it hard, seeing him again?’ Heloise asked after another little pause.
Mikki picked up her wine and gave her mother what she hoped was a convincing smile. ‘Not at all,’ she said. ‘As far as I’m concerned, he’s just another colleague working at St Benedict’s.’
‘But you’ll see rather a lot of him, won’t you, given that he’s a neurosurgeon and you’re in ICU?’
Mikki had lain awake at nights thinking about exactly that: how she would cope with seeing Lewis on a daily basis. His patients would become hers. They would have to consult each other on management and care. There would be ward rounds and joint interviews with relatives, staff meetings, and the shared space of the doctors’ room. It would be next to impossible to avoid him, and if she tried, someone would surely notice and comment on it. It was going to be hard to pretend he was just like any other colleague but she was determined to do it. ‘Don’t worry, Mum,’ she said, taking another fortifying sip of wine. ‘I’m not going to fall for Lewis Beck again. That part of my life is definitely well and truly over.’
CHAPTER TWO
‘HAVE you met the new neurosurgeon yet?’ Kate Fry, one of the recovery nurses, asked Mikki a couple of days later.
Mikki continued writing in the patients’ notes as she spoke. ‘Not formally. What’s he like?’
‘Gorgeous,’ Kate said in a dreamy tone. ‘Tall, at least six-four, with the most amazing piercing blue eyes. And get this: he’s not married.’
Mikki put the file on the top of the others on the desk in the doctors’ office waiting to be filed. ‘Do you have Mrs Bronson’s file there?’ she asked. ‘I have to check on her potassium levels.’
Kate found the file and handed it to her. ‘Apparently he was engaged briefly a long time ago, back in London. I wonder what broke him and his fiancée up. Have you heard any gossip?’
Mikki made a note in the file and handed it back. ‘I am not sure Mr Beck would appreciate having his private life discussed on the ward,’ she said curtly.
‘No one can hear us in here,’ Kate said, undeterred. ‘I can’t imagine breaking up with someone like him, can you? He’s über-exy.’
‘If you go for the aloof, show-no-emotion type,’ Mikki said in a disinterested tone as she picked up another file to leaf through.
Kate gave a little gulp. ‘Er...I’d better get back to the ward. See you later.’
Mikki felt the hairs on the back of her neck lift up follicle by follicle. She turned round and met the inscrutable gaze of Lewis from where he stood in the doorway. ‘Apparently you’ve made quite an impression on the female staff,’ she said, keeping her voice even and controlled.
The corner of his mouth lifted but it was still not quite a smile. ‘Not all the female staff,’ he said. ‘Have you been actively avoiding me, Mikki? I haven’t seen you since we ran into each other at the restaurant the other night.’
Mikki felt the pull of his gaze and had to drag hers away with an effort. ‘Of course I haven’t been avoiding you,’ she said, keeping her voice low in case any of the other staff were about.
‘I didn’t see you at the welcoming morning tea,’ he said.
She straightened the already straight papers on the desk. ‘I was busy with one of the patients, that’s why. You know what ICU is like. There is always the possibility of a crisis of some sort.’
He leaned back against the filing cabinet with indolent ease, as if he had been working there all his professional life instead of having arrived two days ago. ‘What have you told people about us?’ he asked.
Mikki gave her head a little toss as she faced him. ‘Nothing.’
One brow lifted in an arc. ‘So no one knows we were once engaged?’
‘Why should they?’ she said.
The corner of his mouth kicked up again. ‘Interesting.’
Mikki felt her lower back tingle as his gaze swept over her, lingering a little too long on her mouth. Again her lips began to fizz with sensation and she ached to send her tongue out to dampen down their sudden dryness, but it seemed to be too intimate an action, a signal of want and need she wasn’t prepared to reveal at any cost. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. She was supposed to be professional and mature about this situation, not fluttering with nerves and panic every time she ran into him. ‘Have you told anyone?’ She threw his question back.
‘Not yet.’
Mikki wasn’t sure what she felt about his ‘not yet’. It seemed to contain a threat that he might at some point reveal their past relationship. A couple of people at the hospital knew she had been engaged once but she had never told anyone Lewis’s name or occupation. She didn’t want anyone to connect the dots, and certainly not now with him here in the flesh. ‘What about your girlfriend?’ she asked. ‘Surely you’ve told her about your broken engagement?’
He folded his arms across the broad span of his chest, his eyes still holding hers in a lock-down that was as penetrating as it was unnerving. ‘Abby is not my girlfriend,’ he said.
Mikki only just managed to stop from rolling her eyes. ‘Well, whatever she is, she’s clearly smitten by you. She was hanging on every word that came out of your mouth.’
His eyes softened. ‘She’s rather sweet, isn’t she? I’m sorry I didn’t introduce you but we had a lot of catching up to do.’
‘I’m sure you did,’ Mikki said crisply.
There was a little beat of silence.
‘So how are we going to manage this situation?’ Lewis asked.
‘You mean working together?’
‘Yes. Are you going to be OK with it?’
‘I’m perfectly fine with it,’ Mikki said, but on the inside she was screaming, Of course I’m not OK with it!
‘That’s fine, then,’ he said, unfolding his arms.
Mikki pressed her lips together. ‘Um—what about the other stuff?’
His brow lifted again. ‘What other stuff?’
‘The we-were-once-engaged stuff,’ she said.
‘I don’t see that it has anything to do with anyone but us.’
Just to hear him say ‘us’ was enough to send a shock-wave of reaction through her whole body. To be bracketed with him in such a way was deeply disturbing. It suggested an intimacy between them that should no longer be there. Was it still there or was it just her imagination? It was hard to tell from his expression. Even when they had been together in the past he had revealed little of himself. He had been an island she had briefly visited before pulling up anchor and moving on.
But how soon before the hospital grapevine got its tentacles around
