Hollywood Hills Collection. Lynne Marshall

sat with the twenty-year-old mother and the twenty-two-year-old father and he told them as best as he could that their son would die.

      ‘Please,’ Rachael begged. ‘Can you at least try...?’

      And he went through it all over again, how the damage was too much and that his system was collapsing.

      ‘He’d very likely die on the operating table, or shortly post-operatively,’ Zack said. ‘Or he can die in your arms.’

      Zack could have gone then but he stayed and spoke with them extensively and made sure they understood he wasn’t simply giving up on their son.

      Sometimes you didn’t get a choice.

      Like ten years to this day when his brother had died.

      It was not a good day at the office!

      Freya tried not to notice Stephanie’s raised eyebrows as she came out of one of the patients’ very luxurious restrooms. She hadn’t been able to make it to the staff one.

      Oh, no. If Stephanie mentioned to James that she’d seen Freya dash off to vomit, he’d have her back in rehab by the end of the week.

      And there was Zack, handing over his pagers.

      ‘I’m not on call tonight,’ Zack said to Stephanie.

      ‘I’ll call if there’s anything urgent with one of your patients—’

      ‘I said that I’m not on call tonight.’ Zack made things clear to Stephanie. ‘I’m going to get blind.’

      ‘Oh.’

      He was as grey as she’d seen him and they didn’t bother with small talk as they walked out to their cars.

      ‘Freya...’ he called her over as she climbed into her car.

      ‘Yes?’

      She turned and looked up at him and Zack stared back and he honestly didn’t know what to say, he hadn’t even meant to call out to her.

      He needed her tonight.

      Sex, yes, but he wanted all the rest tonight too. Hell, he’d even take the green smoothie.

      Just because he didn’t want to move in it didn’t mean he had wanted it to end, and he was kicking himself for doing what he did best—put on his boots and get out.

      ‘How have you been since Cleo?’

      He didn’t get to know that, Freya decided. ‘It happens.’ She went to walk off and then remembered what she’d heard. ‘I heard that you lost a patient today. I’m sorry.’

      ‘It happens,’ Zack said, but it nearly killed him when it did, especially one so tiny.

      Especially today.

      And she looked at his eyes and he said not a word of that but she knew him, and she could feel the want between them.

      And that was why she cried each night. She was crazy about this guy.

      ‘You’ve lost weight,’ Zack said.

      ‘Oh, here we go. Have you been talking to James?’

      ‘No,’ Zack said. ‘Is he worried?’

      ‘James is always worried.’

      ‘Does he have reason to be?’

      ‘No.’

      ‘Freya, I know I didn’t end things very well.’

      ‘There was nothing to end, Zack. It was sex, we both agreed to that and no more, and as good as it was...’

      Their eyes met at the memory and Zack looked very deep into her eyes. She could not believe his gall.

      Yes, his eyes were asking her for that.

      ‘You are kidding me,’ Freya said. Did he really think they were going to have sex?

      She wanted to so much.

      To just ignore that she was completely incapable of not wanting a relationship with this man and to take the good they had.

      It would be too much for her heart to bear, though. She had to tell him about the baby, but she could see his anguish today so Freya chose not to now. She abruptly pulled back from telling him and got angry instead.

      “You know what, Zack? We should have kept it at one night. Life was so much easier when I didn’t know your name.’

      Freya climbed into her car and reversed out angrily.

      She wanted him—oh, my, she wanted him.

      But even if they had kept it at one night, she’d still be in trouble.

      Freya drove towards home and hoped she wasn’t too late to let Cleo out and then she remembered that Cleo wasn’t there any more.

      And so instead of knowing that patient black eyes awaited her, Freya had the joy of chatting with herself on the drive home.

      She had to tell Zack.

      Or not.

      He’d be gone in a few weeks.

      And she’d been considering donor eggs and donor sperm after all.

      But the donors chose anonymity and it would be her baby’s right to know, and Zack had the right to know too.

      He’d find out anyway soon.

      Stephanie was gossiping, Freya knew, and she trusted Zack wouldn’t just assume her eating disorder was back.

      They had both messed up that first night but it wasn’t a disaster. Freya had it all under control.

      She was thirty-one, she’d planned to be a single mom.

      Zack deserved to know and he also deserved to know that she neither needed nor expected nothing from him.

      Freya took the exit and then joined the traffic heading into the city.

      She left her car with the valet and walked into the hotel and went straight to the elevators. Down a familiar corridor she walked, but with a different type of anticipation knotting her stomach now as she tried to guess his reaction.

      There was a ‘Do not disturb’ sign on the door and Freya ignored it and knocked.

      ‘Read the sign,’ came his deep, surly voice in response to her knock on the door.

      ‘Zack, it’s...’ Freya started, and then she had the appalling thought that he might be in there with someone he might have met in the elevator or bar and was banging his brains out, as was clearly his chosen stress response. But then the door opened and he had on only a towel, and then she glanced over his wet, naked shoulder and saw that, no, there was no one else in his suite.

      ‘I’m just in the middle of a phone call,’ Zack said.

      ‘Do you want me to wait outside?’ Freya offered.

      ‘No, no,’ he said, and as she walked into his suite he caught her off guard and pulled her in. ‘Thank God,’ Zack breathed into her ear, and then his mouth was on hers in a hungry kiss and she got a slab of wet muscle pressed into her. It took Freya a second to register that he had assumed she was taking him up on his earlier offer.

      ‘Zack...’

      ‘I won’t be long,’ Zack mouthed, and put his finger to his lips and then walked over to the bed and picked up the phone he had left there. ‘Sorry, Mum, it was just the maid.’

      He gave her a wink and took her right back to their first conversation and straight back to when all they had been was sex. Freya stood there, her dress damp from his freshly showered body, and she tasted him as she licked her lips. She was unsure what to do as Zack carried on the conversation and she could actually see the tension in his back as he tried to keep his patience as he spoke with his mum.

      ‘Alice