St Piran's: The Brooding Heart Surgeon. Alison Roberts

      The reason women couldn’t be seen as equals in this arena was largely because of the perception that they allowed emotion to cloud their judgment. Or, worse, they put a priority on relationships and undermined their careers by taking time off to have babies.

      Not Anna Bartlett. It wasn’t on any agenda she’d ever had.

      Luke’s return and—worse—his attractiveness were roadblocks. Ones she could detour around, which would see her working somewhere else, or deal with if the pull to stay put was strong enough. Either way, getting even remotely close to Luke Davenport would be a mistake.

      It was Anna who broke the eye contact.

      And turned away.

      CHAPTER THREE

      THE crisis over, Luke found he couldn’t drag his eyes away from Anna.

      Not that he hadn’t spotted her the moment she’d walked into the canteen. He’d taken a good look then because he hadn’t been sure it was her. Something about the height and body shape of the woman had seemed familiar but he’d only seen her eyes before this so it could have been anybody.

      Just an attractive female member of staff. A senior member, obviously, because of the way she held herself. The way she moved with the confidence of someone who knew she was very good at what she did. And maybe he recognised something in the way this woman was dressed. Power dressing, really, with that pencil skirt and neat shirt. She probably had a matching jacket that would make the outfit the female equivalent of a man’s suit. And what was that horrible thing she’d done to her hair? It was all scraped back into a round thing that made her look like a cartoon version of a librarian or frumpy secretary. All she needed was some thick-rimmed spectacles to complete the picture.

      When her head had turned to scan the room, he hadn’t needed to be close enough to see the colour of her eyes to recognise that this was, indeed, Anna Bartlett. While she wasn’t radiating resentment right now, there was an air of containment about her that suggested she didn’t change her mind easily. A reserve that could well morph into an arctic-type chill when she saw him. A woman that knew her own mind and woe betide anyone that got in her way. Like him.

      Luke almost sighed as he dropped his gaze back to a meal he wasn’t particularly interested in. He wasn’t enjoying this lunchtime experience much at all, in fact. He knew that many of the people around had to be talking about him. Gossiping. The happy chatter and laughter going on around him, even the smell of abundant, hot food all seemed irrelevant. Superficial.

      The crash and then the scream had been real, though. He’d reacted on autopilot. He wasn’t sure what had made him demand Anna as an assistant. Possibly because she had been the only staff member nearby that he could call by name. Or maybe it was the memory of how well they had worked together in Theatre only a short time ago.

      It had been a good choice. The crisis had been dealt with and a life had been saved and it had only been then, when it was virtually done and dusted and he was handing his patient into the care of a new team, that Luke had allowed anything else to enter his head. It was then that he’d had his first close-up look at Dr Bartlett and he’d had the curious impression that he’d been looking at something he wasn’t supposed to be seeing.