Recent titles by the same author:
SYDNEY HARBOUR HOSPITAL: ZOE’S BABY** THE HONOURABLE MAVERICK THE UNSUNG HERO ST PIRAN’S: THE BROODING HEART SURGEON† THE MARRY-ME WISH* WISHING FOR A MIRACLE* NURSE, NANNY … BRIDE!
**Sydney Harbour Hospital *Part of the Baby Gift collection †St Piran’s Hospital
These books are also available in eBook format from www.millsandboon.co.uk
Falling for Her
Impossible Boss
Alison Roberts
For Lucy.
Thank you for your boundless enthusiasm,
wisdom and encouragement.
With love xxx
CHAPTER ONE
‘OH, NO… it’s you, isn’t it?’
Was that appalled-sounding male voice referring to her? Annabelle Graham turned her head just far enough to see the speaker and her heart sank like a stone. Later, she would realise she’d known who it was even before she turned her head. Those clipped private school kind of vowels that, for her at least, totally obliterated the sexiness such a deep voice should automatically have.
She would also realise that such an outburst was completely out of character so he must have been even more appalled to see her than his tone had suggested. Bella sucked in a long breath that she knew would get expelled in a resigned sigh as she turned her head far enough to be polite.
Oliver Dawson, eminent neurosurgeon here at St Patrick’s hospital, looked like he’d frozen in mid-step as he’d been passing by the dayroom of this ward. He almost looked as if he’d been hit by a bolt of lightning. Her breath came out in the anticipated sigh.
One of the only immediately discernible perks of finishing her run in Theatre and starting her new nursing rotation in the geriatric wards had been the thought of not looking like an idiot in front of this man again. Bumping into things. Not wearing her mask properly. Not being in the right place at the right time.
Just not being … good enough. At anything.
It should have occurred to her that he might have patients in this area of the hospital. Old people had strokes. They got brain tumours. They fell over and suffered head injuries. Bella’s heart sank even further. This was probably one of Mr Dawson’s most frequent ports of call now that she came to think about it.
And, yep, she was the ‘you’ he had to be referring to because he had her pinned with a glare that was in no way softened by the rich chocolate shade of his eyes. And heaven help her, he was even more intimidating in a three-piece pinstriped suit than he had been in loose-fitting theatre scrubs.
The appalled tone was distressingly familiar. Being bailed up to get told off was not a new experience by any means. Bella sighed again.
‘Yes,’ she confessed. ‘It’s me.’ She tried a bright smile. ‘How are you, Mr Dawson?’
The glare took on an incredulous tinge but Bella was distracted by realising that this was the first time she had seen the surgeon without his hair being covered by a theatre cap. It was even darker than his eyes and as immaculately cut as his suit. There was an air of precision and control about Oliver Dawson that was undoubtedly a huge asset as a surgeon but he was on another planet as far as the men Bella had ever tried to placate. The smile seemed to hit some kind of force-field and bounce straight back at her. Oliver not only ignored her polite enquiry about his wellbeing, he was looking past her now.
‘What are you doing here?’
‘I’ve just started my rotation on Geriatrics.’ Bella’s first run in St Patrick’s had been in Theatre. After her three-month stint in the dreaded area of the elderly and infirm, she had Paediatrics to look forward to—her all-time favourite. It was going to be a few years until she could start a family of her own so Bella had every intention of making the most of being with other people’s children until then. Her next run couldn’t come soon enough. Especially now. But neurosurgical cases were fairly common with children, too, weren’t they? Where would she be safe from failing to make the grade in Oliver Dawson’s eyes? Did they need a nurse in Dermatology Outpatients, perhaps? Obs and Gynae?
A single, curt shake of the man’s head told her that her response to his question had been incorrect. Well, no surprises there.
‘I wasn’t referring to the details of your employment roster,’ he snapped. ‘I would like to know what you are doing right now. With these patients.’
‘Oh …’ Bella turned back to find herself being watched with some sympathy by five pairs of eyes, most of which were behind fairly thick spectacle lenses. It was only then that Bella became aware again of the music coming from the cute little speaker she’d attached to her iPod. Good ol’ foot-stomping country music. She could understand that it would seem a little inappropriate. And loud.
‘I’ll turn it down,’ she offered hurriedly, following the words with action. ‘I had to turn it up because Wally’s pretty deaf and he couldn’t hear the beat.’
‘Aye.’ The rotund, elderly man standing closest to Bella nodded vigorously. ‘Deaf as a doorknob, I am.’
Wally got ignored, something that was rude enough to irritate Bella enormously. Typical surgeon, thinking he was God’s gift and so important that he didn’t have to observe common courtesy. When he also ignored the other four elderly people standing in silence, looking decidedly nervous as the consultant in the suit flicked his glance across the whole line, her irritation mounted to active dislike. Maybe this man had become a surgeon because he preferred to deal with people who were unconscious. Maybe he didn’t really give a damn about how small he was making anybody here feel.
The raking glance finished with Bella.
‘You haven’t answered my question.’
He was speaking slowly, with a tone that suggested her intellect was sadly below par. A bit like the way he’d told her she should be in a nursery if she was going to wear her surgical mask like a bib.
Dislike was firmly established now. Old. Rebellion bloomed.
‘We’re having a line-dancing class,’ she informed Oliver Dawson crisply. ‘To be precise, we’re learning The Electric Slide.’ She smiled at the inpatients she’d found looking so incredibly bored in the dayroom of this ward when she’d started working here last week.
It wasn’t as though she was forcing them to do something they didn’t want to do and she wasn’t supposed to be doing anything else herself. She was on her break, for heaven’s sake. She wasn’t doing anything wrong and they’d all been having fun until this pompous surgical consultant had interrupted them. Now she might have trouble persuading any of these oldies to get out of their chairs again judging by how confused poor Edna was looking. By the time Wally had looked from Bella to Mr Dawson and back again, he was huffing indignantly. He’d probably need his inhaler very soon. She smiled at them all reassuringly.
‘We were getting pretty good at it, too, weren’t we? Let’s leave it for now and we’ll have another go tomorrow. I’ll