Unwrapping The Neurosurgeon's Heart

She was ashamed to admit that she’d been attracted enough to the man when she’d thought he was just a decent doctor but also a gargantuan playboy. Seeing this softer side to him was only making the attraction that much stronger.

‘Why not do it?’ He shrugged and the fact that he was clearly hiding something only made Anouk want to get to know him that much more.

It was galling, really.

Checking on little Isobel and consulting with her team was the opportunity Anouk needed to regroup, and as she worked she let the questions about Sol fall from her head, even as he worked alongside her. Her patient was her priority, as always. Soon enough it was time to take the girl to CT to scan her head and neck.

‘Can I go with her and hold her hand?’ asked Katie, the concern etched over her face jabbing into Anouk’s heart.

She usually let parents go in to be with their child, but unnecessarily exposing an eleven-year-old to ionising radiation, however short a burst, was different.

‘How about if I go in?’ Sol announced over her shoulder. ‘You can wait outside but I’ll hold Izzy’s hand for you?’

Katie eyed him slowly for a moment.

‘Okay, thank you,’ she conceded at length.

‘Great, you walk with Anouk here and your sister. Okay?’

Something jolted in Anouk’s chest at the weight of Sol’s gaze on her.

‘Fine with me. You’re going to get leaded?’

‘I thought I might. They probably won’t let me in the room otherwise.’

He made it out to be a light-hearted joke, but Anouk knew better. Usually only parents were allowed to accompany their younger children into the room when the imaging was in progress.

‘You don’t have any patients up on Neurology?’

‘I’ll sort it. The only one I’m worried about right now is a Mrs Bowman, but I’ll deal with that.’

The fact that Sol was putting himself into that position in lieu of the girls’ mother said a lot more about him than Anouk expected.

She couldn’t shake the impression that it was also more than he would normally like a colleague to know about him. Why did she feel compelled to suddenly test him?

‘Boost your reputation around here to compassionate hero as well as playboy, huh?’ she murmured discreetly, so only Sol heard.

He glanced at her sharply, then formed his mouth into something that most people might take to be a smile. She knew better.

‘Something like that,’ he agreed with deliberate cheerfulness that instantly revealed to Anouk that this was the last stunt he wanted to be pulling.

He didn’t fool her. She couldn’t have said how she knew it, but Sol was doing this for Isobel and for Katie, despite the fact that it was going to make him all the more eligible within the hospital’s pool of bachelors, and not because of it. Which suggested there was more to Sol Gunn than she had realised.

Anouk wished fervently that the concept weren’t such an appealing one.

‘Right.’ Shoving the knowledge from her head, she smiled brightly at Katie and then at her patient. ‘Let’s get you to CT, shall we, Izzy? Don’t worry, your sister will be right beside you until you go in, and then again the moment you come back out.’

And that sharp jab behind her eyes as Katie slipped past her to walk next to the gurney and take her sister’s hand in her own wasn’t tears, Anouk told herself fiercely.

Just as she wasn’t softening in her opinion of the Smoking Gun. She couldn’t afford to soften, because that would surely render him more perilous than ever.

CHAPTER TWO (#udc01d31a-29fc-5f50-a384-5267bb07ad4f)

‘WHAT’S THE STORY, BRATIK?’

Lost in his own thoughts, a plastic cup of cold, less than stellar vending-machine coffee cupped in his hands, Sol took a moment to regroup from the out-of-the-blue question from his big brother.

Then another to act as though he didn’t know what Malachi was getting at.

‘The scan revealed no evidence of any bleed on the brain and Izzy hadn’t damaged her neck or broken her jaw in the fall, which we’d suspected, hence why she’s been transferred to Paediatric Intensive Care. Maxillofacial are on their way to deal with the teeth in Izzy’s mouth that are still loose. We have the two that came out in a plastic lunchbox someone gave to Izzy, but I think they’re baby teeth so that shouldn’t be too much of an issue. We won’t know for sure until some of the swelling goes down.’

They had left Izzy with her mother and sister for some privacy, but, without having to exchange a word, both brothers had chosen to remain on hand. The girls’ mother was going to need help, if nothing else.

‘I know all that,’ Malachi cut in gruffly, as though it pained him to ask. ‘The paediatric doctor told me. I was asking what the story was with you, numb-nuts.’

An image of Anouk popped, unbidden, into Sol’s head, but he shoved it aside.

‘Don’t know what you’re talking about.’

It was only a partial lie.

He knew what his brother was getting at, which was surprising since they didn’t do that feelings stuff, but he didn’t know the answer to the question himself.

‘You know exactly what I mean.’ Malachi snorted. ‘You forget I’ve practically raised you since we were kids. You can’t fool me.’

Sol opened his mouth to jibe back, as he normally would. But tonight, for some inexplicable reason, the retort wouldn’t come. He told himself it was the situation with Izzy. Or perhaps the fact that sitting on hard, plastic chairs, in a low-lit, deserted hospital corridor in the middle of the night, played with the mind.

He had a feeling it was more like the five-foot-seven blonde doctor who was resurrecting ghosts he’d thought long since buried. He had no idea what it was about her that so enthralled him, but she had been doing so ever since the first moment he’d met her.

It had been an evening in a nightclub where Saskia, already a doctor at Moorlands General, had brought Anouk along so that she could meet her new colleagues. The night before, he’d seen Anouk as a focussed, driven, dedicated doctor. And she’d been so uncomfortable that it had been clear that clubs definitely weren’t her thing.

He’d seen her from across the room. She’d looked up and met his gaze and something unfamiliar and inexplicable had punched through him. Like a fist right to his chest. Or his gut.

If it had been any other woman he would have gone over, bought her a drink, probably spent the night with her. Uncomplicated, mutually satisfying sex between adults. What could be better? But as much as his body might have greedily wanted the pretty blonde across the room, possibly more than he’d wanted any woman, something had sounded a warning bell in his head, holding him back.

And then someone had spiked her drink—they must have done because he’d seen her go from responsible to disorientated in the space of half a drink—and he’d found himself swooping in to play some kind of knight in shining armour, before any of her colleagues could see her.

Sol couldn’t have said how he knew that would have mattered to her more than almost anything else. There was no plausible explanation for the...connection he’d felt with her.

So he’d alerted the manager to the situation before pushing his way across the room, grabbing the dazed Anouk’s bag and coat and putting his arm around her before anyone else could see her, and leading her out of the nightclub.

Only one person had challenged him on the way out, a belligerent, narrow-eyed, spotty kid he hadn’t known, who he suspected had been the one to spike Anouk’s drink. It hadn’t taken more than a scowl from Sol to send the kid slinking back to the shadows.

He’d got Anouk home and made sure she was settled and safely asleep in bed before he’d left her. The way he knew Saskia would have been doing if she hadn’t snuck away by that point. Along with his brother. Sol had seen them leave. Together. So wrapped up in each other that they hadn’t even noticed anyone else.

He’d headed back to the club to advise them of the situation, before calling it a night; there had been a handful of women all more than willing to persuade him to stay. None of them had enticed him that night.

Or since. If he was being honest.