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The Doctor's Pregnancy Surprise
Kate Hardy
For Dr. Holly Jones, having a baby with the man of her dreams spells heartache. She's never recovered from the shock of losing David Neave's baby, nor from the way he disappeared from her life without a trace.Years later, David and Holly are working together in the E.R., and when their long-held secrets come bubbling to the surface they slowly begin to renew their very special bond. Until Holly discovers she's pregnant – again.Life (and love) in the fast lane at LONDON CITY GENERAL
“Why do you want to kiss me?”
David turned around and faced her. “Because,” he said, equally softly, “I like you, Holly Jones.”
“I’m not the naive teenager you used to know,” she warned.
“I realize that. I like the woman you’ve become.” And I’ve never really stopped thinking about you. Wondering what went wrong. Wishing. Most of the time I kept you in the back of my mind, but you were always there. Waiting.
“I really hated you, David, for ruining my life. At the time, I thought the world had ended.”
“I hated you, too. I didn’t go out with anyone for three years after you.” They’d hurt each other, badly. Now perhaps it was time to heal each other. “Hol…” Words weren’t enough. They weren’t nearly enough to explain how he felt. What he wanted. What he needed.
Slowly, not quite believing that it was happening, he walked back over to her. Then she was in his arms, and he was kissing her as if he’d been starved of love for the last twelve years.
Dear Reader (#ulink_35b22a6c-455d-5df3-9d1d-d52321b88a4e),
I was planning my next book when three doctors leaped into my head and hijacked me! Zoe, Judith and Holly trained together, are best friends and work together at London City General.
Zoe’s the clever one, a real highflyer who’s never found love, until she meets gorgeous Brad, on secondment to Pediatrics from California. Can she heal his broken heart—and can he help her feel less haunted by the secret she hasn’t even told her best friends?
Judith’s the glamorous one, who delivers babies by day and sings at hospital fund-raisers by night. She falls in love with Kieran, the new maternity consultant. But after a discovery threatens to tear their love apart, can she teach him to believe in her—and in himself?
Holly’s the “prickly” one with a soft heart—but it’ll take a special man to get close enough to find out! She chose the fast-paced life of the E.R. to help her forget her lost love. But when David walks into her life again, will it be second time lucky?
The best bit about working on a trilogy was that I didn’t have to say goodbye to my characters. They made appearances in each other’s stories! I loved being able to explore a hospital’s community and see how different departments work together, and I hope you enjoy life in the fast lane at London City General as much as I did.
With love,
Kate Hardy
The Doctor’s Pregnancy Surprise
Kate Hardy
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
For Dot—good friend and ace agent—with love
CONTENTS
Cover (#u6edfcf7f-2b89-5001-b6e6-60ffb96cad98)
Dear Reader (#ulink_236bf5ed-100e-5987-9028-0217b49aefbc)
Title Page (#u3b507bbe-1e1f-5245-98f5-8e5e7c07029c)
Dedication (#u5619c168-dbb1-541e-a61c-75aee6544639)
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ONE (#u43aa7374-bf7c-536f-8c6a-1d04a08f2c51)
HOLLY blinked hard on her way into the emergency reception area. The man walking down the corridor with Sue, their consultant…No. Of course it wasn’t David Neave. Plenty of men had dark hair. She hadn’t got a proper look at his face either, just seen the outline of his jaw and nose. So what if they’d reminded her of David? It was highly unlikely that he’d be in the emergency department at London City General.
What was she doing, thinking of him anyway? That part of her life was way behind her. She hadn’t thought of him in years.
Well, months.
Well, she had had that odd dream last week, the one where he’d been kissing her. It had been so real that she’d actually woken up and turned to cuddle into him. Except, of course, there had been an empty space and an unused pillow beside her. She’d almost been able to taste his mouth on hers, feel the familiar tingle as his fingers skated over her skin.
She shook herself. David Neave might have been the love of her life, but he’d also been the big let-down of her life. A glimpse of a stranger—a man who looked vaguely like him but couldn’t possibly be him—shouldn’t get to her like this. She’d moved on years ago. Hadn’t she?
She saw her next patient—a teenager who’d fallen off a skateboard and had gravel embedded deep in the grazes—and then went to the rest room for some much-needed coffee.
When she opened the door, she stopped dead.
The man she’d seen earlier was there. This time she saw his face rather than his profile, and her heart almost stopped.
It was him.
But why here, why now? It had been twelve years since she’d seen him. His dark hair had the odd grey strand in it, there were lines on his face that hadn’t been there during sixth form, and his shoulders had broadened, but he still had that charming smile. The one that had almost stopped her heart when he’d come to sit next to her in the sixth form.
That beautiful mouth. The one that had explored every bit of her body. The mouth that had whispered words of love, of passion: promises he’d never kept.
Oh, Lord. One smile and she’d gone right back to being eighteen years old, naïve enough to believe that ‘I’ll love you till the day I die’ really meant that, was more than just the magic words calculated to get him into her knickers.
She reminded herself sharply that she was thirty years old, and a specialist in emergency medicine. Holly the realist, not Holly the dreamer.
God only knew why David Neave was in the middle of the ED rest room at London City General, drinking coffee and chatting to the senior emergency nurse. Unless…A truly nasty thought hit her. Their new senior registrar was due to start today. David, like Holly, had always planned to become a medic. He was in the rest room, not the relatives’ room. QED: he was their new senior registrar.
Maybe he wouldn’t recognise her. She’d changed a lot in the last twelve years, particularly in the first six months. Not that he would have given a damn, because he’d made quite sure he hadn’t been around when she’d needed him.
Oh, who was she trying to kid? Despite the years, she knew exactly who he was. He’d know her, too. Well, she wasn’t going to skulk around. London City General was her patch. She was going to walk into that room with her head held high and not let him faze her. Everyone knew that Holly Jones was tough. Now was the time to prove it.
‘Morning,’ she said sweetly, aiming her smile at Anna, the senior sister, rather than their new medic, and slotted money into the chocolate machine.
The machine took her money and bleeped. The little coil of metal twisted round, but the chocolate bar stayed balanced at the end of its row.
Oh, brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. Just when she needed the stuff, even more than she needed coffee. A square of chocolate and she could face the world.
Face David Neave.
‘Is it playing up again?’ Anna asked. ‘I’ll get Siobhan to call Maintenance.’
‘No point. She’ll spend all her time batting her eyes at Mitchell and forget to ask him to sort the machine. I’ll deal with it.’ Holly narrowed her eyes and looked at the machine. ‘Now,’ she said, her voice quiet but very authoritative. She tapped the glass opposite the chocolate bar she’d paid for. And it fell neatly into the tray at the bottom.
‘That’s better,’ she said, unwrapped the foil and broke off a square. Yes. The chocolate rush hit her, and she could cope again.
David wasn’t sure which bit he didn’t believe. The fact that the vending machine had given her the chocolate on her command—or the fact that he was in the same room as her again. The woman who’d broken his heart when he was eighteen. Holly Jones.
Or maybe this woman was her double.
‘Holls, let me introduce you. This is David Neave, our new senior reg. He started this morning and Sue got called away so she asked me to show him round,’ Anna announced. ‘David, this is the woman who scares the chocolate machine into submission. Our registrar—’
‘Holly Jones,’ he cut in. It really was her. Except that her dark hair was now cut in a short, functional style instead of being tied back at the nape of her neck, and her grey eyes were much, much harder.
Or maybe they always had been hard but he’d refused to see it.
Anna blinked in surprise. ‘You two know each other?’
‘We were at school together. A long, long time ago,’ Holly said quickly.
Was it his imagination, or was there a twinge of guilt in her eyes? She’d looked away again almost immediately, as if she was too embarrassed to face him. It was a bit late for an attack of conscience now. She should have thought about that twelve years ago.
And now it looked as if he was going to have to work with her.
Holly Jones was back in his life.
Hell. She was even wearing the same perfume. How could such a tiny thing as a spritz of scent take him spinning right back twelve years? The past, when Holly had been in his arms, kissing him and whispering, ‘I love you.’ Words that had meant everything to him—and absolutely nothing to her.
‘We lost touch,’ David said.
That was one way of putting it. Because the love of his life had walked out on him when they were eighteen. And her timing had been impeccably bad: she’d done it the week before his A-level exams.
Holly could hardly believe her ears. Lost touch? Yeah, right. It had been none of her doing. He’d been the one to lose touch. Deliberately. The first sign of trouble, and he’d been out of there. Hadn’t returned any of her phone calls, hadn’t replied to her letters. When she’d gone to his house to talk it over face to face, he’d been away on holiday. With another girl.
He hadn’t accepted responsibility back then, and he certainly wasn’t going to admit it now.
What a creep.
More proof—as if she needed it—that she was better off without him.
‘So you’re from Liverpool, too?’ Anna asked.
‘I moved away a long time ago,’ David said. ‘I trained in Southampton.’
Holly knew that. She’d been there the day his offer from Southampton had come through. The same day as hers. They’d been offered places for getting the same grades, even. And they’d planned to go to med school together.
Except she hadn’t made it.
And when she’d sat her A levels the following year—and got the straight A grades her teachers had predicted—she’d accepted the offer to train in London. No way could she have faced Southampton, knowing that he was there.
‘I worked in Newcastle for a couple of years, then came here,’ David said.
She knew he was looking at her. Knew he was expecting her to respond. And Anna expected it, too. If Holly followed her instincts and stomped out of the rest room, Anna would start to wonder. And although the senior sister didn’t gossip, the rest of the department did. It wouldn’t take long for rumours to fill in the blanks. The worst thing was, the wildest ones would probably be right on target. ‘I trained here,’ she said shortly.
Then she met his eyes, and wished she hadn’t. Because, for an instant, she’d seen a flash of yearning there. A yearning that was immediately echoed in her own heart.
She slammed the brakes on. There was no going back now. Working with David was going to be awkward, but she didn’t have a choice. Not unless she wanted them both to be the centre of gossip for an uncomfortably long time.
‘You two must have a lot to catch up on,’ Anna said.
Over my dead body! Holly thought. She couldn’t help looking at David, and was surprised to see questions in his eyes. Did he expect her to fill him in on her gap year—what had really happened? He hadn’t cared enough to find out at the time. Why did he want to know now, when it was much too late?
‘Years,’ David said, in answer to Anna’s question.
Though it underlined Holly’s thoughts. It was years too late for them.
‘It won’t take you long to settle in, then, seeing as you know each other. Sue put you on the same team,’ Anna said.
The blood rushed straight from Holly’s head and it was an effort to keep upright, her head was spinning so much. David was going to be working on her team? Given the new shift rotations they were doing, it meant she’d be spending every single moment at work near him. Forty-odd hours a week.
She tried to school her face into neutral and stared at his hands, hoping that she could think of some suitable response quickly enough to stop Anna asking questions. But looking at his hands was a bad, bad move—because she could still remember the pressure of his fingertips against her skin. Still remember what those hands had done to her. Why couldn’t she get him out of her head?
‘Holls? Are you all right?’ Anna asked.
