The Best Of The Year - Medical Romance

It meant I was nowhere near ICU until quite late in the day. I hadn’t seen or spoken to Matt since I’d left his place the night before, but I knew he was at work because I’d overheard two of the theatre nurses talking about him.

‘I walked past Matt Bishop on my way to work this morning,’ Leanne said. ‘Talk about hot. Do you know who he’s seeing?’

‘No, but I wish it was me,’ the other one, called Kathy, said in a tone that suggested she was waggling her eyebrows.

I tried not to eavesdrop but my ears were out on cornstalks.

The girls must have sensed my interest as they turned to me, where I was tidying up my equipment. ‘Who do you think it is, Bertie?’

‘Why would you think I would know?’ I sounded a bit defensive. Way too defensive.

‘Someone said he’s seeing a married woman and she works at St Iggy’s,’ Kathy said.

‘That’s just malicious gossip and you shouldn’t be spreading it,’ I said. I immediately regretted it. I saw the way their eyebrows went up in unison.

‘Touchy,’ Leanne said.

‘Anyway,’ Kathy pitched in, ‘why would you be so worried about what’s said about him? Isn’t he going to pull the plug on your research?’

I tried to keep my composure cool and indifferent but I could feel a hot tide of colour sweeping up from my neck to my face. ‘Not if I can produce results.’

‘You’d better watch out, Bertie,’ Leanne said. ‘If it’s true Dr Bishop has a thing for married women, you might be his next target.’

‘That’s ridiculous,’ I said. ‘I’m not—’

‘Interested?’ Kathy said. ‘Come on, you might’ve just got back from your honeymoon but you wouldn’t be human if you didn’t find him attractive.’

I could have told them then and there. I’m not married. But I could just imagine the fallout. The news would spread like wildfire. I would be the topic of every locker room and staff tearoom conversation. Everywhere I went people would give me those looks, the looks I’d faced for most of my twenty-seven years. Pity. Ridicule. Mockery.

Just as well I got a call about a patient in Recovery. I made good my escape and left.

I went to ICU after I finished in Recovery to check on Jason. His wife, Megan, was there, his parents having gone home after spending most of the day with him. She looked exhausted so I sat with her for a while, just listening as she told me about the plans she and Jason had made. Their excitement over finding they were to become parents, how they had chosen names and decided against finding out the sex of the baby, as they wanted the thrill of the surprise.

She even showed me the ultrasound images. Seeing a baby in utero in 3D stirred my own maternal longings in my body. I had squashed them down for years as I’d concentrated on my career, but now, as I got closer and closer to the big three-oh, I was hearing some very loud ticking.

Andy hadn’t been so keen on having kids straight away but, like a lot of women, I’d assumed he’d change his mind once we were married. It was only when I saw him with that girl that I realised he wasn’t mature enough to be a father. He was too selfish to want to give up his freedom and take responsibility for someone other than himself.

I berated myself for being so blind about him. I had let the years roll on, reassuring myself things would get better when they had got progressively worse. Why hadn’t I acknowledged it? Why had I let it get to the night before the wedding to see my relationship with him for what it was?

Once I was sure Megan was comfortable with a fresh glass of juice and some sandwiches from the doctors’ room—I was bending the rules, but the ones in the relatives’ room weren’t as nice, in my opinion—I left the unit.

Matt was coming out of his office as I was coming along the corridor to leave for the day. I’d thought of nothing else but him ever since I’d left his great-aunt’s house the night before. I wanted to see him again. I wanted to explore the amazing chemistry we had together. My body was still aware of him. It still tingled every time I thought of the passion we had shared.

He stopped in the process of closing his door, pushing it open instead and indicating with his head for me to come inside. ‘Got a minute?’

I walked past him in the doorway, my body zinging with awareness as one of his shirtsleeves brushed me on the way past. I turned and faced him once he’d closed the door. It was hard to read his expression. I wondered if he was regretting last night. I wasn’t his usual type. But, then, I wasn’t anyone’s usual type. Maybe he was regretting making love to me now he was over his bug. Maybe I’d caught him at a weak moment. Maybe he didn’t even like me. See how insecure I am? It’s ridiculous.

‘How are you feeling?’ I asked lightly.

‘Good. You?’

‘Great. Fine. Peachy.’ I always go overboard when I’m feeling nervous. I wasn’t sure how to handle the morning-after routine, especially in the context of our relationship. I wasn’t even sure what the context was. I couldn’t have a proper relationship with him while I was pretending to be married, but what was he offering if I came clean? Hadn’t he said he wasn’t interested in anything lasting? He was too busy with other priorities or some other get-out clause he’d used.

He leaned back against his desk in his usual manner. ‘That was the best chicken broth I’ve had in a long while, perhaps ever.’

‘It’s my own secret recipe.’

‘I could tell.’

I wasn’t sure we were talking about chicken broth, especially the way he was looking at me. I tried not to blush but all I could think about was how his body had felt inside mine. ‘So … what did you want to see me about?’

‘I suppose you’ve heard the gossip?’

I chewed at my mouth. ‘Yes.’

‘Any more thoughts on coming clean?’

I crossed my arms over my body. ‘No.’

His eyebrows drew together. ‘Even after last night?’

I affected a casual look, as if I had amazing, mind-blowing sex with men all the time. ‘Why after last night?’

He looked at me in a frowning way. But then he closed off his expression. The screen came up and I was locked out. Something pinched inside my stomach. ‘So you’re still determined to run with this crazy charade,’ he said.

I sent him an intractable look. ‘I’m not ready to have my private life the subject of everyone’s amusement.’

His brow furrowed back into a deep frown. ‘Do you really think people will find it funny that you were jilted?’

I jerked up my chin. ‘You obviously did. Stringing me along for three flipping weeks, asking all those stupid husband and honeymoon questions.’

He let out a whooshing breath. ‘I suppose I deserve that.’ He scraped a hand through his hair again, before dropping his hand back down by his side. ‘Look, I wasn’t really laughing at you. I was amused by the lengths you were going to when all you had to do was tell everyone the truth. People go through break-ups all the time. Relationships either work or they don’t.’

I glared at him again. How absolutely typical to dismiss the emotional turmoil of what a break-up like mine had entailed. Easy come, easy go was obviously his credo. Well, it certainly wasn’t mine. I was the one who’d had to face all those guests. I was the one who’d had to endure all those looks of abject pity. I was the one who was still trying to pick up the pieces of my life.

‘I was twelve hours away from my wedding,’ I said. ‘The wedding day I’d been planning since I was a little girl. I’d been going out with Andy for five and a half years. We’d been engaged for eighteen months. That’s a little different from being dumped after a lousy date or two.’

His expression stilled with seriousness. ‘I know how hard a break-up is. But it’s not as if you were in love with him.’

My eyes rounded in affront. ‘Oh, and you’re suddenly an expert on my feelings, are you? What gives you the right to say such a ridiculous thing? Of course I loved him. I was going to marry him, wasn’t I?’

The look he gave me reminded me of the look a disappointed parent gives to a wilfully disobedient child. It made me angrier than I had any right to be. He had touched on a nerve that was still a little sensitive.

But I wasn’t prepared to admit just how sensitive.

‘If you were still in love with him you would never have come to my place last night,’ he said. ‘You must’ve known what would happen between us, or are you lying to yourself now as well as everyone else?’

Of course he was right. I would never have slept with him if I’d had feelings for another man. But I was confused about my feelings for Matt. They were a jumbled mix I couldn’t make sense of right now. Was I so fickle that I could fall in love so soon after losing Andy?

I paced a couple of steps across the floor, hugging my arms close to my body. ‘I know I’ll have to tell everyone eventually … I just don’t know how to do it without looking completely ridiculous.’

‘Sometimes the anticipation of something is worse than the actual thing itself,’ he said.

I swung back to look at him. ‘So why haven’t you let everyone in on the secret?’

‘It’s not my secret to tell.’

I was used to a lifetime of being teased and exploited, of having my weaknesses and flaws broadcast publicly. The fact he hadn’t breathed a word of my single status to anyone made something warm spill inside my chest. He’d had a perfect opportunity to make an absolute fool out of me and yet he hadn’t done it. Why?

‘Want to tell me what happened?’ he said.

I let out a long breath. ‘I guess, looking back, we’d always had a pretty sketchy sex life. But then I got caught up in the wedding preparations and … well, he got caught up in having an affair with someone more … available.’ I bit my lower lip until it was mostly inside my mouth. I released it, along with a sigh. ‘It was the most embarrassing moment of my life and that’s saying something because I’ve had some doozies.’

He closed the distance between us and stroked a wisp of hair off my face. ‘My ex was having an affair too. To the guy she’s married to now. They’d been friends for years but I didn’t realise how friendly until I called on her one night unexpectedly. Simon answered the door. Not a great moment for either of us. I had to give him credit for coming up with an excuse for why he was standing there in nothing but his boxers.’

‘What did he say?’

‘He was hot.’ His mouth gave a rueful little quirk. ‘But, then, Helena obviously thought so.’

Behind the humour was lingering hurt. I could see it in his eyes. Or was he like me, and the betrayal was more of a wound to his pride and sense of honour? ‘Were you in love with her?’

His mouth twisted again. ‘I thought so at the time.’

‘And now?’

He stroked his thumb over my bottom lip. ‘You read my mother’s note.’

I gave him a sheepish look. ‘I didn’t mean to. It’s just I’m a bit of a speed-reader so I took it in at one glance.’

He leaned down and pressed his mouth to mine in a long, warm kiss that sent my senses into chaos. I reached for him automatically, stroking my fingers through his hair.

I leaned into him, relishing in the familiarity of his touch, the naturalness and ease of it.

After a few breathless moments he pulled back to look at me. ‘You didn’t stay last night.’

‘I wasn’t sure what the protocol was.’

He frowned a little. ‘What do you mean?’

I shrugged beneath the cups of his hands, which were holding the tops of my shoulders. ‘I wasn’t sure if it was a one-off or … or something else.’

His hands tightened for a moment before he relaxed them, but he didn’t let me go. ‘You want to go and grab some dinner somewhere after work?’

I bit my lip again as I thought of the implications of us being seen out in public. There was already gossip about him seeing a married woman in the hospital. I hadn’t realised until then that my lies were not just hurting me, they had the potential to hurt him. ‘Can we just get some takeaway and have it at your place?’

He gave me a levelling look. ‘The longer you leave it the worse it’s going to be.’

I dipped out of his hold and crossed the floor, hugging my arms to my body again. ‘I know. I know. It’s just not that simple.’

‘It seems simple enough to me.’ There was a thread of impatience in his voice. Hard and tight, like a fine wire under strain. ‘You just have to be honest, Bertie. People will talk for a while but it’ll eventually go away.’

‘I need more time.’

‘For what?’ he said. ‘For you to rule out the possibility your ex will come crawling back to you?’

I looked at him in affront. ‘You think that’s what’s stopping me? Really?’

His expression was marble cold. ‘Be honest with yourself, if not with anyone else.’

‘Maybe you should take a lesson from that pulpit you’re preaching from,’ I threw back.

His eyes were suddenly flinty. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

I flashed him a little glare. ‘You’ve waited for over a year to get involved with someone else. Doesn’t that suggest you’re still moping over the one who got away?’

He shoved his hands into his trouser pockets as if he was trying to stop himself from reaching for me. ‘We haven’t got a hope of this progressing past a one-night stand if you don’t tell everyone the truth about your situation.’

I drew myself up to my full height, which isn’t saying much as I barely came up to the top of his chest. ‘I’ll tell you why it won’t progress past a one-nighter. Because you won’t allow yourself to feel anything for anyone because you’re frightened they’ll pull away from you when you least expect it. You’ll never give anyone that power again, will you?’

A muscle worked in his jaw. ‘I have work to do, so if you’ve finished listing my faults, I’d appreciate it if you’d let me get on with it.’

I swung away with a haughty toss of my head. Not literally. It was still firmly on my straightened shoulders. ‘Fine. I’m out of here.’

I glanced at him when I got to the door but he had already dismissed me. He was sitting behind his desk and scrolling through his emails or whatever was on his computer screen.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

BY THE TIME I got home I’d cooled down, although that might have had something to do with the weather. The snow was falling in earnest and I’d heard on the news they were expecting more overnight. I didn’t fancy a long, lonely night alone and I didn’t have the enthusiasm for a session of painting and decorating. I looked around the half-painted walls and the threadbare carpets, the tired kitchen with its out-of-date appliances.

My house suddenly looked a bit like my life. A mess.

I was considering what to do about food, not that I had much appetite, when the doorbell rang. I peered through the peephole, toying with the idea of pretending not to be home if it was Margery. It wasn’t.

I opened the door and Matt stood there, with snow falling all around him. There was even some clinging to the ends of his eyelashes. He was carrying a bag with takeaway food containers in it and a bottle of wine in a brown paper bag. ‘Have we just had our first fight?’ he said.

I felt every last residue of anger melt away. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘No apology necessary.’ He held up his peace offering. ‘I took a gamble on food. Curry all right?’

‘Perfect for a cold winter’s night.’ I ushered him through to the kitchen. ‘I’m sorry the place is a bit of a mess.’

‘Was your ex a home handyman?’

I gave him a cynical look. ‘Are you joking?’

He frowned. ‘You’re doing it yourself?’

‘I’m trying to … but as you can see it’s not going according to plan.’ Was it my imagination or did the paint job I’d done the other night look patchy? There was a drip of paint on the skirting board I hadn’t noticed before.

‘It’s a big job for one person.’

‘Yes, well, it was supposed to be two people doing it but you know how that turned out.’

He took the wine out of the paper bag. ‘You want some help with it?’

I wasn’t sure what he was suggesting. But as olive branches went it was a good one—even better than the curry and the wine. ‘Don’t tell me you’re handy with a paintbrush, otherwise I mightn’t let you leave.’

He gave a sudden grin. ‘I did up my place in Notting Hill before I went to the US. I enjoyed it. It was a change from work, where stuff can’t always be fixed.’

I knew exactly what he meant. Sometimes the hopelessness of some patients’ situations ate away at me. ‘I spent some time with Jason’s wife today,’ I said, as I handed Matt a couple of wine glasses.

‘How’s she doing?’

‘I think she’s struggling a bit, as anyone would in her situation.’ I took the glass of wine he had poured for me.

He looked at me across the Formica kitchen table that separated us. ‘You’re doing a good job. I can see how the things you’ve set up help. The little touches that make people feel less alienated by the environment.’ He waited a beat and then continued, ‘I had a brother two years older than me. He died when I was fifteen.’

‘I know,’ I said. ‘Jill told me. She said her sister-in-law is your mother’s school friend or something.’

He gave me a quirk of a smile. ‘What used to be six degrees of separation is now two with social media.’

I rolled my eyes. ‘Tell me about it.’

There was a little silence. I didn’t feel so uncomfortable with them now. But after a moment I asked, ‘What was it like for you and your parents when Tim was in ICU?’

He looked at the contents of his glass, swirling it as if searching for the memories in the dark cherry-coloured pool. ‘Awful. No one told us anything. It was different back then. Doctors didn’t always communicate that well with relatives. They only told us what they thought we needed to know. It wasn’t enough. My parents thought Tim was going to make it right up until the day he died of pneumonia. It made the grief so much harder for them to cope with. I felt that if only we’d been told from the outset that things were pretty hopeless the grief would have been dealt with earlier. Instead, it’s dragged on for years.’

‘Grief doesn’t have a use-by date.’

‘No, I know. But it might’ve helped my parents prepare themselves a little better.’ He put his glass down.

‘Did you think Tim was going to make it?’

His eyes met mine. ‘I hoped he would. I couldn’t imagine my life without him. We were close. I looked up to him. He was my role model, the one I turned to for advice or help with homework or whatever. My father was hopeless at that sort of thing. The bottom dropped out of my world when I walked out of the hospital that day. I swore I would do everything I could to make sure other people didn’t have to go through that the way we did.’

‘So you became an intensive care specialist with a reputation for telling it as it is.’

He gave me a rueful smile. ‘That pretty much sums it up.’

I came over to him and touched his shadowed jaw. He hadn’t shaved and the stubble caught on the skin of my palm, making something inside my belly shift like a foot slipping on a sheet of black ice. ‘Thanks for telling me about Tim. It helps to understand you better.’

He brushed a tendril of hair away from my face. ‘I haven’t spoken of him in years. It’s a no-go area at home. My father goes off his head if Tim’s name is mentioned. In his mind the wrong son died.’

‘Oh, no, that’s terrible,’ I said. ‘Did he actually say that?’

‘Only when he’s had one too many drinks.’

‘Is he an alcoholic?’

‘He wouldn’t say so, but I have my suspicion he sneaks a few empty bottles into the recycling bin without my mother knowing. Or maybe she does know but keeps quiet because it’s not worth the effort of standing up to him or the risk of losing her social standing or both.’ His mouth was set back in a grim line. ‘God, I hate talking about my family. We’re not a family any more. Not since Tim died. We’re just three people who happen to be related.’

I reached up and smoothed the taut muscles surrounding his tight mouth. ‘I’m sorry things have been so tough for you. But look at what you do for others. The way you work so hard, so tirelessly to save lives. So what if you don’t have a perfect family? Just wait till you meet mine.’

He smiled and I practically melted on the spot. I watched as his eyes darkened as they went to my mouth, the ink-dark pools of his pupils flaring as he brought his mouth down to mine. His hands buried themselves in my hair, his fingertips sliding along my scalp as he plundered my mouth with feverish intensity. His tongue played with mine, darting and diving and seducing it in a dance that made every cell in my body shudder in delight.

My arms went around his neck, my body pressed so tightly against him I could feel the buttons on his jacket digging into me. I began to undo them, roughly, urgently, impatient to get my hands on him. He shrugged off his jacket and tugged up his jumper and shirt, and I slid my hands along the flat plane of his chest and abdomen. He hauled the garments over his head and they fell to the floor. He set to work on my clothes: my jumper went first, followed by my top and bra. His hands were cold at first on my breasts but they soon warmed as I pressed into his caress.

I tugged at the belt on his trousers, sliding it out of the lugs and letting it slither to the floor. I unzipped him and freed him from his underwear, holding and stroking him as his mouth continued to subject mine to a sensual onslaught that made every hair on my head shiver at the roots.

This was the sort of passion I had been missing in my relationship with Andy. The firestorm of lust and longing that was totally consuming. Before I knew it, Matt had lifted me onto the kitchen counter, parting my thighs so he could come between them. Somehow he’d sourced a condom and got it on before he entered me with a fast, thick thrust that made me whoosh out a breathless gasp.

‘You okay?’

Okay? I was in heaven. ‘You feel so good,’ I said against his mouth, as he came back to kiss me.

He began to move inside me, taking me with him on a roller-coaster ride of passion. Every thrust brought me closer and closer to that final moment of oblivion. It was just frustratingly out of my reach, but then he slid his hands underneath my bottom, lifting my hips just enough to intensify the friction. I came in a cataclysmic storm of sensations that showered and shook and shuddered through me in turn. I felt his own orgasm as it powered through him, the deep quaking of his body and the sharply cut-off groan as he spilled, making my own body respond with another shudder of delight.

He let out a deep, satisfied sigh and leaned his forehead on mine. ‘Our dinner is probably cold by now.’

‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘It’s pretty hot in this kitchen.’

He smiled against my lips. ‘Damn right it is.’

I was walking down my street on my way to work the next morning when I ran into Margery, who was taking Freddy out for a walk. She gave me a look that was colder than the snow that had settled overnight. ‘A fine way to behave, I must say,’ she said. ‘And here I was thinking you were a nice old-fashioned girl. Seems I was wrong.’

‘Pardon?’

Her eyes narrowed. ‘I saw him.’

My heart gave a little lurch. ‘Him?’

‘The man who left your house in the early hours of the morning,’ she said. ‘It wasn’t your husband. He wasn’t blond and he was much taller.’

I pressed my lips together. How was I going to get out of this? If I told Margery, it would be all over the neighbourhood within minutes. I would have people coming to gawk at me as I walked past their houses. I would be a pariah. I know it’s the twenty-first century and all that but people can still be really judgemental about other people’s lives.

‘Marriage isn’t easy, Bertie, take it from me,’ she said. ‘I was married to my Ralph for thirty-eight years. The first couple of years are always the worst. But what you’re doing is plain wrong. What would your patients think if they were to know you were taking men in while your husband is away working in New York?’