Sheikh Surgeon, Surprise Bride

by Josie Metcalfe

  ‘Oh, dear. Didn’t he tell you about Dita?’ she asked with a cloying pretence at solicitousness. ‘She is such a beautiful girl, the perfect one to be his wife. His father chose her for him many years ago from the family of one of his closest friends and allies, and if you know anything at all about Razak you will know that he is an honourable man who would never go against his father’s wishes.’

  Lily was left listening to the sharp click of the woman’s Italian leather court shoes as she walked swiftly out of the room, and all she could hope was that the shock of that revelation had kept her expression so frozen that Razak’s mother would never know the depth of the devastation she had left in her wake.

  CHAPTER NINE

  RAZAK was getting married?

  There was a strange roaring sound in Lily’s ears as the words echoed over and over in her head and her nails were making deep indentations in the perfect damask tablecloth as she concentrated on staying upright in her seat.

  Razak’s whole team had always known that as soon as his contract ended he was coming back to work in his own country. The detail he’d forgotten to tell anyone was the fact that he already had a fiancée waiting in the wings ready for him to come home.

  So what had last night been about? A convenient fling with a warm, willing body?

  They had both known that it would be inappropriate for him to have made any advances while they had been at work in England, not least because he was her mentor. Hospitals had strict rules specifically to prevent sexual harassment of junior staff by their seniors.

  Ah, but did those rules still apply when those two members of staff were thousands of miles away in a different country altogether, and when neither of them was even remotely on duty?

  Or were they?

  Razak had specifically said that the two of them were going to be working on the fine details of the new operating procedures while they were away. Did that mean that they were still officially working and that…?

  ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake! What’s the point?’ she muttered fiercely under her breath as she pushed away her untouched croissant and the tepid cup of coffee. The invisible staff that kept this enormous place running like a well-oiled piece of machinery were probably waiting just out of sight to clear the table of the breakfast debris and give it another coat of polish.

  She, on the other hand, had no particular place to go and nothing to do except take stock of what a monumental fool she’d made of herself, and the only sane place to do that with so many eyes around was behind a locked door.

  To her immense relief, one of the invisible army had been to her room while she’d been pretending to have breakfast. The bed had been freshly made and everything returned to pristine tidiness so there wasn’t a single visible reminder of what had so nearly happened in there.

  Still, she couldn’t face sitting in the bedroom any more than she’d been able to make herself use the bed last night. Neither after those lonely hours of darkness, could she face sitting another moment on the elegant sofa where she might catch a glimpse of another of those captivating birds out by the pool.

  The bathroom was as neutral as it got and had a couple of added advantages—first, that it had no windows, so any sound she made in there wouldn’t be heard by anyone passing by and, second, there was a wide expanse of mirrors along one wall so she could take a good long look at herself while she got her head together.

  The first thing she knew without needing any debate was that she wouldn’t be making any sort of harassment accusation against Razak.

  How could she? She’d been every bit as eager for it to happen as he had. It was actually a point in his favour that he’d been able to call a halt when he had, because she certainly hadn’t wanted to.

  Well, it wouldn’t be happening again, not now she knew about…whatever-her-name…Dita. That was it. The perfect, hand-picked, high-octane bride, and so much more appropriate for Mr Razak Khan, Consultant Orthopaedic Surgeon, than his junior, Dr Lily Nobody.

  Well, the woman might be his perfect wife, but she certainly wasn’t his perfect second pair of hands in the operating theatre. Dita wasn’t the one who was going to be working with him for the rest of his contract, spending every second learning everything she could from him until she’d sucked him dry of everything he had to give.

  And by the time he left, there wouldn’t be a hospital in the country…in the whole civilised world…that wouldn’t be beating her door down to have her on their staff. And by the time she finally made consultant, she would never even think about the first man she’d ever fallen in love with or his starkly beautiful country and especially not all his wonderful plans for the future that she would never be a part of.

  She certainly wouldn’t let anything like this happen again…she wouldn’t be able to, because she didn’t have a heart left now that Razak had stolen it and destroyed it.

  ‘Hey, Dr Langley! When did you get back?’ Chloe Westerham called as soon as she spotted Lily coming into the ward. It wasn’t yet time for rounds but she hadn’t been able to wait to see how the brave young woman was doing after her operation. ‘What was it like? I bet you had a fabulous time. Was it all camels and palm trees or what?’

  ‘Not a single camel as far as I can remember,’ Lily said. ‘But, then, we were in the capital city, so I suppose that’s a bit like a visitor here expecting to see a Dartmoor pony or the monarch of the glen in London.’

  Chloe giggled at the idea but Lily could hear a definite edge to it, as though she was trying just a bit too hard. Was her own misery making her more sensitive to her patient’s woes or was she projecting her own feelings onto her completely erroneously?

  ‘How has it been going, Chloe?’ she asked, as she quickly glanced through the record of what had been happening in their absence, deliberately settling herself on the edge of the bed as though she had plenty of time for a chat. ‘Your file looks good…No infections…in fact, no post-op problems of any kind. You’re obviously the perfect patient.’

  ‘That’s me. Just perfect,’ Chloe agreed, but this time there was a quiver to her lower lip and a quaver to her voice and the skin around her eyes was suspiciously blotchy as though she’d been doing some serious crying in the recent past.

  ‘Chloe?’ Lily prompted gently, needing to know what was worrying the young woman if she was going to be able to do anything to help.

  ‘So perfect, in fact,’ Chloe continued, tipping her chin up in a show of bravado totally at odds with the glitter of tears already gathering, ‘that my best friend Shayna came in yesterday morning to ask me not to be her bridesmaid after all because she doesn’t want me ruining the video of their happy day by clomping up the aisle behind her on my tin leg, still looking as if I’ve had my head shaved.’

  ‘Oh, sweetheart,’ Lily murmured, knowing how much her patient had been through and how much she’d been looking forward to taking part in the ceremony. It had actually been an important motivator, making her all the more determined to work hard at her months of arduous rehab specifically so that she wouldn’t be doing dot-and-carry-one as she carried her friend’s train. And, anyway, her hair was already regrowing since the chemo had stopped.

  ‘And then, yesterday evening, just to make my day even more perfect, my boyfriend—you know, the one I’ve been going out with since for ever and who’s been proposing once a week ever since Shayna and Billy started planning their wedding—well, he came to visit me to say that he wouldn’t be going out with me any more. He doesn’t mind the hair because he knows that’ll grow back eventually, but the idea that I’ve had cancer and had to have one of my bones replaced with metal completely freaks him out and he can’t b-bear to be near me any m-more…’

  Murmuring wordless comfort, Lily whisked the curtain around the bed to give them an illusion of privacy then gathered the sobbing girl into her arms, cradling and rocking her as if she were a baby until the tears finally dwindled.

  ‘I’m so sorry, Doctor,’ Chloe sniffed, clearly mortified t
hat she’d broken down like that, and in front of one of the medical staff.

  ‘Hey, none of that, Chloe! You aren’t the first to need a cry and you definitely won’t be the last.’ Lily leaned forward and beckoned her closer, immediately capturing the seventeen-year-old’s attention before she whispered, ‘I vaguely remember that there’s a special rule about this sort of situation. It’s something that says when a patient cries all over you, they’re entitled to call you by your first name whenever there aren’t any other members of staff around. Had you heard about that rule?’

  ‘Not till today,’ Chloe said with a watery smile.

  ‘Well, we can’t possibly break the rules,’ Lily said sternly, refusing to think about the rules she’d broken with Razak even if he’d stopped short of the final one. ‘So, from now on I’m Lily.’

  ‘Lily? Well, we didn’t guess that one,’ Chloe said with a hint of a smile. ‘We were playing a game…us patients…trying to guess the first names of the staff who’d only put their initials on their badges. We went through all the L names we could think of but none of us came up with Lily.’

  Lily pulled a face. ‘It’s a family thing. All the females are named after flowers—Rose, Iris and so on—and when I put on a spurt of growth when I was about thirteen, one of my sisters suggested renaming me dandelion because I was growing like a weed.’

  The laughter was more genuine this time, but it didn’t last long, the memories of the double blow she’d received the previous day still weighing heavily on Chloe’s mind.

  ‘I was so looking forward to being a bridesmaid,’ she said in a very small voice, tears beginning to well again. ‘And as Shayna’s always been my best friend, it was going to be the only chance I had to do it. And now I’m not even going to be able to look forward to going up the aisle on my own wedding day.’

  Lily had barely begun to weave those sorts of fantasies around her relationship with Razak, but the knowledge that she’d already lost the only man she’d ever wanted meant that she knew how the young woman was feeling.

  ‘Well, Chloe, I don’t know if it’s much consolation at the moment, but if I ever get married, I want you to promise that you’ll be my bridesmaid…even if it takes till I’m 90 and in a wheelchair.’

  ‘You’re on!’ the pretty teenager exclaimed a little soggily, shaking the hand that Lily had offered to seal the pact. ‘I shall usher you up the aisle on my Zimmer frame and in return you have to promise that you’ll throw your bouquet straight at me to make sure I can catch it.’

  Something caught her eye over Lily’s shoulder and it was her turn to beckon her closer to whisper, ‘Hey, Lily, we didn’t manage to guess Mr Khan’s name either. He’s far too exotic-looking for it to be Roger or Richard. Any clues?’

  It took Lily a second or two to get her brain working once she knew that Razak was somewhere close behind her, but the new, tougher version of Dr Lily Langley could achieve anything she set her mind to.

  ‘Oh, I couldn’t possibly say,’ she said with a cheerful smile as she stood up, ready to make her escape as soon as her nemesis was busy with another patient. ‘That would be cheating.’

  Lily was still avoiding him, Razak realised when he looked up a moment later and she was nowhere in sight.

  She’d grown all too adept at that little trick in their final two days in his home so that he’d initially been delighted when his mother had insisted on organising an elaborate meal to welcome his father home from the hospital.

  He’d hoped that being forced into each other’s company like that would have helped to ease the atmosphere between the two of them, but to his mother’s obvious delight it had only become worse with every attempt he’d made to talk to her.

  In the end, the return flight that he’d been pinning so many hopes on had been a complete disaster as she’d refused to say a single word or listen to anything he had to say, apparently escaping almost immediately into sleep and only waking up in time to grab her bag, disembark and hail a taxi to take her home.

  Well, she couldn’t avoid him for ever, especially with the ceremony to mark the opening of the new theatre suite taking place that evening and their first batch of patients being admitted tomorrow afternoon for surgery the following morning.

  Even so, nothing seemed to stop his level of frustration from rising, especially when he was certain that all she needed to do was listen for a few minutes to his explanation and they could go on from there.

  He’d been so amazed—and strangely, primitively triumphant—to discover that she’d never made love before that it had taken him some time to realise that Lily had taken his withdrawal as outright rejection. All he needed was enough uninterrupted time with her to explain why he’d felt that her innocence shouldn’t be squandered like that but should be treated as the special gift it was.

  ‘Hah! Chance would be a fine thing!’ he muttered aloud as he strode along the corridor, making one of the cleaners take a hasty step back into the storeroom with his trolley full of mops and buckets.

  He’d been so keyed up with everything that was going on in his life that he’d arrived for work hours before his shift had been due to start that morning and had ploughed doggedly through the mountain of accumulated paperwork that had been waiting for his attention, longing for the moment when Lily would arrive and he could fill his eyes with her slender perfection.

  But the more he tried to engineer such a meeting, the more he began to suspect that there was something more…something deeper that had taken the sparkle out of those beautiful eyes when she looked in his direction now.

  Well, he would just have to compose his soul in patience and take his opportunities where he could find them, starting with the little bit of pomp and circumstance to celebrate the completion of the new facility that evening.

  ‘I don’t really have an option,’ he said flatly, his heart clenching when he contemplated a future without Lily in it. He didn’t know how it had happened, but she now meant so much to him that it felt as if it would be easier to live without breathing than to lose his precious jasmine flower.

  Five minutes into the rather pointless ceremony, he realised that Lily was every bit as determined to stay away from him as he was to be close to her. When Reg glared at him for the second time for paying less than complete attention to the obliging member of the minor nobility who was to cut the scarlet ribbon, he pinned his hopes instead on the departmental meal he had suggested at a popular restaurant.

  Even there, Lily had outmanoeuvred him by volunteering to stand in at the hospital so that other members of the team would be free to attend. Razak was left with an aching face from having to work so hard to look as if he was enjoying himself and an aching heart from the depressing thought that he might have done irreparable damage to their fledgling relationship.

  The one place that Lily would never be able to avoid him was when the two of them were in Theatre, and the first session with the two rooms being used simultaneously got off to a flying start with every single member of their elite team turning up early.

  ‘It is good that you are all so enthusiastic,’ Razak said, with a smile to camouflage his own first-day jitters. Admissions had gone as smooth as silk yesterday afternoon with every single patient turning up at the appointed time and testing fit for surgery.

  ‘It’s great that we’re finally going to be given the chance to see this system in operation…if you’ll excuse the pun,’ Tim said, rubbing his hands in anticipation of a busy morning’s work.

  ‘Is everybody satisfied that we have enough supplies to last the morning, or at least that we’ll be able to restock without any delays?’

  ‘Everything’s been double-checked,’ the theatre manager confirmed. ‘We’ll be ready for the first patient to come into Theatre A by seven-twenty to be prepped for surgery, and you should be starting your bit of the job by eight.’

  ‘So, as the first case is relatively straightforward…’ He’d deliberately scheduled a day of the less problematic patients
so that everyone could get used to the new system with as little stress as possible. ‘We’ll probably need the second patient in Theatre B at about eight-twenty as I should be finished in here by nine.’

  At least, that was the plan, and while his hand-picked team were all eager to prove that it was a far better way of utilising the hospital’s resources, there were at least an equal number of people anticipating the chance to crow when the new system collapsed in chaos.

  Well, it would be his fault if that happened. He would only have himself to blame for not doing the groundwork properly…that, and the fact that he could hardly keep his mind on the job when he was trying to catch a glimpse of Lily before they started.

  ‘Concentrate,’ he muttered softly inside his mask an hour later, even as his eyes lingered on the shadows darkening the fine skin beneath her eyes. Was it nerves about the operations today that had robbed her of her sleep or had she been thinking about him…about the fact that they would sometimes be every bit as close as they’d been on her bed when he’d so nearly…

  Her pupils widened as he held her gaze for several long seconds and he suddenly wondered just how much of his thoughts she could read.

  Suddenly embarrassed that he might be metaphorically wearing his heart on his sleeve—or at least a goodly proportion of his hormones—he dragged his eyes down to the open incision in front of him.

  ‘Suction,’ he said, but the word had barely left his mouth and she was already clearing the operating field as though she’d known exactly what he was going to need. He permitted himself one final thought that it was a pity she wasn’t so willing to accommodate his other pressing need…for conversation, if nothing else.

  Well, if the only way she would let him be close to her was in the operating theatre, then he hoped she was prepared to work harder than she ever had in her life, because for the life of his contract he was going to pour all his energies into helping her to be the best surgeon she could possibly be. Perhaps that would be the way back into her heart.