Читать книгу The Best Of The Year - Medical Romance - Carol Marinelli, Amalie Berlin - Страница 37

I HAD A pre-assessment clinic first thing the next day and then a meeting with the other anaesthetists about some minor changes to the training scheme. Then I had a list in Theatre that went over time due to the weirdest case of appendicitis I’ve ever seen, or the surgeon for that matter. Despite the patient only being seventeen, the appendix had been massively expanded and completely replaced by what looked like a tumour.

It meant I was nowhere near ICU until quite late in the day. I hadn’t seen or spoken to Matt since I’d left his place the night before, but I knew he was at work because I’d overheard two of the theatre nurses talking about him.

‘I walked past Matt Bishop on my way to work this morning,’ Leanne said. ‘Talk about hot. Do you know who he’s seeing?’

‘No, but I wish it was me,’ the other one, called Kathy, said in a tone that suggested she was waggling her eyebrows.

I tried not to eavesdrop but my ears were out on cornstalks.

The girls must have sensed my interest as they turned to me, where I was tidying up my equipment. ‘Who do you think it is, Bertie?’

‘Why would you think I would know?’ I sounded a bit defensive. Way too defensive.

‘Someone said he’s seeing a married woman and she works at St Iggy’s,’ Kathy said.

‘That’s just malicious gossip and you shouldn’t be spreading it,’ I said. I immediately regretted it. I saw the way their eyebrows went up in unison.

‘Touchy,’ Leanne said.

‘Anyway,’ Kathy pitched in, ‘why would you be so worried about what’s said about him? Isn’t he going to pull the plug on your research?’

I tried to keep my composure cool and indifferent but I could feel a hot tide of colour sweeping up from my neck to my face. ‘Not if I can produce results.’

‘You’d better watch out, Bertie,’ Leanne said. ‘If it’s true Dr Bishop has a thing for married women, you might be his next target.’

‘That’s ridiculous,’ I said. ‘I’m not—’

‘Interested?’ Kathy said. ‘Come on, you might’ve just got back from your honeymoon but you wouldn’t be human if you didn’t find him attractive.’

I could have told them then and there. I’m not married. But I could just imagine the fallout. The news would spread like wildfire. I would be the topic of every locker room and staff tearoom conversation. Everywhere I went people would give me those looks, the looks I’d faced for most of my twenty-seven years. Pity. Ridicule. Mockery.

Just as well I got a call about a patient in Recovery. I made good my escape and left.

I went to ICU after I finished in Recovery to check on Jason. His wife, Megan, was there, his parents having gone home after spending most of the day with him. She looked exhausted so I sat with her for a while, just listening as she told me about the plans she and Jason had made. Their excitement over finding they were to become parents, how they had chosen names and decided against finding out the sex of the baby, as they wanted the thrill of the surprise.

She even showed me the ultrasound images. Seeing a baby in utero in 3D stirred my own maternal longings in my body. I had squashed them down for years as I’d concentrated on my career, but now, as I got closer and closer to the big three-oh, I was hearing some very loud ticking.

Andy hadn’t been so keen on having kids straight away but, like a lot of women, I’d assumed he’d change his mind once we were married. It was only when I saw him with that girl that I realised he wasn’t mature enough to be a father. He was too selfish to want to give up his freedom and take responsibility for someone other than himself.

I berated myself for being so blind about him. I had let the years roll on, reassuring myself things would get better when they had got progressively worse. Why hadn’t I acknowledged it? Why had I let it get to the night before the wedding to see my relationship with him for what it was?

Once I was sure Megan was comfortable with a fresh glass of juice and some sandwiches from the doctors’ room—I was bending the rules, but the ones in the relatives’ room weren’t as nice, in my opinion—I left the unit.

Matt was coming out of his office as I was coming along the corridor to leave for the day. I’d thought of nothing else but him ever since I’d left his great-aunt’s house the night before. I wanted to see him again. I wanted to explore the amazing chemistry we had together. My body was still aware of him. It still tingled every time I thought of the passion we had shared.

He stopped in the process of closing his door, pushing it open instead and indicating with his head for me to come inside. ‘Got a minute?’

I walked past him in the doorway, my body zinging with awareness as one of his shirtsleeves brushed me on the way past. I turned and faced him once he’d closed the door. It was hard to read his expression. I wondered if he was regretting last night. I wasn’t his usual type. But, then, I wasn’t anyone’s usual type. Maybe he was regretting making love to me now he was over his bug. Maybe I’d caught him at a weak moment. Maybe he didn’t even like me. See how insecure I am? It’s ridiculous.

‘How are you feeling?’ I asked lightly.

‘Good. You?’

‘Great. Fine. Peachy.’ I always go overboard when I’m feeling nervous. I wasn’t sure how to handle the morning-after routine, especially in the context of our relationship. I wasn’t even sure what the context was. I couldn’t have a proper relationship with him while I was pretending to be married, but what was he offering if I came clean? Hadn’t he said he wasn’t interested in anything lasting? He was too busy with other priorities or some other get-out clause he’d used.

He leaned back against his desk in his usual manner. ‘That was the best chicken broth I’ve had in a long while, perhaps ever.’

‘It’s my own secret recipe.’

‘I could tell.’

I wasn’t sure we were talking about chicken broth, especially the way he was looking at me. I tried not to blush but all I could think about was how his body had felt inside mine. ‘So … what did you want to see me about?’

‘I suppose you’ve heard the gossip?’

I chewed at my mouth. ‘Yes.’

‘Any more thoughts on coming clean?’

I crossed my arms over my body. ‘No.’

His eyebrows drew together. ‘Even after last night?’

I affected a casual look, as if I had amazing, mind-blowing sex with men all the time. ‘Why after last night?’

He looked at me in a frowning way. But then he closed off his expression. The screen came up and I was locked out. Something pinched inside my stomach. ‘So you’re still determined to run with this crazy charade,’ he said.

I sent him an intractable look. ‘I’m not ready to have my private life the subject of everyone’s amusement.’

His brow furrowed back into a deep frown. ‘Do you really think people will find it funny that you were jilted?’

I jerked up my chin. ‘You obviously did. Stringing me along for three flipping weeks, asking all those stupid husband and honeymoon questions.’

He let out a whooshing breath. ‘I suppose I deserve that.’ He scraped a hand through his hair again, before dropping his hand back down by his side. ‘Look, I wasn’t really laughing at you. I was amused by the lengths you were going to when all you had to do was tell everyone the truth. People go through break-ups all the time. Relationships either work or they don’t.’

I glared at him again. How absolutely typical to dismiss the emotional turmoil of what a break-up like mine had entailed. Easy come, easy go was obviously his credo. Well, it certainly wasn’t mine. I was the one who’d had to face all those guests. I was the one who’d had to endure all those looks of abject pity. I was the one who was still trying to pick up the pieces of my life.

‘I was twelve hours away from my wedding,’ I said. ‘The wedding day I’d been planning since I was a little girl. I’d been going out with Andy for five and a half years. We’d been engaged for eighteen months. That’s a little different from being dumped after a lousy date or two.’

His expression stilled with seriousness. ‘I know how hard a break-up is. But it’s not as if you were in love with him.’

My eyes rounded in affront. ‘Oh, and you’re suddenly an expert on my feelings, are you? What gives you the right to say such a ridiculous thing? Of course I loved him. I was going to marry him, wasn’t I?’

The look he gave me reminded me of the look a disappointed parent gives to a wilfully disobedient child. It made me angrier than I had any right to be. He had touched on a nerve that was still a little sensitive.

But I wasn’t prepared to admit just how sensitive.

‘If you were still in love with him you would never have come to my place last night,’ he said. ‘You must’ve known what would happen between us, or are you lying to yourself now as well as everyone else?’

Of course he was right. I would never have slept with him if I’d had feelings for another man. But I was confused about my feelings for Matt. They were a jumbled mix I couldn’t make sense of right now. Was I so fickle that I could fall in love so soon after losing Andy?

I paced a couple of steps across the floor, hugging my arms close to my body. ‘I know I’ll have to tell everyone eventually … I just don’t know how to do it without looking completely ridiculous.’

‘Sometimes the anticipation of something is worse than the actual thing itself,’ he said.

I swung back to look at him. ‘So why haven’t you let everyone in on the secret?’

‘It’s not my secret to tell.’

I was used to a lifetime of being teased and exploited, of having my weaknesses and flaws broadcast publicly. The fact he hadn’t breathed a word of my single status to anyone made something warm spill inside my chest. He’d had a perfect opportunity to make an absolute fool out of me and yet he hadn’t done it. Why?

‘Want to tell me what happened?’ he said.

I let out a long breath. ‘I guess, looking back, we’d always had a pretty sketchy sex life. But then I got caught up in the wedding preparations and … well, he got caught up in having an affair with someone more … available.’ I bit my lower lip until it was mostly inside my mouth. I released it, along with a sigh. ‘It was the most embarrassing moment of my life and that’s saying something because I’ve had some doozies.’

He closed the distance between us and stroked a wisp of hair off my face. ‘My ex was having an affair too. To the guy she’s married to now. They’d been friends for years but I didn’t realise how friendly until I called on her one night unexpectedly. Simon answered the door. Not a great moment for either of us. I had to give him credit for coming up with an excuse for why he was standing there in nothing but his boxers.’

‘What did he say?’

‘He was hot.’ His mouth gave a rueful little quirk. ‘But, then, Helena obviously thought so.’

Behind the humour was lingering hurt. I could see it in his eyes. Or was he like me, and the betrayal was more of a wound to his pride and sense of honour? ‘Were you in love with her?’

His mouth twisted again. ‘I thought so at the time.’

‘And now?’

He stroked his thumb over my bottom lip. ‘You read my mother’s note.’

I gave him a sheepish look. ‘I didn’t mean to. It’s just I’m a bit of a speed-reader so I took it in at one glance.’

He leaned down and pressed his mouth to mine in a long, warm kiss that sent my senses into chaos. I reached for him automatically, stroking my fingers through his hair.

I leaned into him, relishing in the familiarity of his touch, the naturalness and ease of it.

After a few breathless moments he pulled back to look at me. ‘You didn’t stay last night.’

‘I wasn’t sure what the protocol was.’

He frowned a little. ‘What do you mean?’

I shrugged beneath the cups of his hands, which were holding the tops of my shoulders. ‘I wasn’t sure if it was a one-off or … or something else.’

His hands tightened for a moment before he relaxed them, but he didn’t let me go. ‘You want to go and grab some dinner somewhere after work?’

I bit my lip again as I thought of the implications of us being seen out in public. There was already gossip about him seeing a married woman in the hospital. I hadn’t realised until then that my lies were not just hurting me, they had the potential to hurt him. ‘Can we just get some takeaway and have it at your place?’

He gave me a levelling look. ‘The longer you leave it the worse it’s going to be.’

I dipped out of his hold and crossed the floor, hugging my arms to my body again. ‘I know. I know. It’s just not that simple.’

‘It seems simple enough to me.’ There was a thread of impatience in his voice. Hard and tight, like a fine wire under strain. ‘You just have to be honest, Bertie. People will talk for a while but it’ll eventually go away.’

‘I need more time.’

‘For what?’ he said. ‘For you to rule out the possibility your ex will come crawling back to you?’

I looked at him in affront. ‘You think that’s what’s stopping me? Really?’

His expression was marble cold. ‘Be honest with yourself, if not with anyone else.’

‘Maybe you should take a lesson from that pulpit you’re preaching from,’ I threw back.

His eyes were suddenly flinty. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

I flashed him a little glare. ‘You’ve waited for over a year to get involved with someone else. Doesn’t that suggest you’re still moping over the one who got away?’

He shoved his hands into his trouser pockets as if he was trying to stop himself from reaching for me. ‘We haven’t got a hope of this progressing past a one-night stand if you don’t tell everyone the truth about your situation.’

I drew myself up to my full height, which isn’t saying much as I barely came up to the top of his chest. ‘I’ll tell you why it won’t progress past a one-nighter. Because you won’t allow yourself to feel anything for anyone because you’re frightened they’ll pull away from you when you least expect it. You’ll never give anyone that power again, will you?’

A muscle worked in his jaw. ‘I have work to do, so if you’ve finished listing my faults, I’d appreciate it if you’d let me get on with it.’

I swung away with a haughty toss of my head. Not literally. It was still firmly on my straightened shoulders. ‘Fine. I’m out of here.’

I glanced at him when I got to the door but he had already dismissed me. He was sitting behind his desk and scrolling through his emails or whatever was on his computer screen.