The Surgeon's Miracle / Dr Di Angelo's Baby Bombshell by Caroline Anderson / Janice Lynn Page B

with a little snap. ‘How do you know?’
    He gave a little grunt of laughter. ‘Oh, we weremessing about at college,’ he said with forced lightness. ‘You know what it’s like—well, no, to be fair, you probably don’t, you’re not a boy, but we had one of these stupid ideas that we’d become sperm donors. Loads of medical students do it, and we decided it was no hardship—and there we were, in the lab without a lecturer, all these microscopes lying about, and someone decided while we were on the subject that it would be funny to see who’d got the highest sperm count. And I didn’t have any. Well, a few, swimming in circles, whereas they had millions all thrashing away and swimming like hell.’
    She sagged against the wall, hugging her arms around her torn nightdress, staring at him blankly, trying to imagine what it had been like for this young man in the prime of his life to find out something so devastating. ‘So—what did they say? Your friends?’
    ‘Nothing. They didn’t know. I accidentally contaminated my sample from someone else’s Petri dish—not very honest, but I was reeling, really. I needed time to take it in, and I certainly wasn’t ready to go public with that lot.’
    ‘Oh, Andrew,’ she said softly, her heart aching for him. ‘That must have been awful.’
    His mouth tugged down at one side. ‘It was. But then I thought, later that day when I’d calmed down a bit and it had sunk in, I’d had glandular fever after I started uni, I’d had mumps really badly at seventeen, and Will had only just been discharged from hospital. It had been a comprehensively bloody four years, what with one thing and another, and I thought, well, it’s just temporary. It’ll recover. But it didn’t.’
    ‘You got it tested properly?’
    He shook his head. ‘What’s to test? Either they’re there, swimming, or they’re not. I managed to wangle my way out of the sperm donor thing and checked again, a few weeks later. Then periodically until eventually I gave up. It seemed pointless, going on, there’s a limit to how often you want to remind yourself of something like that.’
    ‘And you’ve never got anybody pregnant?’
    ‘I’ve never had unprotected sex before last night,’ he said softly, then breaking eye contact at last, he turned back to the basin and started to shave, and she watched him for a moment, let his words play through her head, and she felt warmth flood her body—warmth, at his gentle admission of this new intimacy, and then, perversely, regret that it could have no consequences. And relief, because there was no way she could afford to get accidentally pregnant.
    Not yet, at least. Not until she knew…

CHAPTER FIVE
    S HE left him to it, going back to the bedroom and sitting on the bed, staring at the rumpled sheets where she’d lain in his arms all night.
    Infertile.
    She shook her head, struggling to take it in, and then lifted her case and put it on the bed and started to pack. She found clean underwear, packed all the things she didn’t need, then when he was out of the bathroom she showered quickly, wrapped her hair in a towel and packed her wash things.
    She knew he wanted to get away promptly this morning, the condition of the child in PICU worrying away at him even though he hadn’t admitted it last night, and anyway she had to get back to feed the cat.
    She was glad they were leaving early before anyone else would be about. She was still feeling the shock of his revelation all the way down to her toes, and she was sure it would show in her eyes—quite apart from the whisker burn on her top lip and the softness around her eyes, a dead giveaway of how they’d spent the night. And sitting with his family over breakfast while they sized her up as potential material for a daughter-in-lawand mother of the future Lord Ashenden would be too much. His poor parents were so desperate for him to give them grandchildren, and the fact that Sally was pregnant didn’t alter