Tempted by Dr. Off-Limits

by Charlotte Hawkes

  ‘My office.’

  Chapter Seven

  THERE WAS NO mistaking the barely restrained fury in his glower. Wordlessly she followed him to the main building, her heart detonating in her chest.

  Guilt poured through her.

  Wait, was he somehow blaming her for the unforeseeable turn of events?

  Disappointment crashed over her, almost painful as it burned within her chest and swamped out everything else. All of the fantasies she’d so absurdly cradled this past week, all of her memories, were torn down in a single instant.

  What a fool she was, building him up in her head into a perfect, unrealistic image of a man who had shown her such generosity and selflessness that night together, faultlessly anticipating her needs, and then exceeding them, over and over again.

  In that one night he’d restored her confidence in herself as a desirable woman. A confidence which had been quashed for so many years—if she’d ever really had it at all. She supposed, whatever happened from here, she should hold onto that memory and be grateful to him for at least such a gift.

  Instead, faced with this furious side of Fitz, she wished that night really had been all she had. At least that memory would have remained intact. Unblemished by this moment.

  Lost in her thoughts, she barely noticed when he stopped without warning, and she ran into the back of him before she could stop herself.

  ‘My office?’ he demanded, this time less of an order and more of a question.

  He was clearly irritable that he didn’t yet know his way around and, for some reason, that made her feel a little more in control of her skittering emotions.

  Yes, all right, perhaps she should have told him she was an army doctor, but how could she possibly have known that Fitz would be the commanding officer of the squadron sent to work alongside a unit from the field hospital? Even so, indignation followed the guilt. He had no right to be so arrogant, as though sleeping with her was a black mark on his reputation.

  Still, Elle schooled her thoughts, and her voice, determined not to let him see how much he affected her until she’d worked out exactly what it was she was going to say. For now, she’d resume a professional façade and get him back to his office, and then she’d get as far away from him as was possible in this confined place and try to regroup.

  ‘Your office is this way, Colonel,’ she emphasised.

  Carefully, she manoeuvred past him and strode through the rabbit warren of old, partially damaged corridors, all of which looked the same, with none of her usual tour guide fun. Privately she decided she might even get a tiny, perverse kick out of seeing him get lost for the first couple of days. Finally, she stopped outside a nondescript door.

  ‘Your office, Colonel. The stairs are just there.’ She waved to the recess behind her. ‘And your sleeping quarters are first floor up and the third door down. Two doors down from mine. Although sleeping quarters makes them sound a lot grander than the bare concrete cell-like boxes which they actually are. This place is so rundown there isn’t a single one that hasn’t fallen into disrepair.’

  At least, being a colonel, he had a room to himself while she shared with two other female majors, neither of whom were medical and who she didn’t know well enough to relax around.

  Despite her admonishments to herself it seemed that the wicked streak Fitz had revealed in her had chosen this moment to reassert itself. Even as a delicious memory rippled through her, Elle mentally kicked herself for allowing Fitz to see precisely how he’d inveigled his way into her subconscious.

  ‘Come in and close the door behind you,’ he ordered, heading straight into his office and moving to the ancient, steel-framed industrial desk in the far corner. ‘I don’t want anyone overhearing our conversation.’

  His brittle tone sliced through her, so cold it wounded Elle far more than any words could have done. She jutted her chin out, determined not to let herself lose what little ground she’d made on her self-confidence.

  ‘Is there any need for conversation, Colonel?’ she emphasised again. ‘I think we should just forget that night ever happened. It’s only for a couple of days, surely, while you check on your squadron out here, and then you’ll be back in Razorwire?’

  ‘Is that why you thought pretending we’d never met was such a bright idea, Elle?’

  The emphasis of her name made it clear he intended to have this out with her. There was little point in continuing any charade. She exhaled a little shakily.

  ‘I thought it was the easiest solution. I’ve never been in this situation before.’

  ‘Neither have I,’ he bit out. ‘But I know that other officers saw us together that night. If we stick as close to the truth as possible then we can’t get caught out with people assuming there must have been more to it than there was.’

  She couldn’t help that his words stung a little, as though the idea that it could have been more was preposterous. But at least the surprise admission that he hadn’t been in this situation before made her feel a little better. So there wasn’t a line of female officers he’d also slept with.

  ‘Fitz, is there really any need for this conversation? I think we both know what you’re going to say.’

  ‘Is that so? And what would that be?’

  Elle pursed her lips. It was what they’d both agreed that night in the hotel.

  Yet somehow it didn’t make it any easier.

  ‘That we agreed what we had was a...a one-night stand. That neither of us could have anticipated we’d end up work colleagues.’

  ‘Couldn’t we?’ he cut in abruptly. The chillness in his tone seeped through to her bones despite the forty-degree heat.

  Elle tightened her arms around her body, as though to offer herself support.

  ‘Say again?’

  ‘Did you really have no idea who I was? I told you I was a colonel in the Royal Engineers and that we were deploying. Razorwire was an obvious possibility, you must have put two and two together.’

  ‘Actually,’ Elle shocked herself by interrupting haughtily, ‘you originally said you and your buddies were on a leaving do, and it was only after I challenged you about the army-issue trousers you gave that lad after he had that seizure that you told me you were a colonel, otherwise I doubt you would have said a word. And you certainly never mentioned you were Royal Engineers. If you’re going to berate me then you should at least be accurate.’

  She didn’t quite recognise the look that danced over his striking features. And then it was gone and he was back to chastising her.

  ‘Fine, then for the sake of accuracy,’ he underscored, his jaw locked in disapproval, ‘you still deliberately concealed the fact that you were an army doctor. Nor, when I told you I was being deployed, did you admit that you were in the middle of your own deployment.’

  Elle sucked in a sharp breath. When he put it that way it did look bad, but then she already knew that, and while she was prepared to hold her hands up to some of it, she’d be damned if she was going to take the blame for the part for which she was actually innocent.

  ‘You’re right. I knew you were an army colonel and I knew you were leaving on a tour of duty, but I didn’t say anything. For that, I’m sorry. In my defence, though, how could I possibly have guessed we’d end up in the same place? It isn’t like I knew where you deploying to. It could have been different areas, different regions, even different countries.’

  ‘Razorwire’s a big camp. Plenty of soldiers end up there, you knew it was a possibility,’ he bit out, his glare hurled at her with all the pinpoint accuracy of a top athlete throwing a javelin.

  Rooted in place, Elle had no choice but to stand her ground, but she knew she was clinging to very shaky distinctions. Still, they were all she had.

  ‘But we aren’t actually at Razorwire, are we? I couldn’t have foreseen that.’

  ‘You lied to me.’

/>   ‘No,’ she began, then stopped abruptly. ‘Maybe.’

  Elle exhaled heavily, the fight unexpectedly sucked out of her. He was right. She had lied to him. Not for the reasons he assumed, but if they were to work efficiently together for the remainder of her tour, then they were going to need some kind of trust.

  And he certainly didn’t trust her right now.

  ‘Fitz, I honestly didn’t intend to deceive you but I really didn’t want to talk green, or compare tours, or analyse postings. I didn’t want to be Major Gabriella Caplin, heck, I didn’t even want to be Elle Caplin that night. Like I told you, I’d just left my ex-fiancé who’d been cheating on me and I wanted one night—just one—where I did something a little crazy and out of character. Something Major Caplin would never have done.’

  The silence was so thick, so cloying that Elle felt like she was suffocating.

  ‘But, at the risk of repeating myself, you’re acting as though it’s a big deal when it doesn’t have to be. We were perfectly entitled to sleep with each other and even now there’s no conflict of interest.’

  ‘I’m a colonel,’ he bit out, for the first time appearing less sure of himself.

  It might be only the merest hint of a chink in his impermeable armour but Elle wasn’t about to let that stop her.

  ‘But you’re not my colonel,’ she pointed out. ‘You’re not my CO. Colonel Duggan is. So a relationship between you and me isn’t against the rules, but of course you already know that. So what’s this about, Fitz?’

  She eyed him speculatively. The look of fury in his black eyes didn’t make any sense. Quickly, she ran through anything she might be missing.

  ‘Colonel Duggan has administrative and operational command for the running of this hospital, and therefore I do when he leaves the site. You have operational command for the construction of the hospital, and therefore Major Howes does when you’re not here. You can’t re-task me, or tell me how to do my job. And it’s not even a combat environment—we’re on a peacetime hearts-and-minds mission, so it isn’t as though things could suddenly get hostile.’

  ‘It crosses a line,’ he ground out.

  ‘Which line?’ She threw up her hands, exasperated.

  And then an almost paralysing nausea snaked through her mind. She could barely bring herself to ask the question, but she knew she had to.

  ‘Unless you’re not single.’ The words tasted acrid on her tongue. ‘If you’re married then it would have crossed a line, it would have contravened army rules.’

  ‘Of course I’m not married,’ he bit out instantly.

  Elle grabbed the back of the chair, relief making her knees wobble. After what Stevie had done, she couldn’t have endured to be the other woman herself. She couldn’t have withstood the idea that Fitz had made her that person.

  ‘So which line?’ she repeated shakily.

  His pulse leapt beneath his jaw. Evidence, not that she needed it, of his irritation. But she couldn’t step back; he’d started this personal attack and now she had to know.

  ‘My line,’ he spat out, at length.

  She had no idea whether his disgust was at her or himself.

  ‘I have my professional life and I have my personal one, and I don’t blur the lines between the two.’

  Why not?

  The question lingered. It was on the very tip of her tongue. Yet she couldn’t bring herself to ask it. He would fob her off and she didn’t want him to do that. He was clearly one of those soldiers who left his civvy life at the door of the barracks and put on his colonel-soldier one and she could understand that, it was usually how she liked to be on operations, especially if she was going into a combat environment. But out here, on this particular mission, things were more relaxed and Fitz didn’t need to be quite so rigid. He wasn’t protecting anyone.

  Except, perhaps, himself.

  Should she leave? Stay? She glanced at Fitz, hoping for some kind of response but he was only watching her. Judging her. For not being able to draw a line the way he could.

  She bristled and turned to the door, faltered, then stepped back to his desk.

  ‘You have no right to judge me, you don’t even know me.’

  ‘I’m not judging you,’ he argued. ‘I’m trying to protect you.’

  ‘From whom?’ she exclaimed. ‘From you?’

  The bleak look in his eyes caught her off guard. A haunted look that clawed at her insides.

  ‘Fitz, why on earth would you think I need protection from you?’

  He shook his head, his lips pulled into a thin line as though he didn’t intend to answer. And then he spoke.

  ‘You’re bright and vibrant and happy. And I’ll destroy it. It’s who I am.’

  Incredulity spread through her. That was so far removed from the man she’d met that night.

  ‘Why on earth would you say that?’

  He shook his head as though he didn’t want to say any more but the words kept coming.

  ‘Because I’ve done it before. Because I’m my father’s son.’

  This was about the car crash, she realised with a rush, remembering what Fitz had told her that night. Now she realised he felt guilty over his mother’s death. Whether he realised it or not, he was likely punishing himself for still being alive while his mother and sister were gone.

  She should have seen it earlier, she should have recognised it. Guilt. She knew it only too well. Only in her case it was guilt and gratitude. Without Stevie she doubted she would ever have realised her dream of becoming a doctor; she simply couldn’t have afforded the university course. It was the reason she’d ignored the little signs that Stevie had been cheating on her for a long time. She’d told herself that it wasn’t true, and she’d allowed herself to believe it, until that night she’d said the words out loud to Fitz and realised how unlikely they sounded.

  And she couldn’t shake the suspicion that it was some form of guilt that made Fitz shut people out, deny himself happiness. As though, somehow, he didn’t deserve it.

  She stepped towards him, shaking her head gently.

  ‘Your father was a drunk. You were a seventeen-year-old kid. What happened to your mother and sister wasn’t your fault.’

  He laughed—a humourless bark that splintered inside her.

  ‘You have no idea what was or wasn’t my fault.’

  ‘So tell me,’ she encouraged softly.

  She could actually see the battle raging inside him, etched into every chiselled groove of his face. Some part of Fitz wanted to tell her, she was sure of it. But he was fighting it and she didn’t know why.

  Still, she forced herself to wrinkle her nose at him coolly. As though her every fantasy since last week hadn’t involved Fitz doing deliciously wicked things to her.

  And then he said the words she least wanted to hear and it felt as though her heart was shattering. Shredded by shrapnel as if it had been caught in a homemade IED.

  ‘After all, it was just sex, right?’

  The root of the pain was so deep she couldn’t have pinpointed it if she tried. It snatched her breath away and left her legs feeling weaker than those of a newborn foal.

  As though it would have been no hardship to him at all to walk away from her that night. When she knew she would have never been able to resist him.

  Fitz was supposed to have been a one-night stand yet somewhere along the line she’d given him the power to hurt her as much as Stevie had because they were both able to dismiss her as inconsequential.

  She tried to steel herself, desperately trying not to show Fitz how much that throwaway line had hurt her. But she wasn’t fast enough, and she felt too raw.

  ‘God, how do you guys do that?’ she demanded, her voice little more than a strained whisper.

  ‘Elle...’

  He took a step towards her but she backed up, shaking h
er head, unable to get the words out. Unable to process the inexplicable pain.

  This had to be about Stevie. It couldn’t be about Fitz, that didn’t make sense, he had been just a one-night stand. Stevie was the one who had hurt her, betrayed her, made her feel worse than nothing. She was just transferring to Fitz because he was here and her ex wasn’t.

  Right?

  Damn Stevie.

  She hated him for making her feel like she somehow wasn’t enough. Not sexy enough, not available enough, just not enough. And she hated herself for not being able to act cool and nonchalant. For letting Fitz see how vulnerable she still was. She tried to fight back, to claw back some measure of dignity.

  ‘Don’t think this is about you,’ she choked out between the unattractive barks of bitter laughter.

  ‘I know that.’

  She wasn’t prepared for the bleakness, the hollowness of his response. As though he really believed her. As though he hadn’t for one minute considered the impact he’d made on her.

  Caught up in the emotions roiling inside her, she let her neck fall back to stare at the rough-textured grey concrete ceiling and exhaled hard, her head struggling to make sense of it.

  This was a side to Fitz she knew for a fact that no one else saw. His reputation preceded him. A fearsome soldier, an inspiring leader, a caring commander. They didn’t know the internal war he waged. Hadn’t he told her things that he’d said he’d never told anyone else?

  Surely that had to count for something?

  ‘But you still can’t treat me like the enemy,’ she said tentatively. ‘I didn’t set out to deceive you.’

  There had been something between them that first night. A connection that had gone beyond simple attraction, or sex, though both had helped. They’d both confided in each other, and whether it was the events of that evening, the fact that they’d never expected to meet again, or just the fact that her guard had been lowered and he’d been there, Elle couldn’t be sure. But they’d opened themselves up to each other and they couldn’t just slam those doors shut now because it was no longer convenient.