Unwrapping The Neurosurgeon's Heart

‘I mean... I didn’t mean... That isn’t what I intended.’

‘Then be careful what you say, zolotse, you can build a man up too quickly otherwise.’

‘Zolotse?’ she echoed. It sounded... Russian, maybe?

‘Zolotse,’ he confirmed.

It was the way his voice softened on that word—as if he hardly knew what he was saying himself as he moved closer, his body so tantalisingly close to hers and his breath brushing her neck—that sent a fresh awareness singing through her veins. It made her forget even to draw breath.

Her mind struggled to stay in control.

‘You don’t intend to elucidate?’ She barely recognised her own voice, it was so laced with desire.

‘I do not,’ he muttered.

Now that she thought about it, Sol and Malachi both had a bit of a Russian look about them. But if they were Russian then it was something Sol didn’t share with many other people. Certainly it wasn’t common knowledge around the hospital.

Which only made her feel that much more unique.

Dammit, but the man was positively lethal.

Three hours had passed since she’d arrived.

Three hours!

It felt like a mere five minutes, and all because she’d been in Sol’s company.

The man had turned out to be a revelation. She’d known he was intelligent, witty, devastatingly attractive, of course. The whole hospital talked about him often enough. But knowing it and experiencing it turned out to be two entirely different things.

He had a way of making her feel...special. And it didn’t matter how many times she cautioned herself that this was his trick, every time he stared at her as though she were the only person in the entire room, an incredible thrill skewered her like a javelin hurtling through her body.

Even as he’d introduced her around the room—to contacts to whom many of the top consultants would have amputated their own limbs to be introduced—she’d had to fight to concentrate on what he was saying. The feel of his hand at the small of her back kept sending her brain into a tailspin.

She felt like a reed, bending and turning, twisting wherever the breeze took her, and right now that breeze took the form of Solomon Gunn. He was swaying her at will and yet all he was really doing was moving smoothly through the throng, his hand barely touching her searing flesh.

Still, she smiled and greeted and charmed, just as she’d learned to do at the knee of her Hollywood mother. And she made no objection to what Sol was doing.

Perhaps because a portion of her longed to wallow shamelessly in the glances cast their way?

Some admiringly. Others enviously. She’d been on the receiving end of enough sugar-coated scowls and underhanded digs to know that she wasn’t the only one to have noticed Sol’s attention to her. Or realise that this was more than just his usual behaviour towards a woman on his arm.

He was giving her his undivided attention and presenting her as though she were a proper date. Half of the room seemed to be more than conscious of his body standing so close to hers. As though she were more than just a colleague.

As though there were something intimate between them.

And yet she couldn’t bring herself to care the way she suspected she might have cared a few days ago.

His gentleness and compassion with the young family the other night still played on her mind.

Sol might be renowned for caring about his patients, but she’d seen the way he’d stayed with that family even when he was off duty, helping the girls’ mother even when he should have been getting much-needed rest.

Too natural, too easy. A world away from the playboy Lothario she’d once thought him to be. It fired her curiosity until she couldn’t ignore it any longer.

‘I must say that, whilst I don’t know your brother all that well, I wouldn’t have thought a gala ball to raise money for kids was something you’d be interested in. Let alone quite so heavily involved with. It begs the question of why.’

‘If there is something you want to know, then ask. I am an open book, zolotse.’ He shrugged breezily, and yet it tugged at Anouk.

Was there more going on behind his words than Sol was willing to reveal?

It was all she could do to stay brisk.

‘Next you’ll be telling me that you’re misunderstood. That your playboy reputation is a terrible exaggeration.’

Was she really teasing him now?

‘On the contrary.’ He shook his head, his stunning smile cracking her chest and making her heart skip a beat or ten. ‘My reputation is something for which I’ve never made any apologies.’

‘You’re proud of it,’ she realised abruptly.

And there was no reason for the sharp stab of disappointment that lanced through her at that moment. No reason at all.

‘I wouldn’t say I was proud of it, but then I’m not ashamed of it either.’

His nonchalance was clear. She had only imagined there was another side to him because that was what she’d wanted to see. What her mother had always done with her own lovers.

It galled Anouk to realise that she was more like her mother than she’d ever wanted to admit.

‘Perhaps you should be ashamed of it,’ she challenged pointedly, but Sol simply flashed an even wider, heart-thumping grin.

‘Perhaps. But you could argue that I’m better than many people because I’m above board. I don’t pretend to be emotionally available and looking for a relationship to get a woman into bed, only to turn around and ghost her, or whatever.’

‘No, but women practically throw themselves at your feet and you sleep with them anyway.’

‘They’re grown women, Anouk, it’s their choice.’

Anouk snorted rather indelicately.

‘You must know they’re secretly hoping for more.’

‘Some, maybe. But I make no false pretences. Why does this rile you so much, Anouk?’ His voice softened suddenly. ‘Is this about what happened with Saskia? Or did some bloke treat you that badly in the past?’

He might as well have doused her with a bucket of icy water.

What was she doing arguing with him about this? Letting him see how much it bothered her just as clearly as if she’d slid her heart onto her sleeve.

She fought to regroup. To plaster a smile on her face as though she weren’t in the least bothered by the turn of conversation. But she feared it looked more like a grimace.

‘No, I’m fortunate that I’ve never been treated that way.’