Carol Marinelli - Seduced By The Heart Surgeon

James didn’t even know they’d remained friends.

Oh, it was a long dinner and then came the speeches.

Freya glared at the cameraman, who was getting stuck into the champagne. She would have preferred Beth to have chosen someone else, but the wedding budget was getting tight, Beth had said. Freya had gently suggested losing a few bows but that hadn’t gone down well.

‘My wife and I have an extra surprise for you all,’ Neil said. ‘You’ll be thrilled to know that the stork arrived early....’

The whole room melted and clapped and the cameraman must have seen Freya’s stern glare because he panned to the guests and then back to the happy couple. Neil made a joke about more free cocktails for him on their cruise. This had Freya’s jaw tense.

Then the dancing started but Freya still couldn’t relax as Beth had yet more requests.

‘I want him to film messages for us from all the guests.’

‘I know that you do.’

‘But I don’t want the messages to just be about the baby,’ Beth said. ‘I want them mainly to be about me.’

Me, me, me, me, me, Freya thought as she nodded and smiled.

Freya took a glass of champagne from a passing waiter and then Edward came over. ‘You’re looking gorgeous, Freya,’ he said.

She looked terrible, as Mr Room 2812 had so sexily pointed out!

‘Can I get you another drink?’ Edward offered.

‘No, thank you.’

‘You were blonde last time I saw you,’ he said. ‘You’ve gone back to brunette.’

‘Really?’ Freya’s response was sarcastic. ‘Thanks for letting me know.’

‘I’m actually staying here tonight,’ Edward said. ‘How about a dance for old times’ sake?’

‘How about I throw this champagne in your face?’

Freya walked off with her drink and headed outside to drag the cool night air into her lungs. She loved LA in winter and she promised to take herself riding some time soon. It was her best method for relaxing and she had been introduced to it when she had been in rehab.

Freya never cried.

Not even in rehab had she let them break her but tonight she suddenly felt close.

It wasn’t Edward, she harboured no hidden feelings for him—well, no nice ones.

It was how they’d ended things that still stung, all these years on.

Her long stint in rehab had been spread far and wide across the media and everyone had thought she’d been on drugs. At the age of twenty-three, when they’d started dating, he’d asked about it and Freya had told him about her eating disorder.

It had been hard to reveal but she’d pushed on and had told him she was recovered, or healed, or whatever the best word was. But when she’d told him that she probably couldn’t have children he had, on the spot, dumped her and accused her of stringing him along. It had felt as if Edward had only been dating her on the assumption that one day she’d be pregnant.

‘I thought we were enjoying each other’s company,’ Freya had said. ‘Not looking for future mating partners.’

‘Well, it’s preferable to have that option,’ had been his callous response.

It had hurt, it had been such a horrible blow to her recovering self, but she had refused to let it plunge her back into hell.

Freya knew she should go back inside but she could not face Edward.

Did he think she’d have an affair, that married men were all that was left? Oh, no, she would rather, far rather, get in that elevator and...

Why not? Freya thought.

They’d both, in that brief exchange, stated that they were single.

And she’d promised this coming year to do more of the things she liked and to try new things.

No.

Freya simply couldn’t see it.

Going up and knocking on Sexy Bastard’s door just for sex.

Or maybe he’d left it open and she would just slip in.

Actually, Freya could see it.

And she had promised to keep her New Year’s resolutions...

New Year.

Yikes! Freya remembered a little too late that she had to get everyone out for the photo shoot and the next twenty minutes were frantic indeed.

It had been a long and difficult night, Freya thought, and a part of her longed to just head upstairs and to find out what simply letting go and having fun actually meant.

* * *

An aching part of Zack had really wished she would head up!

He’d arrived back in his room so turned on and waiting.

Come on, he’d thought.

God knew, he’d needed the distraction.

He’d unlatched the door and lain on the bed, hands behind his head.

She was stunning.

Dark eyes, dark hair and that mouth... She’d looked a little familiar but all he had ever seen of LA till now had been the airport so Zack had shrugged that thought off. It would come to him overnight.

Would she?

Of course she would. The attraction had been through the roof but by ten he’d downgraded his expectations because the speeches were surely well over with.

By eleven-thirty he’d woken from a doze and stared out to the LA night.

Not at the city but at the mountains beyond and he knew he had to ring his parents before the lines got busy. He got up and took out his cellphone and took a steadying breath before he made the call.

Zack was thirty-three and the last time he’d been home, a couple of years ago, he’d been the same age as his brother Toby had been when he had died.

Except Toby had been married and working in the family practice and his wife, Alice, had wanted to start a family.

Whereas Zack, as his parents had constantly pointed out, was a drifter.

He was a highly skilled paediatric cardiac surgeon, Zack had riposted, but that was just boasting, he was told. And what good were his skills when they were so badly needed in Kurranda, the remote outback town where he and Toby had been raised.

He could picture the phone ringing in the hall. Reception was haphazard there and the landline to the family doctor really was a lifeline for the community.

His mother answered on the third ring.

‘Hey, Mum,’ Zack said. ‘Happy New Year.’

‘I’m sure it is where you are.’

Zack closed his eyes, it was just more of the same.

‘How’s Nepal?’

‘I’m in LA,’ Zack answered.

‘I thought you had to be in Nepal.’

‘I did have to be there for Christmas,’ Zack answered. ‘There was an operation I wanted to do before I left but we had to wait for some equipment to arrive. I would have been home if I could.’

‘Well, why aren’t you now?’

‘Because I’ve got an interview tomorrow.’

‘In LA?’

‘It’s a top medical centre. They’ve got some of the most amazing equipment and facilities and I don’t want to let that side of things slide...’ Zack stopped even attempting to explain. He did not want to argue with his mother. Judy Carlton simply could not, would not, get it, and Zack was over trying to explain. ‘Is Dad there?’

‘You just missed him. He got called out for Tara. Do you remember her?’

Of course he damn well remembered, they’d been friends. What his mother didn’t know was that they had been each other’s first. Zack had fought to stop that getting out as Tara’s father was very religious.

Zack stayed silent.

‘She married Jed.’

‘Yep.’

‘Well, the baby’s not due till the end of January but it looks as if she might deliver early and it’s breech. I can’t talk for long, they might need the air ambulance...’

‘I get it.’ Zack said. ‘Will you wish Dad a happy New Year for me and could you—?’

‘Zack,’ his mum broke in, ‘you should be here to say it to him for yourself. Even if you’d just come home on a stopover it would have been something.’

‘I would have but this interview is being slotted in, they need me to start straight away. There’s a very sick child—’