Seduced by the Heart Surgeon

by Carol Marinelli

  ‘At work it is never to be brought up,’ Zack said. ‘Out of work is a completely separate thing. So come here.’

  Oh, now she understood better his stance on not answering questions.

  ‘I can’t,’ Freya said. ‘I’m so embarrassed.’

  ‘Don’t be.’ He grinned. ‘Come here.’

  Freya made her way over and he pulled her onto his lap and she was just one burning blush but he was laughing.

  ‘I really don’t get involved with people I work with,’ Freya said. ‘Dating and—’

  ‘Guess what,’ Zack interrupted. ‘I don’t date.’

  ‘Never?’

  ‘Nope,’ Zack said. ‘So don’t worry about awkward stuff and holding hands and all that sort of thing. Poor us, just sex.’

  ‘Oh, no.’

  ‘Liar, liar...’ And her knickers were on fire because he slipped a hand up her dress.

  ‘And you don’t have to worry, no one will ever hear your secret from me.’

  ‘Secret?’ Freya frowned.

  ‘That the uptight Freya likes a bit of no-name spanky on the down-low.’

  ‘Zack,’ she said, ‘I didn’t know till last night that I liked that...’ She looked at him and could tell he didn’t believe her. ‘I’m not like that.’

  ‘Freya, you emailed me a couple of weeks ago and said you were very single and not to tell James.’

  ‘That was after a very difficult night being told by my soon-to-be-married and married friends that it would be my turn next. I’d had too much to drink and decided to live a little. Believe it or not, you’re the only person I’d been with for the whole of last year.’

  ‘Well, given we saw in the New Year downstairs, you had no one last year, Freya, so you have some catching up to do.’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ Freya said, yet she was fighting not to undo the buttons on his shirt.

  ‘I’m here for three months,’ Zack said, ‘and we’re both as clean as whistles. Though, given we couldn’t get through one night without tearing the rubber, you need to get on the Pill. I really don’t want to rely on your shot ovaries, as you so fondly refer to them.’

  ‘Zack, we can’t.’

  ‘But you know that we shall.’

  Freya said nothing, he was so assured they’d be back in bed.

  Sadly for her self-control, he was completely right—she was already unzipping him and taking it out.

  ‘Don’t tell James...’

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  ZACK REALLY WAS a master at keeping his private life separate from work.

  By day he was remote, perhaps even a bit unfriendly at times. There were absolutely no shared looks, or exchanges, not even behind closed doors.

  He dived straight into a very full schedule but occasionally Freya found herself back at the hotel, and, yes, the sex was amazing but they didn’t talk much. She knew some stuff, but the information he shared was as generous as a waiter with the cracked pepper—there was never enough.

  They lay there one morning and he was the monkey on her back, unknotting all her muscles, when he asked her something.

  ‘Why are you avoiding James?’

  ‘I’m not,’ Freya said, and he felt her shoulders stiffen.

  ‘Who were you speaking to on the phone the morning of my interview?’

  ‘I can’t remember.’

  ‘You got all flustered.’

  ‘Well, my one and only one-night stand suddenly had a name.’

  ‘Tell me,’ he said, ‘were you on the phone to some guy?’

  ‘A woman, actually,’ Freya said, and he laughed.

  ‘Do tell.’

  ‘Nope.’ The fewer people who knew about Mila and James’s rocky past the better. And the fewer who knew about her and Zack’s torrid present, all the better too!

  ‘How come you stay here?’ Freya asked as breakfast was served. Coffee for him, green tea and avocado smash for Freya.

  ‘I just like it.’

  ‘But you could have an apartment.’

  ‘I don’t want one.’

  ‘Well, if you’ve got money to burn...’

  ‘I’ve been sleeping under a mosquito net for six months,’ Zack pointed out.

  ‘Even so...’

  Freya stayed quiet.

  It wasn’t money that was the issue, it was his transient existence that irked her.

  Everything he had was in this room and he could check out tomorrow, Freya knew. His time in one place was only as long as his theatre list.

  ‘Are you going to operate on Paulo?’

  He didn’t answer at first then he said, ‘Is that PR Freya or Freya asking?’

  ‘Freya.’

  ‘Yes, I’m just trying to get him at optimum health first. You know his mother lost another son?’

  Freya nodded.

  ‘I don’t want her losing two.’

  And he watched as she cracked a very generous amount of cracked pepper on her avocado.

  ‘My brother died nearly ten years ago. I saw what losing one kid did to my mother.’

  For Freya, to hear Zack suddenly reveal such a vital part of himself, it was like the cracker had fallen off the pepper mill.

  ‘Zack! I’m so sorry to hear that.’

  He grinned. ‘Don’t use your psychologist voice on me.’ Then he asked her something he was curious about. She’d told him about her psychology degree and he wanted to know why she didn’t use it. ‘I know you’re good at PR but do you really enjoy it?’

  ‘I do,’ Freya said, and she took a breath and told him her plans, wondering if he’d laugh. ‘I want to start seeing clients. I wasn’t ready to before.’

  ‘Ready?’

  ‘I just didn’t know if I had any right to advise on eating disorders when I was working so hard on myself. I’m not sure I’m ready even now.’

  ‘I’d say you’re ready.’ Zack smiled. ‘I’ve spoken more to you than I have to anyone. You’re very easy to talk to, Freya.’

  ‘You’re not.’ She smiled back, glowing on the inside that he thought she could do it, but then she was serious. She really wanted to know more about him. ‘How did your brother die?’ she asked.

  ‘How we all die,’ Zack said, refusing to open up on her demand. He told only what he wanted to. ‘His heart stopped beating.’

  Aaagh! He was so frustrating but when he shared a part of himself it just made her want to know more.

  ‘Head injury.’ Zack relented a touch.

  ‘Do you miss him?’

  ‘I do,’ Zack said, and he liked it that she didn’t say that he must miss him. ‘It’s always there in the background, other times...’ He shrugged, reluctant to explain it. ‘My parents, though, still grieve every day.’

  ‘That must be hard to watch.’

  ‘Which is why I don’t,’ Zack said.

  Subject closed.

  And so she knew something but so little about him and that was proven on his second week at work as the day of Paulo’s surgery neared and Freya wanted more for another press release.

  ‘Everything you need is on my résumé,’ Zack said, clearly less than impressed to be in her office.

  ‘Well, can we go with the small-town angle?’

  ‘It’s hardly small,’ Zack snapped. ‘It’s the size of LA.’

  ‘I meant the population.’

  ‘If you bring my family into this,’ Zack said, ‘then you’d better find a stand-in for Paulo’s surgery. Oh, that’s right, you won’t be able to, so you can go and tell his mother why the clinic lost the only doctor prepared to operate on her son.’

  ‘I’ll take that as no!’ Freya was used to difficult doctors. Putting the new brochure together had been difficult enough
, but running promo on Zack took the cake. ‘Can we just get a photo of you with him?’

  ‘I don’t work like that, Freya. You’re not getting your cheesy photo.’

  ‘Fine,’ Freya snapped. ‘What am I supposed to write?’

  ‘That a child from the Bright Hope Clinic with a complex tetralogy of Fallot is being operated on at The Hollywood Hills Clinic and that—’

  ‘I’ve already got that part, thanks.’ Tough Freya wasn’t working so she lodged an appeal with her eyes but he stared back coolly and dismissed her flirt. ‘People like to see the human angle.’

  ‘Then get it elsewhere,’ Zack said. ‘Because it’s not coming from me.’

  ‘I still need your head shot.’

  ‘Take it, then.’

  ‘Do you want to go and freshen up?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You haven’t shaved.’

  ‘I don’t shave on the week of a big operation.’

  ‘Really?’ Freya’s eyes lit up. ‘Zack, that’s just the type of information people want to—’

  ‘Freya,’ Zack warned, ‘I’m getting tired of this.’

  She took out her camera. Usually she’d dab a bit of powder on the subject’s face but she didn’t think it would be appreciated in this case. Usually when someone was about to have their picture taken they would now be at the mirror, fixing their hair or rearranging their tie or stethoscope.

  Zack just sat there and stared back.

  ‘Can you at least smile?’

  He gave her such a fake smile that Freya actually laughed. ‘I’ll settle for scowling.’

  She got her shot and it was actually an incredibly good one.

  ‘Can I go now?’

  ‘Sure. Do you want to come over tonight?’ she asked, but he just stood up and walked off.

  Zack kept her hanging.

  Oh, they’d agreed to never discuss the other side of them at work, but just some indication about where she stood might be nice.

  Except she knew where she stood.

  Zack had made it very clear.

  He didn’t come to her apartment. They played at his hotel.

  Which meant she should not be sending her phone a copy of his photo and she should not be wondering, hoping, that night as she left work, if Zack was going to call.

  He did.

  Or rather he fired a text that night at eight to see if she wanted to meet at the bar of the hotel.

  She wanted him to come to her home.

  Freya fired back her answer.

  Busy tonight.

  She wasn’t.

  Well, there was always work she could catch up on but she was starting to struggle with her end of things.

  No problem.

  Zack’s response annoyed her.

  There were no questions or comment, no I miss you, no Pity. There was nothing to indicate that her response mattered to him.

  It did.

  Zack was actually relieved that Freya said no to coming to the hotel.

  Well, not relieved in a sexual sense, just that he knew now that he would not be seeing her again socially for several days now.

  They were getting too involved for his comfort. Too many times through the day he went to call her or saved something in his head to tell Freya about that night. Certainly he wasn’t comfortable with the idea of going over to her home.

  He didn’t want a relationship.

  He thought of his brother, chained till the day he’d died to a life that he hadn’t wanted, and it would never happen to Zack. And yet he didn’t feel chained when he was with Freya, he felt more open and honest than he ever had.

  It was too much to think of now.

  So, yes, he was relieved that she’d declined coming over as it meant that he didn’t have to worry about his increasing feelings towards Freya for now. He would be in bed early tomorrow, preparing himself for a very long operation, and he would be living more or less between his office and Paulo’s bedside for a couple of days afterwards.

  If Paulo made it.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  ZACK WASN’T AT work the next morning.

  Freya noticed.

  All night she had been fighting with herself not to change her mind and go over to his hotel but really, Freya knew, she wanted more than she was getting from Zack.

  ‘How’s it all going?’ James asked as Freya dropped by.

  ‘Very well,’ Freya said. ‘James, I’m just going to Bright Hope to take some posters over for them to put up.’

  ‘Well, I don’t want any posters put up here,’ James said.

  ‘I wouldn’t tarnish your walls,’ Freya said.

  ‘Is everything okay?’ James checked.

  ‘Everything’s fine. Why?’

  ‘You just seem...’ James shrugged.

  ‘I’m just busy and I’m also...’ Freya knew that she had to tell him. Mila’s name was on the posters she was holding in her arms. If the operation was a success it was going to be all over the press and it was time that her brother found out what had been going on behind his back. ‘James, we need to talk.’

  ‘Sit down, then.’

  James had always made time for her and she could see the concern in his eyes. She wished he’d stop being so protective, so ready to assume that at any moment she might slip back into ways of old.

  Freya was tired of being treated like glass and didn’t get why they couldn’t speak openly about things.

  That time in their lives hurt too much, Freya guessed.

  And what she was going to say now would hurt James, she guessed too, which was why she had been avoiding it.

  ‘You know the Bright Hope Clinic...’

  ‘What now?’ James sighed. ‘Freya, my charitable cup does not runneth over. I do have patients of my own.’

  ‘I know that. It’s not about a patient, it’s about the founder.’ She swallowed. ‘Mila Brightman...’

  She watched as her brother’s face paled but he said nothing at first, just sat there, but then he spoke. ‘Mila wouldn’t get involved in anything that has my name on it.’ James shook his head. ‘No way.’

  ‘Of course she would for the sake of her patients.’

  ‘How long have you known that she’s involved in Bright Hope?’

  ‘I’ve always known,’ Freya said. ‘We’ve stayed friends.’

  ‘You stayed friends with my ex?’

  ‘She was my friend too,’ Freya said.

  ‘And you didn’t think to tell me any of this?’

  ‘It was very easy not to, you avoid the charity stuff...’

  ‘And Mila’s the reason why I do!’

  ‘I know that.’

  ‘No, you don’t,’ James snapped. ‘I thought she was overseas and all this time you two have been colluding—’

  ‘We’ve been doing what we can for the patients. Come on, James, look at the amazing stuff that’s happened already. Paulo’s getting a chance, you’ve got a burns patient next—’

  ‘Get out,’ James interrupted.

  ‘James—’

  ‘I mean it, Freya.’

  And she looked at her brother who had always been there for her, now telling her to get out.

  ‘James,’ Freya said in her most patient voice, ‘let’s talk about this.’

  ‘Are you still here?’ he asked. ‘I’m telling you, Freya, get the hell out.’

  Freya walked out his office and straight to her car. She had known that he wouldn’t be pleased, but to be told to get out had been unexpected.

  James couldn’t choose who she was friends with.

  Mila and he had been engaged, had been about to be married. Just because he had chosen not to go through with it, it didn’
t have to mean that she’d turn her back on Mila.

  Freya was so upset that for once she didn’t notice Zack walking towards her.

  ‘Hey,’ Zack said. ‘Where are you off to?

  ‘I’m just taking some posters to the Bright Hope Clinic. I’m hoping—’

  ‘Enough.’ Zack put up his hand. ‘I shouldn’t have asked. I’m trying not to think about tomorrow just yet.’

  ‘Sorry,’ Freya said, and she thought of the pressure he must be under.

  ‘About last night—’

  ‘Not here, Freya.’

  ‘It’s a car park.’ Freya pointed out. ‘Look, how about tonight? I could cook something. Come over—’

  ‘Freya, not here,’ Zack said again. ‘We agreed.’

  ‘Sure.’ Freya said, and walked off. She loaded all the posters into her car but before she drove off she texted Zack her address and again asked if he wanted dinner. Yes, she knew she was pushing to move things along to more than they had agreed to.

  She wanted things to move along, though, Freya thought.

  She hit ‘send’ and then headed south for the Bright Hope Clinic.

  ‘Hi,’ Mila said when she arrived, and then saw Freya’s tense features. ‘You told James.’

  Freya nodded. ‘I did.’ Though it wasn’t just James and their row that she was feeling so tense about. She was still waiting for Zack to respond. ‘It didn’t go down too well.’

  ‘How is he?’

  ‘Shell-shocked,’ Freya said. ‘I think he thought you were still overseas. He pretty much left all the research of charities to me.’

  Mila was busy working and Freya put up all the posters and then left. As she stepped through the door of her apartment she had her answer to dinner and her invitation to come over in a less than effusive text.

  No thanks. Zack

  He hadn’t even put the little exclamation mark that they jokingly used in their exchanges. Oh, Freya knew it was a tiny detail but she could feel that they were slipping away from each other and she didn’t want them to.

  I could come over to you.

  Freya read what she’d just typed and she loathed herself for it. She looked at Cleo, who just stared back at her and told her to please not do it.

  She hit ‘send’.

  ‘Sorry,’ she said to Cleo.