More Than Forever (Providence Series Book 2) (4 page)

“Isla? Isla, can you open your eyes please?” A nurse stood beside her stroking her hair trying to bring her round. 

Walking up next to her, I took hold of Isla’s small hand, getting a shock when I felt how cold it was. 

“Isla, baby, wake up! What’s wrong with her?” 

“Sir, you can’t be in here. If you’ll just…” the nurse started and pointed toward the door. 

“Hell no, I’m not leaving!” I said firmly, making eye contact with her to show her how serious I was. “That is my world in that bed.” 

“Sir, right now we need to make sure that Miss Banks is okay and then we’ll let you know as soon as she wakes up.” She tried again. 

“No, I’m not leaving. You can do all of that with me here.” 

“I’m Doctor Ng and I’m treating Isla,” the doctor held his hand out. Can I ask you to step outside while we assess her please, sir?” 

I was just about to answer when Isla's eyes started to flutter and slowly opened, looked around, and then stopped on me. 

Shaking his hand, I replied, “Luke Montgomery, Isla’s boyfriend and the father of her babies.” 

I could see that they immediately recognized my last name. I couldn’t wait anymore though and walked around to where the doctor had been standing as he moved to look at some of the monitors attached to her, getting a glare from the doctor and a head shake from the nurse. 

“Angel.” I bent over and kissed her forehead, inhaling the smell that was just Isla. God, it felt so good to be close to her again, even the pain in my leg didn’t feel as bad around her. 

I was so busy with my thoughts that I never saw the hand coming up towards my face until it slapped me harder than I thought her little hand could. 

“You bastard, you knocked me up,” she hissed. “Twice! And you are
not
my boyfriend, asshole.” 

Well shit, this wasn’t going to be as easy as I was hoping. 

I
sla
 

I couldn’t believe that
the cheating bastard was here. The last that I’d heard from Maya was that he was being kept in hospital for another week, at least to make sure that everything was healing properly and to make sure that his physical therapy went smoothly. S
o why was he here
?  

Underneath the anger and devastation that I felt seeing him again and being reminded that I’d loved him so much but he’d betrayed me yet again, I couldn’t help worrying about him. I’d refused to look at him or talk to him for the last two hours, but sneaking a look at him out of the corner of my eye I saw how pale he looked. He kept taking his weight off of his leg and standing on the other one.  

He’d been pacing for the last thirty minutes and only stopped periodically to look down at the sonogram pictures in his hand. He had patches on his head where his hair was slightly shorter and you could see red scars through the stubble. It had grown longer than he normally kept it so it wasn’t as noticeable unless you looked carefully. 

Twins
…I couldn’t believe that I was having twins. This was the sort of thing that happened in movies or books, not to me - plain, old Isla Banks. I’d never understood why Luke had been with me when I moved to Piersville and I’d fought it, but he’d been adamant and relentless. Then seeing the photos of him with Kendal, it all made sense; I’d been a filler. Something to pass the time. My stepmother Jodie and stepsister Calista had always made sure that I knew that I was nothing and that I was an “ugly duckling” whilst Calista had always been the glowing swan. She was my total opposite. This was why Luke being so adamant hadn’t made any sense. Oh my God, what would they say when they found out that I was pregnant with Luke’s babies?  

“I don’t like the expression on your face right now,” he muttered from right beside me. I hadn’t even heard him walk up beside me I’d been thinking so hard.  

He folded his tall body into the comfortable looking chair beside me. The hospital that I was in, Gleneagles, was beautiful inside; we most definitely wouldn’t get this back at home. The room that I was in was like a hotel room with a wall length window looking out over Napier Road. It wasn’t much of a view out of the window, but I’d been in this area a couple of days before for an event at the Filipino Embassy. I was also a regular visitor to the Singaporean Botanic Gardens, which were so close by that you could just see the green of them; in short, it was luxury. 

Focusing back in on Luke, I finally broke my silence and asked the one question that had been eating away at me. 

“Why are you here?” 

“Because you’re here.” He said it like it was such an obvious reply, but none of this made sense to me. 

“Isn’t your girlfriend upset that you’ve travelled all of this way for another woman? I mean, I don’t know her, but she seems like the type of person who wouldn't put up with that.” Then it hit me. “If it’s about the babies, then don’t worry. I won’t tell her; in fact, I won’t tell anyone, so you don’t have to worry.” Even saying it tore something else inside me; why couldn’t this man just stop hurting me? 

Luke quickly got out of his chair, wincing slightly at the sudden movement, and loomed over me. “Get this straight, Angel, I’m not with that bitch. I never was! She knew it and I knew it, it was for business purposes only.”  

“Oh my God, you can’t stop, can you?” I hated that I was starting to cry. He’d basically just admitted that he’d ruined me for the sake of the business; I’d meant that little to him. “Get out! I can’t take anymore.” I was sobbing now and trying to hide my face, I was done! 

“Isla,” he growled picking me up and sitting down on the bed with me on his lap. “I don’t know what you’re thinking right now, but it’s not the truth,” he said stroking my hair and my back and rocking me slightly. “Kendal was…a couple of months before you arrived in Piersville, I was looking at ways to increase the profile of the company. We were doing well and had a lot of high profile contracts, but I wanted us to be more high profile than we were. I met Kendal and her father during a cocktail party in Houston and had remembered all of the newspaper articles on him that featured her beside him. My grand plan had been if I was seen with her and people believed that we were in a relationship, there would be more press coverage of Montgomery’s.” 

Still rubbing my rigid back, he continued on. “I met her at a restaurant the following night and pitched my suggestion to her. She had a reputation as a wild child, getting drunk every night and getting photographed in embarrassing situations. Her father had been putting pressure on her to calm down or he’d pull her funding because it was having a negative impact on his business dealings. The agreement was that she would help me and I would help her keep her trust fund.” He stopped talking for a minute and then put his fingers under my chin and tilted my face up to look at him. “I swear, nothing ever happened between us. Nothing,” he stressed firmly, never losing eye contact with me. 

I was struggling to process what he’d told me. I understood his plan and what he’d been trying to achieve, but again what it seemed he was saying was that I meant that little to him that he would continue with the charade even after we’d got together.

He’d promised me that he wouldn’t ever hurt me again, he’d also lied to me when he went to meet her to attend functions.

“You promised,” I whispered.

“Baby, that was the last event that I met her for. I told her that the deal was off and that I wouldn’t be meeting her for any more public appearances. She wasn't happy, but I made it clear I was done.”

The image of a photograph of that last event came into my head and I almost fell trying to get off his lap as quickly as I could, trying not to pull the IV out of the back of my hand at the same time.  

“The last function? The one at the Bombere Release? Is that the one you’re talking about?” I couldn’t move far from the bed, but I put as much distance between us as the damn tube attached to the needle in the back of my hand would let me. “The one where you’re kissing? Is that it?” 

“No!” The vehemence in his voice shocked the hell out of me. “I wasn’t kissing her. She went to kiss me, and the photograph was taken just as I realized how close she was to me and pulled back. I swear to God.” He closed his eyes and looked up at the ceiling and I took in how tired he looked. Letting out his breath, he lowered his head back down and opened his eyes. “Isla, I swear to God that I didn’t touch her, nor would I ever have. I love
you
.” 

He looked so vulnerable and exhausted at that moment that I couldn’t help backing down from the fight, for now. That is
if
he was even sticking around. 

“You need to sleep, Luke. And have you seen a doctor to make sure that you’re okay and haven’t over done it?” I changed the subject, needing time to think over what he was saying. Kendal had described everything in such graphic detail that I wasn’t sure who was telling the truth, and, well, photographs don't lie. On that thought, I remembered the photographs that that psychotic bitch and her friends had made and showed us in Piersville; okay, so sometimes photographs lied. These were official press photographs of events, though, so they couldn’t lie. I also knew that I couldn’t fully trust him. Twice I’d given him a chance and twice he’d broken my heart, and I wasn’t sure if I could ever open myself to him again. 

“Being with you is what I need,” he grumbled, as he rubbed his temples. Taking in how his mouth was pinched, I knew he was in more pain than he’d admit to. “Either you go to your hotel or I call a doctor in Luke, the choice is yours!” 

Locked in a standoff and a test of wills as we glared at each other, neither of us realized that we had company until the nurse Jennifer cleared her throat. 

“Well, Miss. Banks, Dr. Ng has agreed that you can be released under the care of your private physician. He’s organized for you to be visited at your hotel twice a day to monitor your ketone levels and assess the nausea. The IV will stay in for a further twenty-four hours and a nurse will come to check on it in between visits from the physician. Here are your discharge notes and some anti-nausea pills that we suggest you take regularly to make sure that we keep on top of the vomiting,” she reeled off more instructions as she handed a bag with my medications and pre-natal vitamins in it to Luke and then placed a folder onto the bed. “Give that to the physician; it’s your notes.” 

“But you said I had to stay in for a couple of days?” I was confused why they were suddenly letting me go. “Is it safe for the babies?”  

“Mr. Montgomery has arranged for the best care for you, Isla,” Jennifer smiled warmly at me. Obviously, Luke had worked his magic on yet another female. 

I had absolutely nothing to say right now so I just turned to look at Luke. He was looking irritatingly pleased with himself as he stiffly started getting our stuff together. 

“Knock, knock…” a deep voice rumbled from the doorway. “Ahhh, Montgomery, I might have known that you’d show up,” Dacks said as he walked into the room.  

“Richards,” Luke grumbled from beside me. 

Dacks took in the bags in Luke’s hands and raised his eyebrows. “Going somewhere? I admit, the bag suits you, Luke, but it doesn’t match your outfit.”

Looking over at Luke, I saw that he was holding the bag that I’d had with me for the meeting with the Deputy Prime Minister. He was such a big guy that the bag that I’d had with me looked absurd in his hands, and I couldn’t help laughing silently as Luke glared back at Dacks.

“Why are you here?” Luke asked as he moved even closer to me.  I was starting to think that there was a problem between these two, but before I could ask Dacks burst out laughing.

“Ah, Montgomery, you pull at my heart strings with the constant affection. As much as I appreciate the flirting, I just came here to see how my beautiful girl was doing.” 

Feeling Luke turn to stone beside me, I decided to cut in now before it got out of hand. “They’ve agreed to release me under the care of a physician,” I started just as a thought hit me. “I don’t have a physician here; I haven’t needed one.” I looked over at Jennifer who was standing there, taking us all in in amusement. I’m glad someone found this situation funny. 

“That’s okay, Isla, Mr. Montgomery has organized it all, and I can assure you that Doctor Lo’s the best there is in Singapore.” 

“Of course he did, of course he is…” I muttered feeling seriously pissed off. After what he did, he suddenly comes in and just takes over, as always. 

“She,” Luke interrupted. 

“She what? Who?” I didn’t have a clue what he was talking about. 

“She,” he repeated. 

“Luke, will you make sense! I have no idea who
she
is.” I looked over at Dacks to see if he knew what was going on, but, as always, he looked relaxed and was now leaning against the wall watching the show in front of him.  

“Doctor Lo is a she,” Jennifer said, placing my shoes on the floor in front of me.

“She’s absolutely lovely and will make sure you and these precious babies,” she pointed towards my stomach, “are happy and healthy.”