Читать книгу 200 Harley Street - Lynne Marshall - Страница 36

THE DARKNESS PERVADED him as soon as he set foot in his house. It was such a shame as it was a beautiful home and, in theory, all his dark memories should have been left behind in Edinburgh.

Coming to London was supposed to be the start of something new for him. He just couldn’t seem to shake off the big black thundercloud of guilt that hung permanently above his head.

He flicked on a light and looked out at the road. Lexi hadn’t pulled away yet. Should he have invited her in? Had he been impolite? It had been so long since he’d done any of the social niceties with women that he’d probably forgotten what most of them were.

He watched as she indicated and pulled out onto the quiet street. It was after midnight. If he’d invited her in it might have been misconstrued as something else entirely. And whether he admitted it or not, he was trying to avoid the woman who was causing uncomfortable flarings in his libido, not invite her into his home.

He paused at the dark polished sideboard, which held a photograph of himself and his wife, Bonnie. They were sitting on the grass in their garden in Edinburgh, her back leaning against him and his arms wrapped around her enlarged abdomen. Bonnie had the most contented look on her face. The look of a woman who had finally got the thing she’d always dreamed of. They both looked like that, but Iain knew the truth behind that photo.

One of his friends had suggested he put that picture away. A friend who’d been close enough to both of them to know what had actually happened.

But Iain couldn’t do that. His guilt didn’t matter. This was still his favourite picture of them both. They looked so relaxed. They looked so happy. As if they had their whole lives ahead of them.

If only he’d known …

His fingers touched the glass in front of the photograph. ‘Three years, Bonnie,’ he whispered. And not a single day had gone by that he hadn’t thought of her.

They’d been childhood sweethearts. Destined to be together for ever. Or so they had thought.

When Leo Hunter had pursued him to work at the Hunter Clinic he’d thought the guy was crazy. His world had just collapsed around him and Leo had wanted him to up sticks and move to another part of the country?

But Leo had understood him better than he’d understood himself. He’d known he would never be able to pull himself up if he stayed in the family home, with the same work colleagues with their averted eyes and sad expressions. The move to London had been exactly what he’d needed at the time. Apart from Leo, no one knew about his wife. He’d skirted around the edges of any potentially difficult conversations, avoiding any personal details.

London was easy to lose yourself in. And the clientele coming to and from the Hunter Clinic had more to worry about than the personal background of their surgeon. And it was better that way. It really was.

Iain walked into his vast kitchen and pulled a glass from the cupboard, pressing it against the dispenser on his stainless-steel fridge. A beautiful kitchen that he hardly used. Just like the rest of this house.

He climbed the staircase to his bedroom, peeled off his jacket, trousers, shirt and tie, not bothering to hang them up. He’d have to be up in a few hours to get to Princess Catherine’s for surgery and he had a whole rail of identical business suits in the cupboard.

He sank into the bed with white Egyptian cotton sheets. Praying that tonight—even for a few hours—he might get a few hours’ precious sleep.

But it wasn’t to be.

It seemed that it wasn’t only the scent of Lexi Robbins that had pervaded his memory. He sat bolt upright in bed, sweat pouring from his body.

This was why he’d purposefully been avoiding Lexi Robbins.

He’d known it. Right from the first time he’d seen her and he’d felt a skitter of impulses across his shoulders that he couldn’t be around her. He couldn’t be near her.

He leant forward and wiped the sweat from his brow. Erotic dreams weren’t the norm for Iain. But when Lexi’s firm breasts had pressed against the planes of his chest it had left an indelible imprint. Not just on his skin.

Those tiny, fleeting thoughts that hadn’t even taken up a second in his brain when he’d had her pressed down on the examination couch had just taken front and centre stage in his mind in all their erotic beauty. Dreams like that had more than one obvious effect on the body.

He’d never be able to look Lexi Robbins in the eye today. It was almost as if he could smell her here, now.

He jumped from the bed and walked through to the en suite, flicking the switch on the shower then coming back and gulping the glass of water at the side of his bed. Was he going crazy? He could smell Lexi Robbins.

Then he remembered how close they’d been. He snatched his crumpled shirt from the floor and pressed it to his nose. There. Not the smell of his own aftershave. The smell of her.

That heady, exotic smell that left an invisible pied-piper trail wherever she went. That was what had caused the dream. Nothing else.

The shirt had been lying at his bedside and her scent had obviously drifted up and around him while he’d slept. How could this woman find a way into his dreams?

Guilt flooded through him, seeping in through every pore on his body. The hot sweat instantly turned cold, chilling his skin. Bonnie. That’s who he should have been dreaming about. No one else.

Steam was starting to billow from the shower. He stalked back through and instantly turned the switch to cold. That was what he needed. Icy, cold, blasting water to wash away any unwanted thoughts or feelings.

He stepped into the freezing water, shuddering as it came into contact with his skin. There was no point going back to sleep now.

Not if Lexi Robbins was going to feature in his dreams again.