‘You must have a big staff working here with targets like that?’
‘We have thirty people employed here at the present time and we are currently advertising five more vacancies.’ He smiled when he saw her surprise then found himself wondering if she realised how expressive her face was. Everything she thought showed. He’d noticed that before when she’d been staring at him…
He shut off the rest of that thought. To recall the bewilderment he had seen in Leanne’s expressive grey eyes certainly wouldn’t help. Maybe she was having trouble understanding this awareness they both seemed to feel, but letting himself get hung up on the idea would cause even more problems.
‘We’re open from eight in the morning to eight at night, seven days a week,’ he explained, steadfastly confining his thoughts to work. ‘That’s a lot of hours to cover, especially when a number of the staff working here are only employed on a part-time basis.’
‘Like me. I decided that full-time work would be too constricting which is why I opted to do twenty-five hours a week when I accepted the job. I was worried that I wouldn’t have enough free time if I did more than that.’
Nick frowned because he wasn’t sure what she had meant. ‘Enough time to go sightseeing, you mean?’
‘No. I didn’t come to London to go sightseeing. I…well, I had another reason for coming.’
She didn’t elaborate, leaving him with the distinct impression that she didn’t want him to question her further. All of a sudden that conversation he’d had with Dennis came flooding back, but with a new twist.
Had Leanne come to London on her own, as they had assumed, or was she here with someone else, maybe her boyfriend? She had said that she wasn’t suffering from a broken heart or looking for a relationship so it seemed to fit. And maybe she had chosen to work part time so that she could spend more time with him.
Nick took a deep breath. He knew that he really should stop all this speculating. Leanne’s reasons for coming to London had nothing whatsoever to do with him. His only concern was making sure that she did her job properly, yet he knew in his heart how difficult it was going to be to stick to that. The thought of Leanne and some unknown man spending their time together made him feel all knotted up inside. Although he hated to admit it, he knew why.
He was jealous at the thought of her being with another man, at the idea of her spending time with someone who wasn’t him.
Hell and damnation! That was something he certainly hadn’t bargained for.
‘IF YOU could just wait a moment…’
Leanne bit back a sigh when she saw the lack of comprehension on the young woman’s face. So far all she had managed to establish was that the patient’s name was Chantal Dupré and that she was from Paris. Why Chantal needed to see a doctor was something she still had to find out.
Dredging her mind, Leanne summoned up a few words of school French. ‘Un moment, s’il vous plait, mademoiselle.’
Leaving the young woman sitting in Reception, she hurried off in search of Melanie, hoping that she might be able to help her solve the problem. After Nick Slater had finished giving her a tour of the clinic, he had asked her if she would take over the reception duties.
She’d been a little surprised by the request until he had explained that it helped to have someone medically trained greeting the patients on their arrival, to act as triage nurse. Minor ailments could be passed to one of the nursing staff, more serious matters referred to a doctor and any urgent cases could be rushed straight through.
It had been a gentle introduction to the work carried out at the clinic and she’d rather enjoyed it until she had encountered the problem of a patient who spoke no English. She spotted Melanie coming out of one of the treatment rooms and greeted her with relief.
‘How’s your French? I’ve got a woman in Reception who doesn’t speak any English and I’m stuck.’
‘Nick’s your man. He speaks French, Spanish, Italian, plus a smattering of umpteen other languages,’ Melanie told her cheerfully. ‘He’s in his office so give him a shout.’
‘Thanks,’ Leanne murmured as Melanie escorted her patient out. She made her way to Nick’s office and knocked on the door, refusing to think about what had happened a couple of hours earlier. Actually getting down to some work had helped enormously to calm her nerves, although she had to confess to a sudden attack of the jitters when she heard Nick inviting her in. She bit back a sigh. Whichever way she looked at it, her reaction to Nick Slater was very strange.
It was hardly the most comforting of thoughts so she did her best to put it out of her mind as she entered the room. Nick was at his desk and he looked up with an abstracted smile.
‘Problems?’
‘Kind of. I have a Frenchwoman in Reception who doesn’t speak any English. Melanie said that you speak French…’
‘So you want me to translate for you?’ He took off the rimless glasses he was wearing and tossed them on the desk then grinned at her. ‘It will be a pleasure. Anything to get away from this wretched paperwork!’
Leanne laughed softly but she couldn’t deny that her heart had given an uncomfortable little thump when he had smiled at her. ‘You’d think things would have got easier since computers came on the scene, but it hasn’t made much difference, I’ve found.’
‘You and me both,’ he agreed, easing himself out of the chair and groaning. ‘I’ve only been working on this wretched report for a couple of hours but it feels like a lifetime. If there’s one thing I hate, it’s being stuck behind a desk.’
‘One of the hazards of the job, I would have thought,’ she observed. ‘Most GPs end up spending a lot of their time desk-bound.’
‘Which is yet another reason why I’m glad that I decided not to join the family firm,’ he responded, making for the door.
Leanne frowned as she followed him into the corridor. ‘Family firm? What do you mean?’
‘My mother and father are both GPs, although Mum only works a couple of days a week now, covering the post- and antenatal clinics. My older brother Patrick works with them and my sister Helen was the practice nurse at the surgery until she had her youngest child and found it was too much for her. Benjie is her fourth,’ he explained dryly. ‘So I think she deserves a bit of time off, don’t you?’
‘I most certainly do,’ she exclaimed. ‘Four children are a lot to cope with. But it’s amazing that your whole family works together like that. It must be marvellous for them.’
‘Depends on what you want from life, I suppose,’ he said shortly.
Leanne looked at him curiously. ‘Meaning that it isn’t what you want?’
‘No. I have no intention of spending the rest of my life stuck in Sussex. There’s too much of the world I haven’t seen yet.’
‘You’ll have to settle down one day,’ she protested.
