Read Online The Surgeon's Convenient Fiancée (Medical Romance) by Rebecca Lang - Free Book Online Page A

wife to have to deal with. She, Tony—short for Antonia—used to call me “the twenty-four-seven man” where work was concerned. She was quite right there.’
    ‘And now?’ Deirdre enquired softly, turning to look at him.
    ‘I’m learning to temper my ambitious drive, you might say,’ he replied, an odd note of bitterness in his voice.
    She wanted to ask him about his son, about the remark that his colleague had made, but knew it was too soon and that it was not her business to ask. If he wanted her to know, he would tell her. For a few moments they sipped their coffee in silence.
    ‘It’s not enough to be in love,’ he said very quietly, as though talking to himself. ‘You’ve got to have staying power…and a lot more besides. Anyone can go through a wedding ceremony. It’s what comes after that’s the test, the day-to-day living, the daily grind.’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘One needs tolerance and forgiveness,’ he said. ‘That is, the ability to display those qualities, to feel them. I think it was the poet Goethe who said something about love being an ideal thing, marriage a real thing. One must be easy to live with, and all that that implies—consideration, kindness, respecting the other’s privacy, sharing the tediouschores of life, good manners, thoughtfulness, integrity… The list goes on. In short, I suppose it adds up to maturity, which is not particularly common.’
    ‘Yes…’ she said, knowing the quote. ‘I… can’t speak from experience about marriage. I’m sorry about all that’s happened to you. It’s not easy being a single parent. Sometimes I feel as though I’m losing my sanity myself, with all the angst. And they aren’t even my own children…’
    Was his son ill, on top of everything else? She pondered that silently.
    ‘You’ve been very kind in listening to me,’ she added. ‘You obviously have your own problems.’
    ‘Who doesn’t?’ he said. ‘I don’t trust love, except the love for my son.’ Again, he made that last remark almost inaudibly, as though he were talking to himself. It sounded so sad that she felt impulsively that she wanted to reach out and touch his face. Instead, she stared straight ahead, her hands cupped around the warm coffee, concentrating on raindrops hitting the road.
    ‘What else do you trust?’ she askedtentatively, after a moment of silence in which she was aware of her heart beating deeply.
    ‘I trust in a spark of goodness in the human spirit,’ he said softly. ‘I believe in cultivating that, of recognizing it where I find it…and being thankful.’
    Deirdre bit her lower lip, wanting to cry. ‘Surely that’s part of love,’ she protested mildly.
    ‘Not that insane sort of love that a man can feel for a woman, and then she lets him down…or vice versa. It’s a sort of madness.’
    ‘I think perhaps you’re talking about passion,’ she said, overcoming her nervousness by a supreme effort, while feeling a stab of something that was, she thought, jealousy for the unknown woman or women for whom he had felt that insane love. ‘It’s a kind of insanity. That’s why the French have a category of crime called le crime passionel, which is looked upon leniently because the law recognizes the temporary insanity when such strong emotions are involved. Hopefully, one can also feel a more gentle love as well as the insanity of passion for the same person sometimes.’
    ‘Maybe.’ He turned to look at her. ‘How do you know all that?’ he said.
    They were standing very close, and he leaned forward and put a warm hand on her cold cheek, making her face tingle. ‘You’re cold,’ he murmured.
    ‘It’s purely theoretical with me—love,’ she said hastily, intensely aware of his warm hand yet, oddly, accepting it as quite normal between them, even though they scarcely knew each other. ‘I imagine that passion is a very rare emotion. I’ve never really loved anyone…a man, that is. I love the children.’
    It seemed incongruous