Talk about thinking like a man!
She blamed Gemma, of course. It was her fault for putting such ideas in her head, Cat decided as the lift opened at the next floor and unfortunately no one got in.
He said something else in Spanish and Cat shook her head. ‘Actually, buenos días is as far as my Spanish goes.’
‘Oh,’ he said. ‘I thought you were a local.’
His accent was English and he had just delivered a compliment indeed, because the locals, Cat had worked out during her prolonged time at the airport last night, were a pretty stunning lot.
‘Nope.’ She shook her head.
The lift doors opened and he wished her a good day as he went to step out.
‘And you,’ she offered.
‘Sadly not,’ he replied, and nodded to the gathering crowd outside the elevators. ‘I’m working.’
‘So am I,’ she said, and he stood there a little taken aback as he let her out first.
Oh!
Dominic had thought she was on her way to some... Well, he’d had no idea really where she might have been on her way to but talk about a sight for sore eyes.
She had a very, very nice back, he decided as he followed her over to the registration desk, where there was a small line-up.
A very tense back, he noted as she reached into her bag and pulled out her phone.
‘I’m Dominic...’
Cat had just had a text from the airline to say her luggage had been found. At Gatwick! It should be with her later this afternoon and could she confirm that she was still at the same hotel. She barely turned around as she fired back a text and told him her name. ‘Cat.’
‘Short for?’
She really didn’t have time for small talk and she knew, just knew, because her back was scalding from his eyes, that it was more than small talk he was offering. ‘I’m actually a bit busy at the moment...’
‘Well, that’s some name—no wonder you have to shorten it.’
Her fingers hesitated over the text she was typing and she gave a small, presumably unseen smile.
Dominic, even if he couldn’t see her mouth, knew from behind that she’d smiled.
He watched as that rigid spinal column very briefly relaxed a notch and those tense shoulders dropped a fraction.
Still, he left things there. He certainly wasn’t going to pursue a conversation that had been so swiftly shut down.
Instead, he looked at the brochure with only mild interest. He loathed this type of thing. He’d only put his hand up because he’d needed the update hours and because his parents and sister lived nearby—it would be a good chance to catch up. As well as that, he was seriously considering moving here.
He kept himself up to date and found these presentations pointless, or rather bullet-pointed—most speakers had everything on slides and it was rather like being read a bedtime story out loud. At thirty-two years of age, he would rather read for himself.
‘Dominic!’
He glanced over at the sound of his name and gave a smile when he saw that it was someone he had studied with in London.
‘How are you, Hugh?’
Cat stood there, trying not to notice the delicious depth to his voice. Not that he spoke much; it was his friend who did most of the talking.
She registered and was told that one of the organisers would be with her shortly to take her to where her talk was being held.
‘This way, Dr Hayes...’
Dominic stopped in mid-sentence as Cat was led away. She must be speaking, he realised, and, quite shamelessly, he glanced through the list of speakers and found out her name for himself.
Catriona Hayes.
And then he saw the topic of her talk.
Palliative Care and its Place in the Emergency Department.
Absolutely not what he needed.
So, instead of hearing her speak, he took himself off to listen to a disaster management panel but his mind wasn’t really there. Half an hour later he slipped out unnoticed and slipped into where she was talking.
She noticed him come in.
There was a tiny pause in her talk as she glanced at the opening door and saw him enter.
He didn’t take a seat but leant against the back wall with arms folded. There was a small falter in her flawless talk as he took his place but then she continued where she’d left off.
‘Of course, it’s great for the patient when they receive a terminal diagnosis to take that break, that trek, that overseas trip. It can just be a touch inconvenient for us when they present, minus notes, diagnosis, information and family. And so, because that’s what we do, we leap in and do our best to save them.’ She looked out at the room. ‘Of course, it’s not so great for the patient either when they come around to our smiling faces... It’s hard on the staff when a four-year-old presents on Christmas Eve. It’s our instinct to do all that we can. There isn’t always time to speak at length with the family when they come rushing in with their child but listen we must...’
It wasn’t like a bedtime story with everything spelt out. Yes, there were bullet points, but they were only brief outlines and, for Dominic, a lot of her words felt like bullets as she filled in the gaps.
Brusque was her delivery as she covered things such as legalities, next of kin, patient rights. For good measure, staff, relative and patient guilt was thrown in too.
He listened, he felt, yet his face never moved a muscle.
As she finished, he left the room and went off to lunch but, even if it smelt fantastic, food didn’t appeal and instead he took some water and went out onto a large balcony.
Unlike others who had been at her talk Dominic didn’t go up and congratulate her. Neither did he tell her that her talk had touched a nerve.
He could have walked over and said how his wife had got up in the night and wandered off. He could have said how angry she had been to wake up two days later in ICU and that he could still see the reproach in her eyes, as if Dominic had somehow failed her because she’d lived.
No, he didn’t need or want that look from Cat and he was tired, so tired of women who gave out sympathy and understanding.
He’d prefer something lighter.
Or darker, perhaps! Hopefully, Dominic thought, heading back in, so too would she.
CHAPTER THREE
IT WOULD BE an absolute lie to say the attraction hadn’t been as instant as it was mutual.
All through the lunch break there was a knot high in Cat’s stomach and tension in her muscles and she knew that she was bracing herself for him to come over.
Except he didn’t.
Ouch!
She wasn’t sure if she even wanted him to.
There was an arrogance to him, not that she couldn’t handle arrogant men; she’d dealt with more than her share of them.
No, it was something else about Dominic that had her seriously rattled—the presumption of sex.
From the briefest conversation she had gleaned that much. From the roam of his eyes on the bare skin of her back, from the sullen, one-sided conversation with his friend that had told her his mind was on her.
From the corner of her eye she watched as he came in from the balcony and then went over and chatted to a group.
She was incredibly aware of his presence and it had been a long time since she had felt anything close to that.
Not that it mattered.
She was being ignored.
Funny, but she knew that it was deliberate and what was stranger still it made her smile. ‘Excellent talk...’ A middle-aged blond man came over and introduced himself. ‘Gordon.’ He smiled.
‘Cat.’
It was a very long thirty minutes.
Gordon simply didn’t let up and Cat couldn’t really mak
e her excuses and leave because he was talking about his wife who had died and the total hash that had been made in the emergency department.
It was a busman’s holiday for Cat as she lined up for the lovely buffet lunch and Gordon followed her with his plate.
‘Two hours, we waited, Cat,’ he said, and she glanced up and met those gorgeous grey eyes and saw that Dominic was now unashamedly watching her.
Rescue me, her green ones said, but he looked away.
‘And then...’ Gordon continued to tell her about his wife’s IV coming out and the drugs that didn’t go in. Yes, it was a sad story, but it was a story she dealt with every day and it was her lunch break.
‘Paella, please.’ Cat held out her plate to the waiter but he shook his head.
‘We’re waiting for some more...’
Cat chose some odd noodle salad, just to get away, but Gordon chose the same and he was off again. He sat next to her at a high table and droned on and on.
She met Dominic’s eyes again and this time he smiled.
You missed your chance, his eyes said.
I’ve changed my mind, was her silent plea.
Well, you’re too late!
He yawned and pulled out his pamphlet and with a very small smirk walked off.
What a bastard.
Cat laughed and then turned to Gordon’s confused expression.
‘I said, then she died...’
‘Sorry, I thought you said then she...’ Cat let out a breath. ‘What a terrible time you had.’
She just didn’t need to hear about it today of all days.
She didn’t see Dominic again all afternoon, not that it mattered by then. At 5:00 p.m. when she got back to her room to find that her luggage still hadn’t arrived, it wasn’t the Spanish-speaking English doctor who was on her mind.
It was Thomas.
She didn’t want to go down for dinner in an hour and be sociable.
Room service seemed a far better idea.
A huge plate of paella.
A bottle of wine.
She wished she’d brought his photo.
But there had been too many sad birthdays and, suddenly realising that she had a very small window if she didn’t want to spend tomorrow dressed in Gemma’s dress or linen pants that were more suitable for travel, she headed out.
She found herself in a large department store, explaining to an orange woman that, apart from a lipstick, she had no make-up with her.
‘My luggage was lost,’ she said.
The woman was so horrified on her behalf that Cat actually smiled. ‘It’s fine...’
It was.
So much so that instead of buying loads of make-up and then heading upstairs to the ropa de señora section to purchase a chic Spanish outfit Cat wandered out and found herself drawn to a busy market. There were gorgeous dresses blowing in the late-afternoon breeze and they were nothing like what she usually wore.
If she walked into work dressed as she was today, it would draw comment. Here, apart from a couple of vaguely familiar faces from conferences of long ago, no one knew her.
It was incredibly freeing—she could be whoever she chose to be.
Cat took her time with her purchases. She chose a loose long dress in lilac and shorts that were very short, along with a top and a stringy-looking bikini. And, she decided, instead of the museum on Sunday afternoon she was going to the beach.
She liked Barcelona.
Far more than she had expected to.
It was cosmopolitan, busy yet friendly, colourful and hot.
Walking back into the hotel, she was about to take her purchases up and get changed and, instead of hiding in her room, perhaps head out for dinner by herself when she saw him.
Dominic.
‘I was wondering where you were,’ he said by way of greeting, and Cat liked it that he was direct.
‘I went shopping...’ She was about to explain that her luggage was lost but then decided she didn’t have to explain anything.
‘Cat!’ a voice boomed, and she turned and saw that Gordon was bearing down on her. ‘There’s a group of us heading to the hotel restaurant. Why don’t you join us?’
‘Oh, I’d love to but I can’t,’ Cat said. ‘I’m expecting a call. A conference call. I—’
‘Maybe after?’ Gordon checked.
‘I’ll try.’
Gordon smiled over to Dominic. ‘Do you have plans or would you like to join us?’
Dominic dealt with things far more effortlessly than Cat. ‘I’ve already got plans, but thank you for asking.’
As the group walked off they were left standing.
‘Liar,’ Dominic said. ‘You don’t have a conference call you have to get to.’
‘Was it obvious?’ she groaned.
‘To me it was.’ Dominic nodded. ‘Liars always have a need to elaborate. You’d know that, working in Emergency.’
‘I know,’ she said. ‘So would Gordon.’
‘Is he a friend?’
Cat shook her head.
‘A colleague?’
‘No.’
‘So why not just say no if it’s something that you don’t want to do?’
‘I know that I should. I just feel bad...’
‘Well, don’t—he’s far too busy banging on about his late wife to notice what others are feeling.’
She felt her nostrils tighten. ‘That was mean.’
‘No,’ Dominic refuted. ‘He tried to run the whole sorry story by me yesterday. What’s mean is buttonholing a relative stranger and completely ruining their lunch.’
He shrugged.
He was dismissive.
She didn’t like that and she was about to head off when he halted her in her tracks.
‘Do you want dinner away from the hotel?’
‘I’ve got a conference call to make,’ she said, and gave him a tight smile.
‘Sure?’ he said.
Usually, yes.
She didn’t like his dismissal of Gordon but, apart from that, he was, well, deliciously overwhelming.
Gemma’s words were ringing in her ears. He didn’t have to be perfect, he didn’t have to be anything other than...
God, but she fancied him.
She could have left it there, just walked off and it would have been over. There were no games, no pretence, just his question, which she now answered truthfully. ‘Dinner away from the hotel sounds great,’ she said. ‘I’ll just...’ She held up her bags and was about to suggest that she take them up and meet him back here in...half an hour, or however long it took to get showered and dressed.
But by then she’d have changed her mind, she knew.
Half an hour from now she’d be calling Reception to pass on a message to him.
Or she could just go with how she felt now.
‘I’ll just ask Reception if they can take my bags up.’
* * *
The streets were noisy and he navigated them easily and took her to a place that Cat would never have found had she explored on her own—a few streets along from the strip the hotel was on. They walked down a stone stairwell and to an asado restaurant that was noisy and smoky, even with the open area out the back.
‘So, are you pleased your talk is over?’ he asked when they were tucked away at a table.
‘Very,’ Cat said. ‘I can relax now.’
And relax she did, admitting she had no clue about Spanish wine and letting him choose.
‘Are you staying till Monday?’ he asked, and she shook her head.
‘No, I fly out tomorrow evening—I’m back at work on Monday. I wish...’
‘Wish what?’
‘Well, I was really only thinking of
my talk when I booked the flights. I wasn’t actually expecting to like Barcelona so much. I should have tagged on a couple of days’ annual leave and done a bit of exploring.’
‘You always could.’
It sounded very tempting but it was a little too late for that now. ‘We’re pretty short on staff at the moment. My colleague Andrew is going on leave and Hamish, he’s the other consultant...’ She rolled her eyes. ‘I’m sure you know how it is.’
‘Remind me,’ he said.
‘Remind you?’ she checked. ‘Where do you work?’
‘Scotland.’
She waited for him to elaborate, which he did but it was vague rather than specific. ‘I work a little bit here and a longer bit there,’ Dominic said, and Cat then felt the scrutiny of his gaze and the message behind his words as he spoke on. ‘I don’t like to be tied to one place.’ And then he elaborated properly. ‘Or one person.’
Well, that certainly told her.
In part, Cat was tempted to simply get up and leave. It wasn’t a meal, they both knew that. This wasn’t two like-minded colleagues sharing a dinner after a busy day at a conference.
This was exactly what the dear Dr Gemma had ordered.
Cat was old enough to know it.
Their knees were nudging and suddenly her lips felt too big for her face without the resting place of his mouth.
She felt his eyes glance down as she reached for her drink and from the sudden weight in her breasts she knew where his glance had been. Only, it wasn’t sleazy. Or, if it was, it came from both of them because she’d been doing the same to his bum a little earlier as he’d walked down the stairs.
No, this wasn’t just dinner.
‘Do you have a problem with that?’ he said, and she blinked as she tried to remember the conversation. Oh, yes, the not-tied-to-one-person thing, he was asking if she had a problem with that.
Did she?
Yes, a part of her did.
Very much so.
A part of her wanted to tell him where he could shove his arrogant, presumptuous offer and head back to her hotel room and bury herself in the grief of today.
The Baby of Their Dreams (Contemporary Medical Romance) Page 3
