by Sue MacKay
A rule worth breaking?
Plastic surgeon Olivia Coates-Clark knew her affair with handsome Dr. Zachary Wright couldn’t last forever, so she ended it before she could get hurt. But when a chance encounter brings them back together, she finds herself considering breaking her one rule: not to give in to her reignited desire for Zac!
Zac watched Olivia walk away once, but he won’t let it happen again. Alone with her in paradise, he’ll prove once and for all that some rules are worth breaking…
Zac knew she never turned down a dare.
But she’d have to. Tonight’s success rested on her being 110 percent on her game. Her mother had taught her well—go easy on the alcohol or make a fool of herself. Not going to happen tonight when everyone’s eyes would be on her.
Zac’s throat worked as he tasted the champagne. Appreciation lit up his eyes. His tongue licked his bottom lip.
And Olivia melted: deep inside where she’d stored all her Zac memories there was a pool of hot, simmering need. The glass clinked against her teeth as the divine liquid spilled across her tongue. And while her shoulders lightened, tension of a different kind wound into a ball in her tummy and down to her core. “Delicious,” she whispered. Zac or the wine?
Dear Reader,
Fiji is one of the world’s treasures, with lots of beautiful islands where resorts sit beneath the palms, surrounded by the bluest of seas that the most colorful fish live in. Kayaking around the islands is an adventure like none I’ve experienced elsewhere.
When I was thinking about this story, the idea of sending Olivia and Zac there while they got to know each other just popped into my head—and so here they are. These two have had a strong physical relationship in the past, but this time they need to get to know each other far better—and where better than on a tiny island in the middle of the ocean?
Zac and Olivia both need to learn to trust their instincts and follow their hearts. Of course, it’s not easy, but the end result will be worth it. I love giving my characters their happy-ever-after. I hope you enjoy this one.
I’d love to hear from you at [email protected], or drop by suemackay.co.nz.
All the best,
Sue
Breaking All
Their Rules
Sue MacKay
Books by Sue MacKay
Harlequin Medical Romance
Doctors to Daddies
A Father for Her Baby
The Midwife’s Son
Surgeon in a Wedding Dress
The Dangers of Dating Your Boss
Every Boy’s Dream Dad
Christmas with Dr. Delicious
You, Me and a Family
The Gift of a Child
From Duty to Daddy
A Family This Christmas
The Family She Needs
Midwife…to Mum!
Reunited…in Paris!
A December to Remember
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Dear Lyn, I am going to miss your laugh and those good times we yakked in your sewing room. Thank you for dragging me out to find my other passions that I’d forgotten all about until I met you. You read every book and this one is definitely for you.
Praise for Sue MacKay
“A deeply emotional, heart-rending story that will make you smile and make you cry. I truly recommend it—and don’t miss the second book: the story about Max.”
—Harlequin Junkie on The Gift of a Child
“What a great book. I loved it. I did not want it to end. This is one book not to miss.”
—Goodreads on The Gift of a Child
Contents
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
EPILOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
OLIVIA COATES-CLARK STRAIGHTENED up and indicated to a nurse to wipe her forehead in an attempt to get rid of an annoying tickle that had been irritating her for some minutes. ‘Is it me, or is Theatre hotter than usual this morning?’
‘I haven’t noticed,’ Kay, the anaesthetist, answered as she kept an eye on the monitors in front of her. ‘Sure you’re not stressing about tonight, Olivia?’
‘Me? Stress?’ Olivia grimaced behind her mask. She was a control freak; of course she stressed. ‘Okay, let’s get this second implant inserted so we can bring our girl round.’
‘So everything’s good to go for the gala fundraiser?’ Kay persisted.
‘Fingers crossed,’ Olivia muttered, refusing to think about what could go wrong. Her list of requirements and tasks was complete, neat little ticks beside every job and supplier and by the name of every attendee, including the seeing eye dog coming.
‘I bumped into Zac yesterday. He’s looking forward to catching up with everyone.’ Kay’s forced nonchalance didn’t fool her.
‘I’m sure everyone feels the same.’ The anaesthetist had hit on the reason for Olivia feeling unnaturally hot. Zachary Wright. Just knowing he’d be at the function she’d spent weeks organising made her toes curl with unwanted anticipation. Not to mention the alien nervousness. ‘Zac,’ she sighed into her mask. The one man she’d never been able to delete from her mind. And, boy, had she tried.
‘You need more mopping?’ the nurse asked.
‘No, thanks.’ That particular irritation had gone, and she’d ignore the other—Zac—by concentrating on supervising the plastic surgery registrar opposite her as he placed the tissue expander beneath the pocket under Anna Seddon’s pectoralis major muscle on the left side of her chest wall.
The registrar had supported Olivia as she’d done the first insertion of an expander on the right side, watching every move she made, listening to every word she said, as though his life depended on it. Which it did. One mistake and she’d be on him like a ton of bricks. So far he was doing an excellent job of the second breast implant. ‘Remember to make sure this one’s placed exactly the same as the first one. No woman is going to thank you for lopsided breasts.’ This might only be the first stage in a series of surgeries to reconstruct Anna’s breasts but it had to be done well. There was no other way.
The guy didn’t look up as he said, ‘I get it. This is as much about appearances and confidence as preventing cancer.’
‘Making a person feel better about themselves is our job description.’ Her career had evolved along a path of repairing people who’d had misadventures or deforming surgeries. But she didn’t knock those specialists working to make people happier in less traumatic circumstances. Everyone was entitled to feel good about themselves, for whatever reasons; to hide behind a perfect facade if they needed to.
For Olivia, looking her absolute best was imperative: a confident shield that hid the messy, messed-up teenager from the critical world waiting to pounce. Making the most of her appearance hadn’t been about attracting males and friends since she was twelve and the night her father had left home for the last time, taking his clothes and car, and her heart. Leaving her to deal with her mother’s problems alone.
Kay glanced down at the table. ‘This isn’t the first time I’ve seen a perfectly healthy woman deliberately have her breasts removed, but I still can’t get my head round it. I don’t know if I’d have the guts to have
the procedure done if I didn’t already have cancer.’
Olivia understood all too well, but… ‘If you’d lost your grandmother and one sister to the disease, and your mother had had breast cancer you might think differently.’ Bad luck came in all forms.
‘I’d do whatever it took to be around to watch my kids grow up,’ one of the nurses said.
‘You’re right, and so would I.’ Kay shivered. ‘Still, it’s a huge decision. You’d want your man on side, for sure.’
‘Anna’s husband’s been brilliant. I’d go so far as to call him a hero. He’s backing her all the way.’ A hero? If she wasn’t in Theatre she’d have to ask herself what she was on. Heroes were found in romance stories, not real life—not often anyhow, and not in her real life. Not that she’d ever let one in if one was on offer.
As Olivia swabbed the incision a clear picture of Zac spilled into her mind, sent a tremor down her arm, had her imagining his scent. Oh, get over yourself. Zac wasn’t her hero. Wasn’t her anything. Hadn’t been since she’d walked away from their affair eighteen months ago. But—she sighed again—what would’ve happened if she’d found the courage to push the affair beyond the sex and into a relationship where they talked and shared and had been there for each other? Eventually Zac would’ve left her. At least by getting in first she’d saved herself from being hurt. Tonight she’d see quite a bit of him, which didn’t sit easily with her. The day his registration for the gala had arrived in her inbox she’d rung him for a donation for the fundraising auction. Since then she hadn’t been able to erase him from her mind. Come on. He’s always been lurking in the back of your head, reminding you how good you were together.
‘So there are good guys out there.’ Kay’s tone was acerbic.
Zac might be one of the good guys. She hadn’t hung round long enough to find out. She’d got too intense about him too quickly and pulling the plug on their fling had been all about staying in control and not setting herself up to be abandoned. Going through that at twelve had been bad enough; to happen again when she was an adult would be ridiculous. So she’d run. Cowardly for sure, but the only way to look out for herself. And now she had an op to finish and a gala to start. ‘Let’s get this tidied up and the saline started.’ She had places to be and hopefully not many things to do.
*
An hour later she was beginning to wish she’d stayed in Theatre for the rest of the day. The number of texts on her phone gave the first warning that not everything was going to plan at the hotel where the gala evening would be held; that her list was in serious disarray.
As she ran for her car, the deluge that all but drowned her and destroyed her carefully styled hair, which she’d spent the evening before having coloured and tidied, was the second warning. At least her thick woollen coat had saved her silk blouse from ruin. But rain had not been on her schedule, which put her further out of sorts. Everything about tonight had to be perfect.
Slamming the car door, she glared out at the black sky through the wet windscreen. ‘Get a move on. I want you gone before my show starts tonight.’
The third suggestion that things were turning belly up was immediate and infuriating. One turn of the ignition key and the flat clicking sound told a story of its own. The battery was kaput. Because? Olivia slapped the dashboard with her palm. The lights had been left on. There was no one to blame except herself.
*
Olivia knew the exact moment Zac walked through the entrance of the plush hotel, and it had nothing to do with the sudden change in noise as the doors opened, letting in sounds of rain and car horns. She might’ve been facing the receptionist but she knew. Her skin prickled, her belly tightened, and the air around her snapped. Worse, she forgot whatever it was she’d been talking about to the young woman on the other side of the polished oak counter.
So nothing had changed. He still rattled her chain, made her feel hot and sexy and out of control—and he hadn’t even said a word to her. Probably hadn’t recognised her back view.
‘Hello, Olivia. It’s been a while.’
That particular husky, sexy voice belonged to only one man. ‘Since what, Zac?’ she asked, as she lifted her head and turned to face him, fighting the adrenaline rush threatening to turn her into a blithering wreck. This was why she’d left him. Zac undermined her self-control. How had she found the strength to walk away? Not that there’d been anything more to their relationship than sex. Nothing that should be making her blood fizz and her heart dance a tango just because he stood a few feet from her. No way did she want to jump his bones within seconds of seeing him. She shouldn’t want to at all. But no denying it—she did. Urgently.
Black-coffee-coloured eyes bored into her, jolting her deep inside. ‘Since we last spent the night together, enjoying each other’s company.’
‘Go for the jugular, why don’t you?’ she gasped, knowing how wrong it was to even wish he’d give her a hug and say he’d missed her.
Zac instantly looked contrite. ‘Sorry, Olivia. I didn’t mean to upset you.’
‘You didn’t,’ she lied. Behind her physical reaction her heart was sitting up, like it had something to say. Like what? Not going there. ‘The bedroom scene was the grounds of our relationship.’ That last night she’d got up at three in the morning, said she couldn’t do it any more, and had walked out without explaining why. To tell him her fears would’ve meant exposing herself, and that was something she never did.
‘So? How’s things? Keeping busy?’ Inane, safe, and so not what she really wanted to ask. Got a new woman in your life? Do you ever miss me? Even a teeny, weeny bit? Or are you grateful I pulled the plug when I did? Right now all her muscles felt like they were reaching for him, wanting him touching them, rubbing them, turning her on even more. Had she done the right thing in leaving? Of course she had. Rule number one: stay in control. She’d been losing it back then. Fast.
Zac had the audacity to laugh. ‘What? You haven’t kept tabs on me?’ His grin was lazy, and wide, and cut into her with the sexiness of it. There was no animosity there whatsoever, just a deliberate, self-mocking gleam in his beautiful eyes. He was as good as her at hiding emotions.
Shaking her head at him, Olivia leaned back, her hands pressed against the counter at her sides, the designer-jeans-clad legs Zac had sworn were the best he’d ever had anything to do with posed so that one was in front of the other and bent slightly at the knee, tightening the already tight, annoyingly damp denim over her not-so-well-toned thigh. ‘My turn to apologise. I haven’t kept up with any gossip.’
‘Dull as dishwater, that’s my life.’ Unfortunately that twinkle she’d always melted for was very apparent, belying his statement.
‘Right.’ She rolled her eyes at him, unable to imagine Zac not being involved in and with people, especially feminine, good-looking, sexy people. Was she jealous? Couldn’t be. She’d done the dumping, not him. But Zac with another woman? Pain lodged in the region of her heart.
‘Never could fool you.’ It was inordinately satisfying to see his gaze drop to the line on the front of her thigh where the mulberry three-quarter-length coat cut across her jeans. Even more gratifying when his tongue lapped that grin, which rapidly started fading. And downright exciting to see Zachary blink not once but twice.
She didn’t need exciting in her life right now, and Zac and exciting were one and the same. ‘I keep to myself a lot these days too,’ she muttered, not really sure what she was talking about any more with the distracting package standing right in front of her.
‘Now I’m shocked.’ The grin was back in place, lion-like in its power to knock her off her feet and set her quaking.
‘Why? It’s not as though I’ve ever been a social butterfly.’
‘There’s never been anything butterfly-like about you, Olivia.’
Confidence oozed from Zac that didn’t bode well for the coming evening when they’d be in the same crowd, the same venue. At the same table. Of all the things she’d organised she should’ve
been able to arrange that he sat on the opposite side of the room. It had proved impossible as they were the only two people attending the gala who were on their own. All the others were in pairs.
‘You’re saying I’m not a flapper?’ They were toying with each other. Reality slammed into her, made her gasp aloud. They’d teased each other mercilessly the first night they’d gone to bed together, and had never stopped. Well, she was stopping now. Time to put distance between them. She needed to get on with what she was supposed to be doing. ‘I’ve got a lot to do so I’ll see you later. I hope you have a great evening.’
Disappointment flicked through his eyes, quickly followed by something much like hurt but couldn’t be. Not hurt. She hadn’t done anything more than push him aside, though that’d probably spiked his pride. He had a reputation of loving and leaving.
It had taken the death of a small child in Theatre to throw them into each other’s arms for the first time. Desperate to obliterate the anguished parents from her mind, Olivia had found temporary comfort with Zac. She’d also found sex like she’d never known before. How they’d spent years rubbing shoulders at med school and not felt anything for each other until that day was one of life’s mysteries. From then on all it took had been one look and they’d be tearing each other’s clothes off, falling into bed, onto the couch, over the table. They’d done little talking and a lot of action.
Tonight, if they were stuck together for any length of time, she’d talk and keep her hands to herself. That had been the plan, but so far it wasn’t working out. Not that she’d touched Zac yet. Yet? With her mouth watering and her fingers twitching, it would take very little to change that. She had to get serious and focus on what had to be done. ‘I’ll leave you to check in.’ Her voice was pitched high—definitely no control going on there.
‘I’m not checking in.’
She should’ve remembered that. She knew all the names of the people who’d elected to stay the night here instead of driving home afterwards. ‘Do you live nearby?’
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