One Night...With Her Boss

“Honestly?” He looked at her and about a thousand thoughts jockeyed for pole position. “I’m …” he began, then reconsidered. “You’re—This is all a big change. Having you here.”

“Why? Because I’m a woman or because I’m better at practicing medicine?” She gave him a sassy grin.

“Because you’re different.” Aidan responded tactically. “I know you would be hard-pressed to believe it—but I don’t really do change. And having you here is one change after another, so you’re going to have to be patient with me. I hired you because I respected your work. I’d like you to stay—but you’re going to have to get used to working with me. We’re meant to be a team. This isn’t a one-woman chop shop, okay?”

Ali couldn’t stop herself. She had to laugh. One-woman chop shop? That was a good one.

“Who doesn’t like a bit of surgery?”

“Me! It’s not my area of expertise and—Oh, for heaven’s sake, Ali. Do I have to spell it out for you? I may be the CMO of one of Britain’s best rugby squads and able to make a killer risotto, but you know your way around the surgery ward. It’s impressive, Ali. Truly.”

Their eyes met. He was impressed by her? Her lips twitched into a smile. She was tempted to do a little victory dance, but gloating wasn’t her style.

“What was it you wanted me to do with this stuff?” She pointed at her cutting board.

“The asparagus? Small bite-sized pieces, please.”

Ali began hacking away at the innocent asparagus stems and snuck a peek at Aidan, meticulously pithing a lemon. You did pith them, right? Something like that … With big strong hands attached to some rather lovely forearms …

He glanced across at her cutting board. “Easy there, Doctor. I hope you don’t treat your patients like your asparagus.”

“Sorry?” Talk about micromanaging! Hadn’t they just been through this?

Aidan received the full force of her crackling blue eyes. “Don’t glare at me! You’re the one attacking it!” He couldn’t help laughing at her furrowed brow. “Here—let me.”

Aidan laid a hand on Ali’s and gently guided her knife across the asparagus spears, slicing them into emerald green bite-sized pieces.

He felt her hand stiffen at his initial touch, but as they made their way through a few more of the fluid movements she began to relax. A warmth began to move from her hand to his, straight up his arm and across his shoulders. Being with her this way, doing something as familiar as cooking, was calming him. A welcome tonic after a hectic day with the North Stars. A heated memory of the night they’d shared. An unspoken suggestion of things to come.

He felt her hair brush against his cheek as she turned to face him. Her blue eyes were searching his. There was very little space between them and it would have been incredibly easy to just lean in and tease a few kisses out of her full lips. Lips he’d been aching to taste from the very moment they’d parted at the airport.

From the look on her face, she wouldn’t stop him if he leaned in. He saw it in her eyes—just as he had the moment they had seen each other at the bar. Desire. Longing. But tonight it went deeper than that. If he touched her now he knew he wouldn’t stop at a kiss, a simple caress. He couldn’t. Not with her.

Ali reached him on a level he hadn’t thought possible anymore. Not after the island, where his heart had gone numb with shock when he’d lost his grip on his childhood sweetheart’s hand. He hadn’t even begun to know how to mourn her. How to honor her life—the future they would never have together. But from the very moment he had laid eyes on Ali he had felt alive. It was intoxicating, and he knew he was going to have to fight every cell in his body to maintain control.