vibes, and he was interested in spite of himself.
In a purely professional way, of course.
‘I’m not in a relationship,’ he said, under the cover of the noise as meals were delivered to the table. ‘And I was married, but my wife and I split up seven years ago.’
Wrong thing to tell her. That interested look was back in her eyes.
‘Do you know the number of weeks, days and hours as well?’ she asked, spearing a shard of red-hot pain dead-centre into his heart.
‘As a matter of fact, I do,’ he said, his voice as cold and as curt as he could make it. His meal was placed in front of him and he looked at it and shook his head, aware he’d never eat it, although, thinking now of Elena, he wouldn’t have eaten the pizza either.
He didn’t look at Grace again in case he was inveigled into thinking her vulnerable again. Vulnerable as a full-grown crocodile! So he cut his steak, and pretended to eat, shifting things around on his plate so it looked as if some of the food had disappeared.
‘I know that trick,’ his colleague said, leaning a little closer so she could speak quietly, a drift of a very feminine perfume—orange blossom?—assailing his nostrils. ‘I’ve done it myself many a time. I’m sorry if I upset you, asking about your wife. I didn’t mean to. It was just the way you said seven years—it sounded as if you’d been counting. That means it must have hurt.’
He’d been determined to ignore her, but from the very formal way she spoke he guessed apologising was rare for her, and one look into the crystalline blue eyes confirmed that she was upset.
And so was he, but for more dubious reasons! Those eyes held the same fascination as her pursed lips had earlier and he definitely didn’t do relationships with colleagues.
Although she was only here for six months—
No! He had to stop this!
Now!
‘We had a car accident, our daughter died, my wife blamed me, but it is my daughter’s death that’s imprinted on my mind, not my wife leaving me.’
Grace reared back in her seat, feeling as winded as if he’d struck her with his hand.
How did she get herself into these situations?
Because she had a one-track mind, that’s how!
Why couldn’t she do normal chit-chat, like other women?
Theo had pushed his plate away and was standing up, and much as she’d have liked to stand up with him, to follow him wherever he was going so she could apologise, she knew he’d revealed his pain to a virtual stranger for one reason and one reason only—to repel her.
She watched him, aware everyone at the table must be wondering what the South African woman had done to upset him.
‘Eat your pizza, act normal—that’s if you know how to!’ he muttered to her as he bent to push his chair back into place. Then he straightened and faced the rest of the gathering. ‘Sorry, folks, not feeling the best.’
He walked away, stopping to talk to the waitress who’d served them, money changing hands.
‘He must have been feeling a bit off all along,’ Jasmine said. ‘Ordering steak when he always orders the Creole pizza.’
Grace looked at the pizza growing colder on her plate and understood why he hadn’t ordered it. But he’d been right, she had to eat some of it because not eating it would look suspicious. She picked up a slice and bit into it, recognising that the mix of flavours was indeed delicious, although the food seemed to be turning to sawdust in her mouth.
A car accident—losing a daughter. The poor man! And for all he was so perfect, she’d have to cross him off the list.
Although…
She thought it through, looking at the idea from all angles, finally coming to the conclusion that maybe what she was offering was just what Theo needed.
In the back of her head she heard her father warning her that her solutions might not always be what was best for other people, but that had been when she’d been dealing with some of the poor families at home, ruthlessly reorganising their lives into some semblance of order.
This was different.
A child that was yet wasn’t his.
No responsibility.
No need to get emotionally involved.
With either her or the child…
Yes, it could work.
‘Does he live somewhere nearby?’ she heard herself ask Jasmine, then, in case the question was too obvious, she added, ‘Perhaps someone should call in and see if he’s OK.’
Jasmine looked at her, then smiled.
‘He’s OK and even if he wasn’t, he wouldn’t want anyone fussing over him,’ she said. ‘He’s a very private man, our Theo. I’d better tell you that he never gets involved with colleagues. Believe me, many have tried but none have succeeded. It’s kind of like a golden rule with him.’ Well, really! Grace thought, annoyed with Jasmine for assuming—quite correctly—that she was intersted in Theo, and horrified with herself for being so 0bvious about it.
‘It’s a good rule,’ she managed, realising some response was necessary. ‘Relationships at work can get very messy.’
‘Or can work brilliantly,’ Jasmine said, nodding towards Maggie and Phil, who were laughing together at the far end of the table. ‘We had three couples fall in love within the unit only last year, so don’t think you’ll be immune to love while you’re here in Oz.’
She paused and studied Grace for a moment.
‘Unless, of course, there’s a very special man back home in South Africa?’ she teased.
Grace thought of the very special man back home and smiled.
‘Oh, yes, there is,’ she said, but she didn’t add that it was because of him—well, partly because of him—that she was interested in Theo. Someone like Jasmine, recently engaged to the man she loved, would never understand Grace’s plan or the means by which she hoped to implement it…
CHAPTER TWO
THEO watched as Grace attached the PVC tube from the bypass machine to the cannula inserted into the right side of little Adelaide Matthews’s heart. She worked quickly but carefully, her movements so precise and economical he had to admire them.
With the ingoing tube attached to the cannula already inserted into the aorta, she stepped back to let Phil get closer.
‘On pump,’ Phil said, the order crisp and quiet, and Theo started the machine, watching closely to see that the heparin given to thin the blood had been sufficient to prevent clotting, watching the pressure—Adelaide was three and needed more pressure than a baby but less than a five-year-old—watching for anything to go wrong.
‘Plege
