Paddington Children's Hospital Complete Collection. Kate Hardy

don’t see that there is. I’ll send you a copy of the images and you can...’ She shrugged. ‘You can do whatever you’re going to do. Measure its little crown rump length and decide if it might possibly be yours.’

      Yes, she had read the baby books too.

      And she walked off with more purpose this time.

      It was all starting to feel terribly real.

      For weeks she’d been stuffing down the possibility that she might be pregnant; now she knew for certain that she was.

      But it wasn’t just the baby, or telling work that concerned Victoria.

      It was Dominic MacBride himself.

      She had heard his concern about her working the other night and now she could feel his slight push to be more present; she knew that it was only going to increase.

      And she did not want to start relying on him.

      She thought of her own mother, who had upped and left, and all the nannies and girlfriends and wives that her father had gone through.

      There had been no constant in her life apart from her father and he had merely dragged her to work and palmed her off to others.

      No, she did not want to start depending on a man who would no doubt soon lose interest and be gone.

      She simply would not do that to her child.

       CHAPTER EIGHT

      DOMINIC AWOKE TO the sound of sirens in the street below.

      In a decisive move, he had bought a three-bedroom apartment close to the hospital and, with the ambulance station nearby, he heard sirens often. Now, each time that he did, Dominic wondered if it might be Victoria’s ambulance on its way to something.

      She wouldn’t even know that she had passed by his apartment, Dominic thought, as Victoria didn’t even know where he lived.

      They were so removed from each other’s lives.

      And yet they were not.

      Because he thought about her all the time.

      He liked her.

      Or rather, he was attracted to her enormously and that didn’t aide sensible thinking.

      Since their liaison at Paddington’s Dominic had found himself thinking about her an awful lot.

      Prior to that even.

      On finding out about Jamie and Lorna he had closed off from others and thrown himself into work.

      Absolutely.

      It had been his escape from hurt and anger, and the thought of starting again with anyone had been far from Dominic’s mind.

      But then she had stomped her way into his thoughts with her heavy boots and crisp handovers. Her confident smile had felt like an intrusion, yet he had found himself looking out for her.

      Noticing her.

      Victoria was a very different woman from any that he was used to liking.

      She had intrigued him when Dominic had not wanted to be intrigued, so much so that, even while talking to a parent, he had been aware that she had been stood registering a patient in Reception. He had seen her duck behind the shelves and, later that same day, he himself had done the same and found the place to which she escaped.

      And in his time at Paddington’s he had escaped there a few times.

      Once, when a young life had been lost, he had come from Theatre and told the parents that he had been unable to save their child.

      In fact, Victoria and Glen had been the crew who had brought the patient in.

      It had been the worst of nights.

      His career meant that he was no stranger to death, but while all loss hurt, this one had been particularly painful.

      Dominic had raced the little girl to Theatre but she had died on the operating table and telling the parents had been hell.

      They had wanted her to be an organ donor and wanted her heart to go to another child.

      It was their fervent wish, yet she was already dead.

      Dominic had never been more grateful for the appearance of Rebecca in the interview room. She headed the transplant team and Dominic could only admire her empathy for the parents.

      She had spoken with them at length and had gone through what could be done to give the gift of hope to another child.

      Yes, she had empathy because, seeing Dominic, she had said that she would take it from here.

      He had lain in the on-call room going over and over the surgery, wondering if there was anything more he could have done, while knowing that the child’s fate had been sealed at the moment of impact.

      Unable to sleep he had got up and it had been to the turret that he retreated, where he had looked out to a dark London night.

      There, away from the constant background hospital noise, he had thought about the doctors who had fought so hard to save his brother, and accepted he had done the same for that child.

      There was solace in that quiet space.

      And together he and Victoria had found solace again on a very different night—the night that little William had been born.

      Every sensible part of him screeched for caution and told Dominic that he could well be being taken for a ride.

      Yet the sensible parts did not take into account the magic of that night, the mutual succour, for despite Victoria’s denial, despite insisting her pensive mood was reserved only for the loss of the famed institution, Dominic was certain that she had been hurting for other reasons that night too.

      He wanted to know Victoria some more.

      Baby aside, caution aside, he wanted to know the woman behind the cool façade and it was time to do something about that.

      * * *

      ‘You’ve got an admirer, Victoria!’

      She returned from a call-out with Glen to the light teasing of other staff. A large bouquet of gorgeous flowers was waiting for her at the station. There were freesias, which were her favourite, as well as hyacinths and other blooms. They filled the air with a rich sweet scent and all the gorgeous shades of spring were on display.

      Though her heart was beating rapidly she did not show it in her expression. In fact, Victoria rolled her eyes as she opened the card, for she was quite certain who they were from.

      If Dominic thought that a stunning array of flowers was going to give him a second hearing, and that she would let him in on the ultrasound, then he could not be more wrong.

      But then she read the card and found out that no, she was not at the forefront of his thoughts.

      ‘It’s from Lewis’s parents,’ Victoria said, and she smiled as she read it. ‘He was the neck injury from the fire at Westbourne Grove.’

      ‘How is he doing?’ her line manager asked.

      ‘Apparently he’s doing really well and they’ll soon be taking him home.’

      Victoria only knew that from the card. Unlike Glen, who checked on almost everyone, Victoria chose not to follow up on her patients.

      It wasn’t that she didn’t care; it was more that bad news was unsettling and she had made a conscious choice not to get overly involved.

      Lewis’s parents had left a present for Glen too—a very nice bottle of wine that he decided would remain in his locker until they had finished nights next week, as on the Monday it would be his and Hayley’s wedding anniversary.

      Glen chatted