Joss Wood - With Love From Cape Town

Robina’s lips parted as she turned her face to his. ‘Just try and stop me,’ she said before he brought his mouth back down on hers.

‘NO WAY! It’s out of the question!’ Niall slammed his mug down on the desk, noticing but not giving a damn as the coffee splashed across his desk.

‘Really?’ Robina raised perfectly groomed eyebrows. ‘Why not?’ she asked, her calm, cool tones underpinning the determination in her dark eyes. Niall leaned back in his chair. The woman he had met a year ago was almost unrecognisable behind the practised, almost cold, façade.

‘Why not?’ he echoed incredulously before lowering his voice. ‘Surely you can see why it’s impossible?’

‘Let’s keep this professional,’ she responded calmly, but he flinched inwardly from the reproach in her eyes. How could brown eyes, the colour of acacia honey, which had once sparkled up at him with suppressed laughter, now look so distant? ‘Why don’t you give me your reasons and I’ll respond to each one in turn?’

‘For a start, there’s patient confidentiality. Then there is the fact that these are a particularly vulnerable group of women, and then finally, if all that weren’t enough, how do you expect us to work with cameras in our faces? We’d be tripping over wires, sound recordists and God knows who all else. That’s why it’s impossible.’

‘Quite the opposite.’ Robina crossed one slim leg over the other, only the tightening of her lips giving away her determination to have her own way. ‘But let’s take each of your objections in turn, shall we?’ She tapped her pen against her lips. ‘Patient confidentiality; we will, naturally, check with the patients whether they are prepared to appear on camera. Only those who are one hundred per cent happy and who our company psychologist thinks can handle it will be asked to participate, and they will be allowed to withdraw their permission at any time. Secondly, yes, they are a particularly vulnerable group of women, I agree. Anyone going through or considering IVF has usually been on a very emotional journey before seeking treatment. However, that is the very reason why making a documentary of this kind is important. It will provide an insight into the process that cannot be gleaned from books on the subject, no matter how detailed or how professional.’ She arched an eyebrow at him. ‘Even my book on infertility, popular though it is, cannot truly prepare women for what it is really like to undergo treatment. Following the actual experiences of other women, on the other hand, will. That’s why this documentary should be made.’ She tilted her head, and raised a questioning eyebrow at him, daring him to find a fault in her argument.

Niall started to interrupt, but she held up a manicured hand, stopping him. ‘And papers published in medical journals, no matter how worthy or how accurate, simply do not deal properly with the emotional aspect of infertility. And that is the angle we wish to focus on. Women considering IVF will be able to see first hand what a roller-coaster ride it can be, and the effect failed treatment can have on couples, before they decide whether or not to proceed with treatment. Of course we will portray the other side too. The fact that IVF has given so many women—and their partners—the opportunity to have the children they so desperately want.’

He had to admire the way she demolished his arguments. But he had seen her in action before. In front of the camera, faced with an expert from a medical field, she never let them bamboozle her or the audience with science. No, he had to admit, although it pained him, she had a knack of making even the most complicated medical condition understandable to the layperson.

‘And as for staff getting in the way, you’ll hardly know we’re there, I promise you.’

‘The answer is still no,’ he said. ‘This is my unit and as long as I’m in charge, I will decide what is and what isn’t allowed.’

Once again the eyebrow was raised. ‘I have to say that view sounds a little dictatorial. Is that really how you like to run things?’ Her lips twitched. ‘And I thought you took pride in being up to date, cutting edge in fact.’

Niall gritted his teeth. It was a sly dig and they both knew it. Just as he opened his mouth to retaliate there was a brief knock on the door and Lucinda Mayfair walked into the room. The unit’s general manager was in her early fifties with short grey hair and a wide, determined mouth. Niall had worked with her for a number of years and although they had had their differences of opinion, he had enormous respect for her skills. Without her fighting their corner it was unlikely that the unit would have gained the recognition it had as the foremost centre in the UK, even given his international reputation.

‘I’m sorry I had to leave you to get started without me.’ Lucinda’s smile relaxed the severe contours of her face. Despite her fearsome reputation, and her forbidding exterior, she had a soft heart. More than once he had seen her eyes suspiciously moist when a patient had been given the news they so desperately wanted or sometimes, sadly, dreaded.

Lucinda had shared his dream of making the unit the best in the UK, and so far, working together, with the support of their hand-picked team, they had succeeded. Which, he thought grumpily, they couldn’t have done, if it had been anything except cutting edge.

‘Don’t you think Robina’s idea is great, Niall?’ Lucinda continued.

Niall frowned. It seemed that they were on opposite sides in this argument. Still, they had been before and he had always managed to talk Lucinda round. He didn’t foresee any difficulties this time either.

‘I have just been telling Robina that it’s impossible. We’re a working unit. We certainly don’t have time to appear on a TV show. God, is there no aspect of life that reality TV doesn’t want to ferret around in?’

‘Niall,’ Lucinda said warningly, ‘you and I need to talk about this. And as for people ferreting around, as you so elegantly put it, Robina’s a doctor and completely professional. She’s not going to go about this in an insensitive manner. You know that.’

Robina stood, flicking an imaginary speck of dust from her beautifully cut Chanel suit. Every inch the professional media woman, Niall thought. Looking as if butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth. But there had been times lately when he’d thought he’d seen naked pain in the depths of her deep brown eyes.

‘Why don’t I leave you two to discuss it? I need to get back to the office. We can speak later.’

As she bent to drop a kiss on Lucinda’s cheek, Niall studied Robina surreptitiously. Her closely cropped dark hair, long neck and high cheekbones, along with her chocolate skin, all added to the exotic look known to thousands, if not millions, of viewers. She wasn’t just beautiful, she was stunning. At least five-ten, she was slim, recently almost painfully so. If she had chosen a life as a model, Niall had no doubt she would have been equally successful.

Robina walked around to Niall’s side of the desk and bending, kissed him on the cheek.

‘I’ll see you at home, darling. Try not to be too late. You know Ella won’t go to sleep unless she can kiss you goodnight. Make sure he leaves on time, won’t you, Lucinda?’

And with that, Niall watched his wife sweep out the door.

‘Robina gets more beautiful every day,’ Lucinda said wistfully. ‘How she manages it, looking after a young child with a full-time job and her writing, is beyond me. She must be some kind of superwoman! I hear she has a new book coming out in the spring.’

The last thing Niall wanted to talk about was his wife and her career, particularly since she hadn’t even mentioned until now that her company was thinking of doing a documentary in his unit. There was no doubt in his mind that the two women had been planning the project long before he had been told about it, and he was furious. How had Robina managed to get to Lucinda without him knowing? Robina must have known damn well he would oppose the project, and not just for the reasons he’d outlined earlier. For her even to be thinking about doing the documentary was crazy. It was far too soon and far too close to home. But that was probably why she had gone directly to Lucinda. The unit’s general manager didn’t know about the baby and even if she did, it wouldn’t have crossed her mind that he and Robina hadn’t discussed the documentary beforehand. Neither could Lucinda even guess that he and his wife were barely on speaking terms these days, and that the kiss Robina had deposited on his cheek had all been part of the façade they kept up in front of others.