Dr Cinderella's Midnight Fling

‘What? Are you all right?’

‘I’m fine. Nobody’s hurt, except the car. Stop fussing,’ George said. ‘Metal’s easily fixed.’

‘I’m a doctor. If you tell me you’ve crashed your car, of course I’m going to fuss,’ Ed retorted.

‘Honestly, I’m fine. Not a scratch on me—unlike my poor car. I’ll be back in London later in the week. I’m just sorry I’ve let you down.’

‘Just as long as you’re really OK. What happened?’

‘I took the corner a bit too fast,’ George said cheerfully. ‘But I’ve learned my lesson, so don’t nag. I spent hours polishing that chrome to perfection. I’ll be more careful in future.’

Ed could see exactly why his stepmother had begged him to talk some sense into his older brother. Not that he thought George would actually listen to him, but maybe some of Ed’s seriousness and common sense would rub off on George and he’d steady down a bit. ‘OK. I’ll see you when you’re back. Try not to break your neck.’

George just laughed. ‘Have a good time tonight.’

Ed replaced the receiver and straightened his bow tie. Well, it wasn’t the end of the world that he had to go to the ball on his own. It was a chance to meet some of his new colleagues and have some fun, as well as raising money for specialist equipment at the London Victoria.

He’d liked Theo Petrakis, the senior consultant, at their first meeting. And the photograph of the three little girls on his desk had sealed the deal: Theo was very clearly a family man. Just as Ed was, too; his decision to move back to London from Glasgow was less to do with being promoted and more to do with being nearer to his brother and his sisters. Prompted partly by a quiet phone call from Frances saying that George desperately needed someone to talk sense into him before he broke his neck doing some extreme sport or other.

That was Ed’s slot in the family: the younger son of Lord Somers was the sensible, serious one who fixed things. George, the heir to the barony, dated a different gorgeous girl each week and would be the first one down a double black diamond ski run, making him a firm favourite with the paparazzi. And sometimes Ed really worried that his brother was going too far. Still. There was nothing he could do about it tonight. Once George was back in London, he’d take his brother out to dinner and see if he could talk him into calming down just enough to stop the rest of the family worrying themselves sick about him.

‘Jake’s over there—and he’s on his own,’ Jane pointed out as she and Sorcha walked into the ballroom.

‘And?’

‘Sorcha, this is the ball. It’s your chance to get him to notice that you’re stunning as well as good at your job.’

Sorcha shrugged. ‘Some other time. I’m not abandoning you on your first night out since…’ Her words tailed off.

Jane met it head on. ‘Since Shaun.’ Her ex-fiancé. Who’d cheated on Jane with her twin sister and shattered every illusion Jane had. ‘I know. But it’s not as if I don’t know most of the people here. I can look after myself.’ Jane smiled at her. ‘And anyway, I need to find Maddie and Theo to thank them for the ticket. Go and talk to Jake.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Very sure.’ Jake and Sorcha would make a great couple; Jane thought he just needed to wake up and see what was right under his nose. ‘Go for it. I’ll see you later. Good luck!’

Once Sorcha was on her way over to Jake, Jane sought out her boss and his wife. ‘Thank you so much for the ticket.’

‘Our pleasure, Janey,’ Maddie Petrakis said, hugging her. ‘I’m just glad Sorcha talked you into it.’

‘But I’m definitely babysitting for you. Two nights,’ Jane added.

‘Janey, you look lovely.’ Theo, the senior consultant on the maternity ward, gave her an appreciative smile. ‘If I was single, I’d be sweeping you off your feet.’

‘Yeah, yeah.’ She flapped a dismissive hand. Everyone knew that Theo only had eyes for his wife. But the compliment still pleased her.

‘I love your shoes,’ Maddie said. ‘And have you had your hair done? It’s gorgeous.’

‘Sorcha nagged me into letting her blow-dry it,’ Jane confessed.

‘Good for her. Keep it like that,’ Maddie said. ‘Even if it means getting up twenty minutes early. Because it really suits you.’

Again, the compliment warmed Jane. Maddie was one of her favourite colleagues, and had been a real rock when the hospital grapevine had been buzzing about her last year. Having been through a similar thing with her first husband, Maddie understood exactly how Jane felt about Shaun’s very public betrayal. And she’d joined with Sorcha in helping Jane keep her head held high and ignoring the gossip.

‘Have you bought your tombola tickets yet?’ Maddie asked. ‘The prizes are brilliant this year.’

‘If there’s a balloon ride among the prizes, Dr Petrakis,’ Theo said, ‘then we’re buying every single ticket until we get it.’

Maddie actually blushed, and Jane laughed. ‘I won’t ask you what that’s about. But, yes, I’ll buy tickets. And I’ll do a stint selling them, if you want.’

‘No backstage stuff for you, Dr Cooper. You’re here to dance your feet off,’ Maddie said. ‘Tonight’s all about having fun.’

‘And raising money for hospital equipment.’

‘That, too. OK, you can go and buy loads of tombola tickets—and then you get on that dance floor,’ Maddie said. ‘Actually—that’s senior consultant’s orders, isn’t it, Theo?’

‘Certainly is,’ Theo agreed with a smile. ‘Actually, I’m trying to keep an eye out for our new consultant. He doesn’t start officially until next week, but Maddie bullied him into buying a ticket for the ball.’

‘I was off duty when he met everyone else in the department,’ Jane said. ‘What’s he like?’

‘A nice guy. He’ll fit in to the department, no problems,’ Theo said. ‘You’ll like him. Which is just as well, as he’s going to be working with you.’

‘So if I don’t see him tonight, I’ll meet him on Tuesday morning.’

‘Yes. Now, go and enjoy yourself,’ Maddie ordered with a smile.

Jane had got halfway over to the tombola table when her phone beeped. She looked at the screen automatically—the senior midwife had promised to get in touch if there were any complications with Ellen Baxter, a patient Jane was worried about—but the message wasn’t from Iris. It was from her twin, the one person Jane didn’t want to hear from tonight. She groaned inwardly. Right now, she was feeling good about herself, and Jenna always managed to change that within the space of ten seconds.

Even the title of the message stung: PJSB. Short for ‘Plain Jane, Super-Brain’, the nickname Jenna had coined when they were ten and Jane had won a scholarship to the local private school. Jenna had inherited their mother’s genes and was tall and beautiful and effortlessly skinny; compared to her, any woman would look plain. But Jenna had always been quick to point out that Jane was six inches shorter than her, plain and dumpy—especially during their teenage years, and Jane’s confidence in the way she looked had reached rock bottom. Jenna had spread the hated nickname among the popular girls at school, to the point where Jane had simply retreated into her books to avoid them.

She meant to close the screen without reading the message—she’d learned the hard way that Jenna only ever contacted her when she wanted something, so it could wait until tomorrow—but she accidentally pressed the wrong button and the words came up on the screen.

Soz it came out lik dis. U shda dun da i/view.

Interview? What interview?

Then Jane remembered. Jenna’s publicist had wanted her to be interviewed a few months ago for a Celebrity Life feature about twins, along the lines of Jenna being the beauty and Jane being the brains. Jane had been in the middle of exams and simply hadn’t had time to do an interview, much less spend a day on a photo shoot. She’d explained why, and thought that was an end to it—but clearly they’d gone ahead with the idea anyway.

Even though she knew it was a bad move, she couldn’t help clicking on the attachment.

And then she really wished she hadn’t done it. She definitely hadn’t posed for that photograph. It looked as if it had been taken after she’d been at the tail end of a busy week on night shifts. She was wearing ratty sweat pants and an old T-shirt under a zipped hooded jacket that had seen better days, with her hair tucked under a woolly hat—clearly ready to do her daily run before crashing into bed. There was nothing in the article about what Jane actually did for a living; it was all about Jenna and unidentical twins.

Worse still, the magazine was going to be on sale in the hospital shop, where everyone could see it. She’d better warn Theo, because it wasn’t going to look good for the department. But not right now; it wasn’t often that he and Maddie had a night out, and Jane didn’t want to spoil things for them. There wasn’t anything anyone could do about it right now in any case, so leaving it until tomorrow was the right thing to do.

She closed the phone, but the question buzzed round her head. Why did Jenna hate her so much? Jane had tried and tried and tried to be supportive to her twin. She knew it wasn’t easy, being a supermodel. You were always in the public eye; you had to watch what you did and said and ate and drank, and whatever you did people would twist it to suit their own ends. Plus there were always new models coming along, ready to take your place in the spotlight. Not to mention those who were quick to take advantage. It was a lonely, precarious business that had left their mother fragile and prone to bouts of serious depression. Jenna, too, suffered from headaches and what she called ‘nerves’, whereas Jane had the constitution of an ox and hardly ever caught so much as a cold. But she’d tried to be kind. She’d looked after them both. She’d never complained, never said or done anything to make them feel they were a burden to her.

And yet nothing she did could ever please Jenna or Sophia. They seemed to resent her and look down on her in equal measure, and Jane had no idea how to change that.

She blew out a breath. Sorcha had talked her into coming to the hospital ball and Jane wasn’t going to let her twin get to her tonight. All the same, instead of going to the tombola table, she went to the bar and drank a glass of champagne straight down before ordering a second. The bubbles, to her relief, hit immediately. They didn’t take the magazine picture out of her head, but they did at least dull the edge of her misery.