The Surgeon's Proposal

‘There isn’t,’ she snapped. ‘Short of offering to marry me yourself.’

It had to be one of the most ill-thought-out suggestions she’d ever made, a product of fatigue and stress, and disappointment and anger, and something else she didn’t have a name for. Something new. She didn’t usually come out with wild statements like that.

Dylan laughed. It was a rich, confident sound. In any other circumstances, she would have wanted to join in. ‘Perhaps that’s exactly what I should do,’ he said. ‘The only thing that would really make the grade, right?’

‘I didn’t mean—’

‘Thanks. You’ve made me feel better.’ He was still grinning at her, his dark gaze sweeping over her like a caress. It disturbed her.

‘How?’

‘By proving to me that I did the right thing. The insane thing, under the circumstances, and I hadn’t realised it would be the show-stopping announcement that it was, but if you could propose me as a substitute husband—’

‘I wasn’t serious.’

‘One day later.’

‘I wasn’t serious!’

‘Even as a joke, then doesn’t that tell you—?’

‘Nothing.’ She shook her head sharply, clenched teeth aching. ‘It was a stupid, meaningless thing to say. It doesn’t tell me anything.’

‘I dare you, Annabelle.’ There was a light of challenge and determination in his expression now that made her uncomfortable. He was leaning forward in his seat, his strength casually apparent. ‘I dare you to consider the proposition. I’ve got just as much to offer you as Alex does. Not exactly the same things, perhaps, but equivalent. Better, possibly, in some areas. Think about it.’

And suddenly, graphically, she was.

She was thinking about a wedding—symbol of solved problems—and a wedding night, and a bed with Dylan Calford in it. Naked. Or possibly not quite naked yet, but with some snug-fitting black stretch fabric across his groin. And smiling. The way he was smiling now, with a challenge glinting in his eyes, and a wicked, delicious expression that said, I can read your mind.

She went hot all over. My sainted aunt! She’d never thought of Dylan Calford that way before! He’d been engaged or married or absorbed in his divorce for the entire three and a half years she’d known him, and that had meant he’d been off limits. Not just in her eyes, but in his own.

He didn’t give off the knowing, overtly sexual vibe that available, good-looking men so often exuded. And, anyway, they rarely encountered each other outside the demanding environment of surgery, and never away from the hospital. When they worked together, there was always too much else to think about.

Today was different. There were no patients, no colleagues. His property settlement was at the negotiation stage, with the one-year anniversary of his separation already past. The vibe was there, singing and throbbing like the strings of an instrument. Two contradictory feelings warred inside her.

The first was instinct more than thought, and insisted, You’ll learn more from this than you ever learned from Alex. The second was an impatient need to reject the whole thing as dangerous, untrustworthy and insignificant.

The second feeling won.

‘You don’t mean it,’ she told Dylan flatly.

Hardly aware of what she was doing, she wrapped her arms across her body to try and stroke away the goose-bumps that had risen on her arms. Her nipples ached, and deep inside her there was a heaviness and a heat that hadn’t been there a few minutes ago. Definitely, she didn’t want any of it. Not now.

‘No,’ he agreed. ‘You’re right. I don’t. But you thought about it, didn’t you?’ His eyes were still fixed on her face.

‘Not in the way you mean.’

Or, possibly, exactly in the way he’d meant.

Had he been aware of the vibe he’d given off? The potency of it? The delicious wickedness of it? The fact that she’d absorbed it, wrapped herself in it and reflected it right back at him? Or was he giving it off unconsciously?

‘Well, think about it some more,’ he said. Or, rather, ordered.

He took what had to be a scorching gulp of his coffee, without apparently noticing the heat. If he had a tendency not to notice heat, that was good, a relief…and a reprieve.

‘There’s no need to think about it any more,’ she said sharply. ‘Not for a second.’

‘I wonder.’

Meanwhile, Duncan had become bored with the car and truck game, and every vehicle he owned was now lined up on the coffee-table like a peak-hour traffic jam. ‘Go inna pool, Mummy?’ he said hopefully.

‘In a little while, love,’ she answered.

A swim would be great. Bruising, with the way Duncan liked to hurl himself off the edge and into her arms in the water. His eager little legs always collided painfully with her thighs as he held her tight and instinctively kicked like a frog beneath the water. But it would cool her down. The building heat in the air was extra sticky today.

Duncan had already run off in search of towels. He’d probably come back with six of them.

As soon as he had gone, Dylan asked curiously, ‘He calls you that? Mummy?’

Annabelle went on the defensive at once. ‘Mum and I talked about it. We agreed it would be best at this stage. He has no memory of Vic—my sister. We haven’t decided when we’ll tell him.’

‘Tell me how it happened,’ he invited quietly. ‘Do you mind?’

She stifled a sigh. Sometimes she did mind, especially when the questions were nosy, tactless or judgmental. But somehow Dylan Calford seemed to be in her life now, since yesterday. Arrogant in his presumptions, dictatorial in his advice. She was still angry about it, yet at the same time felt her usual over developed need to be fair. Beyond the arrogance, his desire to make amends as far as possible was apparently genuine.

Not that he can make amends, she considered inwardly. Is it the thought that counts? Aloud, she said, ‘No, I don’t mind. She’d gone trekking, and there was an accident. In Borneo. It was in the news. You might have read about it.’

He thought for a moment, then nodded. ‘Mmm, yes, I remember now. I’m sorry, I didn’t realise that was your sister.’

‘I didn’t want to talk about it much at work.’

‘It must have been hard. For you and your mother.’ They weren’t flowery words, but she appreciated the depth of sincerity behind them.

‘Still can’t believe it sometimes,’ she admitted. ‘Sometimes I—’ She broke off and shook her head.

Sometimes she’d hear a voice in a crowded shopping mall and instinctively turn her head because it sounded like Vic. Sometimes, with news or a funny anecdote to tell, she’d pick up the telephone and stop with her finger poised over the first digit of Vic’s old phone number, her whole body frozen and a stabbing pain in her stomach.

But she didn’t want to tell Dylan Calford about any of that. He didn’t prompt her to finish, and she felt a small stirring of gratitude for the fact.

‘And there was no father around?’ he asked after a moment.

‘Not one that we could trace. Vic never even told Mum and me his last name. He didn’t know about Duncan and wouldn’t have cared, Vic said. It was a holiday romance. She travelled a lot.’

‘The adventurous type. Like her son.’

‘I’m starting to see that, yes, although at the end of a long day, I always blame his father for the high energy levels!’

‘How do you deal with it? How do you know that your full-time care will be better than a child-care centre?’ Evidently he remembered exactly what she’d said to him yesterday.