by Amy Andrews
‘But he’s supposed to be the darling of the celebrity set,’ Jess murmured.
Adam snorted. ‘If only they knew.’
Jess’s heart went out to Adam. He’d been angry at the press conference. Now he just seemed disappointed.
‘There must have been a time when you were closer to him. When you were little?’
He looked at her. ‘Oh, yeah, I hero-worshipped him. Wanted to be a famous surgeon. Just. Like. My. Daddy.’
Adam’s mouth twisted into a bitter smile.
‘And then I worked with him. Saw how arrogant he was. How atrociously he treated people. How he philandered. And I was determined to be the opposite of him. Determined to never even be associated with him. To not let his reputation taint mine. To get away and do something the complete opposite.’
The light slowly dawned on Jess. ‘So you joined Operation New Faces.’
Adam nodded. ‘I did my first humanitarian mission abroad just to annoy him.’ He gave her a crooked half-smile before obscuring it with his beer bottle and taking a long swallow. ‘But then I got hooked.’
Jess was beginning to understand his nomadic lifestyle a bit more. He was running away. Not sticking around long enough for the toxic tentacles of his father’s fame to taint him.
‘And the fact that you spend most of your time out of the country is obviously attractive.’
He shrugged. ‘I don’t want to ever get stagnant or lazy. Corrupted by fame and money, like him. And not being known in and around Sydney, not having people connect the family dots, is a big attraction.’
Jess nodded, despair welling inside her. How could she ever hope to have a shot with Adam when he was too terrified to stay still?
A woman walked nearby and laughed. It tinkled all round them and broke the trance-like state they seemed to have entered. Adam withdrew his hand.
Jess glanced up and noticed the woman look over her shoulder and smile at Adam. She was gorgeous. About his age with chestnut curls loose around her face and shoulders and a dress that swung around shapely calves and clung to an amazing cleavage.
Jess felt hopelessly gauche in her ponytail and A cup.
Even more so when she saw Adam noticing her too.
She looked down to where their hands had been joined only moments ago. ‘Are you coming home?’ she asked. ‘I’m going to make grilled cheese sandwiches and watch a movie.’
Adam looked at Jess. Her idea of a Sunday night wasn’t his usual style but with her looking at him like that—free of artifice or agenda, unlike the woman with curly hair and come-on eyes—it sounded like bliss.
But at the same time he recoiled from it. From her. From the compassion in her eyes. He’d never told anyone the things he’d told her just now. He wasn’t used to opening up, to being vulnerable.
He could feel tension coiling in his body and knew she was the cause. He suddenly felt embarrassed by his admissions, by the empathy shining in her eyes. He didn’t want her pity.
Going anywhere with her right now would be a bad idea. He was either going to fight with her or have sex with her.
Neither were good choices.
He shook his head and took a measured drink. ‘Think I’ll stay here.’
No. No. No. Jess felt his rejection right down to her toes. They’d shared something tonight.
She’d felt it deep inside.
Still, she dredged up a smile and forced it to her lips. Just because they’d held hands and he’d opened up about his father did not afford her any say over what he did. Or…she glanced again at the woman hovering nearby…who he did it with.
‘Sure,’ she said, rising to her feet. ‘I’ll see you later.
‘Night.’ He nodded.
Jess departed, her shoulders stiff, her composure crumbling.
Jess didn’t see Adam again until just before the afternoon list commenced. He hadn’t come in by the time the movie had finished and she’d climbed the stairs to bed irritable in the extreme. She’d tossed and turned all night, straining to hear the front door, torturing herself with images of him and the woman from the bar.
Still, her silly heart went into a wild flutter when he strode into the operating theatre to check if everything was ready. Decked out in his scrubs, his shaggy surfie hair constrained in the blue paper cap, he looked every inch the surgeon extraordinaire.
She just wished she didn’t know how he looked in nothing but two cushions.
‘All set?’ he asked Donna, who was scrubbed and conducting the count of swabs and instruments with Jess, who was down to be the scout nurse with Lynne for today’s cases.
‘Patient is being anaesthetised as we speak. Paula is scrubbing. Just waiting for you.’
Adam chuckled and winked at Jess. ‘Guess I better hop to it, then.’
He made his way out through the swing doors, where his surgical registrar was meticulously attacking her nails with a sterile scrubbing brush. He donned a mask and they made polite conversation but his mind was on Jess.
He’d stayed out till way past midnight last night, trying to wrest control over a restless kind of feeling that he didn’t understand and sure as hell didn’t trust. He’d chatted with Danielle, the woman with the curls, for a little while but despite the invitation in every eyelash flutter and not-so-subtle touch, he hadn’t been able to bring himself to follow through.
Hell! He always followed through.
And then here she was this afternoon—Jess—a mask obscuring all except her eyes but still meeting his gaze in that steadfast way of hers. The touch of her hand was still vivid in his memory and he fought against the hum in his blood purring like a motor, urging him to follow through with her.
But he couldn’t. Not with Jess. Not after last night. He’d already let her too close.
And anyway she was out of bounds. He’d be leaving again soon enough and she wasn’t the type of girl who played. She was a self-admitted everything kind of a girl. An all-or-nothing girl.
Yes, she was hot for him but it was more than sexual.
And Ruby would never forgive him.
The taps’ automatic shut-off device activated and he realised he’d been scrubbing for more than the required three minutes. He held his arms up for a moment so the water could sluice down and off his elbows. When only the odd drip remained he held them up in front of him and headed into the theatre.
He turned at the swing doors, using his shoulders and back to nudge them open, and then strode across to Donna, who handed him a green sterile towel to dry his hands.
Adam concentrated hard on drying thoroughly from his fingertips down to his elbow on each arm and not Jess watching him in the periphery of his vision. He discarded the cloth in a nearby linen bin.
Next he was passed a folded green, long-sleeved gown with white cuffs, which he held out in front of him. He gripped an edge of fabric and let the rest of it drop and fall open, careful to hold it high enough so that it wouldn’t touch the floor.
He thrust his arms into the sleeves, keeping his hands inside the cuffs, and waited for his gown to be tied at the neck.
He knew it was Jess, even though he hadn’t seen who had ducked behind him to do the honours. Her fingers brushed against his nape as she gingerly found the neck ties and, touching only the very ends, fastened them. He felt her feather-light touch right down to his groin and had to stop himself from leaning into it.
‘Size nine is right, Adam?’ Donna asked, indicating the gloves she’d opened on a trolley for him.
Adam’s attention snapped back to the job at hand. ‘Yes, thanks,’ he murmured, turning to the trolley and snapping his gloves on over his cuffs, pulling on the sleeves of his gown to advance his hands all the way into the gloves, the cuffs moving up until they sat snugly against his wrists.
When he looked up Jess’s gaze clashed with his and for a moment it was as if no one else in the operating theatre existed. Deprived of seeing her other facial features, her eyes seemed even more remarkable and although he couldn’t be cer
tain, he was sure she was smiling at him.
‘Ready to drape?’ Paula asked, as the orderlies lifted the first patient onto the operating table.
Adam dragged his eyes from Jess. ‘Sure,’ he said, taking a green drape he was handed. They’d draped the patient in a minute and prepped the area with an antiseptic solution.
‘Okay to start, Rajiv?’ Adam asked the anaesthetist.
Rajiv nodded. ‘Ready when you are.’
Out of the corner of his eye he could see Jess standing near the wall and he felt a moment of unaccountable nervousness. Forget the press interest, his professional standing and his father’s opinions—how would she rank him after this?
Suddenly, her opinion mattered more than all the other factors combined. The thought was startling and he focused on what was in front of him to quell it.
‘Scalpel.’
Two incredible days followed and Jess cherished every moment. Not just Adam, although he’d been breathtaking, even when things hadn’t gone exactly to plan with one case, which had added two hours to the operation. But the feeling of being part of a dynamic team, that they were doing something amazing, was an absolute buzz.
By the time Wednesday morning came around Jess felt as high as a kite. When Donna told her she could scrub in for Lai Ling’s op it was the absolute icing on the cake.
She’d already been into the anaesthetic room and spoken with the nervous but excited nineteen-year-old. Lai Ling had held her hand tight and Jess had told her she’d be right there, beside Adam, helping him. Lai Ling had smiled at her and Jess had felt her exhilaration crank up another notch.
‘Joining us today?’ Adam said as he accepted the towel from her, his wet arms held up in front of him.
Jess wasn’t sure if he was pleased or not—masks made reading expressions very difficult—but she held his gaze and said, ‘Yep. Is that a problem?’
Adam shook his head. ‘Not at all,’ he murmured accepting the gown her gloved hands thrust towards him.
Even if the thought of standing next to her for the next eightish hours did seem a particularly heinous form of torture.
Working with her over the last two days had been a pleasure. She was a quick and efficient scout nurse but, as such, they hadn’t really been too close. Today she’d be right there, opposite or maybe beside him. And that would be a distraction he probably didn’t need.
An intubated Lai Ling was wheeled into the theatre and transferred to the narrow operating table. Her facial deformity looked even more out of place in the high-tech environment and for a moment everyone contemplated the sort of life Lai Ling had been forced to endure.
‘Okay,’ Adam said. ‘Let’s help this young woman come out of hiding.’
Jess blinked back a sudden well of moisture in her eyes and her skin broke out in gooseflesh beneath the thickness of the green gown.
She was about to be part of a miracle.
Adam made the first incision to the thundering sound of his own heartbeat in his ears. He knew that the complexity of the surgery and the degree of difficulty were almost secondary to the expectations that were riding on what he did today.
Which was fine. No one could put higher expectations on him than he already put on himself.
But he’d have to be completely ignorant to the external factors. The national interest since the press had become involved had been pretty intense, and then there was his relationship with Lai Ling itself.
Normally he didn’t meet the patients he operated on. It was nothing to operate on dozens of patients day after day with no time to meet any of them. They were all screened, prepped and ready to go when he came into first contact with them—such was the nature of the work they did.
But Lai Ling, and the others from the last two days, were different. He’d met them and their families, talked with them about their lives and witnessed the impact of their conditions. He’d made a personal promise to each of them. Had looked Lai Ling’s father in the eye and promised him she’d be all right, that she was in good hands.
He’d never reneged on a promise in his life—he wasn’t about to start.
And then there was Jess. It was suddenly terribly important to succeed in her eyes too.
The first step was to reflect Lai Ling’s scalp and Adam made the necessary incisions before going on to remove the frontal bone and then separating her face from her skull.
He worked methodically through the procedure, focused on the steps and his team around him as they all worked in unison to keep the surgery running smoothly. Paula and Shamus, the surgical resident, were opposite, Rajiv was at the head and Jess was at his right elbow, literally his right-hand woman.
He was acutely aware of her every move. Every contact of their arms, every touch of their fingers as she passed him instruments, every word as she counted sponges with Paula, every brush of her shoulder or hand or arm against him as she reached in front of him to suction or to remove equipment.
It was like they had a current pulsing between them, humming gently at times, glowing and arcing at others as their bodies came into contact.
It, this thing between them, seemed to have grown more intense since he’d opened up to her the other night.
It should have been distracting but it was strangely invigorating. He felt alive. Potent. Focused.
‘You want the biomodel now?’ Paula asked.
Adam nodded and it appeared before he even had a chance to ask. ‘Thanks,’ he murmured looking down at Jess.
Jess felt a little kick in the region of her heart but didn’t say anything. She just turned back to her trolley and checked if she needed to ask for any more clamps or sponges, while the surgeons consulted about the next phase. It was her job to predict what he wanted. It would be dangerous to feel flattered by his thanks.
Especially standing this close to him with every cell in her body buzzing.
Adam observed the sterilised soft plastic bio-model that had been constructed from Lai Ling’s MRI and CT scan images. He’d been practising this stage—removal of tissue from the central portion of her face—for the last few days.
Use of such models as a guide in complex surgeries cut theatre time down and reduced the risk of blood loss. They were expensive but had revolutionised this type of surgery. Adam had been thrilled when the Australian company that made the model had donated its time and product to the cause.
Using the model as a reference, he set about removing a portion of tissue that allowed the two halves of her face, including her orbits, to be centrally rotated and fixed together with wires. He then fixed the joined face back to the skull with wires.
The last stage was the reconstruction of Lai Ling’s nose. Adam used bone from her skull and the leftover nose skin flaps to make one central nose.
Jess stared mesmerised as Adam closed the incision with fine sutures, completing his handiwork. Lai Ling’s face was a little swollen and would continue to swell over the next couple of days, but there was no mistaking the complete transformation.
‘Oh, my God,’ she breathed. ‘It’s amazing, Adam. You did it. You really did it.’
Adam looked down at Jess, the expression of awe in her eyes and her heartfelt compliment going straight to his head.
And other parts of his anatomy.
He shook his head and smiled down at her. ‘We did it,’ he said, then looked around at his team. ‘We all did it.’
Jess’s breath caught in her throat. A ball of emotion that had swelled low in her belly at the miracle before her bloomed like a mushroom cloud into her chest as the flecks in his lapis lazuli eyes flashed all golden and inviting.
‘Bravo,’ Rajiv added.
‘The media are going to go crazy when they see this result,’ Paula agreed.
Adam shook his head. ‘As long as Lai Ling and her family are pleased, that’s all that matters.’
Jess’s heart flopped in her chest at Adam’s sincerity and she felt a rush of blood to her pelvis. She was suddenly hotter for him than she�
�d ever been. She felt like they’d split the atom or mapped the human genome and she wanted, more than anything, to show him how incredible she thought he was.
With her body.
‘Well, I think that deserves a round of applause,’ Donna said, peering through the gap between Shamus’s and Paula’s bodies. And she started to clap. Everyone followed suit.
Adam chuckled. ‘Okay, okay. We’re not done yet, let’s get her cleaned up.’
And then Jess was passing him gauze to remove blood smears and material for a nose plaster and some dressings to cover the wounds and getting involved in the general cleanup. And Rajiv was organising the transport to ICU.
It was an hour later before Jess and Adam spoke again. He’d been to ICU and on to a brief press conference to let the media know that the operation had been a complete success. When he entered the staffroom he was given another round of applause.
Jess grinned at him as he looked embarrassed at the praise. She was tired—her feet ached from almost eight solid hours of standing in the one spot and her eyes were strained from such intense focus—but she felt strangely exhilarated.
‘Let’s have a party!’ she said as she approached him.
She didn’t wait for his reply. They had a lot to celebrate tonight and despite her weariness she felt like she could groove all night.
‘Hey, everyone,’ she called over the general din. ‘Party at our place.’
Judging by the cheers, it was a popular decision.
CHAPTER SIX
ADAM smiled as Jess flitted by, laughing with Rajiv, chatting about miracles and teamwork. She’d been floating around a foot off the floor for the last two hours, obviously high on success.
He didn’t mind admitting it was damn infectious.
‘She’s happy,’ Tilly murmured, sidling up to Adam. ‘Anyone would think she’d done the operation.’
He chuckled. ‘We all did our part.’
Tilly glanced at Adam as his gaze followed the playful swish of Jess’s ponytail. ‘It’s hard to believe she’ll be heading back out west in a few short years. We’re all going to miss her so much.’ Tilly shook her head. ‘God, she’s going to be dynamite out in the bush, isn’t she?’
