LITMIR.BIZ

       CHAPTER TEN

      OLIVER STARED AT ELLA, not quite believing what he was hearing.

      He’d proposed to her—and she’d refused.

      ‘Why?’ he asked.

      ‘I’m not marrying you just for the baby’s sake. And I’m perfectly happy for my baby to be an O’Brien.’ Her expression was closed.

      ‘But—this is my baby, too.’ He looked at her, shocked. ‘Or are you telling me…?’

      She blew out a breath. ‘Now I know what your ex did, I can understand why you’re worrying that it’s history repeating itself, but don’t you know me better than that?’

      He’d thought he knew her. But maybe he didn’t. And maybe she did have one thing in common with Justine, then: her feelings for him weren’t the same as his for her. ‘I asked you to marry me.’

      ‘For the baby’s sake.’ She swallowed hard. ‘Like your mother—’ She stopped abruptly.

      ‘What about my mother?’

      ‘Nothing.’

      ‘It doesn’t sound like nothing to me.’

      ‘All right—if you must know,’ Ella said, ‘she wants the baby.’

      ‘What?’ He’d never heard anything more ridiculous in his life. His mother didn’t even know about the baby.

      ‘Provided you have a paternity test first to make quite sure it’s yours,’ Ella continued. ‘And then you’ll sue me for custody.’

      This was getting more and more surreal. ‘What? Why?’

      ‘Because Darrington babies have a position to maintain.’

      ‘That’s ridiculous. Of course my mother wouldn’t say anything like that,’ Oliver said. ‘And when did she say anything to you? I was with you nearly all the time at Darrington.’

      ‘Not all the time. Not when I’d gone to splash my face with water.’

      ‘You’re saying my mother accosted you in the bathroom?’ That definitely wasn’t his mother’s style.

      ‘She’d been watching me and she’d worked out that I was going green around the lilies. And I was the first person you’d brought there in years, so there was obviously a reason why you wanted them to meet me.’

      Oliver shook his head, unable to take this in.

      ‘Believe what you like,’ she said. ‘But I’m not marrying you.’ She turned away.

      Oliver raked a hand through his hair. What the hell was going on? ‘Ella—’

      ‘I could do with some rest,’ she said.

      Because she’d just had a car crash and a nasty scare about the baby. And she’d been here at the hospital all night, keeping Georgie company until Leo arrived from New York.

      Of course she could do with some rest. She must be exhausted, physically and mentally and emotionally.

      Maybe that was why she was flinging around these wild accusations—she was sleep-deprived and still worried sick about the baby, and saying the first thing that came into her head instead of thinking about it. Maybe if he gave her some space and some time to sleep, she’d get her head round things and talk this over sensibly with him.

      ‘I’ll arrange for you to be moved to a side room,’ he said stiffly, and left the treatment room.

      ‘Is everything OK?’ Annabelle asked, coming over to him as he strode through the department.

      ‘With the baby? Yes.’

      She frowned. ‘Is Ella all right?’

      ‘She needs to be moved to a side room and kept in overnight for observation,’ Oliver said. ‘Excuse me.’

      ‘Oliver—’

      ‘Not now,’ he said, and headed for his office. And for once he actually closed his door. Usually he was happy to be interrupted by any member of staff who needed him, but right now he needed to lose himself in paperwork and not have to deal with another human being.

      He was halfway through a pile of admin when his phone buzzed; he glanced at the screen.

      Darrington Hall.

      Why were his parents calling him?

      For a moment, he thought about just ignoring the call. But then again it might be important. With a sigh, he answered.

      ‘Oliver. I was just checking if you were coming home for Christmas,’ his mother said.

      He nearly laughed. Darrington Hall hadn’t been ‘home’ for a long, long time. ‘I’m afraid not,’ he said. ‘I’m on duty.’

      ‘Can’t you change it?’

      ‘No,’ he said. But something was eating at him. Had his mother really had a fight with Ella outside the bathroom? He’d thought at the time that Ella had been gone a long while. And she’d been very cool with him after that. If his mother had just warned her off him, that would explain why she’d gone cold on him. ‘Mama—did you tell Ella you wanted her to have a paternity test?’

      ‘I… Why would I do that?’

      He noticed that his mother hadn’t denied all knowledge of Ella being pregnant. He was pretty sure that Ella wouldn’t have volunteered the information willingly, the way she had with her own family. And he knew exactly what would’ve driven his mother to talk about a paternity test. ‘Justine,’ he said succinctly.

      ‘Well, I don’t want to see you trapped again.’

      It was the nearest his mother would get to admitting what she’d said. ‘Ella isn’t trying to trap me,’ Oliver said. She’d just refused to marry him. He paused. Now he thought about it, that stuff about Darrington babies having a position to maintain sounded just like the sort of thing his mother would say. ‘What position does a Darrington baby have to maintain?’

      ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

      That definitely sounded like bluster. ‘Mother, I’m not the heir to Darrington.’

      ‘You will be if Edward and Prudence don’t get their skates on and produce a boy.’

      He let that pass. ‘And, for the record, I have no intention of suing Ella for custody.’

      ‘Custody?’

      ‘Yes. Did you tell her we wanted custody? Because Darrington babies have a position to maintain?’ he repeated.

      ‘I—Oliver, you know it would be for the best. We could hire a nanny. There’s plenty of space here—’

      ‘No,’ he cut in. ‘Ella is the mother of my child, and the baby stays with her.’

      ‘I see.’ His mother’s tone became frosty.

      He sighed. ‘Mama, I know we don’t see eye-to-eye about my job. But I’ve been either a medical student or a qualified doctor for seventeen years now. Half a lifetime, almost. I’m not going to change my mind about what I do. And you need to start trusting me, because I’m doing what’s right for me.’

      ‘But, Oliver, Ella’s—’

      ‘Ella’s lovely,’ he said, ‘as you’d know if you actually gave her a chance, the way Ned and Prue did. Think about it. Yes, things went wrong with Justine. On paper she was the perfect match, and you pushed us together—and it went wrong. This time,

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