‘So, what time did you say you’d collect me for the hospital ball?’
She could see it instantly. His eyes flicking from her to her would-be admirer, then back again. Sizing up the situation in an instant. Then there was that wicked gleam in his eye which had her heart beating faster as she wondered whether or not he was about to land her in it.
For a long moment, they stared at each other. Amusement danced across his rich brown eyes, whilst she could only imagine the desperate plea in her own. Finally, Tak spoke.
‘Shall we say seven-thirty?’
‘Seven-thirty.’ She bobbed her head—a little too much like the nodding dog in the back of one of her foster family’s cars for her own liking. ‘I’m looking forward to it.’
She should hate it that a traitorous part of her actually was.
‘YOU DIDN’T HAVE to wait down here.’
Tak frowned as he sauntered into her lobby like some kind of Hollywood action hero. Sleek and burnished and sheer masculine magnificence—a stark contrast to the shabby, grubby, in-need-of-repair surroundings.
Effie felt her heartbeat actually hang for a moment, before galloping wildly back into life as an unexpected, unwanted tingle coursed over her skin. It was a momentary reprieve from the anxiety which had flushed her body ever since her daughter had dropped the mother of all bombshells on her, barely a few minutes ago. Just as she’d been about to walk out of the door.
If it hadn’t been for the knowledge that Tak would come up to the flat if she wasn’t in the lobby to stop him, she might have dropped everything and spent the entire night talking to—or rather yelling at—her daughter about her monumentally stupid lapse in judgement.
In some ways this night with Tak was a silver lining. It would give her space and a chance to calm down. If she blurted out to her daughter all the things that were racing around her head at this moment in time, then she might easily ruin their relationship for a long, long time to come.
Still, Effie told herself darkly that her reaction to Tak was simply due to the rush of cold night air accompanying his entrance.
She knew it wasn’t true.
So much for her efforts these past couple of days in telling herself that she had a handle on the situation. That her initial reaction to Tak had simply been a result of being caught off-guard. That now she’d had exposure to him she would be able to build up her resistance.
How on earth had she ever agreed to this?
‘I would have come to your door,’ he continued pointedly.
Effie thought of Nell, several storeys above them, and was pretty sure her daughter could sense her fury from all the way up there in the flat. And that was without the additional consideration of old Mrs Appleby from next door, who was babysitting Nell and never let the fact that she was practically deaf prevent her from sniffing out even a whiff of gossip. Seeing Tak Basu would be her scoop of the year. Of the decade, even.
‘It’s fine.’ She shook her head and forced a smile. ‘It isn’t a proper date, remember?’
For the next few hours she would welcome the distraction. It would do her and Nell good to have the evening apart. Time to think.
‘I’m glad to see that you do.’ His voice sounded different from how she remembered. As if he was distracted. ‘Although I should say you look stunning.’
Heat flooded her cheeks—and something else that she didn’t care to identify. She pretended it was merely concern that people might recognise her dress for the cheap, off-the-sale-rack, several-seasons-old gown that it was.
‘Thank you.’
It didn’t seem to matter how many times she told herself that he didn’t mean anything by it, that it was just something any date would say—fake or otherwise. Her body didn’t seem in the least bit interested in listening to such reason.
‘Your hair is...stunning.’
She didn’t know how she managed to stop her hands from lifting automatically to touch her head. It had taken her hours to get her hair like this—she would say she was hopelessly out of practice, but she wasn’t sure she’d ever been in practice—and she was pleased with the results. Thick, glossy, soft curls. It was the most glamorous she’d felt in a long time.
It was only fitting that she should spoil it all by saying something ridiculously prosaic and work-related. ‘Did you know there’s a study showing that natural redheads often need around twenty percent more anaesthetic than people with other hair colours to reach the same levels of sedation?’
‘There have been several studies,’ he confirmed gravely, but she couldn’t shake the impression that he was concealing his amusement. ‘They appear to confirm redheads as a distinct phenotype linked to anaesthetic requirement.’
Of course he knew. He was a neurosurgeon, after all. Well, that was her bank of small talk exhausted. Not that it seemed to matter when her brain froze as he stepped up to her and offered his arm.
For one brief moment the sight of Tak—so mouth-wateringly handsome in a bespoke tuxedo, the cut of which somehow achieved the impossible by allowing his already well-built body to look all the more powerful and dangerous—made her wonder what it would be like to go on a real date with someone like him.
She might have said made her yearn, had she not already known that was impossible. She hadn’t yearned in over thirteen years. She’d learned that bitter lesson—although she would never change her precious daughter for anything in the world.
Effie clicked her tongue impatiently—more at herself than the man standing in front of her. ‘Right, shall we go and get this over with?’
‘A woman after my own heart,’ he said, and his mouth twisted into something which looked more like the baring of teeth than an actual smile.
And then he stepped closer, his hand to the small of her back to guide her, and it was all Effie could do not to shiver at the delicious contact. She could put it down to nerves, and the fact that this was the first time she’d been out in two years—ever since the last hospital gala she’d been compelled to attend and had hated every moment—but she suspected that wasn’t the true root of it.
‘There’s no reason to feel nervous—’ He stopped abruptly. ‘Did you know we’d met before when we talked the other day?’
She twisted her head to look at him, surprised that he remembered her. ‘Yes, actually. I brought one of the first casualties I ever attended with the air ambulance to your hospital. You were the neurology consultant. Left-sided temporal parietal hematoma.’
‘Douglas Jacobs.’
‘You remember his name? I’m impressed.’
‘I remember,’ Tak confirmed.
She couldn’t have said what it was about his tone, but in that instant he made her believe that he remembered all his patients. That they weren’t just bodies to him. They were people.
It took her aback. Worse. It made him all the more fascinating.
‘You’re the one who diagnosed the expressive aphasia?’ Tak asked.
It had been in the notes, but she knew he was testing her. Because it mattered to him. It was a heady thought.
‘I did.’ It was all she could to sound casual. As though her body wasn’t beginning to fizz deliriously at Tak’s interest.
‘He wasn’t talking much and his vitals were stable. You did well to spot it. It was very subtle on presentation.’