her. ‘It wasn’t that I didn’t find you attractive. I hope you don’t think that.’
Of course she’d thought that. She’d been tipsy and essentially alone in a sea of colleagues at a wedding—it had pushed all her buttons. His it’s-not-you-it’s-me had pretty much fallen on deaf ears.
She’d been mortified.
And rejected again by a man. A position she’d worked hard to avoid over the years. It had taken a long time to regain her sexual confidence after Joe but she had, and she’d wielded it ruthlessly. She took control sexually. She was in the driver’s seat. She said who, where, when and how often.
She knew a sure thing when she saw it—even through wine goggles. And every ounce of her female intuition had told her Cade Coleman had been a sure thing.
Right up until the second he’d politely declined.
‘Of course not,’ she lied.
‘It wasn’t,’ Cade repeated. Hell, Callie was put together just the way he liked. In fact, it was taking all his willpower not to lean in and taste that scarlet mouth. His hand tightened against the fabric over her lower back as things south of his navel stirred at the mere thought.
‘I’ve messed a lot of things up…back home,’ he conceded, even though he wasn’t quite sure why he was telling her or why it was important that she know his rejection of her come-on hadn’t been about her.
Callie nodded. ‘Alex said you’d had woman trouble.’
Cade paused. He kept forgetting that his stepbrother and Callie went way back. It was through their association he’d landed the job at Gold Coast City Hospital in the first place. He waited for her to say something else but she just swayed, waiting for him to continue.
He smiled and shook his head at her lack of curiosity—most women he knew would be digging in earnest to find out more about his ‘woman trouble’. The fact that she wasn’t only ramped up her appeal even further.
‘Yes,’ he said, dragging his head back into the conversation. Woman trouble was decidedly correct. ‘And so I’m here to start over. Concentrate on my career. Avoid the casual sex scene and romantic entanglements. To be honest, they were never very satisfying anyway, not in any real sense. Not the way my career…my patients are.’
Callie smiled at him realising for the first time what kindred spirits they were—like she and Alex. She was conscious of the fabric of his tux beneath her palm and she smoothed it, absently signalling her approval.
Cade grimaced. ‘That probably doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.’
‘Not at all,’ Callie murmured, her palm still smoothing along the line of his shoulder. ‘I think you and I speak the same language.’
‘We do?’
‘Sure. We live to work. And everything else is superfluous. That’s a good thing.’
He gave her a puzzled look. ‘Women don’t usually see it that way.’
Callie smiled. ‘I am not your usual woman.’
Cade was about to mutter ‘Damn right’ when the music faded to a close. Couples were parting and clapping and they followed suit.
She leaned in close and put her mouth to his ear as they left the dance floor. ‘But I’m still going to call in my debt one day.’
The brush of her lips and her warm breath arrowed straight to his groin and the stirring bloomed to full-blown arousal.
CADE WAS STILL THINKING about her parting shot on Monday morning in his office when he received a page from the woman herself. He’d thought of little else over the course of the weekend and even now as he reached for his phone he found himself smiling.
He couldn’t remember anticipating anything this much in a long time. Certainly not a date!
He dialled the extension appearing on his pager screen, a zing in his veins. ‘I knew it wouldn’t take you long to crack,’ he said when she answered on the second ring. ‘I knew the accent would get you sooner rather than later.’
He could hear the smile in her voice as she said, ‘Sorry, still on team Hugh.’
Cade grunted. ‘I could grow a floppy fringe?’
‘I thought you didn’t date, either?’
‘I don’t. But we have an outstanding transaction. It’s a pride thing.’
‘Ah…so it’s your ego talking. Poor Cade,’ she cooed. Cade laughed. ‘I’m sure my ego will survive.’
‘I’m sure it will, too,’ she quipped.
‘Was there a reason you paged me or is it your sole purpose in life to be disagreeable?’
Callie laughed in his ear and his body remembered vividly the havoc her laugh had wreaked on Saturday night. ‘I need a consult,’ she said. ‘I’m looking at a twin-to-twin transfusion syndrome and I want to give the parents all their options, including that new-fangled fetoscopy thing you do.’
Cade grinned at the faux reverence in her voice. ‘On my way.’
Five minutes later there was a knock on her door and Callie took a moment to mentally prepare herself before she said, ‘Come in.’
She was glad she did. Cade in a tux was a sight to behold. But Cade in a business shirt, stethoscope casually slung around his neck and his tie askew—utterly befitting the image of the dashing, maverick, prenatal surgeon—was tempting on a whole other level. He appealed to the doctor in her and, for Callie, that was way more dangerous than looking sexy in a suit.
‘Hey,’ he said.
His smile was open and friendly and his gaze was full of familiarity, and the sense of emotional danger she felt when he was around increased. ‘Thanks for coming,’ she said. ‘Have a seat.’
And then she launched straight into her spiel because she suddenly realised that with Cade, everything she’d practised over the years was in peril. That smile could make her do something crazy, like throw every ounce of caution and control she’d ever exercised to the wind.
It could make her put her heart on the line for him. A man who was as reluctant to get involved and as burned by life as she was. Hadn’t her heart already suffered enough at the hands of a man who wasn’t capable of love?
No. She’d dodged a bullet when Cade had rejected her advances. Putting herself in front of the gun again was just plain stupid.
‘Kathy Street is a twenty-six-year-old multipara. She has three children under five and is now twenty-two weeks with her fourth pregnancy, identical twin boys.’
‘With a monochorionic placenta?’
‘Yes.’
