good salesperson, Caspar thought as his gaze travelled around the group. He didn’t have a clear view of the hospital director, Patrick, as Gail was blocking his line of sight, but that didn’t matter. He knew he was on board. Ravi Patel, general surgeon, was sitting beside Patrick. He was watching Gail intently and nodding his head in all the right places. Caspar would bet his precious sports car that Ravi would sign the paperwork before the day was finished.
The RMOs from the emergency department were next. They were shooting glances at Colin Young, one of the hospital’s two orthopaedic surgeons. They would take their cues from him and the fact that he was in this meeting led Caspar to believe that he was agreeable to the project. The director of nursing was to Caspar’s right. He already knew that Maxine, and therefore her nursing staff, was ready to go. Which left only two—Dr Tori Williams, anaesthetist, and Dr Annie Simpson, obstetrician.
They were seated diagonally opposite him around the oval table. Dr Williams was hunched over the table, furiously taking notes, but he couldn’t see her face and he didn’t know whether her note-taking was a positive sign or not. He watched her scribbling for a few more moments but his mind had already moved on to the next person at the table.
Dr Annie Simpson. Patrick Hammond had sent him a short biography of each of the department heads and he recalled what little he’d read about Dr Simpson. Obstetrician, aged twenty-nine, single, trained in Adelaide and started work at Blue Lake Hospital six months ago.
Obviously intelligent and attractive, his mind added a few more adjectives for good measure and he decided he’d have to find out whether ‘single’ meant unmarried or not in a relationship at all.
If he was honest he’d admit he’d been looking forward to meeting her since he’d seen the photo Patrick had included. He’d specifically asked for photos so he’d be able to identify everyone but he had to admit that Annie’s photo hadn’t done her justice.
It was a good photo, she was an attractive woman, but it hadn’t done justice to the glossy shine of her brown hair or the creaminess of her skin. It hadn’t highlighted her sharply defined cheekbones that gave structure to her elfin face neither had it captured her scent.
Standing behind her as he’d entered the room, he’d caught a soft scent of jasmine, which could have come from any one of the women in the space but somehow he’d known it belonged to Annie. The fire in her dark brown eyes had been another surprise. Her eyes had burned with barely contained disapproval, which she hadn’t attempted to hide.
He’d expected a lot of things but her passionate objection was something he hadn’t anticipated. But he wasn’t one to back down from a challenge and he suspected that was just as well.
He’d found it interesting that when Dr Simpson had voiced her concerns no one else had spoken up. Did that mean that she was the only one with concerns or just that she was the only one forthright enough to voice them?
He could see her now in the corner of his eye. A petite woman, she was sitting with perfect posture, her spine stiff and straight, self-control evident. Whatever she might be lacking in size she’d certainly made up for in spirit, but he wondered if she would have been so forthright if she’d known he and Gail could hear every word.
He turned his head to look at her properly. Her shiny curtain of hair fell smoothly down each side of her face, framing it perfectly. Dark chocolate-brown eyes, the colour of which contrasted sharply with her creamy complexion, looked back at him and as he watched he could see two crimson patches of heat appearing over her chiselled cheekbones.
The only other contrasting colour on her face was the soft, plump swell of her pink lips. She held his gaze and he could see the challenge in her brown eyes demanding he convince her of the merits of this project.
Yep, he reckoned, she would have told him straight to his face if she’d known he was standing behind her within earshot. He got the impression she wasn’t one to hold back.
Well, challenge accepted, he thought. He needed her on side and he wouldn’t rest until she came on board.
Along with the television project he had his own reasons for coming to Mount Gambier. He’d suggested Blue Lake Hospital as a potential location because it suited him and he wasn’t about to sit here and see the project fall apart now. It needed to go ahead and in order to work it really needed the support of the existing hospital staff. And not just one or two of them, he needed them all.
The television network hadn’t brought anyone other than him across from the previous series. The budget, with the hospital board’s permission, was being used to bolster the hospital coffers, and there wasn’t any money to pay extra doctors. The project needed to use the doctors and nurses that were to hand.
He would do whatever it took to convince Dr Simpson of that. He just needed to find out what she wanted. And work out how to give it to her.
He smiled at her, giving her the smile he’d always used on his older sisters when he’d wanted to get his own way, but this time there was no answering smile. No response at all from Dr Simpson, unless he counted the turning of her head to look away. Not the outcome he’d wanted, he had to admit, but there was still time. This had to work.
Annie couldn’t get out of the meeting room fast enough once Gail wrapped up the session. She had no desire to hang around under Caspar’s inspection. No desire to be coerced into signing consent forms. And she wasn’t prepared for further discussions about why she was so against the idea of appearing on television. Her reasons were none of his business. All he needed to know was that she wasn’t interested. In any of it.
She dragged Tori to the staff cafeteria, desperate for a coffee fix after the stress and strain of the meeting. She couldn’t think straight while he was watching her with his heavy-eyed green gaze. Her mental picture of him tangled in his sheets was proving hard to shift and even though she knew it was entirely a product of her imagination she was mortified that her mind had taken her there, and she knew she had to put some distance between them if she was going to be able to keep those lustful thoughts out of her head.
She needed some distance if she was going to be able to focus on her job. But if she’d thought she was going to escape discussing the hottest topic in the hospital, she was mistaken.
The cafeteria was buzzing with the news and even Tori, despite bringing Annie to task for staring at Caspar earlier when she should have been listening to Gail, couldn’t resist bringing him into their conversation now. ‘What have you got against him?’ she wanted to know.
‘It’s not him per se,’ Annie tried to explain. ‘I just don’t want cameras following my every move. I’m here to do a job. I owe it to my patients to give them my best. I don’t want people in my way. And that includes him.’
The idea of cameras watching her terrified her. Twice in her life she had been the subject of media attention and neither time had the experience been pleasant, but the thought of working in close proximity to Caspar St Claire, of having him watch her with his bedroom eyes, was even more terrifying. She didn’t know if she’d be able to concentrate under his gaze and that made her feel vulnerable. And feeling vulnerable was not something she enjoyed.
‘Well, I think he’s here to stay,’ Tori told her. ‘At least for the next eight weeks. And you’ll probably be working quite closely with him. He’ll be responsible for the care of all those little newborns you deliver. I don’t see how you can avoid him. Or why you’d want to.’
Annie sighed. Tori was right. She was going to have to come up with a solution. She was going to have to work out how to cope with the situation,
