Fiona Lowe - Secrets In Sydney - Sydney Harbour Hospital - Tom's Redemption

Secrets in Sydney

Sydney Harbour Hospital: Tom’s Redemption

Fiona Lowe

Sydney Harbour Hospital: Lexi’s Secret

Melanie Milburne

Sydney Harbour Hospital: Bella’s Wishlist

Emily Forbes

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Cover

Title Page Secrets in Sydney Sydney Harbour Hospital: Tom’s Redemption Fiona Lowe Sydney Harbour Hospital: Lexi’s Secret Melanie Milburne Sydney Harbour Hospital: Bella’s Wishlist Emily Forbes www.millsandboon.co.uk

Sydney Harbour Hospital: Tom’s Redemption Sydney Harbour Hospital: Tom’s Redemption Fiona Lowe

About the Author Always an avid reader, FIONA LOWE decided to combine her love of romance with her interest in all things medical, so writing Mills & Boon Medical Romance was an obvious choice! She lives in a seaside town in southern Australia, where she juggles writing, reading, working and raising two gorgeous sons with the support of her own real-life hero!

Dedication With special thanks to Leonie and Steve: two terrific doctors who generously shared their medical knowledge.

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

EPILOGUE

Sydney Harbour Hospital: Lexi’s Secret

Dedication

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

Sydney Harbour Hospital: Bella’s Wishlist

Dedication

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Copyright

Sydney Harbour Hospital: Tom’s Redemption

Fiona Lowe

Always an avid reader, FIONA LOWEdecided to combine her love of romance with her interest in all things medical, so writing Mills & Boon Medical Romance was an obvious choice! She lives in a seaside town in southern Australia, where she juggles writing, reading, working and raising two gorgeous sons with the support of her own real-life hero!

With special thanks to Leonie and Steve: two terrific doctors who generously shared their medical knowledge.

TOM JORDAN—Mr Jordan to almost everyone—stood on the balcony of his top-floor penthouse apartment with the winter sunshine warming his face. The harsh cry of seagulls wheeling above him clashed with the low and rumbling blast of a ferry’s horn as the tang of salt hit his nostrils. All of it was quintessentially Sydney. The emerald city. Home .

He gazed straight ahead towards the Opera House with its striking sails and architectural splendour, before turning his head toward the iconic bridge on his right. He knew the scene intimately, having grown up in Sydney, although a very long way from this multimillion-dollar vantage point. As a kid he’d once taken the ferry to Taronga Park Zoo on a school excursion and been awed by the size of the mansions that clung to the shoreline for the breathtaking views. The teacher in charge had noticed him staring and had said, ‘Dream on, Jordan. People like you only ever clean their floors.’

Tom had never forgotten that hard-nosed teacher or his words, which had eventually driven him to prove that teacher wrong. Prove everyone in Derrybrook wrong—well, almost everyone. Two people hadn’t needed convincing because they’d always believed in him.

The penthouse and the Ferrari were his way of giving those bastards from Derrybrook ‘the finger’. The long, hard journey to being head of the world-renowned neurosurgery department at Sydney Harbour Hospital was another beast entirely—a personal tribute to one of life’s special men.

His nostrils twitched as a slight musty aroma mixed in with the sharp citrus of cleaning products, drifted out from inside and lingered on the afternoon air. His cleaning lady had been both liberal and vigorous with their use in meeting the challenge of ridding the apartment of stale air—the legacy of having been closed up for well over a year. A year that had started out like any other, on a day that had been so routine it would have gone unnoticed in the annals of history yet for one tiny moment of mistiming, which had changed everything. Irrevocably. Irreversibly and indelibly.

For twenty-two months he’d stayed away from Sydney, not ever imagining he could return to the one place that represented everything he’d lost, but, just like that one moment in time, things had once again changed. Two months ago on Cottlesloe beach in Perth, the wind had whipped up in him an urge so strong it had had him contemplating heading east, but to what? A week later he’d received a joint invitation from Eric Frobisher, Medical Director of SHH, and Richard Hewitson, Dean of Parkes University’s School of Medicine, inviting him to give a series of guest lectures over six weeks for staff and medical students. His initial reaction had been to refuse. He wasn’t a teacher and lecturing wasn’t what he wanted—it didn’t even come close, but on a scale of necessity it was better than doing nothing at all. Doing nothing had sent him spiralling into a black hole that had threatened to keep him captive.

He gripped the balcony rails so tightly that the skin on his knuckles burned. This past year had been all about ‘re-education’ and was the first step onto the ladder of his new life. Once before he’d dragged himself up by the bootstraps and, by hell, he could do it again. He had to do it again. Only this time, unlike in his childhood, at least he wouldn’t see their pity or disdain.

A nip in the air bit into him, making him shiver, and he turned slowly, reaching out his hands to feel the outdoor table. Having made contact, he counted five steps and commenced walking straight until his extended left hand pressed against the slightly open glass door. Running the fingers of his right hand down the pane, he kept them moving until they touched and then gripped the rectangular handle. He pulled the door fully open and stepped inside, barely noticing the change in light.

‘And we’re done. Good work, everyone. Thank you.’ Hayley Grey, final-year surgical registrar, stepped back from the operating table and stripped off her gloves, leaving her patient in the capable hands of the anaesthetist and nursing staff. The surgery would later be described in the report as a routine appendectomy and only she and her night-duty team would know how close it had come to being a full-on disaster of septic shock with a peritoneum full of pus. Kylie Jefferson was an extremely lucky young woman. Another hour and things could have been very different.

Hayley pushed open the theatre swing doors, crossed the now quiet scrub-in area and exited through another set of doors until she was out in the long theatre suite corridor. She rolled back her shoulders as three a.m. fatigue hit her, taunting her with the luxury of sleep. Glorious and tempting sleep, which, she knew, if she gave in to and snuggled down in her bed, would only slap her hard and instantly depart with a bitter laugh. No, after years of experience she knew better than to try. She’d stick to her routine—type up her report on the computer, have something to eat, do an early round—and only then, as dawn was breaking, would she head home.

‘Hayley, we’ve got cake.’

‘What sort of cake?’