by Sam Archer
He was sitting on his bed sipping tea, in pyjamas and a hospital gown, his hair rumpled, his face a little thinner for his ordeal, but good-humoured. And handsome as ever.
His eyes appraising her, he patted the bed beside him and she sat down. They pressed close.
‘Busy morning?
Melissa gave him a rundown of her day so far. Fin interjected from time to time with questions about the patients she was describing, and remarks about how she’d managed them. There was an easy familiarity between them now, but the tension hadn’t entirely disappeared. It wasn’t the simmering dynamic of things unspoken and unacknowledged that had been there earlier, but rather a delicious, slightly frightening sense of expectation. A taut thrill of anticipation, stretched almost to breaking point.
Too soon, her pager went off. It was a non-urgent call to the ward.
Melissa pressed her face against Fin’s neck, breathing his warmth. ‘I need to get back.’
‘Have you said your goodbyes yet?’
She sighed. ‘I’ve been putting it off. It’s better that way, I think. Last-minute handshakes all round, just before I leave tomorrow. It’ll avoid all the tears and hysteria.’
‘I’m sure the staff will be more restrained than that.’
‘I wasn’t talking about them.’ She smiled, stroked his knee, stood up. As she bustled through the doors, she wondered about the twinkle she’d seen in Fin’s eyes. It was probably because of her hand on his leg, she thought.
To Melissa’s surprise, Deborah met her at the entrance to the ward. Was there some crisis on?
‘What’s up?’ she said in alarm.
The relationship between her and Deborah had changed utterly, to Melissa’s delight. The cool distance between them, the silence when they weren’t discussing work-related matters, had been replaced by an easy bonhomie. Melissa discovered that Deborah was actually a highly likeable person with – and she’d never have guessed this before – quite a sense of humour.
‘Oh, nothing,’ said the nurse, her face neutral. ‘Professor Penney has asked that you see him in his office.’
Baffled, Melissa made her way to the office corridor. She tapped on the door of the office where, three months earlier and seemingly a lifetime ago, she’d announced that she was resigning.
‘Come in!’ boomed the professor’s hearty voice.
He was seated behind his huge oak desk, beaming. To Melissa’s surprise, Emma was perched on one corner of the desk. She gave a small wave.
‘Prof,’ said Melissa, glancing from one to the other. ‘What’s this all about?’
‘How are you, Melissa?’ he said, as if he hadn’t heard. Melissa frowned nervously.
‘Fine, thanks.’
‘Back in the swing of things?’
‘Yes. No harm done, though I don’t think I’ll be doing any more swimming for a while.’
‘Good, good.’ He laughed, waved her towards a chair. She sat on the edge.
Silence followed. It could have lasted only seconds but it seemed to stretch towards eternity.
Professor Penney said: ‘We’ve got a little something for you.’
So that was it. A leaving present of some kind. Melissa smiled, wondering why they’d bothered with such a dramatic buildup. ‘Well, that’s very kind, but –’
‘Emma here’s got some news,’ the professor cut in. Melissa looked at Emma, who beamed.
‘I’m pregnant.’
‘Fantastic! Congratulations!’ Melissa was out of the chair and hugging her friend. ‘How long?’
‘We’re expecting in mid-June.’
‘That’s – you’re five months gone already?’ Melissa stepped back to stare down at Emma’s belly. Perhaps the hint of a fullness there. ‘What’s your secret? You look terrific.’
‘Thanks. But I’m going to have to be careful,’ said Emma. My doctor’s advised me to take maternity leave early. I need to rest up before the birth. Had a bit of a scare at the beginning and I mustn’t take any chances.’
‘How early are you taking leave?’
‘From six months,’ Emma replied.
Melissa thought about it. ‘You’re going off in a month’s time?’
‘Yep.’
‘Hot on my heels, then.’
From behind the desk Professor Penney said, ‘It doesn’t have to be that way.’
Melissa turned to face him once more. ‘Prof, I really appreciate it, but as I’ve explained before, I –’ She broke off as a thought struck her. When she met his eyes, she saw he knew that she understood.
He nodded, spread his hands.
‘Emma’s job’s yours, once she goes, if you want it. You’d work for me, as my registrar. Same department, but not directly under Fin’s supervision. No conflict of interest, no awkwardness. Of course, the two of you will come into contact during the working day, but I dare say you’re both mature enough not to let that affect your work.’ He raised his eyebrows. ‘So, what do you say? Can we hang on to you?’
Again Melissa stared from one to the other, no words available to her for a few moments. Dizziness seized her and for a second she thought she was going to collapse.
Be with Fin, and be at St Matthew’s. She was, after everything, going to be able to do both.
Dimly she was aware that the professor had spoken. She forced herself back down to earth, couldn’t quite make it, and felt as if she was listening to him from a cloud.
‘Well, come on, Ms Havers,’ he said. ‘The offer’s not going to be open for ever.’
Melissa drew a deep breath, stepped up to the desk as briskly as her weak legs would allow her, and extended her hand to shake his.
‘Professor Penney,’ she said. ‘I’d be honoured to work for you. Thank you.’
At the door he called, ‘Oh, and if you’re going to tell Mr Finmore-Gage the good news, there’s no hurry. He already knows.’
It explained the twinkle in Fin’s eye when she’d left him.
***
The lights glittered off the shifting mass of the river, far below through the window. On the other side the north bank of the Thames stretched majestically. There was the unmistakeable outline of St Paul’s dome, and there, further on, the towers of St Matthew’s.
The river held no terror for Melissa now. Nothing did any more.
The restaurant was on the tenth storey of the building, high above the river on the South Bank. When Fin had first proposed taking her there she’d been horrified. The meals each cost as much as she earned in a month. But he’d put a hand up to stop her protests.
‘It’s the first time,’ he said. ‘It needs to be a special occasion. We deserve it.’
Their table was one of the best in the house, standing on its own in the scoop of a huge bay window that afforded a spectacular view over the Thames. The wine waiter had just arrived, and filled their glasses after Fin sampled and approved it. Melissa sipped. She was no expert, but this was quality.
She gazed at Fin over the rim of her glass. He looked, as the saying went, like a million dollars. His tuxedo was immaculate, the collar notched rather than cowled. Beneath the jacket he wore a crisp dress shirt of such brilliant white it almost hurt her eyes. His bow tie was perfectly straight, his face shaved beautifully. In the candle light his eyes glittered like dark gems.
Melissa found herself hypnotised by his eyes, his mouth, found herself incapable of tearing her gaze away.
She herself had agonised for over two hours about what to wear. She’d tried on and cast aside outfit after outfit before returning to the beginning again and repeating the sequence. At one point she’d considered phoning Emma to sound out her opinion. But she’d stopped herself. This was her night, hers and Fin’s. It wasn’t to be shared with anybody else, not even her closest friends.
Eventually she’d settled on a subtly sequinned blue dress that ended just above the knee and was cut moderately low up top. She hadn’t worn it for months, and was pleased to find that it fit as well as it did, snugly across
her bust and hips and tightly at the waist. She studied herself with a critic’s eye in the full-length mirror in her wardrobe door, thinking she’d struck the right balance between demure and vampish. She chose stockings, not tights, and a pair of heels that were just low enough to be comfortable to walk in.
When the buzzer went she sprang out of her chair, her heart pounding, her palms sweaty, and raced to the intercom, feeling like a sixteen-year-old going on her first proper date. An unfamiliar voice said, ‘Ms Havers?’
Surprised and nonplussed, she said, ‘Yes?’
‘I’m Mr Finmore-Gage’s driver.’
He has a driver? She hurried downstairs, almost forgetting her coat – she’d regret that quickly, as it was still mid-February and the winter was showing few signs of saying goodbye – and saw the limousine immediately, parked directly outside her block of flats. The driver opened the door and she ducked in. Fin sat across from the door, handsome and smiling in his livery, a single red rose between his fingers.
‘A limo?’ she said once they were underway and she’d kissed him briefly and taken his hand.
‘Even a beast like a Jaguar needs a rest once in a while.’ He handed her the rose.
Now, she lost herself in his gaze, the clink and murmur of the restaurant around them barely registering. The wine was spreading its slow warmth down through her chest and stomach, and at the same time she felt the beginnings of heat rising in the opposite direction.
‘Good day at the office?’ he murmured.
‘Not bad.’
‘Really?’
Melissa grinned. ‘I’m going stir crazy, to be honest.’
She’d cancelled the locum job in Devon she’d been intending to take to tide her over in February, and instead had agreed to spend the month working purely on research at St Matthew’s, collating and writing up data other people had gathered. She’d earn a small stipend for it, and it would keep her busy in London until the beginning of March when Emma was to go off on maternity leave and Melissa would step into her shoes in Professor Penney’s team. So she’d spent the last fortnight cloistered in an office with a couple of research assistants, trawling through reams of notes and screen after screen of computer files.
Fin had been discharged ten days ago, having been given a clean bill of health, and had returned to work four days later. He and Melissa had seen each other daily, meeting for lunch and walking in St James’s Park when the weather permitted it, but apart from growingly passionate kisses they hadn’t taken matters any further yet. It needed to be a special night, and Fin admitted he couldn’t get a booking at the restaurant until now.
Emboldened by the wine, Melissa eased the side of her foot against his under the table, increased the pressure gently. He pushed back, taking her free hand in his across the table. They talked, meanderingly, luxuriating in the surroundings and the wine and the pleasure of exploring one another’s faces with their eyes as they did so.
As the meal went on, their conversation turned ever more personal. Melissa told him of love affairs of her own, good and bad, in her past. Fin described a disastrous relationship he’d had as a student which had them both laughing at the foolishness of young people in the grip of infatuation.
Fin spoke about the fallow years in his romantic life, the ones during which he was focusing with white-hot intensity on his career as a surgeon. He seemed to Melissa to hesitate, then, and to draw back into himself. She felt a throb of sympathy. If he was touching on areas he felt uncomfortable talking about, she understood, and would grant him the right to avoid causing himself pain. But at the same time she hoped he’d feel safe enough with her to share them.
The main course arrived, then, an enormous sea bass for her with colossal piles of vegetables doused in sauce. For a top-end restaurant, it clearly didn’t favour the tiny portions its competitors served. Melissa wondered if she’d be able to breath in her dress afterwards. The arrival of the food produced a natural break in the conversation, and by the time they’d starting eating again Fin seemed distracted, given to comments about the view and the decor of the restaurant and similarly unrelated subjects.
Melissa felt especially bold, reckless even, and before she knew what she was doing she put down her knife and clasped his hand across the table once more and said, ‘Fin, would you tell me about Catherine? Please?’
The mention of her name stopped Fin dead, his fork halfway to his mouth. He put it down and stared at Melissa, something flaming in his eyes that she hadn’t seen before. For a moment she was dismayed.
Oh no. I’ve blown it.
The look in his eyes was one of intense pain.
Fin said nothing for several beats. Then he reached over and took her hand in both of his.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘It’s time I did.’
And it came spilling out, the words tumbling as though they’d been dammed up for too long and had suddenly found release. He told her about how he’d met Catherine, fallen in love for the first time and married her. How she’d stoically borne his late hours and sometimes distant manner, supporting him every way she could in his ambition.
How she’d gone out one day and never come back.
How he’d failed to save her. Not just because he hadn’t taken charge of her care after she’d been hit by the car, but because his habitual neglect of her had made him unaware of the fact that she was missing at all.
How his whole life, from the point of Catherine’s death onwards, had been skewed towards achievement and fulfilment in one area alone: his work. While his emotional life withered and died, and he denied himself the soul-nourishing food of love.
When he’d finished he looked utterly drained, exhausted and yet profoundly relieved, as if he’d undergone some agonising yet critical surgical procedure and understood that he’d come out the other side, alive. Melissa was leaning as far towards him as she could, wanting the table to be gone, wanting the whole restaurant to disappear and for it to be just them, together, her and this wonderful, noble man. Out of the corner of her eye she saw a waiter approaching, no doubt concerned that they’d stopped eating because there was something wrong with the food. Melissa glanced across and gave the waiter a quick smile and a shake of the head. He withdrew.
Fin pulled Melissa’s hand to his lips, pressed them against her fingers.
Softly, she said: ‘You really loved her, didn’t you?’
‘More than anyone I’d ever met,’ he whispered. ‘But she’s gone. And now I’ve met you. And I love you more than anyone I could ever hope to meet in my life, Melissa.’
She saw the glimmer of a tear on her lower lid and felt it spill over and slide down her cheek before she had a chance to wipe it away.
Despite the exquisite food, despite the glamour of the setting, Melissa barely tasted a bite, hardly noticed the view or the soft music from the Bach string quartet in the corner. Her attention was held entirely by Fin; she was drawn into his aura like a ship’s captain by a siren’s call.
The limousine ride to Fin’s flat passed with Melissa in his arms in the back seat, her face buried in his neck, his strength engulfing her. Somehow she found herself upstairs and in his apartment, a beautifully appointed testament to good taste and, in its own way, loneliness.
Melissa didn’t sit down, just followed Fin into the kitchenette and pressed herself against his back, her arms round his waist, as he took a bottle from the fridge and popped the cork expertly, filling two flutes. He turned and handed her a glass.
One hand behind his neck, feeling his own arm snug around her waist, Melissa clinked her glass against his. He gazed down at her, then tilted his eyes off to one side.
‘Shall we?’ he murmured.
They took the champagne through to the bedroom. The bed was large and low and softly lit, Melissa had time to notice, before Fin swung her to face him and slid his hands up her back and pulled her hard against him, his mouth finding hers.
She responded eagerly, winding her arms around his neck, writhing in his em
brace, her lips and tongue probing and entwining with his. The heat surged from her pelvis, coursing through her entire body. Her every sense heightened, Melissa was acutely aware of the crush of his chest against her breasts, the musky smell of him as his pores opened, his deep low breathing on her face.
At her back his fingers, those strong yet delicate tools of his trade that had saved so many lives, found the clasp at the top of her dress and unhooked it. She felt the material part, heard the tiny sound as the zip was pulled down. Fin’s hands swept across the skin of her back, bare except for the line of her brassiere.
Where his hips were pressed against hers, she could feel his hardness, insistent and rising.
Desire surged through her with such sudden force that she thought her legs were going to buckle. She arched her neck and his lips and tongue found her throat, nipping at the soft sensitive skin, producing a long husky moan from deep within her.
She was reluctant to break from his embrace, to move even a fraction of an inch away from him, but hunger for him was taking over. Slipping her hands with difficulty in between them, she began to pick rapidly at the buttons of his shirt, staring up at him through lowered lids, her lips parted, her breathing coming rapidly now. His eyes had darkened with lust and threatened to suck her in somewhere she’d never escape from.
Somehow Melissa managed to unbutton his shirt to the waist. She smoothed her palms over his broad chest, his muscled belly. As she did so she felt the dress slip from her shoulders. She reached up and peeled it all the way off, letting it pool around her feet.
His eyes widened and she watched his gaze drop slowly down her body. She’d chosen lace underwear, pale red and transparent, and it was clearly having the desired effect. Fin’s throat convulsed as if he was having difficulty swallowing.
