He only hoped that it hadn’t shown on his face.
Then again, Max had spent months stuck in a hospital bed with nothing to do except brood and teach himself to mask his feelings. Between that, and three years of working for Doctors Without Borders, he was pretty sure he could keep his expression blank and professional in just about any situation.
Including unexpectedly coming face-to-face again with the love of his life.
He’d told himself that he was ready to work in England again, that he was over Marina. But seeing her just now had taught him how wrong he’d been. He wasn’t over her at all. He never had been, and if he were honest with himself he probably never would be.
Not that he was going to do anything about it. Marina’s expression had been pretty clear—shock, followed by hurt and anger. Given that she’d been the one to start divorce proceedings, it was obvious that she’d keep her distance from him. For all he knew, she could be in a serious relationship—married, even. He hadn’t noticed a ring on her left hand; then again, he’d been too busy trying to look professional and detached to think of even looking. The idea of seeing another man’s ring there made him feel sick to the stomach, but what right did he have to protest? He’d signed the papers, after all, agreed to end their marriage instead of fighting for it.
He’d been angry when he’d signed them—angry with Marina for walking out on him, and angry with himself for not doing more to keep them together. But he knew now that the anger had been just a mask for the hurt, something to cover the pit of loss so he couldn’t see how deep it was.
He swallowed hard. What a mess. Now they were going to have to work together, and there was a fair chance that they’d be rostered onto the same team in Resus. So, for both their sakes, he was going to have to keep a lid on his feelings and pretend they’d never met before.
Thank God he’d chosen to specialise in emergency medicine, where he’d be kept way too busy to think about his ex-wife. He strode out to the reception area and called his next patient.
As always, when the weather was icy, the waiting area in the department was standing-room only. Most of the patients had fallen; some were badly bruised, but there were several with Colles’ fractures that needed backslabs to keep the break stable before referral to the fracture clinic. But even though Marina was too busy to have a proper break she made sure she spent enough time with each patient to reassure them—particularly one elderly patient who suffered from osteoporosis and had cracked both arms and a hip. Rather than sending her up to the geriatric ward with a porter, Marina took the old lady herself and spent time settling her in to the ward.
Lunch was a sandwich eaten while sorting paperwork between patients. Halfway through the afternoon, Eve, the charge nurse, caught Marina before she saw her next case. ‘You haven’t had a break today. Go and grab a coffee.’
‘We’re busy,’ Marina protested. ‘And you haven’t had a break either, Eve.’ Nobody in the department did when it was as busy as this. There just wasn’t time.
‘Go and grab a coffee,’ Eve directed. ‘You need a break. And you’re off at five today, yes?’
Marina nodded. ‘I feel awful, leaving early when we’ve still got a full waiting-room.’
‘You were in at eight, and you haven’t stopped since you’ve been in. So leaving at five isn’t exactly leaving early, is it? And we all know where you’re going to be, anyway, if we need you.’
Yes. Picking up Phoebe, then going upstairs to the maternity department and spending a while at her elder sister’s bedside.
Eve smiled at her. ‘How’s Rosie doing?’
‘Getting there. She’s feeling well enough to moan about being stuck in here and wanting to be at home with Neil and Phoebe.’
‘That’s a good sign. And the baby’s doing OK?’
‘Doing fine.’ Marina bit her lip. ‘Though I think we’ll all be a lot happier when he or she’s here safely.’
‘Rosie’s in good hands. You know as well as I do, Theo Petrakis is the best.’ Eve patted her shoulder. ‘Now, scoot.’
‘Five minutes and I’ll be back.’
‘Make it fifteen,’ Eve said.
Marina had no intention of taking that long, not when they were so busy. But she went through to the staff kitchen, made herself a mug of coffee and added enough cold water so that she could drink it quickly.
‘Is the kettle still hot?’ a voice behind her asked, and she nearly dropped her mug.
Max.
Longing surged through her, but she stifled it. Fast. ‘Yes, Dr Fenton.’ She forced herself to sound cool, calm and professional; the last thing she wanted was for him to realise that his voice was enough to turn her to a gibbering mess inside.
If there was an atmosphere between them people would start asking questions. Marina really didn’t want to be the hot topic on the hospital grapevine. So, much as she hated it, she forced herself to make small talk. ‘I didn’t know you were going to be working here,’ she said.
‘I had an interview two weeks ago,’ Max replied, making himself a coffee and topping it up with cold water, the same way Marina had.
Two weeks ago: that explained it. Life had been so crazy since Rosie had been admitted to the maternity ward with pre-eclampsia sixteen days before that Marina really hadn’t paid much attention to what was going on at work. She just did her shift, visited her sister before and after every shift and helped her brother-in-law Neil to look after Phoebe, Rosie and his two-year-old daughter.
‘I didn’t realise you were here, either,’ Max added. ‘You weren’t here when I had a tour of the department.’
‘I was probably off duty.’ Not that he needed to know what she’d been doing. He hadn’t kept in touch with her family at all; as far as she was concerned, he wasn’t part of her family any longer, and she didn’t owe him any explanations.
‘How long have you been working here?’
‘Nearly a year.’ She glanced at him, and was gratified to see a slight flicker in his eyes. Good: so he did remember what had happened a year ago. He’d taken long enough to sign the divorce papers. Her solicitor had had to send them to him three times because he hadn’t bothered replying; the ending of their marriage had clearly been as low a priority in his life as their marriage itself.
But at last she was free. She’d gone back to using her maiden name. At the London Victoria, they’d only ever known her as Marina Petrelli—and that was the way she wanted it to stay.
‘It’s a good place to work,’ she said.
He raised an eyebrow. ‘Is it going to be a problem, my working here?’
Trust Max to cut to the chase.
Yes, it was a problem. She’d much rather they didn’t have to work together. But she couldn’t change the situation, only make the best of it. ‘I think,’ she said carefully, ‘We’re both professional enough to put our patients first.’
‘Good.’
There was a long, long pause. Marina couldn’t think of a single thing to say.
Actually, that wasn’t true. There was a lot she wanted to say. Answers she wanted to demand. But the emergency-department kitchen wasn’t the right place to say any of it.
If anyone had said to her five years ago that she’d find it difficult to talk to Max, she would’ve laughed in disbelief. They’d never stopped talking, right from the start. And Max had fitted right in to her noisy, talkative family. The Petrellis had