200 Harley Street: The Enigmatic Surgeon

by Annie Claydon

  Slowly she rolled it down, loving the way that he gasped when her fingers touched him. Loving the warm feel of his skin when he pulled her close, lifting her. And then it went past loving, or adoring, or any of the other words that had seemed like something to aim for. Pure feeling washed over her when he lowered her slowly down, sliding inside her as he did so.

  ‘Edward...’ His name was the only thing on her mind.

  ‘Charlotte...’ He choked her name out, his hands twisting her hips so that they both gasped.

  His hands, his mouth, caressed her. It was beyond bearing. Her body knew what to do, but he was holding her firmly in his lap, not letting her move the way she wanted to.

  ‘Edward...please.’

  One hand slipped between her legs and she almost cried out. He was intent on wringing every drop of pleasure from each moment, and the only doubt in Charlotte’s mind was whether she was going to be able to bear it.

  ‘I...can’t...take much more of this.’

  ‘Really?’ His hand moved to her breast.

  ‘Really. Edward...’

  He didn’t reply. He rolled his body round, until he was pinning her down on the bed, and with a look of unutterable tenderness slid inside her again. She felt her body mould to his, her hands grabbing at the sheets. Was that a moan? She put her hand to her mouth, biting hard on her knuckle.

  He twisted his hips and her head spun. He caressed her, capturing her gasps in a kiss, and she was his. No thought, no fear, just feeling flowing through her, washing her clean of everything other than him. She gazed into his eyes, because they were the only things that made sense any more, and saw them darken. Felt his body stiffen and knew that he, too, had finally reached the point where he was as lost as she was.

  Suddenly he was all fire. Coaxing her on, raising the temperature to boiling point. Stronger, sweeter, until her body arched of its own accord and waves of pure feeling washed through her.

  * * *

  Edward couldn’t trust himself to speak. If he did he would say he loved her, that he would do anything for her if she’d just stay with him. And that was surely just the heat of the moment.

  He felt a cool trickle of sweat trace its way down his spine, pooling in the small of his back. She was so beautiful. So giving. Her body was still quivering, little jolts still shaking her after the one great explosion of feeling. Then, as he watched her face, seeming to find endless fascination in the ever-changing detail, she broke him completely. A single tear trickled from her eye.

  ‘Okay, sweetheart?’ Perhaps he had been too demanding. He hadn’t been able to help himself.

  She gave him a slow, lazy smile which said that everything was better than okay. ‘Yeah. Just fine. Happy tears.’

  Charlotte wound her arms around his neck, pulling him close, and he rolled over onto his side, curling his body around hers. Perfectly happy. Perfectly... Just perfect, really.

  They woke in the night and made love again, but when he opened his eyes in the morning she wasn’t there. He hadn’t really expected her to be. Isaac couldn’t know about this just yet. Maybe one day—if they lasted that long.

  He showered alone, and dressed, drawn downstairs by the sound of her voice and Isaac’s. She looked up as he stood in the doorway of the kitchen and smiled.

  ‘Good morning.’

  ‘Yes, it is a good morning.’ His whole body felt as if it had been bathed in sunshine.

  She flushed a little. ‘Did we wake you?’

  He shook his head. Isaac raced out of the kitchen, ready to attack the day, and Edward took his place at the table.

  ‘I was going to bring you breakfast in bed as soon as I’d finished with Isaac.’ Her mouth twisted in an expression of regret.

  ‘Just as well you didn’t.’ He pulled her onto his lap and kissed her on the cheek. ‘If I’d woken up and found you there I wouldn’t have let you go.’

  ‘No? Even if I’d had fresh coffee?’

  He weighed the question up. ‘Maybe if you’d had coffee... Is there any?’

  ‘Right here.’ She went to stand up, but he pulled her back down again.

  ‘Charlotte, I know we have to keep this away from Isaac...’

  ‘Yeah. I’m sorry. I just don’t want to confuse him...’

  ‘Don’t be. I understand.’ It didn’t mean that he liked it, but he wouldn’t hurt Isaac for anything. ‘But that doesn’t mean I won’t be waiting for you. Tonight.’

  She gave him a smile. ‘Tonight it is, then. In the meantime, do you want some coffee?’

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  EDWARD WAS SMILING to himself. He could see Charlotte from his office, passing and re-passing the nurses’ station. Something about the way she moved sent memories of last night and the night before pulsing down his spine.

  He shouldn’t be doing this. There were things to do—cases to review, patients to see. Admittedly there wasn’t actually anything to do at this moment, but he was slipping. He hadn’t touched the paper he was writing for a week, nor had he been swimming. He badly needed some thinking time.

  The phone rang and Edward glared at it. He was far too busy interrupting himself at the moment to encourage anyone else to do so. He snatched up the receiver.

  ‘North.’

  ‘Edward, it’s Ethan. I’ve a case here that I think you might be interested in.’

  Something tingled at the back of his neck. The excitement of a challenge. He could do with that at the moment—before the tilt in the balance of his life became a catastrophic slide.

  ‘I’ll be right there.’

  Edward was, indeed, interested. The surgery was slated for a couple of months hence, and it would be complicated, demanding, and require painstaking preparation. It was just the thing.

  Their review of the notes was interrupted by the phone. Ethan’s brow darkened. His habitual cool courtesy when dealing with the clinic staff was clearly being tested.

  ‘Can you take a message please? I’ve asked for all of my calls to be put on hold for the next half-hour....’ Someone spoke urgently at the other end of the line. ‘Ah, Helen, it’s you...’ He listened again, and then nodded briskly. ‘Okay. Yes, thanks, Helen. You were right to let me know. Put her through, please.’

  Edward made to leave, but Ethan waved him back into his seat. ‘I have to take this, but I won’t be long.’ He turned back to the phone. ‘Olivia...?’

  A pulse was beating at the side of Ethan’s brow, but his face was fixed, impassive. The look of a soldier about to go into battle. He listened, concentrating on the phone and the notes that he was scribbling. ‘Repeat that, please... Okay, got it. All right, consider it done. We’ll courier all the paperwork out to you.’

  He placed the phone back gently into its cradle. Ethan seemed deep in thought and Edward didn’t ask.

  ‘Can you do something for me?’ Finally Ethan spoke.

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘That was Olivia Fairchild. Leo’s away, and there are some problems with a visa for one of the kids she’s sending to the clinic. I’m not sure quite what’s involved, but I think there’s just a declaration of some sort to be made from our end. Olivia will be travelling with the girl and her mother, so we can send any necessary paperwork straight through to her.’

  Edward nodded. ‘Leave it with me.’ Was that relief he saw on Ethan’s face? It probably wasn’t anything to do with the legal complexities involved, because there weren’t any. ‘Give me your notes.’

  ‘Thanks.’ Ethan made a few more jottings on the pad in front of him and handed the paper over to Edward. ‘Appreciate it.’

  * * *

  It was like leading a double life. A triple life, actually. There was the persona that she adopted at work—the one that hardly noticed Edward was even there unless he was giving instructions o
f a medical nature. The one that she had fallen into at home, being a part of the unlikely family that she, Edward and Isaac seemed to have made for themselves. And there was the one which lasted from the time that Isaac went to bed through to the early hours of the morning.

  Evenings spent by the piano, talking together or just keeping each other company. Or reading together, their limbs entwined, Charlotte with her book and Edward with his. Early nights, when they had the opportunity to do all the things that they dared not talk about during the day, and which were increasingly bleeding into her thoughts at the most inappropriate times.

  ‘Where’s Edward?’

  She and Isaac were having tea in the kitchen together. Edward had made it back home only just in time to say goodnight to Isaac for the last three evenings, and Isaac had missed playing with him after tea.

  ‘He’s at the hospital, sweetie. He’s got to stay and make sure that the people he’s looking after are okay.’

  Isaac frowned. ‘What people?’

  Good question. But her own uncertainties weren’t the issue here. It had been less than two weeks since she and Edward had first spent the night together, and it had taken only a week before the slow, subtle sense that he was withdrawing from her became apparent. When he was there he was still as committed, still as quietly loving. He just wasn’t there as much as he used to be.

  ‘People who are sick, sweetie.’ She leaned across the table towards Isaac. ‘There’s a little boy, about your age, who’s had an accident and lost his thumb. Edward’s going to give him a new one.’

  Isaac regarded his own thumb thoughtfully. ‘A bionic thumb...?’

  ‘No, a real one.’ Charlotte decided to skip the bit about how the child had lost two other fingers as well, and that the reconstruction of one side of his hand was ground-breaking in its complexity.

  ‘Is that what Edward’s doing now?’

  Difficult to say. She’d heard about this particular case from one of the other doctors, not Edward. ‘The operation’s tomorrow. I expect he’s preparing for it.’

  ‘And Edward will make the boy better?’

  ‘Yes, he will, sweetie.’ Charlotte could give that assurance, at least, with a clear conscience.

  ‘Good.’

  Isaac seemed satisfied, even if Charlotte didn’t share his confidence. Isaac was too young to remember the excuses that his father had made for being out every evening. Things to do at work. Client entertaining. She reminded herself that Edward was doing something worthwhile, and not running up debts that he couldn’t pay.

  She heard a noise at the front door and Isaac slipped down from his seat, running into the hallway. So different from the child who, just four weeks ago, had nearly jumped out of his skin when someone knocked on the door.

  ‘Hey, buddy.’

  She heard Edward’s voice and suddenly all of her fears and uncertainties seemed unreasonable. Not that they stopped pinching at her heart, but for the time being they receded to mere what-ifs instead of painful certainty.

  ‘Is he better?’ Isaac was perched against Edward’s side, tugging at his shoulder to gain his attention.

  ‘Is who better?’

  ‘That boy...?’

  Edward’s querying gaze lit on Charlotte’s face.

  ‘Isaac was asking where you were.’ Charlotte hadn’t dared ask, thinking that it was assuming a bit too much. ‘I told him that you were making another little boy well. The one you’re operating on tomorrow.’

  ‘Ah.’ He turned to Isaac. ‘The boy’s not better yet, but he will be. We’re taking good care of him, and he’s going to be just fine.’ He set Isaac back onto his feet and sat down.

  ‘Would you like something to eat?’

  He looked up at her. That dark blue gaze made everything else seem beside the point. The smile overrode every other sensation apart from pleasure.

  ‘No, that’s fine, thank you. I’ve already eaten. I’ve still got some more to do tonight, but I came home to see Isaac before his bedtime.’

  Charlotte turned quickly. She wasn’t being fair. He had things to do. He didn’t take her for granted, as Peter had done, expecting his dinner to be on the table whatever time he came home.

  ‘Coffee, then.’ She smiled brightly at him. ‘You’ll have some coffee? And I made cheesecake.’

  ‘That sounds fantastic.’ He caught Isaac’s eye. ‘Hey, are you having cheesecake, too? Or are you just going to run around the kitchen while I eat?’

  Isaac swooped towards the table, flapping his arms like a pair of wings, and sat down next to Edward. For the moment, at least, before Edward retreated again into his study, the world was as it should be.

  * * *

  The operation must have finished hours ago. It was ten o’clock, and Edward still wasn’t home. Charlotte had tried his mobile and it went straight to voicemail. She didn’t dare try again, because a list of missed calls from her would look as if she was crowding him. There was only one thing to do, and that was call the hospital.

  It took a while to pluck up the courage to do it, and then another five minutes of waiting on hold before she got to speak to the right person. Then she wished she hadn’t. It was only a twenty-minute drive from the hospital at this time of night, and Edward had left at nine.

  ‘Not to worry. Thanks.’ She smiled into the phone, as if that might give some believability to her words. Of course she was going to worry.

  ‘He said he was going to check back in again when he got home... If there’s any message?’

  Charlotte pursed her lips and then went for it. ‘Can you tell me whether he’s done that yet? Checked back in?’

  ‘Yes, hold on...’ A keyboard clicked into the silence on the line. ‘Here it is. Yes, he called in about twenty minutes ago. Said we could reach him on his mobile if there was any problem.’

  ‘Thanks. I’ll try that, then.’

  Charlotte hung up. So what was she going to do now? Edward obviously hadn’t been in an accident on his way home because he’d called in. And he obviously didn’t want anyone to know where he was.

  She knew exactly what she wasn’t going to do. She’d been here before and refused to believe what was staring her right in the face. The cold, hard proof of the credit card statements that her husband had kept hidden for so long. The affair that he had denied for so long. It had almost broken her.

  Not again. Edward was a man with secrets, and she wasn’t going to sit around, waiting for them to shatter her life. This time she’d protect Isaac—and she’d protect herself.

  * * *

  The following day was a Friday, and he was home early for the first time that week. Last night Charlotte had been unable to sleep until she’d heard the front door close quietly at two a.m. and Edward’s footsteps on the stairs, disappearing along the hallway and into his room. She hadn’t slept much after that, either, and in the morning Edward had left for the Lighthouse Children’s Hospital before she was out of bed.

  ‘I’ve been thinking.’ She’d waited until Isaac was in bed before she spoke with him.

  ‘Yeah?’ He looked up from the papers that he was reading.

  ‘I think it’s time for Isaac and me to go home.’

  He set the papers to one side, blank shock on his face. ‘Is there something the matter, Charlotte?’

  Everything that she could imagine. Edward was tired of her and didn’t know how to tell her. He had another woman somewhere. He was too self-absorbed to really care about her or Isaac. One or more of those, in any combination. Or something else, perhaps, that she hadn’t thought about.

  ‘We were only going to stay for a few days. It’s been nearly a month and...’ She took a deep breath. ‘I’m so grateful for everything you’ve done for us, Edward. But we can’t stay on here indefinitely.’

  This would be the
time for him to say that they weren’t overstaying their welcome. That he wanted her and Isaac to stay. They’d have to talk a bit—about how he seemed to have drawn back recently—but perhaps there was an explanation for that.

  He stared at her. ‘You want to go?’

  Disappointment curled around her heart. ‘I think that we should.’

  She could see him changing before her eyes. The lover who had turned her world into something that was closely akin to magic was turning into a man. One who accepted her leaving as if it had been inevitable all along and wouldn’t say one word to persuade her to stay. Cold grief began to trickle into her heart.

  ‘And us?’

  She was almost ready to beg him. She would have done almost anything to keep him just for one more day. One more day when anything might happen, when she might find a way to penetrate the icy shell that seemed to be forming around him. Then she thought of the way she’d worried about him last night. The way Isaac had fought to stay awake so that he could say goodnight to Edward.

  ‘Edward, I have no hold on you. Whatever you were doing last night is none of my business...’ He opened his mouth and she held up her hand to stop him from speaking. ‘No. Really, I don’t want to know. It can’t work between us, and I think it would be better if we just accepted that.’

  He could rage against this. Tell her that she was crazy—that he’d been called away to some medical emergency and hadn’t been able to call her. At this moment she would have believed lies, excuses—anything. But tomorrow she’d wake up and hate herself for allowing a man to betray her again.

  He ran his hand through his hair and a few dark spikes fell back across his forehead. ‘Okay. If that’s what you want... I’ll help you move back over the weekend.’

  ‘That’s all right. You must have things to do...’

  He shook his head. ‘No. I brought you here and I’ll take you home.’

  * * *

  She didn’t have to say it. He’d heard it before, and Kathy had just been proved right. Emotionally unavailable.

  Edward couldn’t argue with her. She needed more than he could give and so did Isaac. Scratch that. They both deserved more than he could give. If breaking his heart was the only way they were going to get it, then so be it.