His Pretend Wife

PROLOGUE

HE WOULD never have known her.

He would have known her anywhere.

Andrew caught only the briefest glimpse of the woman, at the far end of the hospital corridor, but it was enough to revive memory, as soft as a bird’s wing fluttering past his face.

She looked nothing like Ellie, who’d been young and luscious as a ripe peach. This was a thin, pale woman, who looked as though life had thrown everything at her, and left her exhausted. Yet there was a hint of Ellie in the resolute set of her head and the angle of her jaw. The bird’s wing fluttered again, and vanished.

He couldn’t afford sentimentality. He was a busy man, second in command of the Heart Unit of Burdell Hospital. Ultimately he could only be satisfied with heading the team, but there was no shame in being second when the chief was Elmer Rylance, a man of international eminence. Soon he would retire and Andrew would step into his shoes.

He’d fast-tracked, giving everything to his work, allowing no distractions, as a broken marriage could testify. He was young for his position, although he didn’t look it. His tall figure was still lean, his features handsome, and there was no grey in his dark hair, but his face had a gaunt look from too many hours spent in work, and not enough spent in living. And there was something about his eyes that spoke of an inner withering.

He had only time for a glimpse of the woman, enough to show that she was with a child, a little girl of about seven, on whom her eyes were fixed with an anguished possessiveness with which he was all too familiar. In this place he’d seen a thousand mothers look at their children like that. And usually his skill sent the two of them home happy. But not always. He turned swiftly into his office.

His secretary was there before him, the list of appointments ready waiting on his desk, along with the necessary files, the coffee being made, exactly as he liked it. She was the best. He only employed the best, just as he only bought the best.

The first patient on his list was seventeen, the age that Ellie had been. There the likeness ended. His patient was weary with illness. Ellie had been an earth nymph, vibrant with life, laughing her way through the world with the confidence of someone who knew she was blessed by the gods, and laughter would last for ever.

‘Mr Blake?’ Miss Hasting was eyeing him with concern.

He shook himself out of his reverie. ‘I’m sorry, did you speak?’

‘I asked if you’d seen the test results. They’re just here…’

He grunted, annoyed with himself for the moment of inattention. That was a weakness, and he always concealed weakness. Miss Hasting was too well disciplined to notice. She was a perfectly functioning machine. Like himself.

Ellie’s beauty had been wild and overflowing, making him think of wine and sun, freedom and splendour: all the good things of life that had been his for such a brief time.

He switched the thought off as easily as he would have switched off the light behind an X-ray. He had a heavy day ahead.

Besides, it hadn’t been her.

‘Time for me to start on my ward rounds,’ he told Miss Hasting briefly. ‘Make a call to…’ For five minutes he gave brisk instructions.

When he went out into the corridor again the woman was gone.

He was glad of that.