A Surgeon For The Single Mum

Perhaps it was in his world.

Tak Basu—one of the hospital’s brightest stars. Talk about an eligible bachelor. His reputation for medical excellence preceded him only slightly more than his brooding good looks and an immorally stunning Adonis physique that would make even the most pious woman ache to sin.

Yet now she realised that not even the most fevered description could accurately convey just how devastating he was in the flesh, or just how paralysing his sheer magnetism truly was.

Every hair on her body felt as though it was standing to attention. Ready to do his bidding—eager, even. It was like nothing she’d ever experienced in the whole of her life.

Then there were the smaller things. Like his big hands, strong forearms, the way he stood as though he owned the world. Or the shock of thick black hair, longer on top than she might have expected, which only added to his already six foot three height. It looked soft and inviting, and it took Effie a moment to realise that her fingers were actually aching with the urge to test it out.

And so she perched there on her stool, pretending she was still working so that she didn’t have to turn to him and withstand the full weight of her inconvenient attraction. The fact that he didn’t seem to date much only enhanced his appeal—and his mystique.

Finally—mercifully—she found her tongue again. ‘What on earth makes you think I want a fake date?’ She flushed. ‘Or indeed any kind of date.’

She studiously ignored the little voice in her head taunting her for engaging with him. Telling her that had it been anyone else she would already have declined politely before walking away.

‘Isn’t that rather the point?’ His mouth curved slightly in what could only be described as a sinful smile. ‘If it’s a fake date, then it isn’t really any kind of date.’

‘Semantics.’ She pursed her lips. ‘Or riddles. In any case, I’ve never really cared for either. Just as I really don’t need a date—fake or otherwise.’

Still she didn’t make herself walk away. Why was that?

‘I don’t understand how I...how a fake date...concerns me.’

And she wanted to understand. Perhaps a little bit too much. Even if he was eyeing her as though to him she rated as about as intelligent as the average sponge in the animal kingdom. She could take offense, but that really wasn’t her style. Who had time in a job like her?

‘Hetti suggested otherwise.’

‘Hetti?’

‘Yes, Hetti. The other Dr Basu.’ He jerked his head towards where his sister and her team were focussed on the cyclist. ‘Hemavati.’

Something clicked. How had she missed it before? Probably something to do with the stress of moving house, moving town, moving halfway across the country. And at every step fighting with her thirteen-going-on-thirty-year-old daughter, who hadn’t wanted to leave everything she knew.

‘Hetti? Yes, I know who Hetti is. I just don’t understand why she would have mentioned me to you.’

She and Hetti had worked together for a couple of years back at Allport Infirmary’s A&E. They’d even been friends. Well, as close to being friends as two rather guarded individuals could be. Probably that was one of their shared traits, which had drawn them to each other.

‘She mentioned that you were caught on the horns of a dilemma—not wanting a date for the charity gala on one side and risking being hit on all night if you’re without a date on the other. Apparently you’ve swiftly shut down any man who has asked you.’

Nothing about Nell, then. That was good. The last thing she wanted was people gossiping about her having been a teenage mum, or privately questioning whether she was really up to the job of being an air ambulance doctor. It was such a demanding, limited environment, and lives literally depended on her and her two paramedics.

No one else. Just the three of them. Not like in the A&E, where she’d been a doctor up until now, where she could call on a colleague for a consult if she needed to.

So she was still new to the air ambulance team—still in her probationary period. Her employers might have liked her CV and her references, and the way she’d come across in her many interviews, but they didn’t know the first thing about her. Mainly because she kept her private life just that. Utterly private.

If they’d known the truth about her would they still have hired her? Would she have been good enough for them? Or even enough?

A jolt of something that felt altogether too much like insecurity bolted through Effie before she could stop it. Before she could shove it back into the distant shadows of her brain where it belonged.

The only person who had never made her feel she had something to prove was Eleanor. The one woman who had seen through Effie’s tough, angry exterior to the frightened, lonely kid beneath. The woman who had loved her so much that she’d been willing to fight Effie’s sorry excuse for a mum and to adopt her. The woman who had seen Effie’s potential and encouraged her to really do something with her life—starting by going to university. And not just any university, either.

But Eleanor had been gone from her life for so many years now that it was getting harder and harder for Effie to remember how it had felt to have someone to lean on.

It would hardly have been surprising if her bosses and colleagues had panicked about hiring a single mum with a young daughter. If Nell was ill she couldn’t just call in sick herself, like other parents. There was no one to cover her. Her team depended on her being there every single time she was supposed to be. On never being distracted.

Including right now.

Effie jutted out her chin and met his gaze. ‘And so you stepped up to save me from myself? How chivalrous.’

Her tone was a little tighter, a little sharper than she might have preferred, but that was better than giving in to this absurd heat trapped low in her belly. The kind which threatened to melt a girl from the inside out.

Surely she was past all that nonsense? Hadn’t having a baby at eighteen taught her that much, at least?

‘You could call it chivalrous. Or you could call it selfish. I’d prefer the term mutually beneficial.’

‘Really?’ Even as she asked, she knew it was a bad sign that it made a difference to her. Made her a little bit too eager for an excuse to break her usual no dating code. ‘So what do I gain from it?’

‘Hetti mentioned you were too career-focussed to have time to date, and that your move here has invited attention. Fresh blood and all that. We both know that attending this function alone would be tantamount to inviting people to hit on you all night. Going with me should make anyone else leave you alone.’

She could point out that it sounded arrogant for him to say that other men would naturally back away if Tak was her date. The problem was she could imagine that was exactly what would happen.

‘Fine. So what about you? Is this your way of ensuring no-strings sex for the night? Because I have to say it’s a pretty pathetic way of—’

‘No sex,’ he cut in definitively.

‘Sorry?’

‘If I want sex I can get sex. The point is that I don’t.’

‘A single man in his thirties who doesn’t want sex?’ Incredibly she found herself raising an eyebrow at him as though she was actually...flirting?

‘I don’t want sex with you,’ he corrected.

How was it possible to feel suddenly deflated when she didn’t want complications herself?

‘Oh. Right.’ She sounded so stiff, so wooden. ‘Well, good. Glad that’s cleared up.’

He raked his hand through his hair and she found the unexpectedly boyish gesture all the more disarming.

‘I didn’t mean it to sound that way.’ Clearly this was as close as she was going to get to an apology. ‘My point is that I want a date as a buffer. I don’t want complications from it. My extended family have it in their collective heads that if I’m not going to find a wife for myself then they need to find one for me. A date will buy me some time.’

There was no reason for her chest to constrict the way it did at that moment. No reason at all.

‘Couldn’t you just tell them no?’

‘I could...’ He shrugged, as though it didn’t matter to him one way or another. ‘I have. Many times. But that doesn’t stop them from trying and pushing. I was just about to offend every single one of them by making it unequivocally clear that I’m not interested. However, it’s been pointed out to me that there is another way to handle it. A softer way.’

‘By Hetti, by chance?’

‘Indeed.’ Tak flashed another of those wicked smiles which seemed to liquefy her insides within seconds. ‘She also pointed out that if I do that they’ll turn their focus on her. And no doubt redouble their efforts in revenge.’

Curious.

Hetti had alluded to the fact that her big brother was always looking out for her but, given Tak’s formidable reputation, Effie hadn’t really bought it.

‘And so you’re trying to project a softer Tak Basu? Now, there’s a curious notion.’

The words were out before she could swallow them. Revealing far more than she might have wanted him to know. Effie could have kicked herself.

‘Is it, indeed?’

His eyebrows lifted, his incorrigible expression stealing her breath from her lungs. God, he was magnificent. It should be illegal.

She forced herself to straighten her spine, make her tone just that bit choppier. ‘Although conning your extended family is one thing, but conning your mother rather than simply telling her the truth—’

‘You don’t know what you’re talking about.’ His low, deep voice, every word uttered with a razor-sharp edge, cut her instantly. ‘Consequently, I suggest you don’t even try.’

Despite the words he’d used, it would clearly be a mistake to actually believe it had been merely a suggestion.

Effie swallowed. Hard.

Silence enveloped them, and she found herself unable to move. Awkward in her own skin.

His expression softened. ‘I shouldn’t have spoken to you that way,’ he said, and abruptly Effie realised this was Tak apologising to her. ‘I’m just...a little protective of my family.’

It was such a familiar pain that it shouldn’t hurt her as much as it did. Her throat felt too tight, but somehow she managed to reply. ‘That’s...admirable.’

What would she have given, growing up, to have had a family who were protective of each other. Even one of her foster families. But instead...

She shuddered at the memories. An endless merry-go-round of girls’ homes and foster families, all of whom had either looked at her as though she should be grateful to them for even knowing her name, or else had resented the fact that she wasn’t an adorable baby they could cuddle. Or worse. But she didn’t like to remember the nights she’d spent sleeping rough on park benches because it had been safer than any given foster home.

There had been a couple of nice families. She could remember both of them with such clarity. They had wanted to adopt her and she’d prayed that they would, even though she’d long since had any sense of faith knocked out of her. But on both occasions her biological mother had somehow—shockingly—managed to convince the authorities that she had gone clean, and they had been compelled to return Effie to her.

Of course it had never lasted.

‘I suppose you might call it admirable...’ Tak’s voice mercifully broke into her thoughts. ‘Either way, it seems we both have our reasons for wanting a buffer.’

‘I can handle myself.’ She narrowed her eyes at him, irked to concede that he might actually have a point.

‘I’m suggesting that you don’t have to. That our attending the ball together could make it a smoother night all around.’

‘Right...’ she conceded slowly, without knowing why.

‘So, do we have a deal?’

There were a hundred reasons why she should say no. Thirteen of them even had the same four letters. Nell. But suddenly all Effie could think of were all the reasons—as flimsy and as spurious as she knew them to be—why she might say yes.

‘My car is in the garage right now, so it would save me having to drive myself...’

She couldn’t believe she’d said it aloud. It didn’t even sound believable. What on earth had made her think it was better to say that than admit her car was such a clapped-out old mess she didn’t want people seeing her in it in case they asked too many questions?

It had been bad enough convincing her new colleagues that she kept it because it had sentimental value, rather than tell the truth about the fact that she’d been going to change it, but Nell’s new school had offered a last-minute place on a ski trip they’d been planning for twelve months and, given the lateness, she’d needed to make full payment of a sum which had made her eyes water.

She knew what people’s expectation of a doctor’s salary was—and why they couldn’t equate her career with her always-tight finances. Even those who know about her daughter.

However much the news made an issue of student debt, and the tens of thousands that medical students especially could incur, it was easy for outsiders to forget that such debt incurred heavy interest every year. Even many of her colleagues had had family to support them financially, at least to some degree.

But none of them had also been raising a daughter at the same time.

Effie still shuddered when she thought of how she’d had to beg and plead—and sometimes gloss a little over the truth—in order to secure every available student and bank loan out there. She could have chosen a different career, of course, but she’d had something to prove. Both to herself and in memory of the one woman who had ever believed in her.

Even when she’d qualified, every penny of her salary had been swallowed up, not just by basic living costs, but by the additional costs that a child had incurred. Food, children’s clothes which never seemed to fit for more than a year, but especially the crippling childcare costs, Especially for a junior doctor working long shifts, night shifts, and even sometimes ninety-plus hour weeks.

True, nowadays her career was more established and she was a lot more financially stable, but even now she couldn’t break the habit of putting her daughter first. Maybe it was because she needed to give Nell the opportunities she herself had never had, or perhaps it was guilt at having had to work so hard for all those years.

Either way, it was why her clever, beautiful, funny daughter was at the most prestigious private school in the area, to the tune of several tens of thousands a year—even without the additional ski trips, French exchanges, and Summer Activities program—whilst she herself kept her old car for just one year longer.

Not that she would ever confess to someone a single word of any of that to someone like Tak.

Still, his expression flickered slightly and Effie couldn’t be sure what he was thinking. She had a feeling he was laughing at her and she gave herself a mental kick. And then she kicked herself again for even caring what he thought about her.

Good job she was immune to cocky, arrogant, too-handsome-for-their-own-good playboys.

Although the way her traitorous heart was reacting to him was galling. This never happened to her. Never. She had never gossiped with colleagues about the latest developments in an eligible guy’s sex-life. Or lusted after men around the water cooler. Or gone out to clubs and picked up guys.

That didn’t mean she hadn’t lusted after the odd guy on TV, or in a magazine. Though never in person—not like this. At least not since Nell’s father, as gargantuan a mistake as he had been. Not that she would ever give Nell up for a second. But he had been an idiot boy whom she’d lusted after but never loved. Had barely even known—not really. He’d had no hopes, no dreams. He’d relied on his good looks and he certainly hadn’t wanted to achieve anything. He’d laughed at her dreams of going to university to study medicine. Told her to get real. That places like that didn’t take kids like them.

They’d dated—if it could even be called that—for a handful of months. And even that had been because a lethal cocktail of grief and lust, had given her the desire to get one thing to make her forget the other, if only for one night.

Eleanor’s shocking death had rocked her more than all those awful years in and out of foster homes, or care homes when her mother had been deemed ‘too unfit’ to care for her. The fact that something as ugly and banal as a drunk driver could have snuffed out such a warm, glorious light, in the blink of an eye, made it that much worse.

In a matter of hours Effie had gone from being on the brink of being adopted, and finally having a loving family in the form of Eleanor, to having absolutely no one. No one but him. And she’d let herself believe that he could ease her loneliness.

But when she told him she’d fallen pregnant he’d wanted nothing to do with her, and she’d never felt more abandoned. That had been the moment she’d vowed she would never again let anyone into her personal life, never let a guy know she was attracted to them.

Immune, she reminded herself now, crossly.

Tearing her eyes away from the approaching figure, Effie checked her watch. ‘I have to get back to the heli.’

‘No one’s stopping you.’ Tak twisted his mouth into something which was too amused to be a smile. ‘You’re the one who has prolonged things, preferring this verbal sparring to answering a simple question.’

It was as though he could read her thoughts. As though he knew that a part of her was aching to say yes.

Effie drew herself up as tall as she could. ‘Is that right?’ she managed primly. ‘Then allow me to be clear. My answer, Dr Basu, is no. No, I do not want to accompany you to the hospital charity ball as your date. Fake or otherwise.’

So why was every fibre of her screaming at her that this was the wrong answer?

‘I see.’ His lips twitched. ‘Thank you for letting me know.’

Before she could ruin the moment, Effie filed away her notes and marched out through the Resus doors. It took her a moment to realise that she wasn’t alone.

Spinning around, she confronted him. ‘Why are you following me?’

‘Apologies if it’s spoiling the dramatic effect of your exit.’ Tak didn’t look remotely apologetic. ‘I’m heading home. My car is in the car park next to the helipad.’

He had to be kidding?

She hesitated, unsure what to do next. It was a two-hundred-metre stretch from here to there. If she marched off ahead of him he might think she was employing one of those flirtatious tactics of making him look at her backside. But the alternative was walking together in an awkward silence.

There was no reason for that to hold the slightest amount of appeal, she berated herself silently. Perhaps it would be easier if she pretended she’d forgotten something inside the hospital and headed back inside for a moment? Yes, that might be best.

Turning around, Effie took a step towards the hospital doors just as one of her more dogged suitors—who had so far asked her out three times and showed no signs of getting the message—walked out.

A smarmy smile slid over his features and she panicked. A little bit of pursuit might be considered flattering, but the problem with this particular guy was that he truly deemed himself too good a catch for any woman in their right mind to reject him. It seemed the more she turned him down, the more he took it as a challenge that she wanted to be pursued harder.

She could report him, of course, but she needed the money and not the hassle.

Her brain spun on its wheels. For the second time in as many moments she turned to Tak, ignoring the little voice inside her head which was doing the most inappropriate celebratory jig all on its own.

‘So, what time did you say you’d collect me for the hospital ball?’

She could see it instantly. His eyes flicking from her to her would-be admirer, then back again. Sizing up the situation in an instant. Then there was that wicked gleam in his eye which had her heart beating faster as she wondered whether or not he was about to land her in it.

For a long moment, they stared at each other. Amusement danced across his rich brown eyes, whilst she could only imagine the desperate plea in her own. Finally, Tak spoke.

‘Shall we say seven-thirty?’

‘Seven-thirty.’ She bobbed her head—a little too much like the nodding dog in the back of one of her foster family’s cars for her own liking. ‘I’m looking forward to it.’

She should hate it that a traitorous part of her actually was.

CHAPTER THREE

‘YOU DIDN’T HAVE to wait down here.’

Tak frowned as he sauntered into her lobby like some kind of Hollywood action hero. Sleek and burnished and sheer masculine magnificence—a stark contrast to the shabby, grubby, in-need-of-repair surroundings.

Effie felt her heartbeat actually hang for a moment, before galloping wildly back into life as an unexpected, unwanted tingle coursed over her skin. It was a momentary reprieve from the anxiety which had flushed her body ever since her daughter had dropped the mother of all bombshells on her, barely a few minutes ago. Just as she’d been about to walk out of the door.

If it hadn’t been for the knowledge that Tak would come up to the flat if she wasn’t in the lobby to stop him, she might have dropped everything and spent the entire night talking to—or rather yelling at—her daughter about her monumentally stupid lapse in judgement.

In some ways this night with Tak was a silver lining. It would give her space and a chance to calm down. If she blurted out to her daughter all the things that were racing around her head at this moment in time, then she might easily ruin their relationship for a long, long time to come.

Still, Effie told herself darkly that her reaction to Tak was simply due to the rush of cold night air accompanying his entrance.

She knew it wasn’t true.

So much for her efforts these past couple of days in telling herself that she had a handle on the situation. That her initial reaction to Tak had simply been a result of being caught off-guard. That now she’d had exposure to him she would be able to build up her resistance.

How on earth had she ever agreed to this?

‘I would have come to your door,’ he continued pointedly.

Effie thought of Nell, several storeys above them, and was pretty sure her daughter could sense her fury from all the way up there in the flat. And that was without the additional consideration of old Mrs Appleby from next door, who was babysitting Nell and never let the fact that she was practically deaf prevent her from sniffing out even a whiff of gossip. Seeing Tak Basu would be her scoop of the year. Of the decade, even.

‘It’s fine.’ She shook her head and forced a smile. ‘It isn’t a proper date, remember?’

For the next few hours she would welcome the distraction. It would do her and Nell good to have the evening apart. Time to think.

‘I’m glad to see that you do.’ His voice sounded different from how she remembered. As if he was distracted. ‘Although I should say you look stunning.’

Heat flooded her cheeks—and something else that she didn’t care to identify. She pretended it was merely concern that people might recognise her dress for the cheap, off-the-sale-rack, several-seasons-old gown that it was.

‘Thank you.’

It didn’t seem to matter how many times she told herself that he didn’t mean anything by it, that it was just something any date would say—fake or otherwise. Her body didn’t seem in the least bit interested in listening to such reason.

‘Your hair is...stunning.’

She didn’t know how she managed to stop her hands from lifting automatically to touch her head. It had taken her hours to get her hair like this—she would say she was hopelessly out of practice, but she wasn’t sure she’d ever been in practice—and she was pleased with the results. Thick, glossy, soft curls. It was the most glamorous she’d felt in a long time.