The Surgeon's Baby Surprise. Charlotte Hawkes

do you think you are, ordering me around?’

      ‘I’m not ordering you around.’ He gritted his teeth at her, clearly trying to control his frustration.

      They stared at each other in silence. Evie wondered whether, like her, Max was questioning how such an argument had come out of nowhere.

      ‘I’m sorry.’ Max held up his hands at last. ‘You were telling me how you came to find out about your kidney disorder.’

      ‘Right,’ she acknowledged half-heartedly. ‘We knew from tests back then that my brother wasn’t a match, but my mother had been, so...’

      She tailed off, unable to finish the sentence. They’d always assumed her mother would be her donor when the time came. As if losing her mother hadn’t been bad enough to start with.

      ‘Your mother is no longer around?’ Max surmised, the previous heat now gone from his voice.

      ‘She died just before I moved to Silvertrees. Well, to the centre, you know?’

      ‘I see,’ he said again.

      ‘It was a car crash,’ she choked out, shaking her head.

      Clearly he was taking everything she said on face value, listening to her as a friend, not as a surgeon.

      He trusted her. She hadn’t realised that before.

      If he had his surgeon’s hat on he wouldn’t have assumed earlier that her high-level HLA sensitisation was a result of a previous transplant. He’d have registered that she was talking about end-stage renal failure now and not a previous transplant failing, which would leave him with only two other realistic possibilities for her high antibody levels in her PRA results. A blood transfusion, or the pregnancy.

      But it wouldn’t be long before he worked it out. And Evie knew she had to get in there first and tell him about Imogen. His reactions this afternoon had shown more concern for her well-being than she could have imagined. Max wasn’t as uninterested in her as she’d been led to believe.

      ‘For what it’s worth—’ his voice cut through the silence ‘—I think the death of your mother, so close to your own recent diagnosis, is what’s causing you not to think straight.’

      ‘Think straight?’

      ‘About Annie being your donor? I can tell you’re having doubts, Evie. You’re physically and emotionally worn out and you’re getting cold feet because the operation is imminent. You know yourself how patients can get before an operation, any operation. I hope you’re not considering refusing Annie’s offer.’

      She’d thought about it. A thousand times. But on the few occasions where she’d raised it with Annie, her sister-in-law had refused to listen, lovingly laying on the guilt as she reminded Evie that she was all Imogen had, and that she owed it to her daughter to accept the kidney.

      ‘I’m not going to refuse. Annie wouldn’t allow it,’ Evie hiccupped. ‘But it doesn’t necessarily make it any easier.’

      ‘It’s called the gift of life for a reason, Evie.’ He stroked her hand gently. ‘And I understand your initial concerns. But think of it this way—you’re clearly a close family and you owe it to your niece and nephew to be the cool aunt you clearly already are to them.’

      Evie froze, his words hurling spikes of ice down her spine.

      ‘My niece?’

      ‘I saw the photographs.’

      He jerked his head to the bookshelf. Nausea churned up Evie’s stomach. This was it. She had to do it now.

      She couldn’t find the words and the room swayed. She grabbed at the couch; the familiar feel of the piping on the cushion was comforting and she plucked at it absently.

      ‘Evie? Are you okay?’ His voice was sharp, his hand slipping into her hair to force her to look at him.

      The hallway clock ticked audibly, outside the street was quiet—to anyone else it might even appear peaceful—a gaggle of geese passing noisily outside the window.

      ‘Evie.’ He snapped his fingers in front of her face.

      Slowly she lifted her eyes to his.

      ‘That’s not my niece,’ she whispered.

      He looked surprised but still didn’t understand. A gurgle of semi-hysterical laughter bubbled up inside her.

      Max Van Berg, the high-flying surgeon who never missed a thing in a patient, was missing the one thing staring him right in the face.

      ‘Imogen is my daughter.’ Her eyes raked over his face, willing him to really hear what she was telling him. ‘She’s your daughter.’