The Doctor's One Night to Remember
Page 3
This was ridiculous.
She was acting like an adolescent, wound up for her first date. The worst of it was that she’d never acted this way even when she had been an adolescent. Snatching up her purse and sliding her room key card inside, Isla stepped out of her room and strode down the hall to the elevators.
He was just a man, like any other, she reminded herself as she jabbed irritably at the buttons. And if her traitorous brain was having trouble remembering that simple fact, then a walk around the town for half an hour should be enough to clear her head and get things in order.
The elevator bounced slightly as it stopped at the ground floor, the doors opening with an efficient swish as the sounds of an Argentine tango, and plenty of chatter, filled her ears.
The distraction was so much better than the quiet of her room. She even felt empowered by the way her heels clicked on the marble floor.
This was just a thank you dinner, from the First Officer of the ship whose crewman she’d just helped. Nothing more.
Then she lifted her eyes, only for them to slam into Nikhil’s as he sat in the lobby, barely fifteen metres away, his powerful frame making the large wingback look almost fragile as he lounged. One ankle was balanced casually on the knee of his other leg, a large broadsheet in his hands, yet he looked even more arcane and forbidding than he had a few hours earlier. Her entire body seemed to turn to liquid. Boiling hot liquid that bubbled through her veins and smouldered in her chest, leaving her almost feverish.
And that was before he unfolded his legs with a casualness she didn’t know why she thought was deceptive, and stood up. Her breath caught in a hard ball in her chest.
His body—which had looked hewn enough in his officer’s uniform—somehow appeared even more dangerous clad in his own clothes. Even more lethal. She thought she might even have swayed slightly, feeling momentarily light-headed, as if she’d had several drinks too many, when the truth was that she hadn’t touched a drop.
It isn’t a real date, she said desperately to herself. It’s just dinner, and it’s just to avoid Marianna’s latest blind date set-up.
Isla wasn’t sure her brain was listening. The guy was positively intoxicating and now she’d started drinking him in she seemed wholly incapable of dragging her gaze away. Even as he approached, it was all Isla could do not to lift her hands, though to ward him off or pull him closer she was afraid she couldn’t be certain.
‘You’re early,’ she managed instead, barely recognising the husky quality of her voice.
‘As are you,’ Nikhil countered dryly. ‘It’s a welcome surprise.’
Any other time she might have had a quick retort on the tip of her tongue about inherent sexism, especially as she believed he was deliberately baiting her, but then he turned to stand beside her with his large hand pressed to the small of her back. The unexpected contact scorched her skin and stirred her very soul, and it was all she could do to remember how to walk, let alone speak.
‘You look stunning, Little Doc.’
‘I don’t think I care for that term,’ she lied, because something told her she ought not like it.
He waved his hand negligently. ‘Apologies. You look quite lovely, Isla.’
She thought she preferred the previous compliment; it somehow sounded more...off-guard. And she liked the idea of unbalancing this man who was clearly accustomed to being so in-control.
‘I... Thank you.’ Electricity jolted through her as Nikhil lifted his hand to the small of her back again and began to usher her smoothly to the doors. ‘But this isn’t a date.’
She wasn’t sure whether she’d intended it as a reminder to him, or to her. But, either way, she felt the first hint of disappointment when he dipped his head instantly.
‘Of course not.’
It was wholly, utterly insane, the way he affected her. Surely this couldn’t be normal? It certainly wasn’t normal for her.
With hindsight, it was now all the more evident to Isla that she really ought to have declined his invitation to dinner. So, what did it say about her that something inside was practically elated that it was too late to back out now?
* * *
Touching her had been a mistake, Nikhil realised the moment his fingers touched her skin and a fresh bolt of awareness crackled through his entire body.
Another mistake. On top of the fact that he’d asked her to dinner in the first place.
All because he’d been thrown off-kilter by a goddamned birthday card, and it provided the escape that he needed to avoid meeting the man who he had once looked up to as his hero brother.
Back when he’d been naïve, he thought angrily, before Daksh had betrayed him so comprehensively.
It was that which had made him so edgy today. So unlike his usual unruffled self that he’d ended up inviting this woman—this stranger—to join him at his annual pilgrimage to Te Tinca. All because of a bout of plain old sexual attraction.
Except that there was nothing plain, or old, about the attraction he felt for the unexpected doctor, was there? After all, from the moment he’d heard her shoes echoing on the marble floor and looked up to see her striding so confidently, sexily, towards him, in heels that make her calves look all the more shapely, and her backside that little bit perter, he’d felt something kick hard, low in his abdomen.
And lower still.
Sexual attraction was one thing, but he had no words for the intensity of what had arced between the two of them ever since he’d crouched down next to her, beside Philippe. And he could read women well enough to know that she felt it too.
Even tonight he’d paced his suite like some sort of caged beast, unable to stay on the ship and finding himself in the lobby of her hotel, still battling to tame this uninvited thing which roared through him.
He could put it down to the long months at sea—unlike a significant proportion of the ship, he had never indulged in the bed-hopping for which cruises were renowned. He’d prided himself that he’d always kept his career life clearly distinct from his sex life. Yet it had never left him feeling as restless, and jumpy, as he did now.
The backstreets to the restaurant were dark and quiet, allowing the sound of her heels to click that little bit longer. His skull hurt from shutting down all the X-rated images that it kept throwing up in his mind. It felt all too intimate. As if the warm night had cleared everywhere out just for them.
He didn’t want a meal, or a conversation. He just wanted to kiss her, to scratch this impossible itch that she’d caused—all over his skin. The kind of deep, unreachable, visceral itch that he didn’t think he’d ever experienced before.
Nikhil locked his jaw tight and propelled them on. Desire was closing around him, as terrifyingly vast and deep as the ocean itself. Every moment he spent with this woman felt like sinking beneath the waves that little bit further. And there was nothing he could do to save himself.
Worse, there was nothing he wanted to do to save himself.
‘You will be glad to know that Philippe is doing well,’ he ground out.
As if a scrap of banal conversation could diminish the swell of need. As if it were a pinpoint of light and he was swimming back up to meet it.
‘Oh. That’s great.’ But her voice was too thick, as if she, too, was fighting to resurface.
‘Thanks, in no small part, to you.’
The silence swirled around them again. Heavy. Bewitching.
‘What about your doctor? I presume you found out why he wasn’t on shore where you expected him to be.’
They both pretended there wasn’t desperation in her voice. That she, like him, wasn’t trying to fill the silence in order to stave off this animal lust that seemed to flow through them both.
‘Appendicitis,’ he told her grimly. ‘He’ll be out for a couple of weeks, so they’re flying another doctor in tomorrow.’
‘How d
oes the crew feel about having a new doctor mid-cruise?’ she asked suddenly.
And, against all expectation, the tension seemed to have cranked down a notch.
Nikhil shrugged, though she wasn’t looking at him, her attention focused ahead of her.
‘It depends on the doctor. Fortunately, I know the guy they’re flying in; I worked with him in the past, before I joined the Queen Cassiopeia.’
‘Right,’ she stated flatly. ‘Makes things easier.’
‘Ah, you’re worried about how easy your own move will be, onto the Jewel of Hestia.’
She pulled a rueful face and he told himself that it didn’t mean anything that he could read her so easily. It was a skill he’d acquired after years of being an officer and reading his colleagues. Or being a kid and reading his father’s temper. It had nothing to do with her per se.
He wasn’t entirely sure he believed that.
‘You’ll be fine. The Cassiopeia is out for months at a time; many of the crew have been working together for years. The Jewel runs shorter cruises, and the staff and crew turnover is higher. It’s a good ship but it’s a stepping stone for promotion to bigger and better liners, so they’re well accustomed to new faces.’
‘You think so?’
‘Keep performing like you did today with Philippe and they’ll be only too glad to have you as one of their doctors.’
‘That’s a relief.’ She blew out a breath and, that easily, the tension eased down another notch.
Maybe dinner wouldn’t be so fraught, after all.
He stopped her outside a nondescript door which no one would ever have realised was the entrance to the restaurant of a world-renowned chef if they hadn’t known it was there, and tried not to think about the fact that ‘Little Doc Isla’ was the only woman he’d ever brought here, in all these years.
It meant nothing, he told himself as he opened the door and waited for her to step in ahead of him. And if he believed that, well...he was in more trouble than he’d realised.
* * *
‘Nikhil!’ A man, clearly the maître d’, even though he was dressed far more casually than Isla might have expected, made his way across the tightly packed room to embrace Nikhil in a back-slapping hug, the moment they entered. His accent was so strong that Isla could only just understand the words spoken in Chilean Spanish.
‘Is good to see you back, my friend.’
‘It’s good to be back,’ Nikhil responded in Spanish, slightly clearer to Isla, but still so full of Chilean slang that she couldn’t follow as they plunged into conversation.
And then, suddenly, the chef turned to her with an unexpectedly assessing look, his English almost as heavily accented as his native language.
‘You are bringing company, Nikhil?’
‘Isla, this is Hernandez. Hernandez, this is Isla. A...colleague.’
‘Encantada de conocerte.’
‘Encantado.’ He took her hand and kissed it, but Isla didn’t miss the unfathomable look that passed between the two men. ‘Come, I sit you both here. Best table in the housing.’
As Isla followed Hernandez, all too aware of Nikhil right behind her, she took in some of the people at the tables. And then, as she glanced into the open kitchen beyond the pass, she startled.
‘That’s Chef Miguel.’
‘It is,’ Nikhil confirmed, with a casualness that she couldn’t quite have said why she didn’t believe.
‘I heard his restaurants are always booked up months in advance?’
Nikhil watched her for a moment before answering. ‘Six months in advance, yes. I’ve been coming here for seven years, every time I’m in port. So maybe two or three times a year.’
‘And the Captain gives you shore leave each time?’
‘In the beginning, when I was more junior, it was the only one I ever actually asked for. Otherwise, I’d take any others people didn’t want.’
‘Then you became First Officer and got the prime choices?’
* * *
There was something about her tone that made him pause, just for a fraction of a moment. As though she was expecting the worst. As though she expected people to be selfish.
It was the way he’d felt almost his entire life but somehow, on her, it didn’t seem to fit.
‘I get more choice now, it’s true, but I still try to play fair.’
And what did it say about her that she believed him?
‘Impressive place to bring all your dates.’ She tried to keep her tone light, but it was still an attempt to counter any gullibility on her part.
‘I thought we weren’t on a date?’
She flushed prettily, and he liked it rather too much.
‘We aren’t...of course not... I meant...’
‘Relax.’ He grinned. ‘You’re the first date-but-not-a-date I’ve ever brought here.’
Cobalt-blue eyes slid away, narrowed, then slid back to his.
‘Really? You expect me to believe that?’
‘I don’t expect you to do anything. But you asked, and I answered. I’ve never brought any date here. Save for the Captain once, a year ago, I’ve never brought anyone here.’
Nikhil bit down on his tongue, but it was too late. The admission was out there, although, judging by the look of disbelief on Isla’s face, she didn’t believe him anyway.
And that was a good thing, he told himself.
He had no idea what the heck it was about this woman that was so compelling, but he needed to work it out as soon as possible. She was like a puzzle, and he hated puzzles.
No, more accurately, he enjoyed puzzles; he just hated an unsolved one. And the brain-teaser that was Doc Isla was taking up far too much of his time.
So, as far as Nikhil was concerned, the sooner he solved it—her—the sooner normal life could resume.
CHAPTER THREE
ISLA SWALLOWED AGAIN. She wanted to show him that she didn’t believe that he hadn’t brought any other date here. More to the point, that it didn’t matter to her even if he had.
The problem was that it did matter to her.
Rather too much.
An uninvited thrill rippled through her as she thought back to the look of surprise on Hernandez’ face when he’d realised Nikhil had brought her as a date. That unspoken communication that had travelled between the two of them supported Nikhil’s claim, and therefore made her feel all the more special.
Just like Bradley had.
Pretending that he’d cared for her, and that her money, her connections, her social standing, didn’t enter into it. Briefly, she wondered if Nikhil was as straight-talking as he appeared, or if he was also the kind of man to lie, and pretend he loved a woman.
She shook the thoughts from her head irritably. Why did everything have to lead back to Bradley? Even now, months and months later, she was still giving him the power to dominate her thoughts, her actions. And she was furious with herself for doing so.
He was in her past.
Gone.
She didn’t want to think about him any more.
‘You said the Hestia was to be your first cruise?’
Isla blinked and looked up to realise that they’d been sitting in silence for so long she’d finished her course without even realising it.
‘I’ve been a doctor for ten years, but this will be the first time I’ve been a doctor for a cruise ship,’ she offered eventually.
‘Ten years?’ He didn’t look convinced. ‘Doctors are qualifying in their teens now, Little Doc?’
‘I’m thirty-two.’ She fought to keep her voice even.
She’d faced bigger slights than that. There was no reason for it to cut any deeper simply because it came from this man.
‘I didn’t realise.’ His expression changed. ‘Still, you must have worked hard to graduate at twenty-two.’
But although Stefan Claybourne had been one of the best stepfathers she’d ever known, and he’d certainly encouraged her dream to become a doctor, his kindness and support hadn’t been a substitute for her own hard work.
‘Being a doctor is all I’ve ever wanted to do.’ She shrugged instead. ‘Even as a child, I dreamed of it when other kids were dreaming of being princesses or pirates.’
‘Doesn’t make the work any easier.’
‘No,’ she conceded, ‘it doesn’t. But it does mean that the hard work has always been worth it. Then again, you must know that. You don’t get to First Officer on a line like the Queen Cassiopeia without being equally dedicated to what you do.’
‘For me it was a way out. It was never a dream.’
Isla turned her head sharply to look at him. She wasn’t sure which of them was more surprised at the revelation.
‘A way out?’
He didn’t answer for a long time.
‘Where I came from there weren’t many choices in life. Maritime was one of them, and so I decided if I was going to go into that, then I wasn’t going to be in some hot, stinking job in the bowels of a ship.’
‘I think that makes what you’ve achieved all the more impressive.’ She swallowed.
It was impossible to shake the hunch that he wasn’t the kind of man who was usually this open with people. Then again, what did she know? Bradley had been a terrible liar, and yet she’d never thought to question him. Because she’d believed—contrary to everything her mother’s carefully negotiated marriages had taught her—that true love really did exist.
Nikhil could just be incredibly skilled at making people—women—believe that he was revealing some hitherto unknown facet of himself. At making a woman feel special.
But she wasn’t that stupid. What did they say about fooling a person once...?