Sydney Harbour Hospital: Ava's Re-Awakening

CAROL MARINELLI recently filled in a form where she was asked for her job title and was thrilled, after all these years, to be able to put down her answer as ‘writer’. Then it asked what Carol did for relaxation. After chewing her pen for a moment Carol put down the truth—’writing’. The third question asked—’What are your hobbies?’ Well, not wanting to look obsessed or, worse still, boring, she crossed the fingers on her free hand and answered ‘swimming and tennis’. But, given that the chlorine in the pool does terrible things to her highlights, and the closest she’s got to a tennis racket in the last couple of years is watching the Australian Open, I’m sure you can guess the real answer!

Sydney Harbour

Hospital:

Ava’s

Re-Awakening

Carol Marinelli

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MILLS & BOON

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For Anne Gracie. Thank you for your friendship and support. It means a lot. Carol x

Welcome to the world of Sydney Harbour Hospital (or SHH … for short— because secrets never stay hidden for long!)

Looking out over cosmopolitan Sydney Harbour, Australia’s premier teaching hospital is a hive of round-the-clock activity—with a very active hospital grapevine.

With the most renowned (and gorgeous!) doctors in Sydney working side by side, professional and sensual tensions run sky-high—there’s always plenty of romantic rumours to gossip about …

Who’s been kissing who in the on-call room? What’s going on between legendary heart surgeon Finn Kennedy and tough-talking A&E doctor Evie Lockheart? And what’s wrong with Finn?

Find out in this enthralling new eight-book continuity from Mills & Boon® Medical Romance™—indulge yourself with eight helpings of romance, emotion and gripping medical drama!

Sydney Harbour Hospital From saving lives to sizzling seduction, these doctors are the very best!

Sydney Harbour Hospital

Sexy surgeons, dedicated doctors, scandalous secrets, on-call dramas …

Welcome to the world of Sydney Harbour Hospital (or SHH … for short—because secrets never stay hidden for long!)

In February new nurse Lily got caught up in

the hotbed of hospital gossip in

SYDNEY HARBOUR HOSPITAL: LILY’S SCANDAL by Marion Lennox

And gorgeous paediatrician Teo came to single mum Zoe’s rescue in

SYDNEY HARBOUR HOSPITAL: ZOE’S BABY by Alison Roberts

In March sexy Sicilian playboy Luca finally met his match in

SYDNEY HARBOUR HOSPITAL: LUCA’S BAD GIRL by Amy Andrews

Then in April Hayley opened Tom’s eyes to love in

SYDNEY HARBOUR HOSPITAL: TOM’S REDEMPTION

by Fiona Lowe

In May heiress Lexi learned to put the past behind her …

SYDNEY HARBOUR HOSPITAL: LEXI’S SECRET by Melanie Milburne

In June adventurer Charlie helped shy Bella fulfil her dreams—

and find love on the way!

SYDNEY HARBOUR HOSPITAL: BELLA’S WISHLIST by Emily Forbes

Last month single mum Emily gave no-strings-attached surgeon Marco

a reason to stay:

SYDNEY HARBOUR HOSPITAL: MARCO’S TEMPTATION by Fiona McArthur

And finally join us this month as Ava and James

realise their marriage really is worth saving in

SYDNEY HARBOUR HOSPITAL: AVA’S RE-AWAKENING by Carol Marinelli

And not forgetting Sydney Harbour Hospital’s legendary heart surgeon Finn Kennedy. This brooding maverick keeps his women on hospital rotation … But can new doc Evie Lockheart unlock the secrets to his guarded heart? Find out in this enthralling new eight-book continuity from Mills & Boon® Medical Romance™.

A collection impossible to resist!

These books are also available in eBook format from www.millsandboon.co.uk

PROLOGUE

SHE would call him.

Ava Carmichael sat in her office at Sydney Harbour Hospital and stared at her phone, willing herself to pick it up and call her husband. She had just spent the best part of the last hour counselling a couple—telling them to talk, to open up to each other, that if they just forged ahead with communication then things would begin to improve.

As a sexual dysfunction specialist—or sex therapist, as everyone called her—Ava got to say those lines an awful lot.

Well, it was time for the doctor to take her own medicine, Ava decided, reaching out and picking up the phone and dialling in his mobile number. At the last moment she changed her mind, and hung up. She went back to twisting her long dark hair around her fingers—just unsure what it was she should say to him.

That she missed him?

That she was sorry?

Ava didn’t know where to start.

Her husband, James, had been away for three months in Brisbane. He had taken a temporary teaching placement at a school of medicine there, which was ridiculous. James was an oncologist and completely hands-on in his work. He loved being with his patients more than anything. Had it been three months of research, it might have made some sense—Sydney Harbour Hospital was cutting-edge and James kept himself right up to date, but James liked reading about findings rather than discovering them. He liked being with his patients and James, her James, wasn’t a teacher.

She smiled at the very thought.

The medical students got on his nerves.

He hated explaining his decisions.

He was a man’s man, a gorgeous man, her big honest bear of a man who would come home and flake on the sofa sometimes and moan because he wanted it to only be him in the room with his patient, especially when giving bad news.

‘It’s a teaching hospital,’ Ava would point out, lying on the floor, doing her Pilates. ‘They have to learn.’

‘Yeah, well, how would you like to have a couple of students sitting there watching when you’re trying to talk to someone about their bits not working?’ There was rather more to her work than that but he’d made a very good point, and he had made her smile too, especially when he checked his own bits were there for a moment, indignant at the very thought.

Well, there had been conversations like that one, lovely evenings that had been shared, talking easily about their day, their thoughts, them, but those evenings seemed like an awfully long time ago.

Yes, he loved his patients and they loved him back, and the real reason he had taken the position, they both knew, even if they hadn’t voiced it, had been because they’d needed space from each other—they’d needed those three months to hopefully sort out their heads.

James and Ava had been married for seven years, but had been together for ever. They had met at university and, quite simply, at the age of eighteen the awkward and rather shy Ava Marwood had discovered love. James had been twenty-one, good-looking, funny and the first person in her life, it seemed, who actually wanted to spend time with her. Like James, she was an only child, but unlike James, who had grown up with parents who adored him, Ava’s parents had made no secret she’d been an accident, an inconvenience really. It had been a parade of young nannies who had raised Ava—her parents had been far too busy with their lives, their careers, their endless extra-marital trysts, which, they’d both agreed, kept their relationship alive.

It had been a confusing, lonely childhood and then she had met James and her world had changed. Ava had found a whole new definition for love. It had been completely unexpected, thoroughly reciprocated and though they had their own friends and lives, there was no doubt they had met their match. Everyone thought them the golden couple and it had been golden for a very long while. A thirty-six-year-old James still made her toes curl just looking at him, and he had always made her laugh. And even if he wasn’t particularly romantic, it was a love that went so deep Ava had considered it invincible. But over the last two years their marriage had slowly unravelled. With each miscarriage Ava had suffered, they had grown further and further apart and now they were barely talking. In fact, if it weren’t for email they would hardly be corresponding at all.

Still fiddling with her hair, she looked at her computer and then went and reread the last email he had sent her.

It was just his flight details really, and all so impersonal it might just as well have come from Admin.

And then, loathing herself, she did it again—checked their bank account with suspicious eyes.

She saw the boutiques he had visited and couldn’t quite envision it—James, of all people, in male boutiques!

James, who got a wardrobe update each Christmas and birthday when she went and did it for him, had taken himself off to several trendy shops these past few weeks and from the amount spent he had been having quite a good time of it.

And what was it with all the cash withdrawals?

James never used cash or rarely, but now it was a couple of hundred dollars here, another couple of hundred there, and what was this weekly transfer? A few minutes’ research later she found out.

Her husband, who liked nothing better than to lie on the sofa and laugh at her doing her exercises, had, a couple of months ago, gone and joined a gym.

She didn’t know if she was being practical or being a fool to believe that James wouldn’t cheat. And things must be bad because she was even thinking of turning to her mother for advice!

Call him, Ava counselled herself. Call him now from your office. Because each night at home she went to call but couldn’t, and each night was spent in tears. Perhaps she could be more upbeat, logical and truthful if she sat at her desk.

More direct.

‘Hi.’ She kept her voice bright when he answered the phone.

‘Ava?’ He sounded surprised, well, he would be, she told herself, it was six-twenty in the evening and so rarely did she ring. ‘Is everything okay?’

‘Of course it is. Does there have to be a problem to ring for a chat?’

‘Er … no.’

She could feel his wariness, but she forged on. ‘Look, James, I know things haven’t been—’

‘Ava, can I call you back?’ He sounded awkward and James was never awkward. She’d timed the call carefully, knew that he wouldn’t be teaching now.

‘Is someone there?’ she asked, and there was a long silence.

‘I’ll call you back in ten.’

She sat trying to ignore the unsettled feeling in her stomach that was permanently there these days—he might have a colleague with him, she told herself, but that had never stopped him talking before. They were a very open couple, or had been; he wouldn’t give a damn if someone was around—and he wasn’t seeing patients so it couldn’t be that.

‘Sorry about that.’ He had called her back five minutes later.

‘Why couldn’t you talk?’

‘Just …’ She could almost see his wide shoulders shrugging the way they did when he closed off. ‘What did you ring for?’

‘Just …’ She shrugged her shoulders too.

‘Ava.’ She could hear his irritation. ‘I’m sorry I couldn’t talk before, but I can now—you just called at a bad time.’

‘Well, when’s a good time?’ she snapped. ‘I called you the other morning and you couldn’t talk then either …’ He had hardly been able to breathe. More to the point, he’d hardly been able to breathe! She’d rung him at seven and he hadn’t answered and she’d called him straight back, and he’d picked up then, trying to pretend he’d been asleep, but he’d been breathless. She knew he was having an affair, except she didn’t want to know it. Ava had always thought that their marriage ending was just about them—a private affair, not a real one.

She wasn’t stupid. They hadn’t slept together since God knows when, more than a year at the very least. As if James wasn’t having the time of his life in Brisbane. She was mad to think otherwise.

‘Do you want me to order a cake for your mum’s birthday?’ she asked instead.

‘Please.’

‘What about a present?’

‘I don’t know … just think of something.’ And that annoyed her too. Veronica Carmichael was a difficult woman; she and Ava had never really got on. A widow, James was her only child, and she was never going to like the woman who, in her eyes, had taken him away and, worse, a woman who couldn’t give her grandchildren. Ava had organised a small family gathering for Veronica’s sixtieth, which was next weekend, and would on Saturday go out and buy her something lovely for her birthday, something really beautiful. And she’d wrap it too, and then Veronica would unwrap it and thank James, and would go on and on about what a thoughtful son she had when, had it been left to him, there would have been a card bought on the way to her house and no party.

So she and James chatted for another thirty seconds about his flight home on Monday and then she hung up and stared at the view she loved. SHH looked out over Sydney Harbour and the sexual dysfunction centre was on one of the higher floors—the floor was shared with Psychology and Family Counselling. Nobody would ever get out of the lift otherwise, James sometimes joked when he came up to visit her some lunchtimes, though again, that hadn’t happened in a while. Still, every morning that she came into work Ava pinched herself at the view from her window, and she gazed out at it now, to the opera house and the Harbour Bridge, the blue of the ocean and the white sails that dotted it, and she waited for the view to soothe her.

Unfailingly it worked.

It really was a wonderful perk of her job.

It was the same view she looked at the next morning after another tear-filled night when Ginny, her receptionist, came in carrying a huge bunch of flowers from James.

‘Ahh …’ Ginny beamed and handed her the bouquet. ‘He’s so romantic.’

Ava knew at that point that he was having an affair. Knew that she wasn’t simply being paranoid.

Not once in the seven years they had been married and not even when dating had James sent flowers, not one single time. It just wasn’t him. What do I need to send flowers for? He’d shrug. I’ve done nothing wrong.

She read the card.

Miss you.

See you on Monday

James x

And she remembered a time, took it out from the back of her memory and polished it till she could clearly see.

It had been two, maybe three years ago.

Yes, three years ago and it had been their wedding anniversary and they’d both decided they were ready to try for a baby. Ava’s career had been in a really good place and she’d felt confident she could juggle work and motherhood far better than her mother had. James had bought her a ring, the large amber ring that she was wearing now, because, he’d said, it matched her eyes. And he’d taken her out for dinner, the perfect night, and they’d had the same old good-natured joke as they’d got back to the apartment and she’d moaned about the lack of flowers.

It hurt to remember and she tried not to, but the memory was out there, all polished and gleaming and allowing for total recall.

Tumbling in bed together, making love as they once had.

His big body over hers, his chin all stubbly, those gorgeous green eyes looking down, and she saw in that image what she hadn’t seen in a very long time. James was smiling. ‘Men only send flowers when they’ve something to feel guilty about.’

‘In your own words, James,’ Ava said, and looked at the flowers and wanted to bin them. If her window had opened she would have tossed them out there and then, except her window was sealed closed, and then in came Ginny with a huge vase.

‘Put them out in the waiting room,’ Ava suggested. ‘Let the patients enjoy them.’

‘Don’t be daft,’ Ginny said, and plonked them right there on her desk. ‘He sent them for you.’

And there they sat, for appearances sake, their sweet, sickly fragrance filling her nostrils, the violent colours perpetually in her line of vision. She wished they’d just wilt and fade.

Like her marriage.

CHAPTER ONE

‘THEY’VE cancelled the surgery.’ Ava said nothing for a moment, just stood quietly as her colleague Evie Lockheart leant against the corridor wall, her eyes closed as she struggled to keep in the tears, utterly defeated by what had happened. Ava had seen her walking dazed along the hospital corridor. Even if she didn’t know Evie particularly well, she liked her—they had shared the odd conversation and everyone in the hospital knew that Finn Kennedy was having his surgery today.

Complicated surgery that was extremely risky. Ava already knew his operation had been called off—news spread fast around SHH and she couldn’t even hazard how Finn must be feeling to have been told an hour before such major surgery that it wasn’t going to go ahead.

‘It hasn’t been cancelled,’ Ava said, her voice practical. ‘It’s been postponed.’

‘Well, it might just as well have been cancelled,’ Evie said. ‘He just told them not to bother booking it again, then he told me to get the hell out.’ Evie shook her head. ‘I shouldn’t be troubling you with this.’ She was clearly in distress and not used to sharing her private life, and Ava was more than used to situations like that.

‘Come back to my office,’ Ava suggested. She could see a couple of nurses turning their heads as they walked past—Evie and Finn were hot topics indeed. Finn was the chief of surgery and a formidable man at best, well known for his filthy attitude and ability to upset the staff, but no one could question his brilliance. His voice could be as cutting as the scalpel he so skilfully wielded, except lately he hadn’t been operating and it had done nothing to improve his mood, and today poor Evie was wearing it. ‘We can get a coffee there. I’m sure you might like a bit of privacy now.’ She walked Evie back along the corridor and to the left and then up in the lifts they went without a word. She walked along the corridor, nodded good morning to Donald, one of the therapists, and then through to her own centre and shook her head when Ginny told her she had a message from the spinal unit.

‘I’ll call back later,’ Ava said. ‘I’m not to be disturbed.’

She and Evie entered her office—well, it was more a room. Yes, she had a desk, though it was terribly messy, but the room had a couple of couches and a coffee table, and a small kitchenette where Ava would make her clients a drink, or herself one, if they needed a moment to pause, and she gave Evie that moment now as she went over to make them a drink.

‘Finn would never forgive me, you know …’ Evie gave a pale smile as she sat down on one of the comfortable couches ‘If he knew I was stepping into a sex therapist’s office to talk about him.’

‘I’d be patronising you if I laughed.’ Ava turned around and smiled. ‘I hear the same thing I don’t know how many times a day. She put on a gruff male voice. ‘“Well, I never thought I’d find myself here. I really don’t need to be here …’” Ava rolled her eyes and poured coffee, taking a little longer than perhaps she needed to, to give Evie a chance to collect herself.

‘Well.’ Evie gave a wry laugh. ‘At least we know that’s one type of therapy that Finn doesn’t need.’

Ava chose not to correct her—Finn had been using women as sticky plasters for a very long while, there was certainly something going on in that brilliant head of his. Still, that wasn’t what Evie needed to hear today. Finn’s and her on-again, off-again relationship was clearly taking its toll on her.

‘What a view …’ Evie noticed her surroundings for the first time. ‘Maybe I could ask them to consider moving Emergency up here.’

‘The paramedics would never forgive you,’ Ava said. ‘Do you want me to leave you?’ she offered, handing Evie a steaming mug of coffee—Ava wasn’t a nosy person at all and she certainly never gossiped. It was why, perhaps, she often found herself in situations such as this one. ‘The cleaners have already been in.’ She glanced at the desk, wished those blasted flowers were gone, but apart from a couple of wilting roses that the cleaner had removed, they were still there and still taunting her. ‘I haven’t got any patients for another hour, so you won’t be disturbed.’

‘No.’ Evie shook her head. ‘You don’t have to go. It’s actually nice to talk, just to be up here and away from the prying eyes.’

‘It must be an extra pressure on Finn,’ Ava mused. ‘Having to have his operation where he’s the chief of surgery. Still, there’s no better place.’ SHH was the best hospital for this sort of procedure, there was no question that it might be done elsewhere. It was experimental and even with the best surgery, the best equipment, there were no guarantees that Finn’s ability to operate again could be saved. Indeed, there was a good chance that he would be left a quadriplegic.

Ava knew that, not because of the gossip that was flying around the hospital but because, unbeknown to Evie, Finn had actually been in for mandatory counselling prior to surgery. The team had discussed who should see him and Ava had immediately declined. She didn’t know Finn particularly well, but they lived in the same apartment block, Kirribilli Views—his penthouse apartment was directly above hers—and though they barely greeted each other if they met on the stairs or in the lift, still, it could surely only make things more awkward for Finn.

He’d seen Donald instead.

And even though Donald was terribly experienced—he did both family counselling and sexual dysfunction and his patients adored him—Ava wondered if his brusque approach would mesh with Finn in such a delicate matter.

Ava dealt with spinal patients a lot. Her work gave her much pleasure, seeing relationships saved, helping people to learn that there could be life, a satisfying sex life even, after such catastrophic events. Her work was, in fact, moving more towards trauma and posttraumatic stress disorder patients, it was how she and Evie had first started talking. Evie worked in Accident and Emergency and had dropped by for a chat about a ‘patient’. Ava was sure, quite sure, that the person they had been discussing was Finn. Finn’s brother had been a soldier like Finn. His brother had died in Finn’s arms and shrapnel from the bomb that had killed his brother was still lodged in Finn’s neck, and it was that that was causing his health issues.

Sometimes Ava wondered if Finn had ever heard the rows between her and James, not that there had been many, really, before he’d gone away to Brisbane. They had been so deep into injury time by then that she and James hadn’t talked much at all, but Finn had never intruded, there had been no chatting on the stairs or anything, just a very occasional ‘Good morning’. And not once had Finn questioned her about her red, swollen eyes, neither had he done the neighbourly thing and popped around to see if she was okay when she’d lost the last baby. Ava cringed at the memory—Finn had been in the lift that day—the cramping had started on her way home and she had just wanted to get into her apartment, to call her doctor, to lie down, but there had been this awful sudden gush and then a crippling, bend-over pain and, terribly practical, Finn had helped her to her door, had taken her inside and had then called James. They’d never discussed it further—instead it had been a brief nod in passing and Ava had been grateful for that. Grateful now that Finn never stopped to ask when James was returning, or how she was getting on.