Her teeth sank into the lushness of her bottom lip and his brain temporarily short circuited.
After a moment he blinked and forced himself to shrug casually. ‘Eastern Beaches is a teaching hospital. It doesn’t have any facio-maxillary specialists so it’s not something you’ll probably ever see if you choose to stay at the hospital. It’ll be good experience. Are you up for it?’
Jess forgot all about her plan, which did not involve staying at Eastern Beaches at all. The outback was her first love—red dust ran in her veins—and once she’d completed a year each in the OR, Emergency and ICU she was going home to the chronically understaffed bush.
All she heard was his Are you up for it?
She was up for anything he was offering. Three years of barely even recognising her and suddenly he was offering her a place on his surgical team?
It wasn’t anything romantic, she knew that. But after existing on crumbs for the last few years this was her chance to prove herself worthy. To finally be noticed.
Maybe even as a woman too?
‘I’m up for it.’
Adam had to remind himself as Jess looked at him like he’d created the moon and the stars that she was young and impressionable and very, very off-limits.
Remember Francine.
Remember Ruby.
He inclined his head. ‘I’ll see if I can swing it.’ Jess smiled at him and for a moment he forgot what he’d agreed to do as he smiled back.
Ruby and Tilly exchanged looks. ‘Hot date tonight?’ Ruby asked.
Adam glanced at his sister. Normally a hot date was the only thing on his mind after he’d caught up on some sleep. And sometimes even before that. There’d been more than one occasion he’d pulled up in a taxi outside his Coogee residence not so fresh from the international airport, dragging a woman through the perennially squeaky front gate.
But with Jess smiling at him across the table in her sweet, innocent way, suddenly the names in his little black book didn’t seem as appealing.
And that was stupid with a capital S.
‘You know me.’ He shrugged, thankful for Ruby reminding him of who he was. ‘Work hard. Play harder.’
Jess felt his words slam into her heart as if they’d been delivered by a sledgehammer.
Adam Carmichael was a player.
Not the handsome prince!
The following week Jess hurried along to the staffroom. She was late. The orthopaedic list she’d been scrubbing for had run a little over time. James Leonardi, Ellie’s orthopaedic surgeon fiancé, usually ran a tight ship but sometimes these things happened.
The soft, well-washed cotton of her baggy blue scrubs shifted against her body as she moved, the clip-clop of her clogs reverberated down the corridor.
All the occupants of the room looked up as she entered but she only had eyes for one. ‘Sorry,’ she apologised to Adam, smoothing her theatre cap self-consciously.
‘No worries.’ Adam smiled. ‘We haven’t started yet.’
Jess smiled shyly back at him and Adam felt a strange kick in the centre of his chest. Her theatre cap obscured her hair and exposed her face in a way he’d not seen before. Her eyes, the exact shade of her scrubs, practically glowed beneath the fringe of mocha lashes, and her flawless skin flowed over high cheekbones and dipped into interesting hollows near her mouth.
And that mouth. Man, that mouth! All wide and pink with full soft lips that pulled at him like a homing beacon. She didn’t wear any make-up and her gaze was open and honest with absolutely no artifice.
She was just plain … lovely.
Lovely?
‘Shall we begin?’ prompted Martha Cosgrove, the NUM of the operating theatres.
It took a moment for Adam’s brain to realise the room had fallen silent and people were looking at him expectantly. ‘Of course,’ he said.
He turned and headed for the whiteboard attached to the far wall, castigating himself as he went.
Since when did he do lovely?
Hot, sexy, bodacious. These were things he did. Lovely? Definitely not. He turned to face the room, his gaze somehow automatically finding Jess. She was now sitting on one of the low chairs that lined the walls. Her legs were crossed and she was looking at him with interest. And suddenly, sitting amidst her nursing colleagues, dressed in her scrubs and cap, she didn’t look so young any more. Gone were the jeans and Ts and the ever-present ponytail that made her look like she was still stuck in her teens.
She looked like a professional. Capable. Confident.
She looked all grown up.
‘I’d like to thank you for joining me today,’ he said dragging his gaze from her and getting back on task. ‘Congratulations, you’re all part of a team that’s going to make a huge difference to the lives of nine human beings who would otherwise be outcasts amongst their own people.’
A feeling that she was doing something worthwhile consumed Jess and she started to clap. Others followed and she took the opportunity to look around her at Adam’s team. An anaesthetist, five nurses—three senior, two junior—a surgical registrar and a surgical resident.
She flicked her gaze back to Adam. It was the first time she’d ever seen him in his theatre garb and his magnificence was breathtaking. She’d thought nothing could top the floral sheets but the scrubs definitely made the man.
He looked like every charismatic screen doctor she’d ever watched on television rolled into one. He oozed sexiness and virility and that special brand of confidence that highly skilled surgeons exuded so effortlessly.
In some doctors it would be described as arrogance.
In Adam it was pure self-belief.
‘We’re hoping to begin the three days of surgery in a fortnight,’ Adam continued. ‘There’s a lot of stuff going on behind the scenes—dotting all the Is and crossing all the Ts with the different charities involved and from a humanitarian visa point of view and certainly for Lai Ling, our most complicated case, there needs to be further imaging and bio-modelling to be done before it can go ahead.’
As he spoke Jess was distracted by wisps of his sandy blond hair that had escaped the theatre cap. She was reminded of how it had looked lying against her pillow. All shaggy and badly in need of a cut and crying out to be ruffled.
Gesturing intermittently, his arms also drew her gaze. The blue scrubs were a stark contrast to the deep brown tan that only seemed to accentuate the flex of muscles in his forearms, the dusting of blond hairs unmistakeably masculine.
How was it possible to look so poised and comfortable talking about cutting-edge surgery and yet look like he’d just come in from the beach?
Adam spoke for half an hour, covering all the logistics, and he had his team’s full attention. There were occasional interruptions for questions when pertinent, but otherwise they listened intently. Jess listened too. And not just for the information he conveyed. But the way he conveyed it. The deep sexy timbre of his voice, the effortless way he used wit and humour, the unconscious movement of his body as he gestured with his hands and leaned in towards his team as if gathering them closer.
He wasn’t just a sight to behold. He was exceedingly easy on the ear as well.
The briefing broke up when a journalist and photographer from a weekly women’s magazine arrived at the door. Jess watched Adam stride across the room and greet them, his movie-star smile radiating confidence and charisma.
‘This