by Amy Andrews
‘Not even some double-chocolate-coated cherries?’ the waiter enquired. ‘They’re a house speciality and absolutely delicious.’
‘Oh, yes, I can vouch for that,’ Max agreed, his head finally back in the game. ‘In fact bring us a bowl—I’ll eat them if she doesn’t. And some coffee?’ He raised an eyebrow at Ali.
She nodded. ‘Flat white would be good.’
‘Same for me,’ Max said. The waiter nodded and left with the plates.
Max glanced back at Ali. That errant curl had flopped in her eye and he almost reached out to pluck it away.
Almost.
But that would be crossing any number of professional boundaries. And he’d already crossed one too many.
‘So …’ He ignored the curl. ‘Why did you become a doctor?’
Ali’s heart, still recovering from their incendiary stare of a few moments ago, thrummed nineteen to the dozen. She sucked in a breath and reached for something light to dampen the crackling atmosphere. She just hoped her voice didn’t shake as much as her hands.
‘Well, that’s a long story.’ She cocked an eyebrow. ‘Do you want the court version or can I elaborate?’
He knew she didn’t mean it to sound flirty but he felt the husky timbre of her voice deep inside his groin. He gave her a grudging smile. ‘I’ve cleared my schedule.’
Ali nodded slowly. At least this was safer ground than where they’d just been.
‘I didn’t always want to be a doctor. Not like most of my colleagues. Growing up, I wanted to be anything from the prime minister to a fairy.’
Max chuckled. ‘I would have liked to have seen that.’
Ali watched as Max’s dimples came out to play and found herself grinning in response. ‘Unfortunately there were no universities for fairies.’
‘Very short-sighted,’ Max murmured, absently rubbing at his jaw.
Ali smiled and nodded as the rasp of his stubble stirred memories from Friday night, almost obliterating the reason she’d become a doctor. But it encroached like a big black cloud anyway, wiping the smile from her face. She dropped her gaze to the table where she traced a pattern with her finger on the tablecloth.
‘I had a cousin—her name was Zoe. We were the same age and incredibly close.’
A flash of Zoe’s strawberry-blonde hair wafted elusively through her mind, bringing a sharp stab of unexpected grief. But grief was like that—just when you thought you’d cried the last tear another whammy hit you from out of the blue.
‘We were both only children and she lived three doors down and, well … we were inseparable.’
Max watched her doodle patterns and waited silently for her to continue, a sharp sense of foreboding refusing to lift its heavy hands off his shoulders.
‘She was diagnosed with a brain tumour when she was sixteen. She wanted to be a neurosurgeon from the moment they first saw that ugly white blob on her CT scan. She had a plan to rid the world of brain tumours.’
Max scanned the top of her downcast head. ‘What happened?’
Ali looked up from the table cloth. ‘The cancer killed her. She didn’t even last a year.’
It had been a terrible time in their family.
Dark. Long. Bewildering.
‘At the end … the day before she died … I promised her I’d take the baton from her and never let it go.’
Max saw the shadows in her gaze intensify. Was Zoe’s fervour living on in Ali or had Ali been living a lie? Trying her best to keep a deathbed promise to someone she’d loved?
Had it been a cross too big to bear?
‘Do you ever wonder what you would have been if Zoe was still alive? Do you regret making such a big life decision at sixteen?’
Ali shook her head without hesitation, her eyes glittered with purpose. ‘No. Never. I love my job. And I’m a damn good surgeon, too. I can’t imagine doing anything else … ‘
Except she had to—now. It didn’t matter how good she was, she doubted she could ever go back after the trauma of the last year.
After the court case.
‘Although, I gotta say coffee-shop girl is pretty damn cushy. Compared to being a surgeon it’s a picnic.’ She favoured him with a weak smile. ‘It’s a hell of a lot less stressful.’
Max heard the rawness behind the words and wasn’t fooled by the feeble smile. What Ali was going through emotionally was very familiar to him. Most of his medico-legal clients wanted to chuck it all in by the time they got to him.
‘You’ll feel differently. Eventually. I promise.’
Ali shook her head. ‘No,’ she said emphatically. ‘There are two things I’m never doing again. Going back into medicine and falling for another man.’
Max regarded her serious face. He would have tried to dissuade her again except he understood how she felt about being emotionally vulnerable to another human being again. That he could definitely relate to.
‘I always tell my clients to never make any decisions until after it’s all over. And besides,’ he said, lightening his tone to a tease, ‘what else could you do? There are still no fairy universities.’
Ali managed a faint quirk to her lips. ‘Who says I have to do anything, right? I could be a lady of leisure travelling all over the world. Or become a llama farmer. Or write a book.’
Max wasn’t fooled for a moment. There was no excitement in Ali’s voice for any of her suggestions. No passion. Her tone was flat; her eyes lacked the sparkle he’d seen when she’d told him about Zoe.
‘You did all you could, Ali. Nathaniel Cullen’s death was not your fault.’
Ali flinched as she heard the name again. Just when she’d thought she was immune to it, it jabbed right into her soft, spongy, bruised middle.
‘Well, you have to believe me, you’re my lawyer.’
Max shook his head. ‘An internal hospital review believed it. An independent review commissioned by us believed it. The coroner believed it. I’ve been through each and every one. You, the hospital, have no case to answer.’
Ali bit down hard on her lip. She would not cry in front of this man again. ‘And yet here we are, being sued anyway.’
‘I’ve been doing this a long time, Aleisha, and I’ve defended my fair share of guilty clients and, believe me, you are not one of them.’ He shifted in his chair. ‘His parents are grieving. They’re angry. They want to blame somebody. And they want their day in court. They want to be able to tell their story to a judge.’
Ali nodded. ‘I know.’
And she did know. Heck, she even understood their motivations. She remembered how she’d felt when she’d lost the baby. She’d wanted to blame someone.
Anyone.
She’d wanted a focus for the maelstrom of feelings. A distraction from the overwhelming distress of being pregnant one day, growing a tiny human being, and then suddenly … not.
She’d chosen Tom. But it hadn’t helped.
‘But we’re going to win this,’ Max murmured. ‘I promise you.’
Ali gazed into the steady grey depths of his eyes, desperate to believe him. She didn’t even register the waiter placing her coffee down or slipping a little white bowl of cherries between them.
After a moment she said, ‘I’m going to hold you to that. We fairies-in-waiting take our promises seriously.’
Max’s chuckle made her shiver all over and his smile oozed confidence as he popped a chocolate-covered cherry in his mouth and offered her the bowl.
CHAPTER SIX
A FEW days later Ali was sitting around the law firm’s oval boardroom table surrounded by men in suits murmuring to each other as they waited for Max to make an appearance.
She wasn’t sure if it was because she was the only female amidst seven men but the room seemed oppressively masculine. From the dark wood panelling to the polished mahogany table to the heavy brocade drapes obscuring the sunshine and river view, it was as testosterone charged as a football locker room.
Ali smiled to herself at the image of a jockstrap ca
relessly flung and snagged on the corner of the gilt-framed, dark-as-night oil painting hanging on the opposite wall.
It was that or scream.
‘You okay, my dear?’
Ali turned to the man beside her who had already asked her the same thing twice. Dr Reginald Aimes, the hospital’s CEO, had been a tower of strength during this last year and his grandfatherly concern had been most welcome.
But his fussing today was getting on her last nerve.
‘I’m fine, Reg,’ she said a little more testily than she should have. ‘I just want it to be over.’
‘As do we all, Aleisha.’ He patted her hand. ‘As do we all.’
The door opened abruptly and Ali flinched as her pulse skyrocketed. She was pretty sure it was the accumulated tension. Her nerves were shot these days. A year ago she’d had cast-iron control of everything. All had been well and her surgeon’s hands had been steady and sure.
Nowadays the earth always felt unsteady beneath her.
But she couldn’t discount Max’s enigmatic presence either. He strode into the room with a purpose that bordered on arrogant, ushering in a potent mix of sex and charisma.
It was as if, for a moment, all the oxygen had been sucked from her lungs and she were back in his bed, underneath him, letting him obliterate the stench of a harrowing year.
Had it been almost a week? It felt like an hour ago.
All the other suits faded to grey as he dominated the room.
‘Good afternoon, gentleman,’ Max said. He nodded at Ali. ‘Aleisha.’ Then he sat.
‘Ali,’ she corrected.
Reg calling her Aleisha was just his old-fashioned sense of propriety and she’d long ago given up correcting him, but Max …
Max said Aleisha in a way that put so much distance between them she almost winced. And the last thing she needed right now was a distant lawyer. As unfortunate as sleeping with him had turned out to be, she’d felt that it at least connected them.
As if he now had a personal stake in this case.
That somehow he’d go that extra yard.
Max, ignoring the shine of her mouth and the way her soft pink blouse outlined her breasts, dismissed the correction with a flick of his wrist. ‘I think it’s best to stick with Aleisha or Dr Gregory.’
Ali was the woman he’d slept with.
Aleisha was a part of his case and his client’s star witness.
And God knew, as she continued to look at him with those big olive eyes that were taking him right back to Friday night, he needed every professional boundary he owned firmly in place.
The door opened again and a matronly, middle-aged woman entered. She took a seat next to Max where a stenography machine had been positioned on the table.
‘Everyone, this is Helen. She’ll be taking notes.’
As naturally as she was breathing, Ali’s astute medical gaze took in Helen’s enlarged knuckles as she placed her fingers on the keys and she absently wondered if the stenographer had seen a doctor about the arthritis.
There was a general murmur of welcome and Max immediately felt more businesslike with Helen beside him. Now all he had to do was ignore the fact that he’d dreamt about eating chocolate-covered cherries off Ali’s body for the past three nights.
‘Welcome, everybody. Thank you for taking time out of your busy schedules so we could all meet as one. I will of course be talking to you all individually over the next few days as I do my final preparations for the court case that’s scheduled week after next, but it’s important to have at least one meeting with everyone present.’
There were more general murmurs of agreement around the table.
‘For now though we’re going to start with Dr Gregory’s testimony and then we’ll follow the chronology of the incident and talk to each of you in turn as the events unfolded.’
Max shuffled some papers in front of him then glanced up at his captive audience. ‘Any objections?’
Ali swallowed. God, he already sounded like a lawyer. His voice even seemed different. It was still low and smooth but there was a briskness about it that ruined the languorous melody she’d instantly noticed at the bar the other night.
Max braced himself, fixing a calm neutral smile to his face as he looked at Ali. ‘Dr Gregory, why don’t you go through what happened the night Nathaniel Cullen died?’
Ali searched his unwavering gaze for a sign of the man she’d slept with after knowing him for a mere hour. For the man who’d tempted her with chocolate-covered cherries.
But he wasn’t there.
A cool professional had taken his place.
Her heart thudded painfully in her chest. She’d told this story a hundred times. Practically everyone in the room had heard it that many times too.
It should be getting easier.
But it wasn’t.
She took an unsteady breath. ‘Okay.’
Max heard the quiver in her voice and was surprised by the urge to reach across the table and give her hand a squeeze. Instead he settled for an encouraging nod and a low, ‘No one is judging you here, Aleisha.’
Ali bit back the natural habit of correcting the use of her name. She could see some warmth creep back into his gaze and for that he could call her whatever he damn well pleased.
‘It was bedlam that night …’ Her voice didn’t even sound as if it belonged to her as a familiar rush of emotion bloomed in her chest and threatened to close off her throat. Reg patted her hand again and she took a sip of water.
She hated appearing weak in front of these suited men—her superiors. Surgeons had to be tough, detached, uncompromising.
It was an art she’d never quite perfected.
She knew it made her a better surgeon, a better doctor, just as she knew some of these men thought it made her unsuitable for the rigours of the job.
No doubt Max also thought it made her a terrible witness.
And that was unacceptable.
Ali cleared her throat and looked Max directly in the eye. ‘I had a fifty-seven-year-old male patient with an evolving neurological deficit at the same time Nathaniel arrived in the emergency department accompanied by his mother.’
‘That was at—’ Max consulted his notes ‘two in the morning?’
Ali nodded. ‘Yes.’ She took another sip of water. ‘He’d presented almost twenty-four hours post falling out of bed complaining of a headache. He was stable neurologically and both he and the aneurysm patient were scanned one after the other.’
‘Nathaniel first?’
‘Yes. I reviewed Nathaniel’s results as Mr Todd was being scanned. They revealed a very small extra-dural haematoma, two mm wide with no midline shift. Given Nathaniel’s excellent neurological condition I decided to manage him conservatively as per protocol by closely monitoring him in our HDU and repeating the CT scan the next day.’
‘This is standard practice?’
‘Yes.’
Max made a notation, then nodded at her to continue. He could see how weary she was of the story but he wanted to hear it in her own words from her own mouth.
‘What next?’
‘Mr Todd’s CT revealed a large leaking cerebral aneurysm requiring emergency surgical intervention. We were knife to skin within half an hour.’
Max nodded as he consulted his notes again. ‘Nathaniel deteriorated while you were operating on Mr Todd?’
‘Yes,’ Ali confirmed. ‘I was phoned in Theatre approx three hours later by my surgical resident. Nathaniel had just had a grand mal seizure and blown a pupil. He was drowsy but it was hard to assess whether this was post-ictal or due to the evolving extra-dural.’
He frowned. ‘That’s not typical, right?’ He consulted his notes. ‘Such a late deterioration?’
Ali shrugged. ‘There was nothing typical about this case. But it’s certainly not unheard of. Typically if someone was going to have an acute deterioration it would usually happen within a few hours post the original injury. Extra-durals are arterial bleeds so they can
rapidly accumulate and the patient can just as rapidly decompensate as happened with Nathaniel.’
‘Okay’ He nodded. ‘What then?’
‘I told Jonathon, the resident, to get him to Theatre stat. I was just about finished with the clipping procedure and I had a senior resident with me who was perfectly capable of closing. I left Theatre Four and went straight into Theatre Eight where I scrubbed up again as they got Nathaniel on the table.’
‘How long until you got knife to skin this time?’
‘From the phone call? About fifteen minutes. But there was so much blood … ‘
Ali dropped her gaze to her water glass. Even now she could see its bright rich colour spilling over the green drapes, flowing to the floor, pooling around her clogs.
She’d heard about such cases, hell, she’d been no stranger to massive loss of blood on more than one occasion in the ER, but she’d never expected to witness it coming from an eighteen-year-old’s head.
She’d never forget the blood.
She returned her gaze to him. ‘I couldn’t stop the bleeding. He arrested on the table and we couldn’t revive him.’
She willed herself not to beseech him. She hadn’t done anything wrong. She hadn’t been negligent. Nathaniel Cullen had sadly been just another horrifying statistic. Another patient that despite medical advances and a hospital full of whizz-bang technology they just hadn’t been able to save.
Simply put—he’d been unlucky.
But she wanted Max to understand that there was nothing she could have done. That her treatment had been no different from that any other doctor would have given that night including her consultant, Neil Perry, who sat opposite her.
Tom had asked her continually what she’d done wrong, where she had erred. He hadn’t understood that sometimes, no matter what you did, patients died.
Did Max?
Max gave her a moment or two. Her bald statement had been flat and emotionless but there was pain in the depth of her eyes glowing like a freshly minted coin.
He was used to this level of emotion. He dealt with people and situations that were highly charged and rarely black and white. And he’d always been able to separate himself from the emotion.