Charlotte Hawkes - Tempted By Dr Off-Limits

One night is never enough...

For trauma doc Major Elle Caplin, spending one night in Lieutenant Colonel Fitzwilliam’s arms is out of character but oh so good! It’s meant to be a one-off, until Fitz shows up on her army base!

Fitz doesn’t do long-term—he knows he’s bad news to anyone he cares about—and learning that he’ll be working with capable flame-haired Elle puts her in the strictly off-limits category. But with the memory of their hot, life-changing encounter keeping him awake, suddenly Fitz is tempted to break his one-night rule!

Dear Reader,

I’ve always been inspired by true heroes and heroines—both military and non-military.

For years, working in the office on Saturday mornings for my father, to earn my pocket money, I enjoyed chatting to a lady who would pop in to pay her bill. Then one day she happened to mention that the first time she spoke to her future husband was when, as a World War II RAF pilot, temporarily left unable to see after a dogfight, she had calmly guided him and his plane down to the ground. They didn’t meet, and indeed carried on their duties. However, years later they were unwittingly introduced and he immediately recognised her voice. The rest, as that well-known saying goes, was history.

Clearly I love a good real-life love story—especially one with a military theme. I should perhaps confess that I met my own husband when he was a twenty-six-year-old lieutenant. As I was a twenty-four-year-old officer cadet at the time, he was also my troop commander! We resisted the attraction for three years before eventually going on our first date—and only because I’d received my call-up papers. Never let it be said that my now-husband rushes into things!

I really loved the idea of writing about best friends Fliss—my heroine from Encounter with a Commanding Officer—and Elle, who have forged their army careers together, and their stories were incredibly fun to write! I could have written an entire corps worth of them!

I do so hope that you, equally, enjoy reading them.

Charlotte x

Born and raised on the Wirral Peninsula, in England, Charlotte Hawkes is mum to two intrepid boys who love her to play building block games with them and who object loudly to the amount of time she spends on the computer. When she isn’t writing—or building with blocks—she is company director for a small Anglo/French construction company. Charlotte loves to hear from readers, and you can contact her at her website: charlotte-hawkes.com.

Tempted by Dr Off-Limits

Charlotte Hawkes

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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Books by Charlotte Hawkes

Mills & Boon Medical Romance

Hot Army Docs

Encounter with a Commanding Officer

The Army Doc’s Secret Wife

The Surgeon’s Baby Surprise

Visit the Author Profile page at millsandboon.co.uk.

Montgomery and Bartholomew,

my beautiful boys.

Make every step one you believe in and shine.

xxx

Praise for Charlotte Hawkes

‘The romance that shone throughout the story was well-written, well-thought-out and one of greatness. The characters were some of the most thought-out that I’ve come across lately. This is definitely one to pick up for an amazing story.’

—Harlequin Junkie on

The Surgeon’s Baby Surprise

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Dear Reader

About the Author

Title Page

Booklist

Dedication

Praise

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Extract

Copyright

Chapter One

‘HEY, GORGEOUS, THOSE lips of yours look so lonely, do they wanna meet mine?’

It took Elle a moment to realise the cheesy pick-up line had been aimed—or, more accurately, slurred—at her. She cringed and hoped that if she ignored him he might get the message, even as a part of her wondered why she didn’t make one of the witty, no-nonsense comebacks for which she was renowned among her army colleagues.

Two weeks ago she would have.

In fact, two weeks ago she wouldn’t have been sitting on this barstool, having nursed the same warm drink for the last couple of hours. She’d have been tearing up that dance-floor, alone or not.

Then again, two weeks ago she hadn’t walked in on her fiancé, Stevie, in bed with not one—as she’d told her best friend, Fliss, in some last desperate grasp at dignity—but two bimbos. Two. As if cheating on her wasn’t enough, he had to utterly humiliate her. They were football groupies, who’d then sold their sordid selfies to the tabloids. And in that moment it had been as though Stevie had stripped away all of Elle’s self-assurance, the very foundation of her confidence, which had been so carefully cultivated over the last decade or so, leaving her feeling more like the nerdy, geeky outsider of her youth.

The fifteen-year-old girl who had let her new stepmother bully her when her bereaved father hadn’t been around, and her schoolmate peers had pushed her around when her adored teachers hadn’t been looking, until the cool, sixteen-year-old rising football star Stevie had taken a shine to her and everyone had reluctantly backed off. They hadn’t disappeared altogether but had hovered, waiting for their chance to pounce as soon as Stevie dumped her.

But he hadn’t, they’d been together for fifteen years in total. Two kids from a no-shoes-poor background who had dreamed of breaking free. He was the only boy she’d ever kissed, the only man she’d ever slept with. Without his support—both emotional and financial—her deep-seated desire of going to university to study medicine would have remained a pipe dream.

She was only grateful that her photo hadn’t appeared within Stevie’s double-page spread, including the moment he’d scored the winning goal for his club in the most recent Premier League match. And surely that in itself was fairly damning? Her photo hadn’t been there because—fifteen years or not—the press had, mercifully, never really known about her. For the first few years of their relationship they’d been practically inseparable, looking for each other in school or at lunch-breaks, and then she’d gone to university and everything had changed. For almost the last decade of her relationship with Stevie she’d tried to keep her life and career as a respected army trauma doctor as far away from his professional footballer lifestyle as she possibly could.

‘Man, what’s a bloke gotta do t’get some attention around here?’

Elle startled as the drunk man next to her lolled over the bar, trying in vain to get the bartender to notice him. She refrained from telling him that she’d seen sober people wait up to about ten minutes to get served; she doubted he’d get anything more to drink from anyone. He seemed to have forgotten about her and she didn’t particularly want to engage the bloke when she didn’t have to.