Carol Marinelli - Playing the Playboy's Sweetheart

He pulled back but only because to continue would have them on the edge of indecent. Emily could taste his breath, see his lips wet from hers and she wanted to be back there now, yet she resisted the call of her body and moved her hips away from him.

Oh, it wasn’t that Hugh was bad that terrified her, it was that he was so, so good.

‘I really do have to go.’

She moved to the side and slipped past, and Hugh watched as she walked off, both trying to get his breath back and trying to ignore the fact he had been dismissed. Then he smothered the smile that came to his lips when Louise told Emily that Gina had just gone. ‘She said you looked busy.’

There was a flush on Emily’s cheeks but it wasn’t from embarrassment, it was from arousal by the man who was now by her side.

‘Let’s go.’

It could have been an awkward ride home except Emily knew that she was possibly approaching the ride of her life.

Never, in all her twenty-three years had a man detonated her the way Hugh had.

His hand was on her thigh as they drove and she took no offence for hers was on his and it was suggestive down to her fingernails in a way she had never been before. The relief when he turned off the engine at the same time as he pulled up the handbrake had her snap off her seat belt in haste to return to his mouth.

‘Emily …’ His hand was up her skirt like two out-of-control teenagers and the spinning wheels in her head slowed as he halted. ‘Not here.’

She was going to ask him in.

Sex.

Brilliant, sex and, and …

Emily pulled back her head and denied instinct.

‘I’m going in …’

‘Sure.’ Hugh would, of course, rather she asked him in too but, well, this would be so worth the wait.

She watched his mouth move and offer dinner, a catch-up next week, though his hand between her thighs told her it would definitely end in bed and it was time to bring things to a halt.

‘Hugh.’ She let out a breath. ‘I don’t know …’ She changed tack. ‘It’s just …’ How could she deny the want that thrummed between them? For Emily there was but one thing left to do so she came up with a rapid lie. ‘I’m seeing someone.’

‘Oh.’

‘Gregory.’

‘It’s fine, I get it …’ Though he didn’t. Poor Gregory, Hugh thought as he reclaimed his hand, because five minutes from now he’d have had her knickers off.

‘He’s in Scotland, so we don’t see each other as much as—’

‘You really don’t need to explain.’

And so the phantom Gregory was born.

When her father and Donna broke up in the New Year it was to Gregory she turned, rather than Hugh, though they did touch on it once, because Hugh came into the staffroom when Emily was on the phone.

‘Donna, I get it that you have issues with my father but I don’t understand what that has to do with me. If you don’t want to see me that’s fine but can I just take the twins to the park or for an ice cream every now and then …?’ She turned in her chair and saw that Hugh had come in just as Donna told her that, no, she’d prefer Emily didn’t have extra contact with the twins—she could see them when her father bothered to.

‘Is she not letting you see the twins?’ Hugh asked when she came off the phone.

‘I can see them when they’re with my dad, which isn’t very often. I asked if I could take them out at the weekend but it unsettles them apparently.’

‘Can she do that?’

‘Of course she can.’ Emily stood and went to walk past but Hugh caught her arm.

‘Emily?’

‘What?’

‘Do you want …?’ Hugh didn’t really know what he was offering.

Emily did.

Yes, she did want.

She wanted to burst into tears, she wanted him to take her out and not cheer her up, just share …

She wanted to share with him.

Emily looked down at the fingers that still held her wrist.

Oh, he could hurt her, Emily thought, and then looked up to his eyes. He could really, really hurt her.

‘I’ll sort it out,’ Emily said. ‘Gregory is going to try and speak with her.’

At the mention of Gregory his hand disengaged from her arm.

For the next three months, every time Emily went to visit her mother Hugh was brought up to speed through vague conversations. However, just as he was starting to wonder about the fact that Gregory never seemed to come down to London, Emily actually found her perfect guy for real, so Gregory was swiftly dumped.

Marcus was perfect.

Dark haired, terribly serious, he was a social worker at the hospital and liked to hike at weekends. Sex happened on Saturdays, occasional Tuesdays, and Emily developed solid calf muscles from trips up hillsides.

It was perfect for close to two years when the breaking news arrow shot across the hospital grapevine that Marcus had been found in a compromising position in the X-ray department with Heidi, the Swedish radiographer.

Hugh, now a senior registrar and going out with Olivia by then, expected tears in the staffroom, blushes and drama—the usual type of thing that happened with a very public break-up. With Emily that didn’t happen, though …

Oh, she was a curious thing.

Emily just shrugged it off and got on with work.

The very next Monday they stood in Theatre and Emily glanced up as the alarm went off on the cardiac monitor when the anaesthetised patient kicked off a few ectopic heartbeats.

‘All fine,’ Rory, the anaesthetist, called as the patient’s heart steadied back into a regular rhythm.

There were no flashing lights, no drama—it was hardly an event really.

And that was just how Emily liked things.

It was how she kept control.

‘I DON’T WANT to work there.’

It was, for Emily, as simple as that.

She and Hugh had been working together for close to three years now and often caught up on a Monday. Now, in their lunch break, they sat in the staffroom at their favourite table, putting the world to rights.

‘I think you’d be very good in Accident and Emergency,’ Hugh said. ‘Anyway, it’s only for three months.’

‘Well, why don’t you go and work in Labour and Delivery for three months and then get back to me with that statement.’

‘Fair point,’ Hugh conceded.

‘I’m going to speak to Miriam today and see if there’s any way I can get out of doing it.’

Miriam, the head of Critical Nursing, had, last year, decided to rotate the staff on the units. Emily had reluctantly done a three-month stint in ICU and had thought that would be the end of it, but Miriam had decided to press on with internally rotating the staff. Emily had been told that in June she would be commencing a term in Accident and Emergency.

Theatre was Emily’s stomping ground. The thought of working in Emergency was unsettling—the drama of it, the emotion, the constant loaning out of your heart if you chose to empathise, or the burn-out that left you a tough bitch. Emily couldn’t decide what was worse. She had no intention of revealing to Hugh the real reasons she was so opposed to the idea, so instead she changed the subject.

‘So, is it true?’ Hugh didn’t reply to her question but Emily pushed on. ‘Have you and Olivia broken up?’

‘Yep.’

‘I thought you two were happy.’

‘We were,’ Hugh said. ‘When we were together.’

‘What do you mean?’

It was Hugh who sat silent for a moment now. He and Olivia had been happy. Everyone had said how suited they were and, yes, their relationship had ticked most boxes.

Two boxes had been missing, though.

Olivia’s jealousy and trust issues were one and as for the other …

He looked across the table to where Emily was peeling open her croissant and sprinkling more black pepper onto the cheese and tomato that filled it. She loved black pepper—there were always a couple of sachets in the pocket of her scrubs.