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She lay there in bed and thought of his words, startled that just the repetition of them could have her body aflame.

Nina turned over, screwed her eyes closed and did her best not to think about him. She could not think about Jack like that—except she was.

Her own thoughts startled her. She had never been in a relationship, didn’t know how to handle men unless she was dealing with them professionally.

She wasn’t thinking professionally about Jack now.

And she hated sex, Nina reminded herself, except she was thinking the sexiest thoughts now, and she moaned out his name. For a breathless moment she lay there, embarrassed and mortified for different reasons now at the thought that tomorrow she might have to face him.

CHAPTER FIVE (#u74af242e-9572-5bff-9d60-46eaeba111b8)

IT ACTUALLY WASN’T an issue.

When Nina walked into ICU to check on Tommy, the sight of Mike’s grief-stricken face was the only thing that consumed her and she barely noticed Jack speaking with Alex.

But Jack noticed her.

She was wearing a black skirt with a jade top and stockings and flat ankle boots today. She was far paler than yesterday and there were dark rings under her eyes, but even running on fatigue she was a ball of energy.

‘How is he?’

Mike shrugged helplessly. ‘He’s just had some more tests and they’re arranging a biopsy. They want to keep him on the ventilator for a few days …’ He looked up at Nina. ‘I’m so sorry for yesterday.’

‘Let’s deal with that another time,’ Nina said.

‘I think I was starting to realise that there was something really wrong with him … I just didn’t want to know.’

‘Mike, we’ll go over all of that later. I’ve arranged a case meeting for tomorrow morning and we’ll look at the supervised access order then, but right now let’s just concentrate on Tommy.’ Jack noted that she didn’t ignore the issue of his outburst, there were just more important things to address right now. ‘Have you rung your sister?’ Nina asked. ‘The one in Texas?’

Mike nodded. ‘She’s sorting out her children and flying out as soon as she can.’

‘That’s good.’

Jack had never been a particular fan of the social work department. Oh, he knew that they did a good job, but more often than not he found himself in contention with them. But today he saw that the holistic approach that had irked him so much was vital now.

Mike had no one, had lost his wife, his career and could possibly now lose his son, and he saw just how necessary it was that someone knew that there was a sister in Texas, that there was someone who knew that yesterday had been out of character for him.

He saw how important it was that when Mike was too emotionally distraught to speak that he had a voice, and in this case it came from Nina. He watched as her eyes skimmed past his face and landed on Alex’s. ‘If I liaise with your secretary, would you be able to attend a case meeting tomorrow?’

‘We won’t know much more by tomorrow,’ Alex said.

‘Sure, but I want to sort out the order and bring everyone up to speed,’ Nina said.

Alex nodded and got back to the scan he was reviewing, but as Nina walked off Jack halted her.

‘I’ll catch up with you later, Nina.’

‘Sorry?’ She turned and frowned. ‘You don’t need to be at the case meeting, it was the locum registrar who ordered the child abuse screen.’

‘I’m aware of that,’ Jack said. ‘But I need to be brought up to speed on a few separate issues that arose last night.’

‘Sure.’

Damn.

She had wondered how he would handle things—a letter from Admin perhaps, an internal email asking her to attend HR, or, and she’d rather hoped for this one, that her outburst would simply be ignored. Nina really couldn’t believe she had spoken to anyone like that, let alone the Head of Paediatrics, Jack Carter himself! She had been completely unprofessional because, Nina knew, her feelings for Jack were completely unprofessional.

Of all the people to have a crush on …

How was it possible to be so attracted to someone that you actually didn’t like?

It was a question that she couldn’t answer and by three p.m., when her intercom buzzed and she was told Jack Carter was there to see her, Nina was actually relieved that soon things would be sorted out.

She just wanted this over with. ‘Send him in.’

Nina took a deep breath, wondering if she should stand to greet him, if she should just apologise outright and explain how tired and emotional she had been yesterday.

She didn’t get a chance to do either. The door knocked and as soon as she called for him to come in, he did so.

‘You wanted to screw me?’

She had never considered that he might make her laugh, that he might have her smiling with his reference to her parting words last night.

‘It’s a figure of speech.’

‘Oh!’ He feigned disappointment. ‘I shaved and everything. I even wore my best tie.’

He certainly had shaved, she’d noticed that this morning.

And, Nina reluctantly noted, he smelt fantastic.

He looked fantastic.

Jack would have had as little sleep last night as she’d had, yet there wasn’t even a hint of weariness about him. Mind you, from what she had heard about him, Jack Carter was more than used to operating on minimal sleep. As well as his phenomenally busy job, his social life was daunting. If you lived in New York, you knew all about the Carters. They were glamorous, rich and had the social life to prove it. Jack was a regular feature in the social pages, a different woman on his arm each time, and more often than not witty little pieces written about the latest woman he had left in tears.

Nina didn’t need to see it in magazines, there were many of his conquests dotted around the hospital, and the last thing she intended to be was another.

‘I’d like to apologise for last night.’ Nina wasn’t as immediate in her apology as she had intended to be, but the fact that he had made her laugh a little made the words more genuine and a little easier to say. ‘It came at the end of a very long day.’

‘I understand that.’ And if she had any hope that things would be left there, that her apology might suffice, then it was a very fleeting hope, because Jack was pulling up a chair. ‘However, it does need to be addressed.’

‘Really, it doesn’t.’

‘Really, it does.’ He mimicked her voice and then he was serious. ‘I’d like to offer an apology of my own—I shouldn’t have told you that Tommy had a brain lesion the way that I did. I thought you would want to know before you went home last night.’

She was somewhat taken aback by his apology. ‘How is he doing this afternoon?’

‘He’s still intubated and his father is with him. Alex is hoping the medication will start to really kick in and that his cerebral irritation will abate over the next forty-eight hours and then he can be extubated. They’ve taken a biopsy of the lesion.’