paused when a terrible possibility occurred. She withdrew her hand. “What are you doing here?”
He scowled, though something else moved in his eyes. Surprise, maybe, or wariness. Then those abstract emotions were gone, blanked out by the familiar stoniness. “I should’ve known something was wrong when Wainwright wouldn’t tell me who I’d be training.”
Rathe was her mentor? No. Impossible. Her stomach roiled, though there could be no other explanation for his presence at Boston General in the wee hours of the morning. But how had their boss, Jack Wainwright, managed it? Everyone knew Rathe McKay only took exotic assignments overseas. And more important, everyone knew he didn’t work with women.
Nia was one of the few who knew why.
Dismay pounded in her temples. She couldn’t work with Rathe. He would ruin everything.
“No,” she whispered. “This can’t be happening.”
“My thoughts exactly.” Rathe cursed in Russian, his voice dark and rich like the language. “Was that kick for—” he sucked in a pained breath and straightened slowly “—self-defense, or for what happened before?”
The question jabbed right beneath her heart. She wasn’t prepared for this. Wasn’t prepared for him.
“Before?” Though guilt stung—she wouldn’t have kicked him if he’d identified himself as friend rather than foe—she wasn’t willing to apologize again. Wasn’t willing to be vulnerable to him again. She crossed her arms and stared at the ceiling to buy a steadying moment. For all the times she’d thought about seeing Rathe again, this scenario didn’t even come close to what she’d imagined. “Let me see. Would that be before when you took my virginity, kicked me out of your hotel room and disappeared without a word…or before when my father, your best friend, begged you to come visit him on his deathbed and you never showed?”
Eyes dark, Rathe advanced on her, walking gingerly. She stood her ground and lifted her chin so she could glare scalpels at him, though her stomach knotted with nerves and a flare of traitorous warmth. They stared at each other for a heartbeat. Two.
Finally he turned away, muttering, “This is why women shouldn’t be allowed in Investigations—they can’t separate their personal lives from their professional ones.”
And there it was. Rathe McKay’s motto: Women Don’t Belong in the Field. Period.
Denial howled in Nia’s head, in her heart, but she held the emotions in check because, damn it, he was right. This wasn’t the time or place to bring up the past. She had a job to do.
And part of that job was proving to her HFH mentor that she was a capable investigator, fully ready to work in the field.
So she found a frosty smile that hopefully showed nothing of her tumultuous emotions. “You’re right. I apologize for being unprofessional. What’s done is done. Jack Wainwright said he was pairing me with an older, more experienced investigator, so I suppose I should be honored he chose you. You’re as old and experienced as they get.”
It was a low blow, aimed at what her father had laughingly called Rathe’s Methuselah complex. Though only ten years her senior, the HFH superoperative had always acted twice that.
He narrowed his eyes and scowled. “There won’t be an investigation. I’m calling Wainwright in the morning and having you reassigned. This is no place for…” He gestured as though the words were unnecessary.
“This is no place for a woman?” Nia clenched her fists at her sides. Though the HFH Head Office didn’t discriminate, there were a few old warhorses who did. Rathe, who’d been in the field more than fifteen years already, considered himself one of them.
“This is no place for Tony’s daughter!” He grabbed her by the arms and shook her as though she was eighteen years old again and he’d caught her prying into his field notes. “For God’s sake, Nadia. You know this isn’t what your father wanted for you. What would he say?”
Righteous anger speared through her. “He’s dead. The last thing he said on this earth was, ‘Where’s Rathe?’” And for that she had hated them both.
Emotion darkened his eyes, though she wasn’t sure that it was remorse. He spread his hands. “Nadia, for what it’s worth, I’m—”
“Don’t,” she interrupted, not willing to hear the apology, not willing to let him think that a betrayal of such magnitude could be scrubbed away with a few words. “Don’t bother. You’re right, this isn’t the time or the place for personal conversations. We have a job to do.”
She turned and stalked toward the freight elevators at the far end of the subbasement.
“Nadia.” His voice seemed to caress the word, bringing back memories best left unremembered.
She stopped and glanced back, steeling herself against the sight of him, strong and virile, an image that could have stepped out of her aching, mindless dreams.
Or her nightmares.
“I prefer to be called Nia now. Nadia is a child’s name, and I’m not a child anymore.” She lifted her chin, daring him to comment. “We have a meeting with the heads of the Transplant Department at 9:00 a.m. sharp—don’t be late.”
This time she didn’t look back, not even when he called her name. They had three hours until the meeting. She’d need every minute of that to prepare herself for the case.
And to armor herself against the disturbing presence of Rathe McKay.
BY NINE THAT MORNING, Rathe was back to walking upright as he stalked through Boston General, but his temper hadn’t mellowed much.
It was temper, he assured himself. Temper that had his blood surging through his veins with a tricky tingling sensation. Temper that had him feeling more alive, more engaged than he had in months or maybe longer.
Temper.
What was Wainwright thinking, partnering him with a woman trainee? He didn’t work with women. And even if he did, Nadia French was the last girl he’d choose.
Rathe shook his head, annoyed. No, that wasn’t right. This was about her being a woman, not about her being Tony’s daughter or about a mistake he’d once made in an airport hotel.
His refusal to work with the opposite gender was based on logic and experience. Period. There was nothing personal about it, and nothing personal between him and Nadia.
Sure, his first glimpse of her had been a kick in the gut, a surge of warmth and energy, but that was only basic man-woman biology. His yang approving of her yin. Nothing personal.
Her thick, dark hair was shorter than he remembered. In fact, she was shorter than he remembered, as though his mind had decided her scrappy personality couldn’t fit inside such a tiny shell. He’d remembered her eyes right, though. Dark brown, swirling with darker promises, they used to look at him with adoration, as though he was the hero he’d once thought himself.
Now they shone with anger. That was personal. And it was unacceptable in a partner.
Already five minutes late for the briefing, Rathe ducked into a windowed alcove and punched his superior’s number
