Total pages in book: 85
Estimated words: 80651 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 403(@200wpm)___ 323(@250wpm)___ 269(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80651 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 403(@200wpm)___ 323(@250wpm)___ 269(@300wpm)
“I love you and I want to marry you,” I said.
His smile unfurled across his face. “To think, I was just lying there in the rowing boat, trying to find a way back to you.”
“And now here we are.”
“Engaged.”
He cupped my face and pressed his lips to mine in a way that was so reverent it felt like an exchange of vows right there and then on the bank of the Serpentine, overlooking the rowing boats.
“I told you things had a way of working themselves out,” he said.
“So this is what a happily ever after feels like.”
I’d never thought this kind of happiness was meant for someone like me. I knew Jacob would spend the rest of time making my life better than I ever thought it could be. We’d be in each other’s corners, as each other’s champions, cheering the other on until we were too weary to do anything other than hold each other.
Forever started now.
Epilogue
A few days later
Jacob
I might not have known how my dad was going to react to me dating someone at the hospital, but I knew Gerry would be delighted that I was engaged.
Sutton wasn’t convinced and was sitting in the hospital cafeteria, waiting for a debrief.
I put my head around Gerry’s half-opened door.
“Dr. Cove, how good to see you. Come and take a seat.” He patted the worn leatherette visitor chair he’d cleared of its usual papers. “Margo was asking about you the other day. You must come to dinner.”
I took a seat. “That would be lovely, Gerry. Thank you.”
He smiled and nodded at me and I waited for the bit where he’d tell me to bring someone to dinner with him and his wife. Instead of telling him I wasn’t dating anyone, I would drop my news. But for once, he didn’t mention my dating life. Something must have been up.
“So what can I do for you?” he asked eventually.
“I wanted to talk to you about a potentially tricky situation.”
Before I’d finished my sentence, he was shaking his head. “Don’t believe in tricky situations,” he said. “Just clever, creative solutions, and that’s what you’re great at. So what is it?”
That hadn’t been the reply I’d been expecting.
“I’m engaged to Sutton Scott, the FY1 doctor.”
Gerry beamed back at me. “An engagement. How wonderful.” He didn’t seem even the slightest bit surprised. “Well, where is she? I want you both in here so I can finally see you together.”
He was acting like he already knew, but that was impossible. No one knew. “She’s actually waiting in the cafeteria. She’s not on today. Shall I call her?”
“Absolutely.”
I typed out a text asking her to come to Gerry’s office and letting her know there was nothing to worry about. Sutton always expected the worst and I was going to have to make sure her expectations never bore fruit.
While I was typing, Gerry made a call. I only heard him with half an ear, but just as he hung up, it became clear he was asking someone to join our meeting.
Before I got a chance to ask him, there was a knock at the door and Wanda stepped into the cupboard-slash-office.
“As she’s Sutton’s direct line manager, I thought she should join the celebration.”
“The more the merrier,” I replied, wondering whether Sutton would outright faint when she saw the three of us in here together.
Sutton’s knock was assertive. Maybe she was ready for a fight.
Gerry leaned forward and opened his office door. “Sutton. So wonderful of you to join us.”
I made sure the door shut after her so no one could overhear us. We might have an oxygen shortage if the four of us were in here for too long.
“Let me be the first to offer you my sincere congratulations.” Gerry kissed a completely stunned Sutton on the cheek.
She managed a tight smile and glanced at me. “Thank you.”
“Wanda?” Gerry asked.
She nodded. “I have them here,” she said, pulling out two pieces of paper from her armful of files. “The hospital waiver for intra-hospital relationships.”
“Tsh tsh, I didn’t mean that, Wanda. I meant my twenty pounds.” Gerry pulled some lowball tumblers down from his book-stuffed shelf and hauled a bottle from an old shopping bag. “We’re here to celebrate.”
Gerry began to pour whatever was in his bottle into the four glasses while Wanda muttered under her breath and pulled apart her hospital pass.
She found and unfolded a twenty-pound note.
“Here,” she said, throwing the money on Gerry’s desk. “Congratulations.”
I got the impression her good wishes weren’t directed at us.
“Thank you, Wanda,” Gerry said, passing Sutton and Wanda a glass of the fizzy brown liquid he’d poured. “I told her I can read all the doctors I’ve ever had under my supervision like a book. I could tell the first time I mentioned Sutton to you that we’d end up here today.”