no.
Patrick stood up and moved chairs around, making room for Caspar and Gail to sit at the table. Annie couldn’t help but notice that Caspar waited for Gail to sit first and his manners earned him a brownie point, but he still had a long way to go in her opinion.
Annie studied him as he stood beside the table, waiting for Gail to get settled.
He was wearing a single-breasted suit, pale grey in colour, with a plain white shirt and a striped tie. His shoulders were broad and square and filled the suit jacket out very nicely. His shirt was crisply ironed but the suit was a little crumpled. Perhaps, despite being Australia’s latest celebrity pin-up, appearances weren’t at the top of his list of priorities. Annie decided she could like that about the man, even if she didn’t have to like him being here.
He undid the buttons on his jacket and held his tie against his stomach, keeping it out of the way, as he sat in his own chair. His stomach was flat and lean and Caspar was slimmer in real life than he’d appeared on television, but then she remembered that the camera supposedly added pounds. Did, in fact, add pounds. She knew that from her own limited experience.
Gail was speaking, saying something about the types of medical cases they were interested in, and Annie knew she should be listening but her attention kept wandering. Caspar was rolling a pen through his fingers and the movement caught her eye. His fingers were long and slender and his hands were large. Annie could imagine him cradling the newborn babies in his care, holding them nestled safely in the palms of his hands.
Now that he was sitting down, diagonally opposite her, Annie had less of him to peruse. His head was turned to his left, slightly away from her, leaving her looking at his profile. Leaving her free to study him. There were flecks of grey at his temples, a touch of salt and pepper in his black curls, and his olive skin was darkened by the shadow of designer stubble on his jaw. His nose was perfectly straight but maybe a touch longer than it needed to be, which was a good thing, Annie thought, as it stopped him from being too good looking.
Was there such a thing as too good looking? She’d never wondered about that before.
His green eyes were scanning the room, working his way around the table in a clockwise direction as he studied each person present in the meeting, and Annie wondered what he was thinking.
He was looking at Colin, one of the orthopaedic surgeons, and Annie knew it was only a matter of time before his gaze landed on her. She felt her heart rate increase with that thought. For some reason this made her nervous. Her palms felt sweaty and she wiped them on her trousers.
Caspar was watching Tori now but Tori seemed oblivious to his inspection. She had her head down and was furiously taking notes. That was good. She and Tori had formed a close friendship in the six months since she herself had moved to Mount Gambier and she could use Tori’s notes to catch up later on everything she hadn’t heard Gail say.
And then it was her turn. She’d meant to look away before his gaze reached her but she hadn’t and now he was looking straight at her, his green eyes locked with hers. Annie could feel herself begin to blush again under his scrutiny. The heat started over her sternum and she knew it was only a matter of time before it spread to her face, but she was unable to break the connection.
Until Tori nudged her with her elbow.
‘Ow,’ Annie complained. But it was enough to get her to glance to her right.
‘Are you paying attention?’ Tori asked. ‘You need to listen to this.’
‘I’ll read your notes later,’ Annie told her, but as she turned her head away from Tori she deliberately sought out Gail’s face as she pretended to listen and tried to keep Caspar St Claire out of her line of sight. She’d expected his attention to have moved on to the next person at the table but from the corner of her eye she could see that he was still watching her and she couldn’t help but move her head, ever so slightly, to look back at him.
He appeared to be concentrating and she wondered again what he was thinking. What he thought about her. His expression seemed to be challenging her but she wasn’t sure what his challenge was. Did he want her to question him or back down? If he wanted her to give in on the very first day he was going to be sorely disappointed. She had no intention of giving in, not today and not tomorrow.
She met his gaze as she thought about all the ways she could say no but then his intense expression gave way to a smile and his seriousness dissolved into something else altogether. Something slightly carnal and iniquitous, and Annie forgot all about reality television, all about the cameras invading the hospital, all about saying no as his smile raced through her.
It lit a fire in her belly that poured through her, warming everything from her face to her toes and everything in between, until she felt as though her insides might melt together in a big pool of lust. She’d thought his serious, brooding expression had been handsome but his smile transformed his face completely and now his expression was cheeky and playful and made her think of sex. Something she hadn’t thought about for a long time.
Sex wasn’t something that had ever been high on her list of priorities. She enjoyed it but she didn’t really see what all the fuss was about. She was quite happy being celibate. But Caspar St Claire made her think of sex. And not the type of sex she was used to. He made her think of hot, sweaty, take-no-prisoners sex. Tangled bedsheets and late-afternoon sex. The weight of a hard, firm, male body. He made her think of multiple orgasms and sex that was so all-consuming she’d be too exhausted to be able to move afterwards. The kind of sex she’d read about in novels and seen in movies but had never experienced.
The temperature in the room felt as though it had increased by several degrees and Annie could feel her nipples harden as her imagination worked overtime. That was enough to make her break eye contact. She looked away hurriedly, almost guiltily, afraid he would be able to see her shameless thoughts.
Her ill-fated marriage had been based on lots of things but desire hadn’t been one of them. She’d been a young, inexperienced bride and her marriage had been more about companionship and less about physical attraction or raging hormones. At the time she’d thought she was making a sensible choice. She had seen her parents’ relationship self-combust repeatedly and theirs had definitely been a physical thing. As a teenager she’d decided she wouldn’t make the same mistake. The trouble was she just made a different one.
But she’d never felt such a strong, unexpected stirring of desire before and to have it triggered by a complete stranger disturbed her. She didn’t want to be affected by him. She didn’t want to be affected by anybody. As far as she was concerned, that was asking for trouble.
She was going to put Caspar St Claire and everything he was associated with into a mental box marked ‘Do not open’. She didn’t need to worry about him or his business. It was going to be nothing to do with her.
CHAPTER TWO
CASPAR LOOKED AROUND the table, watching the people, reading their faces, trying to guess their thoughts. Some of them were harder than others. He’d done his research so he knew who they were. He’d found it paid to be prepared—life was challenging enough often enough that he didn’t want to deal with unnecessary surprises.
Most looked receptive to Gail’s spiel; she made the show sound exciting and new, something people would want to be a part of. Most people. The reality was that it was the editing that would make the show exciting. It was in post-production that the tears and the drama, the heartache, the relief and joy would be enhanced. That was when the emotions would be increased and amplified. For the hospital staff it would
