‘So, do we have a deal?’
There were a hundred reasons why she should say no. Thirteen of them even had the same four letters. Nell. But suddenly all Effie could think of were all the reasons—as flimsy and as spurious as she knew them to be—why she might say yes.
‘My car is in the garage right now, so it would save me having to drive myself...’
She couldn’t believe she’d said it aloud. It didn’t even sound believable. What on earth had made her think it was better to say that than admit her car was such a clapped-out old mess she didn’t want people seeing her in it in case they asked too many questions?
It had been bad enough convincing her new colleagues that she kept it because it had sentimental value, rather than tell the truth about the fact that she’d been going to change it, but Nell’s new school had offered a last-minute place on a ski trip they’d been planning for twelve months and, given the lateness, she’d needed to make full payment of a sum which had made her eyes water.
She knew what people’s expectation of a doctor’s salary was—and why they couldn’t equate her career with her always-tight finances. Even those who know about her daughter.
However much the news made an issue of student debt, and the tens of thousands that medical students especially could incur, it was easy for outsiders to forget that such debt incurred heavy interest every year. Even many of her colleagues had had family to support them financially, at least to some degree.
But none of them had also been raising a daughter at the same time.
Effie still shuddered when she thought of how she’d had to beg and plead—and sometimes gloss a little over the truth—in order to secure every available student and bank loan out there. She could have chosen a different career, of course, but she’d had something to prove. Both to herself and in memory of the one woman who had ever believed in her.
Even when she’d qualified, every penny of her salary had been swallowed up, not just by basic living costs, but by the additional costs that a child had incurred. Food, children’s clothes which never seemed to fit for more than a year, but especially the crippling childcare costs, Especially for a junior doctor working long shifts, night shifts, and even sometimes ninety-plus hour weeks.
True, nowadays her career was more established and she was a lot more financially stable, but even now she couldn’t break the habit of putting her daughter first. Maybe it was because she needed to give Nell the opportunities she herself had never had, or perhaps it was guilt at having had to work so hard for all those years.
Either way, it was why her clever, beautiful, funny daughter was at the most prestigious private school in the area, to the tune of several tens of thousands a year—even without the additional ski trips, French exchanges, and Summer Activities program—whilst she herself kept her old car for just one year longer.
Not that she would ever confess to someone a single word of any of that to someone like Tak.
Still, his expression flickered slightly and Effie couldn’t be sure what he was thinking. She had a feeling he was laughing at her and she gave herself a mental kick. And then she kicked herself again for even caring what he thought about her.
Good job she was immune to cocky, arrogant, too-handsome-for-their-own-good playboys.
Although the way her traitorous heart was reacting to him was galling. This never happened to her. Never. She had never gossiped with colleagues about the latest developments in an eligible guy’s sex-life. Or lusted after men around the water cooler. Or gone out to clubs and picked up guys.
That didn’t mean she hadn’t lusted after the odd guy on TV, or in a magazine. Though never in person—not like this. At least not since Nell’s father, as gargantuan a mistake as he had been. Not that she would ever give Nell up for a second. But he had been an idiot boy whom she’d lusted after but never loved. Had barely even known—not really. He’d had no hopes, no dreams. He’d relied on his good looks and he certainly hadn’t wanted to achieve anything. He’d laughed at her dreams of going to university to study medicine. Told her to get real. That places like that didn’t take kids like them.
They’d dated—if it could even be called that—for a handful of months. And even that had been because a lethal cocktail of grief and lust, had given her the desire to get one thing to make her forget the other, if only for one night.
Eleanor’s shocking death had rocked her more than all those awful years in and out of foster homes, or care homes when her mother had been deemed ‘too unfit’ to care for her. The fact that something as ugly and banal as a drunk driver could have snuffed out such a warm, glorious light, in the blink of an eye, made it that much worse.
In a matter of hours Effie had gone from being on the brink of being adopted, and finally having a loving family in the form of Eleanor, to having absolutely no one. No one but him. And she’d let herself believe that he could ease her loneliness.
But when she told him she’d fallen pregnant he’d wanted nothing to do with her, and she’d never felt more abandoned. That had been the moment she’d vowed she would never again let anyone into her personal life, never let a guy know she was attracted to them.
Immune, she reminded herself now, crossly.
Tearing her eyes away from the approaching figure, Effie checked her watch. ‘I have to get back to the heli.’
‘No one’s stopping you.’ Tak twisted his mouth into something which was too amused to be a smile. ‘You’re the one who has prolonged things, preferring this verbal sparring to answering a simple question.’
It was as though he could read her thoughts. As though he knew that a part of her was aching to say yes.
Effie drew herself up as tall as she could. ‘Is that right?’ she managed primly. ‘Then allow me to be clear. My answer, Dr Basu, is no. No, I do not want to accompany you to the hospital charity ball as your date. Fake or otherwise.’
So why was every fibre of her screaming at her that this was the wrong answer?
‘I see.’ His lips twitched. ‘Thank you for letting me know.’
Before she could ruin the moment, Effie filed away her notes and marched out through the Resus doors. It took her a moment to realise that she wasn’t alone.
Spinning around, she confronted him. ‘Why are you following me?’
‘Apologies if it’s spoiling the dramatic effect of your exit.’ Tak didn’t look remotely apologetic. ‘I’m heading home. My car is in the car park next to the helipad.’
He had to be kidding?
She hesitated, unsure what to do next. It was a two-hundred-metre stretch from here to there. If she marched off ahead of him he might think she was employing one of those flirtatious tactics of making him look at her backside. But the alternative was walking together in an awkward silence.
There was no reason for that to hold the slightest amount of appeal, she berated herself silently. Perhaps it would be easier if she pretended she’d forgotten something inside the hospital and headed back inside for a moment? Yes, that might be best.
Turning around, Effie took a step towards the hospital doors just as one of her more dogged suitors—who had so far asked her out three times and showed no signs of getting the message—walked out.
A smarmy smile slid over his features and she panicked. A little bit of pursuit might be considered flattering, but the problem with this particular guy was that he truly deemed himself too good a catch for any woman in their right mind to reject him. It seemed the more she turned him down, the more he took it as a challenge that she wanted to be pursued harder.
She could report him, of course, but she needed the money and not the hassle.
Her