was supposed to be by her side right now. Not him. A casual lover she had cast off without a backward glance.
‘Are you the proud father?’ the nurse asked Jack with a beaming smile.
‘No, I—’
‘Yes,’ Harper said. ‘He’s the father.’
Jack stared at Harper in a gobsmacked silence. How could he be the father? He hadn’t seen Harper in months. Nine months. He had counted every one of them. He gave his head a shake, wondering if he was caught in some weird time warp. Nothing was making any sense. ‘I’m the father? How?’
But there was no time for clarification or explanation, for the orderly came in with energetic efficiency and released the brake on the gurney.