Читать книгу The Surgeon She Never Forgot - Melanie Milburne, Melanie Milburne - Страница 8

IT WASN’T that Mikki hadn’t expected to run into him at some point, she just hadn’t thought it would be quite like this. She had thought it through in her head: she would be in the doctors’ room, he would come in and she would look up, as casual as you please, and act as if what had happened between them seven years ago had never occurred. Or, alternatively, she would be in ICU, attending to one of the patients under her care, when he would come in. She would be all cool and professional, treating him exactly the same as she would treat any other specialist at St Benedict’s.

But not like this. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. This wasn’t how she had planned it at all.

As soon as she stepped into the restaurant she saw him. In spite of the subdued romantic lighting there could be no mistaking that tall rangy, dark-brown-haired figure. He was sitting alone at a table towards the back of the restaurant, his concentration on the menu in front of him, but then, as if some internal radar of his had picked up her presence, he raised his head and his startling ice-blue eyes met hers.

Mikki felt like someone had landed a punch in her belly. The air gushed out of her lungs. She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t move. She stood with her eyes locked on his, her heart going into a painful spasm for endless moments until she vaguely registered that someone was speaking to her on her left.

‘Dr Landon?’ the maître d’ said at her elbow. ‘Your mother called to say she would be ten minutes late. Shall I show you to your usual table?’

Mikki turned and forced a polite smile to her stiff lips. ‘That would be fine. Thank you, Gino.’

The maître d’ pulled out her chair for her and she sat down on legs that felt as spindly and ungainly as a newborn foal’s. She kept her head down, making a business of turning her mobile phone to the vibrate setting before she sat back with an ease she was nowhere near feeling. She daren’t look across at the other table but she could feel the weight of that penetrating all-too-critical, all–too-assessing gaze.

Was he thinking how much she had changed since she had seen him last? Her honey-brown hair was longer now; she had gone from the urchin look of her early twenties to a more sophisticated shoulder-length style that was easy to manage given the long and often unpredictable hours she worked. She was certainly thinner than seven years ago. Her approach to exercise had been very ad hoc in the past. Now she was an addict, or so her mother kept telling her. Mikki didn’t necessarily agree or disagree. She exercised to keep her demons at bay and the pay-off was a figure she had longed for and had never achieved until now.

‘Hello, Mikki.’

The deep, smooth bass of his voice with its hint of a London accent brought her head up and her heart rate beyond anything it had ever done in a spin cycle class. Mikki looked into those Antarctic eyes and felt the cold breeze of his disdain blow holes in her chest like a volley of bullets. ‘Hello, Lewis,’ she said, pleased her voice sounded so cool and composed when for a moment she had thought it might not work at all.

His eyes moved over her face, pausing for an infinitesimal moment on her mouth, before coming back to her gaze. ‘How are you?’

‘Um—fine, and you?’ Mikki felt her facade slipping. Why had he looked at her mouth like that? That one brief glance had set off a chain reaction beneath the surface of her lips. They felt dry and tingling and she desperately wanted to moisten them with her tongue but somehow fought the urge.

She drank in his features in one quick slurping glance: his dark brown hair had only a few strands of grey in it, although he was now thirty-six years old; and his body, although lean, was well muscled, suggesting he also spent a bit of time in the gym. His sensual mouth was deeply grooved either side with vertical lines that in a lesser man would have been aging but in Lewis’s case gave him a distinguished, knowledgeable and eminently commanding air. He still had a prominent scar over his right eyebrow, the result of a fight when he had been a teenager. He had never told her the circumstances of it; he had said it was a part of his past he was not proud of, and in spite of her probing had refused to be drawn on it.

‘Dining alone this evening?’ he asked, glancing at the empty chair opposite.

‘No, I’m…’ She hesitated, wishing she was meeting one of her colleagues at the very least, or a date. A date would have been better. Much, much better. ‘I’m having dinner with my mother. She’s running late.’

One of his dark brows moved upwards ever so slightly. ‘Please give her my regards,’ he said. ‘I don’t suppose she has forgotten me?’

How could anyone ever forget you? Mikki thought with a pang that felt like a tiny fish hook in her heart. ‘Of course not,’ she said. ‘I told both my parents you were coming to St Benedict’s to join the neurosurgical team. They were interested in how well your career has gone.’

‘Surprised would be more appropriate, don’t you think?’ he asked with that same mocking lift of his brow.

Mikki reined in her temper behind a cool impersonal smile, holding back emotions that were straining at the leash of her control. There was no way she was going to show how much seeing him again had rattled her. ‘You were always going places, Lewis. No one could have doubted that.’

‘Ah, darling, I can’t believe I’m so late,’ Heloise Landon said as she came in on a cloud of perfume and the rapid tattoo of click-clacking designer heels. ‘You would not believe the traffic, and Rashid, my driver, had trouble starting the car— Oh!’ She gave a little shocked gasp. ‘It’s not Lewis, is it? Lewis Beck?’

Lewis held out his hand, hardly a muscle moving on his face. ‘Heloise. You’re looking well.’

Heloise’s perfectly manicured hand fluttered back to her neck once he had released it. ‘My goodness,’ she said. ‘How long has it been?’

‘Seven years,’ he said with an expression as unreadable as stone.

‘Yes, of course,’ Heloise said. ‘Well, this is rather a coincidence, I must say. Fancy running into you like this! I’ve heard all about your appointment at St Benedict’s. It was in the paper and, of course, Michaela confirmed it. Not that she’s let too many in on the secret, mind you. I had to drag it out of her and I’m her mother.’ She gave Lewis a you-know-what-she’s-like look. ‘But, then, I don’t suppose it is de rigueur to go brandishing about the news of one’s ex-fiancé’s imminent arrival just because you’re going to be working with him every day now, is it?’

Mikki wished the floor would open up and gulp her down whole. She chanced a glance at Lewis’s expression but it remained inscrutable, although she thought she saw a glint of something hard in his eyes as they briefly encountered hers. Again, she kept her own expression cool and composed, although it was taking more of an effort than she could ever have imagined.

Heloise was undaunted. ‘Won’t you join us? You can tell us all about your stellar career. That would be lovely and civilised, don’t you think, darling?’ She addressed the latter comment breezily to Mikki.

Mikki had grown to dread her fortnightly dinner sessions with her mother, and would ordinarily have jumped at the chance of diluting her company, but the thought of sharing a meal with Lewis was beyond her capabilities right now. ‘I am sure Lewis has other arrangements for this evening,’ she said a little tightly.

‘Yes, I have, actually,’ Lewis said, nodding towards the young woman who had just been led to his table. He encompassed Mikki and her mother in one look that was polite but indifferent, and added, ‘Maybe some other time.’

The hook in Mikki’s heart dragged a little bit further when she saw him greet the gorgeous young woman who had been shown to his table. His arms went around the young woman’s slim figure, almost lifting her off the floor as he held her to him. Mikki knew it was ridiculous of her to be feeling so wretched at seeing him with someone else. Of course he would have someone else by now. He would have had many someone elses over the last few years. She should have prepared herself better for a situation like this. She had been concentrating on the work part, the professional, not the personal, when the personal was the thing that hurt the most. It shouldn’t, but it did, even after all this time.

Mikki turned away before she saw his mouth go down on that pretty rosebud mouth. ‘So, how are you, Mum?’ she asked.

‘Michaela,’ Heloise said, leaning forward conspiratorially, ‘did you see that girl he has with him? Why, she’s barely out of her teens, I’m sure of it.’

‘Yes, well, he always did go for the young innocent type,’ Mikki said as she examined the wine list with studious intent.

‘Darling, you were twenty-two,’ her mother said, ‘hardly a babe in the woods.’

Mikki brought her head up from the wine list and sent her mother a wry look. ‘I thought you and Dad said I was too young to know what I was doing and I was just about to throw my life away on my first real love affair.’

Heloise pursed her mouth before she spoke. ‘He’s done very well for himself, hasn’t he?’

‘What are you saying, Mum?’ Mikki said as she began perusing the wine list again. ‘That I made the biggest mistake of my life in leaving him when I did?’

There was a tense little silence.

Heloise let out a frustrated breath. ‘Michaela, you’re always so defensive. Of course you did the right thing in leaving him. You had nothing in common with him.’

Mikki put the wine list down and met her mother’s gaze. ‘I loved him, Mum. I thought that was all the common ground one needed.’

‘But, darling, did he love you?’ Heloise asked. ‘There’s a very big difference between lust and love, you know.’ She took one of Mikki’s hands across the table and stroked it gently. ‘I know losing the baby was hard but in the end it worked out for the best, didn’t it?’

‘Yes, yes, it did.’ Mikki pulled her hand away and tried to ignore the sharp pain she always felt when the subject of the baby she had lost came up. She had felt so ashamed of letting her parents down. Her first trip abroad on her own and look what had happened. Her well-to-do parents’ hopes for their only daughter to one day have a society wedding with all the trimmings had been pushed aside for plans for a shotgun affair in a London register office, sandwiched between procedures in one of Lewis’s theatre lists.

‘Do you know if he’s married?’ Heloise asked, leaning back in her chair. ‘I didn’t notice a ring, did you?

Mikki had looked but was not going to admit to it. ‘I have no idea.’

‘Do you think that’s his mistress?’ Heloise asked. ‘Rich and powerful men nearly always have mistresses, don’t they? It seems to all be the rage these days.’

Mikki put the wine list down again with a heavy sigh. ‘Look, Mum, I don’t care who it is. Lewis has a perfect right to see who he likes. It’s none of my business.’

Heloise shifted in her seat like a hen ruffling its feathers. ‘I don’t want to argue with you, darling. I’m just trying to make conversation. You seem so stressed lately. And your father told me the last time he had lunch with you, you barely ate a thing. Is something wrong?’

‘Of course there’s nothing wrong,’ Mikki said. ‘I’ve just been putting in some long hours.’

‘You work too hard, darling,’ Heloise said. ‘Why do you drive yourself into the ground? Don’t you think you need a bit of a balance? You’re not getting any younger.’

‘Twenty-nine is the new nineteen, Mum, didn’t you know?’ Mikki said dryly.

Her mother pursed her mouth again and reached for her wineglass. ‘You can joke about it all you like, but when was the last time you went on a date?’

‘I went out to dinner with a colleague the other day,’ Mikki said.

Heloise narrowed her eyes. ‘That was a work thing, wasn’t it? And didn’t you tell me there were four other people there? Hardly what I would call a date, darling. When was the last time you were kissed?’

‘Mum!’ Mikki kept her voice low but her colour was high. ‘Will you please butt out of my love life?’

Heloise gave her an affronted look. ‘Only trying to help, dear. No need to bite my head off.’

‘Sorry,’ Mikki said, feeling her shoulders slump. For years she had worked incredibly hard at her career but she had come to a point just lately when her high-stress, high-responsibility job was not enough any more. She wanted more from life than long hours and a six-figure income. But it was so hard to put a toe in the dating pond when she had almost drowned all those years ago.

‘You’re not on call, are you?’ Heloise asked as Mikki took a sip of the wine the waiter had just poured to refill their glasses.

‘No, not tonight,’ Mikki said. ‘I was on last weekend.’

Mikki wanted to look across at Lewis’s table. She ached to have one more look at his face, to see if he was smiling at his date, to see if his eyes were crinkling up at the corners the way they used to do. Not that he had smiled a lot in the past, but when he had, it had been in a way that had made his rare smiles all the more valuable and meaningful. When he smiled his eyes lost that hard ice look and took on a summer-sky tone instead.

She wanted to reacquaint herself with the look of his hands, with those long, tanned fingers with their dusting of masculine hair, those clever, amazing hands that had saved so many lives, the hands that had touched her and caressed her and held her. She wanted to look again at his mouth, the mouth that had kissed hers so passionately, the lips that had touched her in places she had not been touched since.

Heloise’s glass clinked against the side plate as she placed it back on the table. ‘Don’t frown, Michaela. You’ll get wrinkles.’

Mikki forced her expression to relax. ‘Sorry, I was just thinking about work.’

‘Have you heard from your father since he arrived in Paris?’

‘Yes, he called me last night.’

Heloise reached for her glass again and took a sip of wine. ‘Did he tell you he is thinking of marrying Rebecca?’

Mikki put her glass down. ‘He did, actually. How do you feel about it?’ she asked, studying her mother’s features. Her parents’ divorce a couple of years ago had not really come as much of a surprise. They had grumbled along for years, not really happy together but neither of them unhappy enough to leave, until her father had met someone working for his international investment company.

Heloise gave a relaxed smile. ‘I’m happy for him.’

Mikki frowned. ‘But Rebecca is so much younger than him. What if they decide to have children? She’ll want them surely?’

‘Darling, your father always wanted more children but I was unable to have any more after you,’ Heloise said. ‘I think it’s lovely that he’s got another chance. Rebecca is a sweetheart. She’ll make a lovely mother. Maybe I’ll get the chance to babysit. I would love that.’

Mikki was still frowning so hard her forehead ached. ‘I can’t believe you’re so accepting of all this. I would want to move to another side of the world instead of…’ She stopped, suddenly realising what she was saying.

‘How will you feel if Lewis suddenly introduces a wife and family to you?’ Heloise asked with a pointed look.

Mikki had to drop her gaze in case her mother witnessed the pain she felt at the prospect of seeing Lewis with a little brood of his own. No one at the hospital had said much about him other than mentioning that his appointment in the neurosurgical department at St Benedict’s was one of the most exciting appointments in a long time, but, then, she hadn’t exactly gone fishing for information. ‘I imagine I will cope with it,’ she said. ‘I was the one who walked out on him, not the other way around.’

‘Was it hard, seeing him again?’ Heloise asked after another little pause.

Mikki picked up her wine and gave her mother what she hoped was a convincing smile. ‘Not at all,’ she said. ‘As far as I’m concerned, he’s just another colleague working at St Benedict’s.’

‘But you’ll see rather a lot of him, won’t you, given that he’s a neurosurgeon and you’re in ICU?’

Mikki had lain awake at nights thinking about exactly that: how she would cope with seeing Lewis on a daily basis. His patients would become hers. They would have to consult each other on management and care. There would be ward rounds and joint interviews with relatives, staff meetings, and the shared space of the doctors’ room. It would be next to impossible to avoid him, and if she tried, someone would surely notice and comment on it. It was going to be hard to pretend he was just like any other colleague but she was determined to do it. ‘Don’t worry, Mum,’ she said, taking another fortifying sip of wine. ‘I’m not going to fall for Lewis Beck again. That part of my life is definitely well and truly over.’