Sophie wasn’t listening. Images of piercing navy-blue eyes were flashing through her mind…and sun-streaked tawny-brown hair, the colour, lustrous and rich, like a glass of good brandy—
‘Sophie… Sophie?’
While her head of department struggled to recapture her attention it took Sophie a few moments to shunt her thoughts back on track. ‘I’m sorry, Henry. You were saying?’
He frowned. ‘I’ve heard Dr Martinez is something of a maverick, leaving all that luxury behind him and those vast estates…half of Spain, wasn’t it?’ He shook his head and sighed as he thought of it. ‘But he’s bringing his Midas touch to medical projects now, so perhaps we should be grateful.’
He waited a moment, then stared at Sophie inquisitively. ‘You’re very quiet, Sophie. Is there anything else about him you think I should know?’ Laying down his gold-rimmed spectacles, he pinched the bridge of his nose as he waited for her to answer.
Xavier Martinez Bordiu? Sophie played for more time with a dismissive gesture. Rumour said Xavier had become Spain’s most notable monument to chauvinism in a country hardly noted for the retiring nature of its men. Would she have volunteered for the project if she’d known who was in charge? Probably not.
‘No, Henry,’ she said, able to reassure him on one point at least. ‘There are no skeletons in Dr Martinez Bordiu’s closet as far as I am aware.’ But even that wasn’t strictly true, Sophie realised as her face burned a little hotter. ‘I hear on the grapevine that he’s become a great doctor,’ she said, struggling to return to safer ground as her throat dried.
‘You speak as if you already know him.’
‘I used to,’ Sophie admitted. ‘I knew the Martinez Bordiu family when I was a child.’
‘Ah,’ Henry said.
Why did she have a sinking feeling he wasn’t about to let the matter rest? Henry wanted to be a lot more than her boss at St Agnetha’s, and it was fair to say a kind of understanding had developed between them. Henry lived in the same village as her mother, whose knowledge of him was minimal, but enough for her to describe him optimistically as a safe pair of hands. Sophie had no argument with that. Henry Whitland was kind, thoughtful and very well respected in his chosen field. And one day she would have to make a decision about her personal life…
‘And Xavier?’ he pressed.
Xavier, Sophie mused. The last time she’d seen him she’d been a hormonal teenager—but now she was a career woman with better things to think about than romance, she warned herself sternly.
‘Xavier Martinez Bordiu,’ Henry said again, with a touch more impatience.
‘Yes?’ Sophie said helpfully.
‘Forgive my interest, but I can’t help noticing how the mere mention of his name makes your face flush. I realise it’s none of my business—’
‘I should have known who was leading the team,’ Sophie said with a shrug.
‘Martinez Bordiu kept his name out of it until recently. You could hardly be expected to know. Does it make a difference to your application?’
‘Do you mean, am I going to back out? No,’ Sophie said firmly. Whatever problems might be associated with working for Xavier, she could handle them. Glancing at her watch, Sophie suddenly found herself longing to escape to the purposeful bustle of the wards.
‘Must you dash off?’ Henry said with a touch of petulance as she stood up to leave. ‘I thought we could talk some more.’
‘I should be getting back—’
‘I do remember your connection with Martinez Bordiu now.’
Sophie tensed as she waited for him by the door.
‘I remember some talk in the village of a terrible accident in Spain—and, forgive me, but am I right in thinking that your parents split up shortly after that—?’
‘That’s right,’ Sophie confirmed abruptly. ‘Now, if you don’t mind, Henry—’
‘Far be it for me to risk Sister Spencer’s wrath,’ he agreed. ‘It’s almost time for rounds. I’ll walk with you.’
As they parted at the double swing doors that led into the children’s ward, he put his hand on the sleeve of Sophie’s white coat, stopping her. ‘I’m sure Dr Martinez Bordiu will be delighted to see you again.’
That tugged a smile from Sophie that didn’t quite make it to her eyes. She doubted Xavier would see it that way. ‘It’s kind of you to say so, Henry,’ she managed politely.
‘I wondered if we might discuss some of the wider issues regarding your posting over dinner tonight?’
Sophie’s stomach clenched uncomfortably. ‘I’m not sure, I—’
‘Just a quick snack? At that brasserie you love down the road.’
‘The one you hate?’ Sophie shot him a wry grin as she shovelled her hands into her pockets.
‘I don’t hate it,’ he argued mildly. ‘The music’s a little loud.’
‘Eight o’clock, then,’ she agreed with a quick smile. ‘I’ll meet you there.’
It wasn’t that she didn’t enjoy Henry’s company, Sophie reasoned as she pushed the double doors that led through into the ward and hurried to join the small group of junior doctors milling around the nurses’ station. She just needed more time to work out exactly what role he played in her life.
Casting a preoccupied glance out of the window of the light aircraft, Sophie tried telling herself that the arrangement she had made with Henry was fine. Before she left England he had insisted she have the antique ring she was now absentmindedly twirling round her finger. Their understanding was open-ended—no pressure, no deadlines; it was more of a thinking space than an engagement. He offered friendship and security. And security, as her mother had pointed out pragmatically, was exactly the sort of thing a career woman like Sophie would come to want. Eventually.
‘Mark my words, you will want to settle down one day…’
Settle, maybe, Sophie mused, remembering her mother’s forceful lecture. But settle down? She wasn’t so sure about that.
She didn’t feel ready for suburbia just yet. Maybe she never would, she thought, peering out of the window again. There was still so much she wanted to see, so much to do first. But her sensible self demanded a hearing: Henry was a man in his mid-forties, with a wealth of experience behind him…behind him being the operative phrase as far as her mother was concerned. She had delicately pointed out that a man like Henry was less likely to make demands on Sophie.
Sophie’s lips hardened as she remembered what had caused her mother’s apprehension where men were concerned. Home was supposed to be a sanctuary, but it hadn’t proved to be that for her mother. It hadn’t been that for Sophie either, though she didn’t bear any physical scars. She had only cowered on the stairs as a child, listening to the violence that stemmed from her late father’s drunken rages. It was a miracle her mother had survived at all, let alone gone on to live
