Amy Andrews - Tempted By Mr Off-Limits

‘And miss my first night in my new home?’ He smiled at her to keep it light. ‘No way.’

‘Okay, well...’ She nodded. ‘I’ll...see you later.’

She turned and walked away, choosing the longer route rather than brush past him— interesting —and within seconds he was listening to the quiet click of the front door as it shut.

Well...that was an anti-climax. He’d been building this meeting up in his head for weeks. None of the scenarios had involved Lola bolting within twenty minutes of his arrival. Still, it had been good, seeing her again. And she had definitely avoided any chance that they might come into contact as she’d left.

That had to mean something, right?

Hamish rolled his eyes as he realised where his brain was heading. Get a grip, idiot. Not going to happen .

And he went to unpack and make up his bed.

* * *

It was a relief to get to work. A relief to stop thinking about Hamish. It was crazy but Lola hadn’t expected to feel what she’d felt when she’d opened the door to him. She’d actually been looking forward to seeing Hamish again. Quite aside from the sex, he was a nice guy and a fun to be around. Even a few months later she still caught herself smiling at the memory of the note she’d found the morning after they’d had sex on the couch.

You looked so beautiful sleeping I didn’t want to disturb you.

I’m heading home now.

Thank you for an unforgettable night.

Hamish

He’d drawn a smiley face beside his name and Lola had laughed and hugged it to her chest, secretly thrilled to be unforgettable .

Sure, she’d known their first meeting after that night would be awkward to begin with but had expected it to dissipate quickly.

She’d been dead wrong about that.

His presence on her doorstep—big and solid, more jaw than any man had a right to—had been like a shockwave breaking over her. She’d felt like she was having some kind of out-of-body experience, where she was above herself, looking down, the universe whispering He’s the one in her ear.

She’d panicked. Hell, she was still panicking.

Firstly, she didn’t believe in the one . Sure, she knew people stayed together for ever. Her parents had been married for thirty-two years. But to her it was absurd to think there was only one person out there for everyone. It was more statistically believable, given the entire population of the world, that there were many ones out there.

People just didn’t know it because they were too busy with their current one .

Secondly, she honestly believed finding the one didn’t apply to every person on the planet. Lola believed some people were destined to never settle down, that they were too content with the company of many and being children of the world to ground themselves.

And that was the category into which Lola fell. Into which Great-Aunt May fell. A spinster at seventy-five, May hadn’t needed the one to be fulfilled. Lola had never known a person more accomplished, more well travelled or more Zen with her life.

And, thirdly, if Lola fell and smacked her head and had a complete personality change and suddenly did believe in such nonsense, her one would never be a guy from a small town.

Never .

She’d run from a small town for a reason. She hadn’t wanted to be with a guy who was content to stay put, whose whole life was his patch of dirt or his business, or the place he’d grown up. Which was why her reaction to Hamish was so disconcerting.

Hamish Gibson couldn’t be the one for her.

No. She was just really...sexually attracted to him. Hell, she’d thought about him so much these past three months it was only natural to have had a reaction to him when she’d opened the door and seen him standing right in front of her.

But she wasn’t going there again.

Which was why work was such a blessing. Something else to occupy her brain. And, yowsers , did she need it today to deal with her critical patient.

Emma Green was twenty-three years old and in acute cardiac failure. She’d been born with a complex cardiac disorder and had endured several operations and bucketloads of medication already in her young life. But a mild illness had pushed her system to the limit and her enlarged heart muscle into the danger zone.

She’d gone into cardiac arrest at the start of the shift down in the emergency department and had been brought to ICU in a critical condition. Which meant it was a whirlwind of a shift. There were a lot of drugs to give, bloods to take, tests to run. Medication and ventilation settings were constantly tweaked and adjusted as the intensive care team responded to Emma’s condition minute by minute.

As well as that, there was a veritable royal flush of specialists and their entourages constantly in and out, needing extra things, sucking up time she didn’t have, all wanting their orders prioritised. There were cardiac and respiratory teams as well as radiologists and pharmacists, physiotherapists and social workers.

And there was Emma’s family to deal with. Her parents, who had already been through so much with Emma over the years. Her mother teary, her father stoic—both old hands at the jargon and the solemn medical faces. And Emma’s boyfriend, Barry, who was not. He was an emotional wreck, swinging from sad to angry, from positive to despondent.

Not that she could blame him. Emma looked awful. There was barely a spare inch of skin that wasn’t criss-crossed by some kind of tubing or wires. She had a huge tube in her nose where the life support was connected and securing it obscured half of her face, which was puffy—as was the rest of her body—from days of retained fluid due to her worsening cardiac condition.

Lola was used to this environment, to how terrible critical patients could look. She was immune to it. But she understood full well how hard it was for people to see someone they loved in this condition. She’d witnessed the shocked gasps too many times, the audible sobs as the sucker-punch landed.

The gravity of the situation always landed with a blow. The sudden knowledge that their loved one was really, really sick, that they could die, was a terrible whammy. So Emma’s boyfriend’s reactions were perfectly normal, as far as Lola was concerned.

And all just part of her job.

‘It really is okay to talk to her,’ Lola assured Barry as he sat rigidly in a chair by the window, repeatedly finger-combing his hair. It was the first time he’d been alone with Emma since she’d been admitted. Her mother and father were taking it in turns to sit with Barry at the bedside but they’d both ducked out for a much-needed cup of coffee and a bite to eat.

Barry glanced at Emma and shook his head. ‘I don’t want to get in the way or bump anything.’

Lola smiled. ‘It’s okay, I’ll be right here keeping an eye on you.’ She kept it light because she could tell that Barry was petrified of the high-tech environment, which was quite common. ‘And I promise I’ll push you out the way if I need to, okay?’

He gave a worried laugh, still obviously doubtful, and Lola nodded encouragingly and smiled again. ‘I’m sure she’d love to hear your voice.’

His eyes flew to Lola’s in alarm. ‘I thought she was sedated.’

‘She is,’ Lola replied calmly. ‘But even unconscious patients can still hear things. There have been plenty of people who’ve woken from comas or sedation and been able to recite bedside conversations word for word.’

Barry chewed on his bottom lip. ‘I...don’t know what to say to her.’