From bachelor doc...

...to family man!

As a single parent and helicopter rescue doc, fiercely independent Effie Robinson has no time for romance! So when hotshot neurosurgeon Talank Basu proposes a mutually beneficial dating ruse, what could be the harm? Only, Effie’s not prepared for how protected and supported he makes her feel... Tak’s fighting their sizzling attraction just as much as she is—will they finally give in and trust in their once-in-a-lifetime chemistry?

Born and raised on the Wirral Peninsula in England, CHARLOTTE HAWKES is mum to two intrepid boys who love her to play building block games with them and who object loudly to the amount of time she spends on the computer. When she isn’t writing—or building with blocks—she is company director for a small Anglo/French construction firm. Charlotte loves to hear from readers, and you can contact her at her website: charlotte-hawkes.com.

Also by Charlotte Hawkes

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The Surgeon’s Baby Surprise

A Bride to Redeem Him

The Surgeon’s One-Night Baby

Christmas with Her Bodyguard

Hot Army Docs miniseries

Encounter with a Commanding Officer

Tempted by Dr Off-Limits

Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk.

A Surgeon for the Single Mum

Charlotte Hawkes

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-1-474-08989-0

A SURGEON FOR THE SINGLE MUM

© 2019 Charlotte Hawkes

Published in Great Britain 2019

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

By payment of the required fees, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right and licence to download and install this e-book on your personal computer, tablet computer, smart phone or other electronic reading device only (each a “Licensed Device”) and to access, display and read the text of this e-book on-screen on your Licensed Device. Except to the extent any of these acts shall be permitted pursuant to any mandatory provision of applicable law but no further, no part of this e-book or its text or images may be reproduced, transmitted, distributed, translated, converted or adapted for use on another file format, communicated to the public, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher.

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Version: 2020-03-02

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To Monty & Bart.

How I enjoyed seeing my two little men

walk all the way to the stone bridge on our section of

the Canal du Midi for the very first time. xxx

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

About the Author

Booklist

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

EPILOGUE

Extract

About the Publisher

CHAPTER ONE

‘REALLY? THIS IS what you dragged me down here for?’ Talank Basu pressed his shoulder against the doorjamb of the hospital’s resus department and rolled his eyes at his kid sister. ‘I expected some medical emergency, not a schoolyard blind date request.’

‘Oh, relax,’ Hetti snorted, in a way that no one else talking to him would ever have dared. ‘I’m not asking you to marry the woman—just take her to the hospital ball as your plus one.’

‘No.’

‘Please, Tak? Effie’s new to the air ambulance job, and new to the area, and what’s more she’s really nice. But she has already fended off advances by at least four single doctors and two nurses that I know about, so going alone to the gala would be like painting a bullseye on her back. She could use a bit of support.’

He grinned, unable to resist his habitual teasing of her. ‘Ah, now I understand. She’s another one of your waifs and strays, is she, Hetti?’

‘Stop it.’ She swatted him good-naturedly. ‘You’re as bad as Mama. You know she wouldn’t know compassion if it walked and swamped her in a massive cuddle.’

‘Don’t disrespect her, Hetti.’ Tak frowned automatically.

But instead of backing down, his sister held her ground, narrowing her gaze. ‘Why does she always get a free pass with you, Tak? Still? We’re not kids any more, so you don’t have to protect us from who she really is. You sacrificed your entire childhood practically raising Sasha and Rafi and me, being Mama and Papa all rolled into one just to shield us from our parents’ inadequacies. Papa was off having his never-ending affairs, and Mama... Well, you know. And that was before Baby Saaj.’

Tak didn’t bother answering. It wasn’t worth the argument. Their parents weren’t worth the argument.

Over Hetti’s shoulder he could see people milling about, waiting for the next trauma victim to come in. A rare calm before the proverbial storm. The helicopter was only a few minutes out now, and Hetti had got her team together and all the equipment she thought they might need. Now it was just a matter of waiting, and soon the place would be a flurry of activity again.

‘Anyway...’ Hetti shook her head as though dislodging the argument. ‘Effie isn’t one of my “waifs and strays”, as you so indelicately put it. She was an A&E doctor with me back when I was at Allport Infirmary last year. Turns out Effie has landed herself a plum role on the air ambulance across this way, too.’

‘Air ambulance? She must be particularly good.’

‘Oh, she is.’ Hetti nodded. ‘Effie was always exceptional. Noticed things other doctors missed...knew stuff even senior consultants might not know. It was no wonder the air ambulance snapped her up. Even you might be impressed.’

‘If you’re that taken with her then why don’t you make her your plus one?’

For a moment it looked as though Hetti might want to say more, but then she sucked in a deep breath and grinned back at him in that disarming way of hers that he recognised from when she was a toddler.

‘Well, I would, but I’m on call that night,’ she shot back instantly, making Tak smile. ‘And, no, before you say anything, I don’t want you to get that changed for me, because then it will mean some other poor sucker who hasn’t got a medical god for a brother will end up missing out on the ball instead.’

‘Your choice.’ Tak shrugged. ‘But I told you—I’m going to the ball stag. Although right now I’m going home.’

He should have gone ten minutes ago—well, technically he should have gone three hours ago. However, he’d wanted to stay with his last patient a little longer, and his neurology emergency department had been busier than usual for the time of night.

And now he was here. Because Hetti had asked him to be and because, doctor in her own right or not, she was always going to be his baby sister.

If he’d known Hetti’s call wasn’t about a patient but about dating he wouldn’t have bothered. Especially when she was giving him grief. Like right now.

‘Wow, the rumour mill will love that. Eligible bachelor Tak Basu attends one of the highest profile events of the year alone? Congratulations. I don’t think you could have come up with a better way to stir up the already feverish interest in your love-life, whilst simultaneously encouraging Mama to push you towards an arranged marriage of her preference.’

‘It’s precisely because of those reasons that I’m going alone,’ Tak growled—not that it had much effect on his unperturbed sibling. ‘I’ve had enough of being potentially married off to every woman I speak to, let alone date.’

‘Only because you’d rather be married to your career. The King of Awake Craniotomies—determined to be better than all the rest of us who want such humble things as relationships, and love, and someone to share their life with.’

‘You’re enjoying this, aren’t you? I never said I was better than anyone,’ Tak pulled a face.

‘No, but I know you think it. Still, as someone who is actually allowed to love you and want the best for you, I have to warn you that if you attend the gala alone then, despite your intentions, it will look like an advertisement for the fact that you’re shockingly single right now.’

‘Well, it isn’t.’

‘I know that. But every woman within a hundred-mile radius who fancies her chances is going to be beating down your door. And that’s a conservative estimate. Pretty stupid for an intelligent guy.’

He laughed despite himself. ‘So, let me get this straight. Now you’re saying you want me to take some new trauma doctor to the ball for my benefit?’

Hetti wrinkled her nose. ‘I’m saying you and Effie could be the perfect foil for each other. Neither of you wants a relationship, but you both need someone to keep would-be suitors at bay. And to buy you some time with Mama and the various so-called aunts who have a whole host of potential brides for you all lined up.’

‘Yes, this Effie woman might say she doesn’t want a relationship, but she will. They always do.’

‘Geez, big-headed, much? Watch you don’t get stuck in the doorway on your way out, won’t you?’

Hetti thumped him hard in the arm. Or at least she tried to.

She shook her hand and grimaced. ‘My God, they’re right. You really do have the body of a PT instructor rather than a doctor. No wonder you’re so ridiculously arrogant.’

‘Not arrogance,’ Tak hunched his shoulders. ‘At least not intentionally. It’s just fact. No matter how clear I try to be at the start that I’m not in it for a relationship which is going to lead to marriage down the line.’

‘Well, not this time. I’ve met her, and I’ve seen what she’s like with every guy who has tried to flirt with, bar none. She totally shoots them down. Nicely but firmly, no hesitation. Trust me—she is definitely not going to change her mind about wanting a relationship any time in the next lifetime or so.’

‘I don’t have to trust you.’ Eyeing the clock, Tak began to make his move. ‘I’m not doing it. Even for you, Little Hemavati.’

She swatted him, laughing. ‘Only Mama calls me Hemavati. Just like she calls you Talank. It’s her twisted way of trying to show she’s in control. But at least wait and see Effie. You never know. You might actually like her. She’s focussed and driven—just like you. And she’s also pretty stunning.’

‘I’m going now.’

Tak slung his bag onto his back and prepared to head out into the corridor just as the double doors on the other side of Resus banged open and the air ambulance crew burst through with their patient. The new doctor with them had to be this Effie person.

Suddenly he realised he’d seen her once before. A couple of months ago when she’d brought in a forty-eight-year-old head injury patient—Douglas Jacobs, who had taken a tumble down a rocky hillside.

‘This is Danny, a male cyclist in his twenties,’ the young woman announced clearly, expediently, her eyes moving quickly across the resus team, taking in the faces and commanding them with ease. ‘About one hour ago he was travelling at approximately twenty-five miles per hour when a car pulled out of a side road in front of him. Danny tried to swerve but hit the car and was seen to be thrown about three metres into the air before striking the ground with some force.’

Tak lowered his bag again, his attention focussed on the new doctor. He couldn’t have said what made him stay. Or perhaps he just didn’t want to acknowledge it.

Hetti had been right—although neither of them had realised it. Dr Effie Robinson had indeed impressed him. Along with Douglas Jacobs their patient.

‘He was wearing a crash helmet but it shattered on impact. Witnesses say he was unconscious for possibly ten seconds. On arrival GCS was nine.’

There was nothing unusual in any of this. Not the patient, not the injuries, not the doctor. So why was he so transfixed? Watching her command the team in her bright orange flight suit, with her glossy hair—a rich, deep red colour—scraped back so severely and twisted so tightly into a bun that it made his eyes water just looking at it?

Last time he’d seen her but hadn’t paid attention. He’d been too focussed on his patient. But this time it wasn’t his patient. And his attention was all on her.

Why? Because she had red hair and blue eyes? Unusual, but hardly unique. So...what?

There was nothing to soften her appearance—not even a hint of make-up. Yet there was no doubt that she was beautiful. And something else—something he couldn’t pinpoint, something innate that spilled out from those icy blue eyes. Despite himself, Tak found he was staring, caught up by her and helpless to do anything other than stop and listen.

She barely needed to pause and check her notes. Words flowed smoothly whilst her control of the situation was flawless. He had seen plenty of efficient, skilled air ambulance doctors but she stood out—just as she had a few weeks ago.

There was no reason he should be edging closer, as though he was a latecomer to the team. Her gaze took in the team again, and then she lifted her eyes and connected with his.

Everything stopped. Any thoughts in his head evaporated, leaving...nothing. It was like nothing that he’d ever experienced before.

So this was Effie.

He stared, unable to look away, and then, incredibly, she blinked once and moved on to the rest of the team. Her voice as steady, and as clear, as even as before. Whilst he felt, by contrast, as though his chest had just been belted by the downdraft from a set of helicopter rotor blades. It was an unfamiliar experience.

‘He has been intubated and has a right thoracotomy with a flailed segment. Top-to-toe injuries: closed head injury, a six-centimetre right temporal laceration, right clavicular fracture, suspected dislocated shoulder, suspected multiple rib fractures, right thoracotomy and a pelvic splint was applied. He’s had morphine and midazolam for sedation and was stable during transfer. Immediate needs are further assessment and imaging to check for internal organ damage.’

She wrapped things up neatly, her gaze steady.

‘Okay, we’re going to need a whole-body CT, but he isn’t stable enough yet to take for imaging.’ Hetti stepped in smoothly. ‘Allison, what’s his BP and heart-rate?’

Effie stepped back to allow the team to take over, nonetheless still on hand to answer any further questions. It was testament to both teams that the handover was seamless, and Effie was soon completing her final paperwork.

Whilst he still stood there. Still watching her. His brain still struggling to get back into gear.

The only thoughts rattling around his head now were echoes of Hetti’s words to him. Her ludicrous suggestion which wouldn’t have been out of place in a school playground.

And yet here he was, unable to get it out of his head. As though, fittingly, he was nothing but a schoolboy. Yet he’d never been a schoolboy—at least not in that sense of the term.

Even as a teenager he’d been the man of the house. Hetti was right—he had practically raised Hetti and Rafi and Sasha. Sometimes alongside their mother—or Mama as Hetti called her—but oftentimes in lieu of her. Especially after Baby Saaj had been born. Ill from the start, his two years on this earth had been a fight every second of every day.

For years Tak had shielded his younger siblings from his father’s absences as much as possible. Listening to their mother offer up one convincing excuse after another, praising his father’s work as a doctor so they wouldn’t realise what a derelict father and cruel husband he was.

The kind of man Tak never wanted to be like.

Hetti might think it was because he was more interested in his career than in having a family, but she’d be wrong. At least she would only be partly right. Forging a career as the kind of neurosurgeon capable of performing a vast array of brain surgeries on awake patients automatically made him the worst kind of unreliable boyfriend. And he was happy with that.

Even so, his career wasn’t the whole of it. The whole of it was that he feared being the kind of man whose selfish, self-centred actions hurt any wife, any child, the way his father had hurt them. Time and again. And the truth was that he would be that kind of man. However much he abhorred the thought, it was unavoidable. Inexorable. It was in his blood.

Just as it was in Rafi’s blood.

Much as he loved his younger brother, Tak wasn’t blind to the fact that Rafi was their father all over again. And Tak hated that. Yet here he was. Staring at this doctor as though he’d never seen anyone, anything quite like her before.

It made no sense.

There was something about her which snagged his attention and made him think she possessed a unique quality, even if he couldn’t put his finger on what that was. He told himself that he certainly wasn’t following the long, impossibly elegant line of her neck, or wondering what that glorious hair might look like free of its rigid net cage, or imagining what lay beneath that less than flattering orange suit.

Still he didn’t move.

Once Effie was done with her notes she’d be back to the heli and to her base, ready for the next shout. Which was a good thing. A great thing. It meant he could get past this crazy moment and back to real life.

A life that didn’t include his baby sister interfering in his life and picking out potential dates for him, he reminded himself firmly. Least of all dates with a woman like Effie.

Except hadn’t Hetti told him that it wouldn’t be a date? Not in any real sense of the word, anyway. What had she called them...the perfect foil for each other? Each of them using the other to keep the world off their back?

It should sound ludicrous. It did sound ludicrous. But in between women taking his single status as evidence that of course he must be yearning for the perfect wife, and his mother becoming relentless in her desire to see all of her children settled down, even against their will, ludicrous might just work.

It wasn’t as though he could simply turn around and tell Mama to stay out of his personal life, much as he might want to. She would always be too fragile, too weak to handle it—their father had made sure of that. And she might not have been the perfect mother, but at least she’d always been there.

Hetti was right. He needed a foil. A distraction. Effie.

Tak turned back to eye the new air ambulance doctor again just as she was finishing up her notes.

As if it was meant to be. Effie. Dr Effie Robinson. He remembered her name now, from Douglas Jacobs’s notes. He narrowed his eyes for a moment.

‘Dr Robinson, I wonder if we could have a word? In private.’

CHAPTER TWO

‘LET ME GET this straight—you’re asking me out on a date?’

Effie was infinitely proud of the way she’d kept any shake out of her quiet voice. The same could not be said for her stentorian heart.

‘No. I’m asking you out on a fake date.’

‘I don’t know whether to be amused or insulted.’ Her eyebrows felt as if they were somewhere up in the vicinity of her hairline. ‘Is this some kind of practical joke? Hazing the new member of staff? Because I can tell you right now—’

He made no attempt to conceal his irritation as he cut her off. ‘It isn’t. I don’t have time for stupid pranks, and I hardly think this would be a particularly funny one even if I did. I need a date for the ball and you fit the bill.’

‘There are probably a hundred women in this hospital alone who would jump at your oh-so-romantic offer.’ Effie felt she’d injected just the right amount of sarcasm into her tone. ‘But I am not one of them.’

She wasn’t some green doctor, about to go giddy because the gorgeous Tak Basu was talking to her. She’d refused to do that six weeks ago, when one of her first ever air ambulance cases had thrown her a hillside rescue and a man, Douglas Jacobs, suffering from expressive aphasia.

Tak had been the neurological consultant on call. He’d threatened to steal her breath away on sight. But she’d been determined not to let him.

Tall, with archetypal brooding dark looks, he wasn’t exactly a playboy, but rumour had it that he had dated some high-profile stunning women in his time.

Well, good for him. But good-looking, arrogant males held little interest for her. Hadn’t she been there, done that, and ended up at just turned eighteen years old, heading to Oxford University with a newborn infant in tow?

For the past thirteen years Nell had been her life. She hadn’t wanted anything—even her longed-for medical career—as much as she’d wanted to take care of her daughter. But something about this man sent her body’s warning system into motion, into an internal flurry, like ants who had just had dirt knocked into their nest.

‘I don’t think you are remotely one of them. Which is precisely why I’m asking you. No jokes, no hazing—just a mutually beneficial arrangement.’

She opened her mouth to reply but no words came.

A fake date, indeed. It should sound insane. Nonsensical. Yet his rich, even tone and neutral expression made it sound utterly plausible. Normal, even. As if a fake date was a completely run-of-the-mill daily event.

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.

It was only fitting that she should spoil it all by saying something ridiculously prosaic and work-related. ‘Did you know there’s a study showing that natural redheads often need around twenty percent more anaesthetic than people with other hair colours to reach the same levels of sedation?’

‘There have been several studies,’ he confirmed gravely, but she couldn’t shake the impression that he was concealing his amusement. ‘They appear to confirm redheads as a distinct phenotype linked to anaesthetic requirement.’

Of course he knew. He was a neurosurgeon, after all. Well, that was her bank of small talk exhausted. Not that it seemed to matter when her brain froze as he stepped up to her and offered his arm.

For one brief moment the sight of Tak—so mouth-wateringly handsome in a bespoke tuxedo, the cut of which somehow achieved the impossible by allowing his already well-built body to look all the more powerful and dangerous—made her wonder what it would be like to go on a real date with someone like him.

She might have said made her yearn, had she not already known that was impossible. She hadn’t yearned in over thirteen years. She’d learned that bitter lesson—although she would never change her precious daughter for anything in the world.

Effie clicked her tongue impatiently—more at herself than the man standing in front of her. ‘Right, shall we go and get this over with?’

‘A woman after my own heart,’ he said, and his mouth twisted into something which looked more like the baring of teeth than an actual smile.

And then he stepped closer, his hand to the small of her back to guide her, and it was all Effie could do not to shiver at the delicious contact. She could put it down to nerves, and the fact that this was the first time she’d been out in two years—ever since the last hospital gala she’d been compelled to attend and had hated every moment—but she suspected that wasn’t the true root of it.

‘There’s no reason to feel nervous—’ He stopped abruptly. ‘Did you know we’d met before when we talked the other day?’

She twisted her head to look at him, surprised that he remembered her. ‘Yes, actually. I brought one of the first casualties I ever attended with the air ambulance to your hospital. You were the neurology consultant. Left-sided temporal parietal hematoma.’

‘Douglas Jacobs.’

‘You remember his name? I’m impressed.’

‘I remember,’ Tak confirmed.

She couldn’t have said what it was about his tone, but in that instant he made her believe that he remembered all his patients. That they weren’t just bodies to him. They were people.

It took her aback. Worse. It made him all the more fascinating.

‘You’re the one who diagnosed the expressive aphasia?’ Tak asked.

It had been in the notes, but she knew he was testing her. Because it mattered to him. It was a heady thought.

‘I did.’ It was all she could to sound casual. As though her body wasn’t beginning to fizz deliriously at Tak’s interest.

‘He wasn’t talking much and his vitals were stable. You did well to spot it. It was very subtle on presentation.’

His compliment didn’t send a tingle rushing along her spine. Not at all.

‘It worsened over time?’ she asked.

‘Very quickly, I’m afraid.’ Tak nodded. ‘CT revealed a depressed skull fracture and an underlying subdural bleed, so we took him straight into an OR. When he awoke the aphasia was still present, but reduced.’

‘So he’s in rehab?’ She squeezed her eyes shut, remembering how sweet the guy had been, and how close he and his worried wife had seemed.

‘He is,’ Tak confirmed. ‘He’s doing well, and he has a good support network, so with any luck he should be fine.’

‘That’s good.’ She smiled, more to herself than at Tak.

It occurred to her that he’d been distracting her. Telling her a story—a work-related story—which he’d known would make her feel less tense, more at ease.

She should be angry that he’d played her, but instead she just felt grateful to him.

Allowing Tak to guide her to a large, chauffeur-driven limousine, she slid inside, trying not to marvel at the bespoke rich plaid wool and leather seats. And then he was climbing in gracefully beside her, closing the door, and the entire back seat seemed to shrink until she was aware of nothing but how very close his body was to hers.

Now it was just the two of them together, in such a confined space, it was impossible for her to keep up the pretence. To keep telling herself that his voice didn’t swirl inside her like a fog which refused to clear, that his eyes didn’t look right into her soul as though they could read every last dark secret in there, that his touch didn’t send electricity coursing through her veins only to conclude in a shower of sparks as breathtaking as the best fireworks display.

The realisation thrilled and terrorised her in equal measure.

‘You shouldn’t be embarrassed about where you live, you know.’

It took a moment for her to focus, and then another for shame and guilt to steal through her. ‘I’m not,’ she said, and lifted her chin a little higher.

‘Then why did you insist on meeting me in the lobby instead of letting me pick you up from your apartment?’

‘I just... It wasn’t about being embarrassed.’ Not entirely true, but close enough.

‘Then what was it about?’

There was no justification at all for her wanting to tell him the truth. Effie had spent her whole life shutting people out—as soon as she’d learned it was either that or be shut out. It shouldn’t be difficult to tell Tak to mind his own business.

Yet there was a quality about him which reminded her of the one woman who had cared for her, helped her so long ago. She couldn’t explain it, nor shake it. It was bizarre. This wasn’t even a proper date, and the fact that she kept finding that detail so difficult to remember was concerning in itself.

‘It wasn’t about where I live, although I know it’s no penthouse. It was more about keeping the two parts of my life separate. My private life and my professional one.’

‘Does it matter that much?’

Was she guarding her personal details because they were none of his business? The way she would keep any other one of her colleagues at bay? Or was there a part of her that wished she could be—just for one night—the kind of carefree single woman that a man like Tak might actually want to date? And not just pretend.

Ridiculous.

Guilt speared her. She wasn’t that kind of woman. She had barely been that kind of girl. Her carefree single days had ended the moment she’d found out that she was going to become a teenage mum. And there had been absolutely no one in the world to support her.

For the last thirteen years it had been just her and Nell. Together. She was ashamed that a part of her should want to pretend otherwise, even for a few hours.

‘Yes, it does matter.’ She nodded. It was now or never. ‘To me. And to my daughter.’

Silence dropped between them like the thick, heavy curtain on a stage, separating the players from the audience. Her from Tak. What on earth had possessed her to say anything? Was it simply because Tak reminded her of a woman who was long gone?

‘You have a daughter?’

His voice was even, just as before. Perhaps the silence had only been in her own head.

‘Nell. Short for Eleanor. She’s thirteen.’

‘Thirteen? You must have been...’

‘Just turned eighteen.’ She didn’t mean to sound so snappy, but she couldn’t stop herself. ‘Yeah, you don’t have to do the maths. I’ve lived it. Now you know why I don’t date. Why I won’t date.’

Whatever she’d been expecting him to say, it wasn’t the words which came next. Or the soft, almost melancholy tone.

‘Difficult age, thirteen. I imagine she hasn’t taken kindly to the move?’

She floundered. ‘Um...no. Not really.’

‘She’s acting out?’

It was less of a question, more of a statement. As though he knew. And there was something else, too. Effie couldn’t quite pinpoint what it was, but if she’d had to hazard a guess she might have thought that he didn’t like the fact that he knew. That he felt it was a connection between them which he didn’t want to feel.

Hadn’t Hetti once told her that Tak had spent much of his childhood taking care of his younger siblings—not just the usual big-brother-as-playground-protector stuff, but all the tasks that a parent would ordinarily do? If that was true then it had to be hard for him to shake that responsibility, even now they were all grown up.

It was certainly hard for herself, trying to let go of the past. Trying not to let it cloud the way she dealt with Nell. Trying not to let her own life experiences turn her into an over-protective mother. But maybe she was just imagining it. Either way, it was all she could do not to nod in agreement and wonder...

‘What makes you say that?’ she asked.

‘Because you were agitated when I met you in the lobby. Like you’d had a run-in with someone. I assumed it was the teenage lads I saw hanging around outside.’

‘Those lads are fine. And the place isn’t that bad. It’s a desirable city-centre location. Besides, it’s the closest thing I could find to Nell’s new school on such short notice.’

‘Desirable is a matter of opinion,’ he disputed. ‘So the run-in was with someone else? I’m thinking it was with your daughter. Nell. Want to talk about it?’

‘Nope.’ But she couldn’t fault him for being astute. It was impressive, really.

‘It might help.’

She opened her mouth, then snapped it shut again. Surely she shouldn’t be discussing this with him, an almost stranger? Effie wanted to shut the conversation down, but found that she couldn’t. There was something about Tak, about those broad shoulders, which suddenly made her think how nice it would be to get another perspective and some adult support.

She did, however, find herself tugging on a stray thread from her clutch bag. A habit she’d formed decades ago, when she was anxious and unhappy. Or feeling cornered.

‘I don’t see why I would talk about it,’ she managed stiffly.

‘Because everyone needs to talk sometimes.’

She might have believed him if she hadn’t caught the flash of irritation in his expression. However fleeting it had been.

Being a foster kid had made her sensitive—some might argue over-sensitive—to when people were asking questions out of a sense of obligation rather than any actual desire to hear the answer.

What she didn’t understand was why she wasn’t consequently shutting the conversation down with her usual practised efficiency. Why any part of her was actually considering opening up to Tak Basu, of all people. It was madness.

‘Who says I don’t already have someone to talk to?’ She twisted her mouth before catching herself. ‘If I need to, that is.’

‘Maybe you do.’ He shrugged. ‘But I think you’re too pent-up...too defensive. As though you’re trying to deal with too much all by yourself. A teenage girl comes complete with a wealth of complications. Trust me—I know.’

For a moment his eyes met hers, deep brown and filled with understanding, as if they were stealing her very soul. And it hurt simply to breathe.

Effie didn’t understand what was happening. Not inside this car, and certainly not inside her. She had the oddest sense of...connection. As if something was binding them and she didn’t understand what it was.

Then the vehicle stopped, and she realised they had arrived at the gala. Plastering a bright smile on her lips, she tore her gaze away and injected an upbeat note into her voice. ‘We’re here—shall we go in?’

He didn’t answer straight away, and the moment stretched out tautly between them until he finally inclined his head. ‘As you wish.’

And as the driver opened their doors to let them out Effie told herself that she was relieved.

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