her.
Good job she was immune to cocky, arrogant, too-handsome-for-their-own-good playboys.
Although the way her traitorous heart was reacting to him was galling. This never happened to her. Never. She had never gossiped with colleagues about the latest developments in an eligible guy’s sex-life. Or lusted after men around the water cooler. Or gone out to clubs and picked up guys.
That didn’t mean she hadn’t lusted after the odd guy on TV, or in a magazine. Though never in person—not like this. At least not since Nell’s father, as gargantuan a mistake as he had been. Not that she would ever give Nell up for a second. But he had been an idiot boy whom she’d lusted after but never loved. Had barely even known—not really. He’d had no hopes, no dreams. He’d relied on his good looks and he certainly hadn’t wanted to achieve anything. He’d laughed at her dreams of going to university to study medicine. Told her to get real. That places like that didn’t take kids like them.
They’d dated—if it could even be called that—for a handful of months. And even that had been because a lethal cocktail of grief and lust, had given her the desire to get one thing to make her forget the other, if only for one night.
Eleanor’s shocking death had rocked her more than all those awful years in and out of foster homes, or care homes when her mother had been deemed ‘too unfit’ to care for her. The fact that something as ugly and banal as a drunk driver could have snuffed out such a warm, glorious light, in the blink of an eye, made it that much worse.
In a matter of hours Effie had gone from being on the brink of being adopted, and finally having a loving family in the form of Eleanor, to having absolutely no one. No one but him. And she’d let herself believe that he could ease her loneliness.
But when she told him she’d fallen pregnant he’d wanted nothing to do with her, and she’d never felt more abandoned. That had been the moment she’d vowed she would never again let anyone into her personal life, never let a guy know she was attracted to them.
Immune, she reminded herself now, crossly.
Tearing her eyes away from the approaching figure, Effie checked her watch. ‘I have to get back to the heli.’
‘No one’s stopping you.’ Tak twisted his mouth into something which was too amused to be a smile. ‘You’re the one who has prolonged things, preferring this verbal sparring to answering a simple question.’
It was as though he could read her thoughts. As though he knew that a part of her was aching to say yes.
Effie drew herself up as tall as she could. ‘Is that right?’ she managed primly. ‘Then allow me to be clear. My answer, Dr Basu, is no. No, I do not want to accompany you to the hospital charity ball as your date. Fake or otherwise.’
So why was every fibre of her screaming at her that this was the wrong answer?
‘I see.’ His lips twitched. ‘Thank you for letting me know.’
Before she could ruin the moment, Effie filed away her notes and marched out through the Resus doors. It took her a moment to realise that she wasn’t alone.
Spinning around, she confronted him. ‘Why are you following me?’
‘Apologies if it’s spoiling the dramatic effect of your exit.’ Tak didn’t look remotely apologetic. ‘I’m heading home. My car is in the car park next to the helipad.’
He had to be kidding?
She hesitated, unsure what to do next. It was a two-hundred-metre stretch from here to there. If she marched off ahead of him he might think she was employing one of those flirtatious tactics of making him look at her backside. But the alternative was walking together in an awkward silence.
There was no reason for that to hold the slightest amount of appeal, she berated herself silently. Perhaps it would be easier if she pretended she’d forgotten something inside the hospital and headed back inside for a moment? Yes, that might be best.
Turning around, Effie took a step towards the hospital doors just as one of her more dogged suitors—who had so far asked her out three times and showed no signs of getting the message—walked out.
A smarmy smile slid over his features and she panicked. A little bit of pursuit might be considered flattering, but the problem with this particular guy was that he truly deemed himself too good a catch for any woman in their right mind to reject him. It seemed the more she turned him down, the more he took it as a challenge that she wanted to be pursued harder.
She could report him, of course, but she needed the money and not the hassle.
Her brain spun on its wheels. For the second time in as many moments she turned to Tak, ignoring the little voice inside her head which was doing the most inappropriate celebratory jig all on its own.
‘So, what time did you say you’d collect me for the hospital ball?’
She could see it instantly. His eyes flicking from her to her would-be admirer, then back again. Sizing up the situation in an instant. Then there was that wicked gleam in his eye which had her heart beating faster as she wondered whether or not he was about to land her in it.
For a long moment, they stared at each other. Amusement danced across his rich brown eyes, whilst she could only imagine the desperate plea in her own. Finally, Tak spoke.
‘Shall we say seven-thirty?’
‘Seven-thirty.’ She bobbed her head—a little too much like the nodding dog in the back of one of her foster family’s cars for her own liking. ‘I’m looking forward to it.’
She should hate it that a traitorous part of her actually was.
‘YOU DIDN’T HAVE to wait down here.’
Tak frowned as he sauntered into her lobby like some kind of Hollywood action hero. Sleek and burnished and sheer masculine magnificence—a stark contrast to the shabby, grubby, in-need-of-repair surroundings.
Effie felt her heartbeat actually hang for a moment, before galloping wildly back into life as an unexpected, unwanted tingle coursed over her skin. It was a momentary reprieve from the anxiety which had flushed her body ever since her daughter had dropped the mother of all bombshells on her, barely a few minutes ago. Just as she’d been about to walk out of the door.
If it hadn’t been for the knowledge that Tak would come up to the flat if she wasn’t in the lobby to stop him, she might have dropped everything and spent the entire night talking to—or rather yelling at—her daughter about her monumentally stupid lapse in judgement.
In some ways this night with Tak was a silver lining. It would give her space and a chance to calm down. If she blurted out to her daughter all the things that were racing around her head at this moment in time, then she might easily ruin their relationship for a long, long time to come.
Still, Effie told herself darkly that her reaction to Tak was simply due to the rush of cold night air accompanying his entrance.
She
