‘I know you did that ultrasound when you must have felt like bitch slapping me. I know I left a broken-hearted man just now. I know he wants a baby with you that he never wanted with me.’
Madeline said nothing, her head pounding with the migraine and the heaviness of her thoughts.
Tabitha stood. ‘I’m on my way to the airport. Please, please, give Marcus another chance. And maybe one day you and I can become friends.’
She put out her hand and Madeline stood and clasped it automatically, her good manners coming to the fore. But, friends?
Her head throbbed double-time at the thought...
A week went by. It was hell. Madeline kept on going over and over the same stuff. He loved her. She loved him. Tabitha was out of the picture. What was the problem?
Was she punishing him?
Was she punishing herself for jumping in and blurring the line between rebound sex and love so quickly?
He sent flowers. He rang. He texted. She just felt numb. Another person she had let in enough to love had left her, too. Only it was so much harder this time round to be alone because she had loved him so intensely in their brief time together and knowing he wanted to have a baby with her was torture.
She wove fantasies in her head during the long, long nights about her and Marcus being together, getting married, setting up house together.
Having a baby. Having two. Three.
Making a family together.
She went through the motions of life. Her colleagues were very kind and supportive but also very worried. It was Veronica who got her through the days. She brought her coffee and snacks between patients and insisted that Madeline eat them. She fussed around like a mother hen and entertained her via the intercom with readings from a book called One hundred and one ways to murder your ex.
But life was suddenly so bleak and she rued the day she’d ever met Marcus.
Another week passed and Madeline found herself at the hospital at two in the morning. She’d been called to a terminally ill gentleman’s house because his condition had worsened and his exhausted family hadn’t been able to cope any longer. She’d called an ambulance and had accompanied him to the palliative care ward.
She yawned as she shut the patient’s chart and placed it back in the trolley.
‘Madeline?’
‘Simon! It’s so good to see you.’ And it was. It had been two months since. He was in scrubs and looked as tired as she felt. He held out his arms and she accepted his hug.
‘What brings you to this neck of the woods at such an ungodly hour?’ he asked, pulling out of the embrace.
She filled him in and they chatted for a little while catching up on each other’s lives. Madeline had expected their first meeting to be awkward but it was just like old times.
Two good friends having a chinwag.
It was nice but she couldn’t quite believe as they talked that she’d ever thought herself in love with him.
‘What about your love life?’ she asked.
Simon blushed. ‘I have met someone. Her name’s Marcia. She’s fantastic. I’m going to ask her to marry me.’
Madeline blinked but she could see his excitement. ‘That’s great, Simon, really great. I’m happy for you.’ And she was.
He laughed. ‘I thought you were going to give me a hard time about rushing it.’
‘Well, I suppose, given your track record, I’m a little surprised,’ she teased. ‘You haven’t, have you?’
‘No way. This is so right it’s scary.’
She felt tears prick her eyes. ‘How do you know, Simon?’
‘I knew from the moment I saw her.’
‘But how do you know it’s going to work?’
He sighed. ‘I don’t, Madeline, there are no absolute guarantees. But after our, er...prolonged relationship, I just know life’s too short to second-guess everything. I don’t want to go another ten years of my life being too cautious to live a little. And if it all falls in a heap, at least I’ll have been happy for a while. She’s the one, Madeline. I know it in here.’ He patted his chest. ‘You’ve just got to trust your gut.’
Trust her gut.
She walked out to the car park with those words still in her head. The same words Marcus had used. What did her gut say? If she removed what had happened with Tabitha and the baby — what was her gut telling her about Marcus?
She sat in the car for ages, peeling away the layers of her hurt and all the stuff that had muddied the waters between them. Her gut told her — he was the one. She smiled and then she grinned and then she laughed.
Marcus Hunt was the one!
Revving the engine, Madeline accelerated away from the hospital. Her heart was pounding, her mind clearer than it had ever been. She’d been so foolish she just hoped it wasn’t too late.
She was slightly breathless when she banged on Marcus’s door twelve minutes later. She wanted to yell at him to hurry and stood there in an awful panic, hoping that he hadn’t already found someone to replace her.
What if he was having rebound sex right now?
Suddenly she felt ill and was just about to turn and go when the door opened. He looked haggard and unshaven and delicious and any doubts she had vanished.
He was her guy — her life was incomplete without him.
She burst into tears and walked straight into his arms. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she blubbered. ‘I’ve been so stupid.’
Marcus held her tight, his surprise replaced by an overwhelming sense of relief and love. ‘Maddy, oh, thank God, Maddy.’ He snaked his fingers into her glorious loose hair and held her to him as she sobbed.
‘I was foolish and jealous,’ she said, pulling back from his shoulder and wiping the tears away with her hand. ‘I never should have doubted you. I was angry at you and punished you for something that had happened before we met. I’m sorry. Please, forgive me. You’ve pulled me out
