So then, what are you doing here? a silent voice taunted her.
Isla stifled it quickly. She didn’t want to hear what it had to say.
‘What about your parents? They must be proud.’
‘My parents are both dead.’
There was nothing emotional about the admission; a casual observer would have thought it factual, with an even and calm delivery. Yet Isla thought that something altogether bleaker flashed through his eyes for a fraction of a moment.
Then it was gone, leaving her wondering if she’d merely imagined it.
‘Oh—’ she scrambled for the appropriate response ‘—I’m sorry.’
‘It happened a long time ago.’
Nikhil shrugged, but she didn’t know if that made it better or worse. But then Hernandez came with another course from the tasting menu, and Isla found herself fascinated by the dish. Such a precise, delicate-looking creation that should surely have been more at home in an art gallery but which, when tasted, exploded in her mouth like the most perfect taste she’d ever known.
‘Impressive, isn’t it?’ Nikhil asked.
‘Incredible,’ she breathed. ‘Is this always what you have? I can see why you come back every time you can.’
‘No, it’s always a different tasting menu for me. And every time I think it can’t possibly get any better. Yet it does.’
For several more minutes they tasted and praised, and Isla didn’t know how it had happened but the last of her disquiet seemed to have eased.
‘So the Hestia is to be your new start?’
He jerked his head down and she was once again reminded of her now bare ring finger, giving her away without her even speaking a word. She pasted a bright smile onto her lips.
‘Yes, it’s a good career move. A chance for me to concentrate on being a doctor, with no distractions.’
His deep bark of laughter, rich and full-bodied, filled her with something new.
‘You’re not serious?’
‘I am.’ She frowned. ‘What’s wrong with that?’
‘This is a cruise ship you’re going on.’ He laughed again, and suddenly she wished she could bottle it up and take it with her.
She didn’t know why.
‘I know it’s a cruise ship. And I’m a doctor.’
‘You’re a stunning, educated, newly single doctor,’ he corrected. ‘And you must know the reputation cruise ships have for bed-hopping. Among staff just as much as among the passengers. Sometimes even more so.’
It was insane how his words instantly threw out a series of images of Nikhil bed-hopping. And even more insane how her body balked against them. As if it actually mattered to her.
‘I thought you said you didn’t bed-hop.’ She tried not to sound so prim, but failed.
‘I never mentioned my private life on board.’ He arched his eyebrows, giving her the oddest impression that he could read her every naughty thought. ‘I merely said I’d never brought a date to this restaurant.’
Fire scorched through her cheeks. ‘Oh.’
‘But, for what it’s worth, I don’t.’ She didn’t know why he’d suddenly relented. ‘I try to keep my private life quite distinct from my role as ship’s officer.’
It said rather too much, in Isla’s mind, that they were the words she’d wanted to hear. She straightened her shoulders. ‘As I intend to do.’
He laughed again. ‘The difference is, Little Doc, that you’re already inviting speculation the moment they see that faded mark around your finger.’
‘Well, I won’t answer it.’
‘You’ll have to; they won’t let it go because it’s too juicy a story. The heartbroken new doc.’
‘I don’t want to be a juicy story, and I’m not heartbroken.’
‘Aren’t you?’ He sounded genuinely curious. ‘Your engagement has broken down and suddenly you’re a doctor on a cruise ship heading around the world. Like you’re running away.’
Indignation fired up her spine. ‘I’m not running away.’
Was she?
‘Is that so?’ he asked, then lifted his shoulders. ‘Well, ships are such odd environments. Some might say we’re tight-knit cities, others would say we’re just living in each other’s pockets. Either way, there are never really any secrets, and people are always in everyone else’s business.’
‘Meaning?’
‘Meaning that I can already see some well-meaning colleagues trying to set you up with all and sundry, just to get you over your heartbreak.’
‘I told you...’
‘You’re not heartbroken,’ he finished. ‘Yes, I heard. But I don’t imagine that will stop them.’
‘God, that’s just like my mother.’ Isla rolled her eyes. ‘She’s equally well-intentioned, but it doesn’t make it any less irritating. She’s always on about me having a rebound fling. If I hadn’t told her that I was on a date with a First Officer, then she already had a blind date set up for me.’
If he was surprised that she’d suddenly mentioned her mother when she’d told him that afternoon that she was with friends then he didn’t show it.
‘So you’re only with me to dodge your mother? I’m flattered,’ he drawled, not looking in the least concerned. ‘Anyway, I thought this wasn’t a date?’
‘Is isn’t.’ She stumbled over her words.
Why did she keep making that mistake?
‘Shame—’ another wicked smile played on his lips, toying with them and simultaneously pulling at something low in her belly ‘—I don’t think I’d have minded you using me to get over whoever he was.’
Desire seeped through her. At this point she wasn’t entirely sure she’d have minded that either.
‘Anyway...’ she began, trying to change the subject before her mind went blank.
She was almost relieved when Hernandez came with the next course of the tasting menu.
‘Wow, this smells incredible.’
‘Doesn’t it?’ he agreed. ‘But be aware that Chef Miguel likes to play with the senses. Whatever you think you’re getting, be prepared for it to catch you out.’
Nodding slowly, Isla loaded a careful amount onto her fork and lifted it to her mouth. Taste and sensation exploded in her mouth and, just as Nikhil had predicted, it challenged her expectations of what she’d thought she’d smelled.
‘That’s amazing. He’s really brilliant.’
‘He is. And, like I said, he’s always evolving and inventing.’
‘I guess I’m going to have to come back and see for myself.’ She grinned, and then felt a jolt. ‘I mean...by myself. I’m not... That wasn’t...’
‘Relax, I understand what you meant,’ Nikhil cut in. ‘I take it your mother would rather have you be a private practice doctor than travelling around the world on a cruise ship?’
‘My mother would rather I not be a doctor at all,’ Isla admitted before thinking twice, as Nikhil pulled his brows together.
‘Really? She isn’t proud of you?’
Was it just her imagination, or did she detect a note of...something in his tone?
‘Sorry, that isn’t fair.’ She wrinkled her nose. ‘My mother is always proud. Although she doesn’t really understand why it’s my dream.’
‘Why not?’
She paused; this wasn’t usually a conversation she had with strangers. Or many people, in fact. But, rather than push her, Nikhil waited, his eyes never leaving hers. So different from the way Bradley had always been far more interested in who he could see, who could see him, what was on his phone.
It was potent to have Nikhil’s attention so assuredly on her. As if nothing else mattered to him but whatever she was saying. It almost had her telling him things that she rarely told anyone.
Isla just about caught herself in time and moderated what she’d been about to say.
‘And your father?’
‘My father died when I was two. I have photos though I don’t remember him. But I had a surgeon stepfather, Stefan, when I was fourteen.’ No need to tell him she’d had five stepfathers so far. ‘He encouraged me to follow my dream and go into medicine.’
‘He was kind?’ asked Nikhil, too sharply and too quickly.
Had he had his own, less fortunate experiences with a stepfather? Stepmother?
‘He was very kind. I was lucky.’ Isla smiled softly.
None of her stepfathers had ever been unkind; her mother would never have married them otherwise. But Stefan had been like the father she’d never known.
‘He even had a daughter, Leonora, who was about the same age as me. She didn’t want to go into medicine. In fact she wanted to be an artist and she could paint the most stunning paintings, and he always encouraged her too. There was never any favour to either of us. He treated us both like we were his daughters.’
‘You speak of it in the past,’ Nikhil pointed out.
‘Yeah, their marriage—business agreement—ended when I was nineteen, though Stefan came to see me a couple of times at the hospital where I did my first few rotations. But Leo and I are still best friends. We’re each the sister the other never had.’
‘It sounds very...civilised,’ Nikhil commented.
She might have said through gritted teeth if she hadn’t thought better of it. Instead, she laughed quietly.
‘Civility is my mother’s mantra. What about you? You don’t have any siblings?’
It took him a beat too long to answer and, when he did, it struck Isla as an incredibly telling and personal statement.
‘I have a brother. But I lost him a long time ago.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ she offered genuinely. The thought of losing Leo wasn’t one she wanted to even consider. ‘You must miss him.’
‘Not really,’ Nikhil replied instantly.
But, despite his attempt at a casual tone, Isla couldn’t help thinking she saw something deeper, more genuine, usually hidden. Something profoundly sad. Though perhaps she was just being fanciful.
As if he was going to show her a side of himself that no one else ever saw.
‘My brother wasn’t what you might call the dependable sort. Most people aren’t, which is why I can understand why your mother doesn’t believe in love.’
Guilt lanced through Isla.
‘My mother might not believe in love as some deep, romantic concept, but she definitely believes in love for me as her daughter,’ she said, almost apologetically. ‘And for Leo, come to that. Even now, she still treats Leo like another daughter. If she phones me to see how I am, she will have either called, or be about to call Leo too. If she buys me something, she buys something for Leo.’
‘You don’t resent that?’
‘It makes me feel as though we’re still family. In fact, when I told you before that I was here with friends, I wasn’t being entirely truthful. My mother flew herself and Leo out yesterday as a surprise. And, as you surmised, we’re going for dinner together tomorrow night. Though she’ll be furious she didn’t book here. That’s her idea of love.’
‘Indeed.’ Nikhil offered a half-smile but didn’t elaborate. Instead, he turned his questions back on her. ‘And what about you? Do you believe in love?’
Isla hesitated. She had done. Once upon a time.
For all her mother’s wisdom and lessons, she’d believed that true love—soulmates—had to exist, somewhere. A thousand blockbuster romantic films couldn’t be wrong. And when she’d fallen for Bradley she’d understood what every single one of them meant.
Or she’d thought she’d understood.
‘Not any more,’ she told Nikhil simply, quashing the traitorous part of her that tried to argue. ‘You?’
‘Never,’ he answered.
And she thought it was the fact that it was said so certainly, with no emotion or heat, that made it all the more...lamentable.
‘Are you always so controlled? Don’t you ever feel passionate about anything?’
It was a foolish question. She realised it at exactly the same moment that his eyes darkened, his expression walloping her like a punch to the solar plexus—only far, far more exhilarating.
‘I might only be able to offer one night, Little Doc, but I can show plenty of passion, if that’s what you want.’
The heat, the intensity, that she’d felt earlier now felt more like a wall. And she was racing straight for it.
‘Not a date,’ she managed weakly.
‘Of course not,’ he agreed with a smile that she could swear she could actually feel against her sex. ‘But if you feel yourself wavering, just let me know.’
‘Right,’ she murmured. Unable to even deny it.
The wall was approaching faster now.
If she wasn’t careful, she was going to crash—and that could only hurt.
* * *
It was several hours before they left the restaurant. The last to leave, after being served one incredible dish after another, and even Chef Miguel had left the kitchen to come and sit with them for after-dinner drinks, chatting with Nikhil as though they were old friends.
Clearly they were.
But whilst Brad would have preened and peacocked, making her cringe a little at his sycophantism—the way that he always had when Isla had taken him to one of her mother’s high-society events—Nikhil kept it all comfortable and easy.
It told her a lot more about him. And she liked what she saw.
But now it was just the two of them. Her and Nikhil, in the quiet, narrow back streets, which were glowing faintly from the warm yellow-orange lights spilling out from the buildings on either side.
His arm was around her, almost protectively, and she was wholly conscious of fitting far too well to the shape of his body. As if they were designed to fit together. He moved with such grace, propelling them on, with every step taking them closer and closer to her hotel.
To end the night? Or to begin it?
Her head was warring with the rest of her body, as everything started to pull gradually tighter and tighter. It pooled in her chest, her belly, and lower. She ought to speak. To stop this. One-night stands weren’t her thing, but lord, the temptation to stay silent and simply indulge in the moment made her mouth dry up completely.
In the end, it was her legs that stopped her. Slowing her down, as though against her will.
‘What if I’ve changed my mind?’
‘Changed your mind?’ he asked, stopping beside her, his arm still around her waist.
Still making her blood fizz and her head spin.
‘This,’ Isla managed. ‘Us. You said it yourself. When I go onto the Hestia I’ll be the heartbroken girl with a broken engagement who needs fixing. They’ll all be telling me I need a rebound...unless I can tell them I’ve already had my rebound.’
Isla ignored the voice whispering that if she felt that was a solution then she could still pretend that she’d had a rebound without actually having one. She prayed that Nikhil wouldn’t point it out either.
She wanted this one night. It would put what had happened with Bradley firmly in the past. Drawing a line between that life and this new one on the Hestia. Perhaps she really did need it.
Although she didn’t care to analyse the fact that no other man had made her want to do something so uncharacteristic—only Nikhil.
‘I don’t have anything else to offer,’ he said quietly, as she wondered if she imagined that tinge of regret.
‘I
know.’
‘Be sure, Little Doc, because I’m not in the habit of talking a woman into a situation she might later regret.’
‘The perfect officer and gentleman,’ she quipped, wondering why he wasn’t kissing her already.
He was trying to make sure she had really considered it and, as gentlemanly as that was, it left her with a faint afternote of disappointment rather than relief.
And then his voice grew edgier. Raw. ‘I’m an officer but I’ve never been a gentleman.’
‘Good, then maybe you can start by being a little less gentlemanly now.’ She didn’t know what had got into her, but her mouth seemed to run away with itself, egged on by more carnal parts of her body.
His eyes gleamed in the faint yellow-orange light and a kind of reckless desire poured through her, making her stomach clench—in a good way. Impulsively, she stepped forward, reached up and pressed her lips to his—finally, finally kissing him.
And in that incredible moment it felt as though her whole life was turning on its axis.
CHAPTER FOUR
NIKHIL COULDN’T HELP himself any longer. Or, more aptly, he didn’t want to, not now Isla had initiated their kiss. It was perhaps the hottest thing he could recall experiencing.
He pressed her into the wall until every last inch of her delectable body, with all the delicious heat spilling out of it, was pressed against every last inch of his. And he lowered his mouth to her neck, and indulged. As if he couldn’t help himself.
Perhaps he couldn’t.
Never, in all his years, had Nikhil ever felt so hollow, and needy, and raw. As if he’d die if he didn’t have her. If he didn’t bury himself inside her. Right here. Right now. He, who prided himself on never losing control.
Not since that bleak, black night less than some twenty-odd years ago when, his body black and blue, his ribs cracked, his face bleeding, he’d finally stopped cowering to that monster who’d had no right to ever call himself a father. He’d unfolded himself from a heap on the floor and he’d shown that demon what it really felt like to be a punchbag.
Not that he could remember a moment of it.
To this day, Nikhil still didn’t remember the moment when he’d actually killed his pathetic excuse for a father. He had, of course, because there was no other explanation. Yet he couldn’t remember it. He remembered his father raging, and he remembered wresting the knife from his father’s hands...but then it all went hazy, and the only thing he could remember was being led out of the apartment by a sympathetic policeman whilst they’d put his father in a body bag.
The Doctor's One Night to Remember Page 4