Annie O'Neil - London's Most Eligible Doctor

“Does anyone ever say no to you, Dr. Manning?”

The smile disappeared entirely from his eyes. “Oh, you’d be surprised.”

When Lina excused herself to go to the ladies’ room, Cole waited for the waitress to take away their empty plates and give a farewell coo to Igor before pulling his coat on. He was pretty sure he knew the server’s life story by now but could honestly say he would leave the restaurant being none the wiser about the private life of Lina Keminsky. Not that prying had been his intention. They’d stuck to neutral topics when their food had arrived. And as much as Cole knew about how Reception worked, which, as it had turned out, wasn’t all that much. He’d taken over the practice about a year ago from an old medical school friend who had run off to get married—a recurring theme at En Pointe—and things had been running like a well-oiled ship up until now. Not that the past hour with Lina hadn’t lent a certain softening round the edges to the day.

It was pretty easy to tell she didn’t like to talk about herself and she’d quickly sussed out the same was true for him—or perhaps she simply wasn’t interested, which made a nice change. At home, or at least back in the United States, in the town where he’d grown up everyone knew everything about him. Back home everyone knew he’d had a fiancée— had being the crucial word. At twenty-six she’d been too young to die. Far too young. And her family was never going to let him forget it. So the fact that people generally kept themselves to themselves in London suited him to a T.

If what had happened to Lina had happened back home in North Carolina? There would’ve been a line of people at the door to her apartment, hands filled with bowls of potato salad, a platter of Grandma’s best fried chicken, a warm, tea-towel-wrapped plate filled with buttery collard greens, someone’s Great-Auntie Kay’s to-die-for double-decker chocolate cake with the cherry filling people talked about so much at the church socials, and so on and so on until before you knew it the whole thing would turn into an Item of Interest in the “What’s the Buzz” column of Maple Cove’s local gazette. There was no escaping the caring embrace of a community like that one. Especially when your African-American father and Irish mother were pillars of the community. The local judge and the most sought-after doula? There was no surprise when the couple’s son became a doctor engaged to the town’s most promising lawyer! A smile twitched on his lips, then tightened.

He wasn’t part of that community anymore.

He felt his teeth dig into his lower lip. It wasn’t worth it. Opening that particular can of worms. His parents were good folk. They were just ambitious. For themselves and for him. So what if they hadn’t been a huggy-kissy family? He’d made it, hadn’t he? Decorum, status, success. They were paramount in the Manning household. And now that he was a doctor running one of Britain’s most elite specialist clinics?

Nothing. None of it mattered.

The straight As at school, the letterman’s jacket weighed down with athletic achievements, the Ivy League education, the long-awaited proposal … none of the graft he’d put in to win an approving smile or a hug had meant a bean after the accident. His parents had made that more than clear.

The flash of grief tugged his mouth downward.

So, no. He didn’t like howdy-do-and-what-about-you? chitchat. Big-city anonymity had been suiting him just fine up to now.

But when it came to Lina? There was something telling him she might be worth breaking unwritten rules for.

She’d deftly managed to unearth his dry sense of humor and, as it had turned out, she had Eastern European drollness down to a T. Her impersonation of the waitress going all googly-eyed over the puppy had had him in stitches. Not that he hadn’t tried to hide it from her. He was going to be her boss after all and there were boundaries. Not that he’d managed to wrangle a “yes” out of her. If she did take the job, he’d have to remember that would be the extent of their relationship. A working one. He didn’t do personal. And he definitely didn’t do personal at work.

So why on earth had he invited her out to dinner? Not to mention let her name his puppy! Correction— the puppy. The puppy he was going to find a home for as soon as humanly possible.

He gave his head a scrub and snorted at the results. He’d given himself a grade-two once-over with his electric shaver that morning and wasn’t so sure even could be an accurate description. Yet another thing to add to the list of things that had turned his day into a catalog of disasters. Maybe he’d just wanted a bit of company for dinner. Someone who plainly didn’t want anything from him. No answers, no advice, no decisions. That suited him perfectly. If he could just shake off his attraction to her, he could go back to being cool, calm and collected Cole. The one who left his emotions at home. His parents, he thought with a bitter twist, would’ve been proud. At last! He was now just like them.

“You look like a snake bit you in the face.”

“Thanks and you look—” Cole stopped himself. He’d been about to say beautiful. “You look ready for a break from Igor and me.”

Cole automatically reached for her coat and helped her slip into it. His mother had drilled that into him. “Manners don’t make a man sexist, they make a man polite, and no one ever had a quibble about ‘polite.’”

“You’re too kind.”

If only she knew. Cruel to be kind was more like it.

As Lina slipped her arms into the sleeves and shrugged the coat over her shoulders, Cole was struck by how fragile her neck looked. Before they’d gone out she’d swept her hair up into some sort of semitamed twist, and a few tendrils had come loose and were brushing along the length of her neck, her shoulders. It was taking some serious control to stop himself from reaching forward and letting the pad of his thumb or the length of his finger draw down the length of her neck. He could just as easily imagine fastening a set of pearls round her neck, then dipping his lips to kiss the bare, pale swoop of skin between her neck and shoulder—

Lina turned around abruptly, and their noses nearly collided. Cole instinctively grabbed hold of her so she could steady herself but in that moment—and it was just a moment—with her face within kissing distance, her eyes caught with his, Cole knew he’d have to channel his deepest powers of control to ensure he only saw Lina for what she was—a potential candidate for the reception job. A job she hadn’t even committed to accepting. Hey! Maybe she wouldn’t take it. It’d probably be for the best.

She blinked. He hadn’t noticed the light color of her lashes before. He’d been too busy exploring the soft green hue of her— Hold your fire, there, soldier! No one’s going down that road just yet. Or at all.

“Right. I’d better get Igor back to get some snuggly time. Or something like that.” He regrouped and made his voice more doctorly. “Sleep. Puppies need sleep. Lots of it.” Cole took a broad step away from Lina and scooped up the basket where—up until that very moment—Igor had actually been sleeping quite contentedly. The puppy quirked a sleepy eyebrow at him. Lina shot him a similar look for good measure. Fine. He felt like an idiot. Could we all just get a move on now?

“Okay. I’ll see you at eight o’clock tomorrow morning, then?” She shifted her feet nervously.

Cole didn’t bat an eyelid.

So, she was taking the job. Bang went that solution.

Maybe she’d hate it and this little frisson—or whatever it was that was going on between them—would be short-lived.