Their Very Special Marriage

‘I won’t be working for the next week—unless you’d rather stay home with Sophie?’

Sophie would adore having her daddy all to herself—and maybe nursing his daughter through her illness was the wake-up call Oliver needed. The thing that would make him start concentrating on his family. Though Rachel already knew what his reaction was going to be.

‘No, she needs her mum with her.’

Sophie needed her dad, too. So did Robin. But Rachel wasn’t feeling up to a row. ‘If you think it’s best,’ she said coolly.

Oliver raked a hand through his dark hair. ‘Don’t worry. I’ll sort things out at the practice.’

Hell. Why did he have to look so sexy when she didn’t have time to do anything about it? Since they’d had the children they didn’t spend Sunday mornings in bed any more. Rachel realised just how much she missed it—the warmth of her husband’s body heating hers, tangled limbs, the roughness of the hairs on his chest against her skin.

Then she remembered last night. The guiltgift—chocolates that she hadn’t been able to face eating because she knew why he’d bought them and they would have stuck in her throat…

Kate Hardy lives on the outskirts of Norwich with her husband, two small children, two lazy spaniels—and too many books to count! She wrote her first book at age six, when her parents gave her a typewriter for her birthday. She had the first of a series of sexy romances published at twenty-five, and swapped a job in marketing communications for freelance health journalism when her son was born so she could spend more time with him. She’s wanted to write for Mills & Boon® since she was twelve—and when she was pregnant with her daughter her husband pointed out that writing Medical Romances™ would be the perfect way to combine her interest in health issues with her love of good stories. It really is the best of both worlds—especially as she gets to meet a new gorgeous hero every time... Kate is always delighted to hear from readers—do drop in to her website at www.katehardy.com

Recent books by the same author:

THE DOCTOR’S PREGNANCY SURPRISE*

THE BABY DOCTOR’S DESIRE*

THE DOCTOR’S TENDER SECRET*

THE REGISTRAR’S CONVENIENT WIFE

THE SPANISH CONSULTANT’S BABY

*London City General trilogy

Their Very Special Marriage

Kate Hardy

MILLS & BOON

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CONTENTS

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Epilogue

CHAPTER ONE

THE noise was deafening. Thirty children running around in the huge room, crawling through tunnels, sliding down enormous tubes into a pool of brightly coloured balls, jumping harder and harder on the bouncy castle until—

Rachel saw it happening from the other side of the room, but she wasn’t fast enough to get there in time to stop it. Robin misjudged his bounce, moved at the wrong angle and clashed heads with one of his classmates. Rachel raced towards them, but Oliver was already there. Both little boys were crying and holding their heads, and he led them away from the bouncy castle to a quieter corner of the room.

‘All right, let’s have a look at you, birthday boy.’ His gentle, teasing tone helped to soothe the little boy. ‘Robin, can you tell Daddy where it hurts?’ He gently checked the little boy. His fingers probed the bump to help him estimate the extent of the injury, then he checked the little boy’s pupils. Robin was still crying, but Oliver kissed his forehead, stroked his hair and turned to the other little boy, who was holding one hand to his forehead and crying equally hard.

By the time Rachel brought over two cold pads—years of working together meant that Oliver hadn’t needed to ask her for them—both little boys had stopped sobbing.

‘Here we go. Let’s put a cold compress on to make you feel better,’ Rachel said. ‘Do you two want to come and sit with me for a little while and have a story?’

Two small, solemn heads nodded.

‘Come on, then.’ Rachel moved so the boys could both sit on her knee, and her gaze met Oliver’s for a moment. His wry smile said it all: Kids.

‘Pupils both equal and reactive, for both of them,’ he said softly. ‘No signs of loss of consciousness, though I think Mikey’s going to have a bit of a shiner.’

She nodded. But with head injuries, you couldn’t be too careful—what looked like a harmless bump could turn into something nasty a few hours later. A tear in an artery could lead to an extradural haemorrhage, where blood pooled between the bone and the dura and caused pressure inside the skull to rise. They’d need to keep a close eye on Robin—in case he started being sick, had a severe headache or fits—and warn Mikey’s parents to do the same.

That was the one bad thing about being a qualified doctor: you knew the worst-case scenario. And when your own children were involved, you stopped being rational and calm and remembered the rarest complications of any condition.

Oliver was smiling at her now, and Rachel was conscious of a jolt somewhere in the region of her heart. Even after fourteen years of being together—eight years of marriage—her husband’s smile could still make her heart turn over. Just the curve of his mouth, and remembering the pleasure that mouth had brought to her over the years. Or the light in his blue, blue eyes. He’d smiled at her like that at Robin’s second birthday party and, nine months later, Sophie had made her arrival into the world.

Would they make love tonight?

Oh, now she was really getting depraved. Thinking about sex in the middle of a six-year-old’s birthday party. But it had been a while. Oliver had been too busy, Rachel had been too tired, and the weeks had slipped by. Maybe tonight she should make an effort. When Rob and Sophie were asleep, she’d put some chilling-out music on the CD player, open a bottle of wine and tempt Oliver to relax with her.

‘That’s my daddy,’ she heard Sophie lisp proudly. ‘He makes people better. So does my mummy.’

‘Come on, little one. Shall we go and tell the ladies we’re nearly ready for tea and Robin’s birthday cake?’ Oliver asked, picking up his daughter and lifting her onto his shoulders.

Rachel smiled gratefully at him. ‘Thanks, love,’ she mouthed, and started telling her son and his best friend a complicated story about pirates and dragons which soon had them forgetting their bump on the bouncy castle.

After the birthday tea—where all the healthy options of raisins, cherry tomatoes and cubes of cheese were ignored in favour of crisps and chocolate finger biscuits, and the jelly and ice cream disappeared in record time—and two rousing choruses of ‘Happy Birthday to You’, because Sophie wanted to be like her big brother and blow out the candles, too, the children dispersed, clutching a balloon, a windmill and a party bag. Rachel strapped the children into their car seats while Oliver paid for the party and brought Robin’s pile of presents back to the car.

‘Did you have a nice party, darling?’ she asked Robin.

‘It was brilliant!’ Robin’s smile was a mile wide.

‘Can we have another one next week?’ Sophie asked.

Rachel laughed. ‘We’ll have to wait until it’s your birthday, Soph.’

‘But that’s ages away,’ Robin said in dismay.

‘Never mind. We can try out your new bike when we get home,’ Rachel suggested, knowing it would distract him.

The ploy worked, because Robin started chattering about his new bike and how it had got proper gears and a really loud bell.

‘And I can go on my pink scooter,’ Sophie said. ‘Robin, you’ve got to wear your hat.’ She blew on her windmill. ‘Look, Daddy, it goes round!’

‘Mmm.’

Oliver was making the right noises but Rachel could hear that his heart definitely wasn’t in it. She shot him a sideways look and groaned inwardly. She knew that look. He was thinking about the practice.

Today was their son’s birthday. His sixth birthday. Oliver had swapped duties so he wasn’t on morning surgery or on call. He’d promised to spend the day with them as a family. To give him his due, he’d spent the day with them so far. He’d been good with the kids at the party, chatted to the other parents. But Rachel knew it just wasn’t possible for Oliver Bedingfield to go for more than four hours without thinking about the practice.

So she was prepared for her husband to check his mobile phone as soon as they got indoors, and equally prepared for the apologetic look on his face.

‘Sorry, love. There’s something I need to sort out.’

Couldn’t he put the children—and her—first, for once? But no. He was a Bedingfield, brought up to believe that his duty to the community came before everything else. ‘Rob wanted to show you how good he is on his bike,’ she reminded him. She’d taken the stabilisers off Robin’s old bike a week ago to get him prepared for his birthday present. Where she’d grown up, it was always the dads who taught their kids how to ride a bike. In the Kent village where they lived, even, it was the dads who did the bike-riding lessons.

Except for Oliver.

‘I’ll come and see him ride it later. I promise,’ Oliver said.

His eyes had grown wary, as if he was expecting a row. He damned well deserved one, Rachel thought angrily. Was one single day too much to ask?

Clearly, it was. She forced herself to smile at him, even though she wanted to shake him and tell him their kids were growing up so fast and he was missing everything—that he wouldn’t get this time back again and he was wasting it. ‘OK. We’ll be out in the front garden.’

‘I’ll be with you as soon as I can,’ Oliver said.

But he didn’t meet her eyes, and when he walked into his office in the house Rachel knew he wouldn’t come out into the front garden with them. He never did. She was always the one who watched the children when they went out to play, chatted to other parents in the street.

It wasn’t that Oliver was a snob. He was good with people and everyone in the village loved their GP. But his background was so different from Rachel’s own. He’d grown up in the big house at the far end of the village, always that little bit apart from the others; she’d grown up on an estate in Newcastle where everyone popped in and out of each other’s houses, and children went from garden to garden, playing noisy and busy games until somebody’s mum came out with a tray of orange squash and biscuits. When she’d been pregnant with Rob and they’d moved to the small modern estate on the edge of the village, she’d thought that Oliver would fit in and discover what it meant to live right in the middle of a close community. That he’d break away from the Bedingfield way of doing things.

But then Oliver’s father decided to retire, over a long enough period for Oliver to ease into taking his place as the senior partner in the practice. So Oliver didn’t get the time to join in with Rachel. And, following the Bedingfield tradition, he always kept slightly apart from everyone else.

If it hadn’t been for that clash of heads and the fact that his medical expertise had been needed, he’d have stayed remote at the party, too. On the sidelines, making all the right noises, but his mind elsewhere. Sometimes Rachel thought she was on the way to losing the man she’d fallen in love with, because Oliver was turning into his father. He even ran the practice along the same lines as Stuart Bedingfield had. But this was the twenty-first century—no body doffed their cap to the village bank manager, solicitor or doctor any more. It was time to let the old ways go, forget the social niceties that were no longer an issue.

‘Penny for them?’

Rachel jumped. She’d been lost in her thoughts, watching the children at the same time. ‘Just thinking how quickly they grow up,’ she lied. Much as she liked her neighbour, Ginny, she couldn’t talk to her about Oliver. The last thing she wanted was rumours floating round the village that all wasn’t well between Oliver and Rachel Bedingfield.

‘Don’t they just? I remember when Jack was six. It seems like yesterday—and now he’s eleven and nearly as tall as me! Did Rob enjoy his party?’

‘Loved it.’ Rachel grinned. ‘Funny, you’d think that two hours at Bounce would wear them out. But he’ll be zooming round on that bike until it’s dark.’

‘Ah, bless.’ Ginny gave her a curious look. ‘Oliver working, is he?’

So even the neighbours had noticed. Great. She shrugged. ‘Something cropped up.’

‘Your life’s not your own when you’re the village doctor,’ Ginny said. ‘You must get it, too—people coming up to you at nursery or in the playground to ask you “just a quick question”.’

Parents only did that so they didn’t have to risk facing the practice’s dragon secretary if they didn’t have the luck to get Rita, the receptionist, to ask for an appointment to see Rachel. Another sticking point, another battle that Rachel knew she’d never win. But when Prunella eventually retired, Rachel was going to make sure Oliver didn’t hire a carbon copy as her replacement. ‘Better them grab me in the street than have them worrying about the kids,’ Rachel said, and deftly changed the subject.

Oliver still hadn’t joined them by the time it was too dark for the children to play outside safely. Rachel shepherded Robin and Sophie indoors. ‘Do you want anything to eat?’

‘I’m stuffed,’ Robin said.

‘I’m stuffed, too,’ Sophie said, not to be outdone.

‘Milk, bath and bed, I think,’ Rachel said.

‘But Daddy didn’t see me on my bike,’ Robin protested.

Rachel gave him a hug. ‘He’ll see you on your bike tomorrow, love.’

‘He’ll be busy,’ Sophie said.

Hell. If even a three-year-old spotted that her father didn’t spend enough time with them—and made excuses for him—then it was time to do something.

What, Rachel wasn’t sure. She pulled her weight at the surgery, as did the other doctors and the practice nurse. Maybe she should persuade Oliver to get a practice manager to take the admin burden off him. But it had been the Bedingfield practice for so long...she had a feeling he’d resist. If he didn’t, his family would. The Bedingfields were a sensitive lot and it would be all too easy to start a full-scale family feud. She really didn’t need to give them an extra excuse to dislike her. Being forthright and Northern was more than enough for them. She had to go carefully.

As usual, bathtime meant there was more water on the floor than in the bath. Rachel dried the children and mopped up. ‘Teeth, story, bed,’ she said.

‘But it’s my birthday,’ Robin protested.

‘You know the routine. Teeth, story, bed.’

‘A princess story?’ Sophie asked, beaming.

Rachel hid a smile. Sophie and her ‘pwintheth thtorieth’. Not that Oliver would have got the joke. He didn’t do bedtime routines. Didn’t have time. Just the same as it was always Rachel who helped Rob do his homework and make birthday cards, Rachel who’d taught both children their letters and colours and numbers, Rachel who listened to Robin’s reading, Rachel who did all the liaison with the school, Rachel who did the laundry and the packed lunches. ‘OK, you can choose a princess story. Rob, you can read whatever story you like, but no more than twenty minutes, OK?’

‘I’ll kiss Daddy goodnight.’ Before Rachel could stop her, Sophie had rushed down the stairs and flung open the door to Oliver’s office. ‘Daddy!’

‘Come on, Rob. Come and have a birthday kiss, too,’ Rachel said.

Oliver definitely wasn’t pleased at the interruption. He was trying to hide it in front of the children, but she recognised the little furrow between his eyebrows. A furrow that was actually starting to leave a line, it appeared so frequently nowadays.

‘Daddy, Daddy.’ Sophie climbed onto her father’s lap and hugged him. ‘Love you.’ Then she leaned backwards and put one hand out to steady herself. It landed on the keyboard of Oliver’s computer.

There was a loud beep and Oliver’s mouth tightened. ‘You’ve deleted the file,’ he said between clenched teeth.

Rachel hastily scooped Sophie out of Oliver’s arms. ‘It was an accident. She’s three, Oliver,’ she reminded him. ‘And you can always restore the file.’

‘No, because I hadn’t saved it. I’ve lost the last half-hour’s work.’

‘The system’s got an autosave function,’ she reminded him, her eyes narrowing.

Robin was hanging back by the doorway, looking worried. Rachel sighed inwardly. ‘Are you going to give the birthday boy a bedtime kiss?’ she asked Oliver quietly.

‘Of course.’ Oliver opened his arms stiffly. ‘’Night, Robin. And happy birthday.’

Not as happy as it had been. Not as happy as it could have been. Sometimes, Rachel thought, she could murder her husband. Why couldn’t he put himself in the kids’ shoes just occasionally?

She shepherded the children to bed, read Sophie three stories about Princess Mouse, let Robin finish the chapter of his book about the robot dog, then kissed them both goodnight and turned off the lights.

Now for Oliver.

‘Don’t make it into a confrontation,’ she reminded herself quietly as she walked downstairs. ‘You’ll just set his back up and get nowhere. If you want him to listen and do something positive, take it softly.’ She rapped on the door of his office and put her head round the door. ‘Oliver?’

He glanced up.

‘Did you get your file sorted?’

‘No, thanks to Sophie. Rachel, you know I don’t like the children coming in here.’

They wouldn’t have to go in if he’d come out to them! She bit back her irritation. ‘Oliver, your memory’s fantastic—it won’t take you that long to put it back together.’ She paused. ‘Saltimbocca OK for dinner?’ His favourite. That would put him in a good mood, surely?

He shook his head. ‘Thanks, but I’m not that hungry. Besides, I’ve got a lot to do—as well as making up on that half-hour’s work I lost.’

Which had been an accident. And it was only a computer file, hardly a life-or-death situation. She took a deep breath. If she pushed it now, they’d have a row. ‘I’ll make you a sandwich. But, Oliver...I think we need to talk.’

‘About what?’

Did he really not know? Did he think this was a normal marriage? Then again, it might well be, in his terms. He was probably following his father’s pattern. ‘About us.’

‘We’re all right.’

He sounded so sure. Maybe he was right. Maybe the problem was all in her head. Rachel didn’t have the energy for a row. She gave up. ‘Do you want a glass of wine with your sandwich?’

He shook his head. ‘I’m fine, thanks.’

She made a sandwich and quietly took it through to his office. He mumbled a thank you, but she knew he hardly saw her. Her own sandwich tasted like ashes and most of it ended up in the bin. When was the last time they’d eaten as a family? Or was she simply expecting too much?

When she checked on the children, Robin was clutching his favourite teddy in one hand and the string to a rocket-shaped helium balloon—the one her mother had sent by special delivery that morning—in the other. Gently, she disentangled the string and put it safely at the side of the room. He murmured in his sleep; she stroked his hair. ‘Goodnight, Rob. Sweet dreams. I love you,’ she whispered.

Sophie was lying like a small baby with her forearms flopped back, her hands by her ears. Her duvet was half over her face. Rachel straightened it and stroked her daughter’s hair. ‘Goodnight, Soph. Sweet dreams. I love you,’ she said softly.

Her beautiful children. Both with Oliver’s straight dark hair and china-blue eyes. Rob had Oliver’s half-shy smile and tended to keep on the edge of things; Sophie was confident and was usually in the middle. Usually in charge, Rachel thought with a smile. She’d have to teach Sophie to curb her bossy tendencies.

Her smile faded. Oliver wouldn’t. He probably hadn’t even noticed.

She shook herself. Stop feeling so sorry for yourself, Rachel Bedingfield, she told herself harshly. You’ve got a good marriage, a good man and two fabulous children. You’ve got a job you love, a nice house and no financial worries. What have you got to be miserable about? Pull yourself together!

Maybe a bath would help. Preferably shared with Oliver—they just about fitted into the bath together—but she knew that was asking for too much. The mood he was in, he’d snap at her if she suggested it.

She used the expensive bath foam he’d bought her for Christmas, and settled back with a magazine.

Is your husband cheating on you? Check our ten typical signs.

She rolled her eyes. Oliver wasn’t a cheat. He didn’t have time to do anything but work. All the same, she couldn’t help reading it and answering the questions in her head.

His looks.

Ha. He hadn’t changed there. Not the way he dressed, the toiletries he used. Definitely not.

His work...an excuse to account for time spent away.

The back of Rachel’s neck prickled. She shook herself. Of course not. Oliver was just a workaholic. He always had been, even as a student.

Personality or behavioural changes.

Hmm. He’d become withdrawn and distant, but that was to do with work—wasn’t it? Rachel looked closer at the section. They may be subtle and gradual. Um. When had Oliver started being distant? Your spouse may be touchy—reflecting the effort of keeping the affair hidden, the fear of discovery and guilt. No. Of course not. He was just touchy because he was working too hard.

Telephone tip-offs.

She hadn’t had any odd calls, nobody hanging up as soon as she answered. Sure, Oliver checked his mobile phone a lot, but that was work.

Sex.

Changes in your sex life. Ha. What sex life? She couldn’t remember the last time they’d made love. She swallowed. Was that because he was doing it with somebody else? No. Of course not. It was work again. Work, and she was often tired from looking after the children in between doing her shifts at the surgery. He was tired, too, because he put in long hours. It was just a phase their marriage was going through. It happened to every couple from time to time...didn’t it?

Computer use.

An online or cyber-affair. No. He didn’t hide his files when anyone walked into his office. He just didn’t like being disturbed when he was working. That little nagging voice in the back of her head was completely wrong.

Changes in habits.

Ha. Well, he wasn’t doing that. He didn’t have time to go to the gym and his taste in music hadn’t changed recently. As for what he ate... Tonight, when he hadn’t wanted her to cook for them, he’d just been tired and busy.