Unwrapping The Neurosurgeon's Heart

She didn’t add that she’d watched her mother repeat the same mistake over and over enough times never to be caught out like that.

‘Never?’

‘Never,’ she confirmed adamantly.

As though that would rewind the clock. Back to the start of the conversation when she hadn’t been quite so revealing about herself. Or the start of the night before she’d let Saskia walk away and leave her alone with him. Or three days ago when they’d worked together on little Isobel and she’d arrogantly imagined she saw something in the man that no one else appeared to have noticed.

The worst of it was that there was some component of her that didn’t want to rewind anything. Which, despite every grey cell in her brain screaming at her not to be such an idiot, was enjoying tonight. With Sol.

‘In that case, there’s something else you should bear in mind.’ He leaned into her ear, his breath tickling her skin, and it was like a huge hand stealing into her chest and closing around her heart. ‘There are plenty of women who enjoy no-strings sex just as much as I do.’

Don’t imagine him in bed. Don’t.

But it was too late.

Anouk wrinkled her nose in self-disgust.

‘I get that in your twenties, but you’re—what? Mid-thirties? Don’t you think you might want to grow up some time? Settle down. Be an adult.’ She cocked an eyebrow. ‘You aren’t Peter Pan.’

‘That’s a shame, because you’d make the perfect Tinker Bell.’

‘I’m not a ruddy fairy,’ she huffed crossly.

‘See?’ he teased, oblivious to the eddies now churning within her. ‘You even have the Tinker Bell temper down flawlessly. Clearly we’re perfectly matched.’

‘We most certainly are not,’ she gasped.

And he laughed whilst she pretended to be irritated, even though she still didn’t try to pull away. So when Sol’s hand didn’t leave her, when his body remained so close to hers without actually invading her space or making her feel crowded in, and when he deftly steered her out of the path of a couple of rather glassy-eyed, lustful-looking men, she found it all such an intoxicating experience.

As though Sol wanted to keep her to himself.

No, she was being fanciful, not to mention ridiculous.

And still that knot sat there, in the pit of her stomach. Not apprehension so much as...anticipation. She was waiting for Sol to do something. More than that, she wanted him to.

Perhaps that was why, when reality cut harshly into the dream that the night had become, Anouk was caught completely off guard.

‘Now, these are the Hintons,’ he leaned in to whisper in her ear as a rather glamorous older-looking couple approached. ‘She was a human rights lawyer whilst he was a top cardiothoracic surgeon. They’re nice, too.’

‘How lovely to meet you.’ The older woman smiled at her, but her old eyes burned brightly as they looked her over thoughtfully. ‘Anouk Hart... Hartwood... Hmm. You seem familiar, my dear?’

‘No, I don’t think so.’ Anouk forced herself to smile back but her cheeks felt too frozen, her smile too false.

The woman peered closer and Anouk could feel the blood starting to drag through her veins even as her heart kicked with the effort of getting it moving again.

‘Yes, definitely familiar.’ She nudged her husband, who was still beaming at Anouk. ‘Don’t you think so, Jonathon?’

He pondered the question for a moment.

Anouk tried not to tense, not to react, but she could feel herself sway slightly. Not so much that a casual observer might notice, but enough that a man standing with his hand on her back might. Certainly enough that Sol did.

His head turned to look at her but she kept staring straight ahead, a tight smile straining her lips.

‘Around the hospital, no doubt.’ She had no idea how she injected that note of buoyancy into her voice. ‘Or maybe I just have one of those faces.’

‘Oh, no, my dear, you do not have one of those faces.’ The woman chuckled.

‘More like a screen icon,’ her husband agreed, then his face cleared and Anouk’s stomach plummeted. ‘Like Annalise Hartwood.’

‘Annalise Hartwood,’ the woman echoed delightedly. ‘And she had a daughter...what was her name, Jonathon? Was it Noukie?’

How she’d always hated that nickname. She was sure her mother had known it, too. It was why Annalise had used it all the more.

‘Noukie...’ He nodded slowly. ‘Yes, I think it might have been. You’re Noukie Hartwood.’

As if she didn’t already know! They said it as if it were a nugget of gold, a little bit of information that they were giving her.

Anouk wanted to shout and bellow. Instead, she stood exactly where she was, her smile not slipping, muscles not twitching.

‘Anouk Hart.’ She tried to smile. ‘Yes.’

‘My goodness, I can hardly believe it. Annalise was such a screen icon in my day. But, my dear, you don’t have any American accent at all, do you? How long have you been over here?’

How it hurt to keep smiling.

‘My friend and I came to university over here...’ she paused as if she were searching for the memory, when the truth was she knew practically to the week, the day ‘...so a little over ten years ago.’

The moment her mother had died and Anouk had finally felt free of her. What kind of person did that make her?

But then, after her mother’s deathbed revelation, who could blame her? To realise that her mother, her grandmother, had been lying to her about her father for eighteen years.