Read Online Questions Of Trust: A Medical Romance by Sam Archer - Free Book Online

of the earlier rain. Rebecca’s lustrous golden skin, the headiness of her perfume, all contributed to the atmosphere of mellow heat. But Tom felt cold as a man in rags on a winter’s night.
    ‘Where’s Kelly?’ asked Rebecca.
    ‘At nursery.’ Although Tom was at home, it wasn’t his usual split day. He’d asked his colleague Ben Okoro to cover him at the surgery for a couple of hours so he could meet Rebecca. Tom glanced pointedly at her handbag.
    ‘Are they in there?’
    She arched a perfect eyebrow. ‘What do you mean?’
    ‘The papers.’
    ‘Which papers are those?’
    ‘The legal papers. The summons, or whatever it is.’
    She sighed, making even that sound elegant, practised. ‘It hasn’t come to that. There are no legal proceedings. I asked to meet you because I wanted to discuss this face to face.’
    ‘There’s nothing to discuss, Rebecca.’
    ‘Tom –’
    ‘Nothing we haven’t spoken about on the phone. You’ve wasted a trip here.’
    She rested her pretty chin on her folded hands, looking away from him and blinking as though marshalling her thoughts. 
    ‘I could take it further. Down the legal route.’
    ‘You could,’ he said. ‘And you’ll have to, frankly, if you want to pursue it.’
    ‘She’s my daughter.’
    ‘And mine.’
    ‘I’m her mother.’
    ‘In a sense.’ She stared at him as though stung, and he immediately regretted his words. He held his hands up in apology. ‘Sorry. That was a bit harsh. Of course you’re her mother, and she adores you. I’ve never tried to poison Kelly’s love for you, Rebecca. I never would, never will. I’ll never say a bad word about you in front of her. But you agreed to my having sole custody. Agreed even when your lawyer, and mine, both pressed you on whether you were absolutely certain that was what you wanted.’
    ‘I know,’ she said. She lifted her chin defiantly. ‘But I’ve changed my mind.’
    Even though she’d said them before, the words gripped his heart.
    ‘Why?’
    ‘Because I’ve had time to consider. Having Kelly with us in Paris the other weekend was wonderful. It made me realise I need her to grow up with me.’
    ‘ You need her. What about what she needs?’
    ‘A child needs a mother.’
    ‘A father too.’
    ‘She’d have a father –’
    ‘Don’t you dare.’ Tom fought the urge to rise from his chair and jab a finger in her direction. ‘Don’t you dare suggest he could be her father.’
    ‘Andrew’s a loving, capable man.’
    ‘Yes, I know that. He certainly proved capable of loving you away from me, didn’t he?’ Tom let the bitterness soak through. ‘So what about the lifestyle you’d have to sacrifice with a child to weigh you down? No more jetting off to the Caribbean on a whim, no more guarantees of cosy, romantic nights when there are fevers to be attended to, bad dreams to be soothed away. Have you actually thought of any of that?’
    He’d raised his voice at the end, unable to help himself. Rebecca didn’t flinch. She smoothed her exquisitely manicured hands down her thighs and said, ‘Andrew and I have considered this at great length. And we’ve come to the conclusion it’s what we want.’
    ‘Just like one of his business deals, is it? Cost-benefit ratios weighed up, risk analyses carried out…’
    ‘Now you’re just being childish, Tom.’
    He slumped back in his chair, staring at her, at a loss for words. This is how it begins , he thought. The vicious back-and-forth sniping that damages a child for ever. The divorce eighteen months earlier had been terrible, more painful than Tom had ever imagined, but at least they’d avoided the nightmare of a custody battle. Rebecca, dazzled by the glamorous world her new man Andrew was whirling her into, had quite readily conceded that Kelly would live with Tom. Everything had been legally settled, and since then, whenever Rebecca had expressed a wish to have Kelly visit or even come away for a weekend, Tom had quite willingly