by Amy Andrews
She loved him.
It was insane and the timing sucked. It was too soon and he was leaving—he had to leave—but it was there nonetheless. Like a light blinking inside her, sure and steady. She was in deep.
Too deep. Too soon.
And losing him was going to hurt about a thousand times more than losing Ned ever had. No amount of crazy glue was going to put her heart back together after this.
Damn.
‘Okay. But I’m assuming there’s a reason you came over?’
She nodded. Not that it mattered now. ‘No...I just wanted to...say goodbye.’
He shoved his hands on his hips. ‘You said goodbye at the party.’
‘I know. But...’
‘But what?’
Yeah, Flick. But what?
Stupid tears pricked the backs of her eyes and Felicity was grateful for the night. ‘I don’t know...it felt too public.’
‘So come inside.’
She shook her head, standing her ground. ‘Here’s fine.’
He looked around him pointedly. ‘This isn’t public? We’re in the middle of the street. And...’ he smiled suddenly and Felicity’s breath hitched ‘...I’m reasonably certain Mrs Smith has the entire neighbourhood bugged.’
Felicity gave a weak half-smile despite the raging torment kicking up a storm in her gut.
A smile had never hurt so damn much.
She glanced at her car. It was three paces away but her legs were shaking so much it may as well have been on the moon. There just didn’t seem to be enough oxygen between them. ‘Mrs Smith ruined the mood.’
‘She has a habit of doing that.’ He regarded her for long moments before holding out his hand. ‘Give me your phone.’
She frowned. ‘What?’
‘You look kind of undecided so let’s ask Mike.’ He waggled his fingers at her. ‘Modern-day coin toss, remember?’
Felicity knew she should just walk away. But he was so damn sexy, smiling down her like that in the dark, being all flirty and charming and reminding her of that night on the train.
Playing dirty, no matter how obvious. And she was weak. No. More than that. Where he was concerned she was feeble.
She reached into her back pocket, tapped in her code and handed it over, her fingers trembling almost as much as her legs. He took it, navigating quickly to where he needed to be.
The light from the screen bathed his face in a sexy glow, highlighting his mouth, the dark outline of his whiskers and casting shadows under his chiselled cheekbones.
His gaze met hers as he brought the phone up to his mouth. ‘Mike, should Felicity go to Callum’s house for a drink?’
‘Are his intentions honourable?’
The stylised British accent seemed loud in the hush that had fallen over the neighbourhood. Felicity’s lungs burned as she held her breath and he held her gaze.
‘They are, Mike.’
‘One drink should be okay.’
He grinned at the quick-fire response as he passed the phone back, his face fading into the night again. ‘Mike has spoken.’
Felicity let her breath out in a slow, husky exhalation. ‘I think it’s time I stopped letting Mike make these kinds of decisions.’
‘Oh, I don’t know. I think he’s been on the money so far.’
Felicity sighed. ‘Callum—’
‘Oh, come on. Besides, I have a gift for you that I was going to drop off in your mailbox in the morning and now I can give it to you personally.’ He put his hand over his heart and added, ‘Please...’ for good measure.
And not just any old please. There was a vibrato to it that floated gossamer fingers around her good sense, wrapping it up in an iron web.
‘Okay. Fine. But I’m not having a drink. You give me the gift then I’m going.’
He smiled and nodded, clearly pleased with himself. ‘Absolutely.’
He led the way up the path lit by subtle solar lamps, the scent of lavender infusing Felicity’s senses. It was hard to believe that Luci would be back tomorrow.
God, she had so much to tell her!
Felicity’s nerves tangled into a knot as the door clicked shut behind her. ‘Come in. Take a seat on the couch. I’ll be right back.’
Oh, no. No way was she going to sit on Luci’s cosy couch in her homey living room. She needed to be where she could make a quick escape.
She needed to be vertical.
‘I’ll wait here,’ she said, grinding the soles of her sensible work shoes into the parquet floor of the entranceway.
He shrugged. ‘Suit yourself.’
Thankfully he was back quickly, placing a package no bigger and sightly bulkier than a business card in the palm of her hand. It was wrapped in pretty flowery tissue paper. ‘I couldn’t resist it when I saw it in town the other day.’ He grinned.
His smile would have been infectious had Felicity not been hyper-aware of the confines of the small alcove in which they stood and the fact the only light in the house was coming from behind them somewhere, which only seemed to enhance his nearness, his broadness, his sexy citrus essence.
She made a concerted effort to concentrate on the wrapping as her fingers fumbled it uselessly. When finally she conquered it she pulled it back to reveal a cheap-looking plastic badge boasting the word Saint in tacky diamantés.
‘Now it’s official,’ he teased.
Felicity surprised herself by laughing. She’d been hoping it wasn’t something sentimental lest she cry. She needn’t have worried. The badge struck just the right note. Light and funny but still sweet and thoughtful.
‘You think I should wear it to work?’
‘Sure. Here.’ He grabbed it from her. ‘Let’s see if it goes with the uniform.’
‘Everything goes with diamantés,’ she protested as his plan became clear, but it was too late, he’d stepped right in, opening the back clasp of the badge and fingering the open collar of her polo shirt.
It brought him a hell of a lot closer and she realised she was being hemmed in. The solid door behind her, his solid chest in front of her. Her pulse skipped madly. Goose-bumps swept up and down her neck where his fingers accidentally brushed, rippling out in a hot wave to her breasts, beading her nipples into tight, hard peaks.
‘There.’ He stepped back but not all the way. He was still closer than he had been.
Closer than was good for her sanity.
‘I think it looks perfect.’
Felicity breathed in deep, her oxygen depleted again. ‘I doubt Bill would agree.’
‘I think Bill would think it was amusing. Angela would think it’s hysterical.’
‘Yeah.’ Knowing both of them, Felicity had to concede the point. ‘I guess they would.’
They lapsed into silence, the lightness that had swirled around them moments ago quickly dissipating as awareness of the low light and their closeness set in again.
‘So,’ he prompted after long moments, ‘you came to say goodbye? Before Mrs Smith so inconveniently broke her NOF?’
Felicity fixed her gaze on his shoulder. ‘Yes.’
He nodded slowly. ‘It’s hard to believe it’s been two months. It went quickly.’
‘Yes.’ It had and it hadn’t. These last ten minutes, with her chest bursting and her heart breaking and him within touching distance, had felt like an age.
‘I guess Meryl was wrong,’ he murmured, shoving his hands in his pockets. The action pulled his T-shirt flat against his belly.
Felicity shrugged. Their visit with Meryl seemed a million years ago right now. ‘First time for everything.’
More silence. ‘I’ve never really said thank you,’ he said, after the silence had stretched about as far as it could without snapping in two. ‘The way you took me to tas
k that day. You made me a better doctor.’
Felicity glanced at him, surprised by the statement. But the huskiness in his voice and the earnestness reflected in his gaze showed his sincerity. ‘Its fine,’ she dismissed. ‘You’d been through a lot and you were grieving for your lost career. You’d have figured it out, I’m sure.’
He shook his head. ‘No. I don’t know that I would have.’ He shuffled a little closer, his gaze dropping to her mouth. ‘Thank you, Felicity.’
Oh, God. He was going to kiss her. Look away. Look away.
He was thankful and grateful. While she was in love. It was all so screwed up.
Look away.
But she couldn’t drag her eyes off him. Thankfully, though, she still had some use of her legs and she took a step back. Or tried at least. Her shoulder blades met the door with practically no distance put between them at all.
‘I’m going to miss you,’ he said, his hand reaching for her, pushing back a chunk of hair that had come loose from her ponytail as they’d treated Mrs Smith, his palm lingering to cup her face. Her eyes fluttered closed. ‘Are you going to miss me?’
She was going to miss him with a hunger that would gnaw away at her insides. She just knew it. Breaking up with Ned had been hard—she’d lost a friend as well as a lover. But Callum was an entirely different beast. There’d been no slow build-up to their relationship. No dawning realisation. It had been a headlong rush and she’d fallen hard and fast. And that was going to smash through her life like a wrecking ball.
‘Yes.’
She didn’t trust herself to elaborate as her eyes opened. And then she couldn’t, even if she wanted to, because his head was lowering. Slowly. Inexorably.
God...why did she want his lips on hers so freaking bad?
‘You said your intentions were honourable.’
It was supposed to sound strong, assertive, but came out all weak and breathy. More a plea than a last-ditch attempt to derail the inevitable.
‘They were,’ he muttered, his lips almost brushing hers. ‘I swear they were.’
And then they were on her and opening over hers, hot and hard and sure, his ragged breath loud in her ears as he demanded entrance to her mouth, his tongue sweeping inside, stroking along hers as his hands went to her waist and his body aligned with hers—hot and hard and sure.
Her pulse hammered and her breath tangled with his as she tried frantically to drag in air. His thigh slid between her legs, pressing in hard, and she moaned as heat flooded her pelvis.
‘God...you taste so good,’ he murmured against her mouth, and his voice was so deep and dark and needy it filled her head with heat and need and sex. She knew if they didn’t stop right now they’d be on the floor in seconds and it wouldn’t be sex this time, it would be making love, and she couldn’t bear for that to be one-sided.
Rallying reserves she hadn’t known she had, she tore her mouth from his. ‘Callum,’ she panted, pushing on his chest, desperate for some distance. ‘Stop. Please, stop.’
His mouth was wet and his eyes were a little glazed as he backed up and she breathed more easily. ‘Why?’ he asked, his hands slipping off her waist, one shoving through his hair.
Because I love you, you idiot. ‘Because I can’t think, I can’t be...rational when you do that. And you’re leaving in the morning.’
He gazed at her for long beats before scrubbing a hand over his face. ‘Maybe I could stay? I know Meera’s back from maternity leave in the New Year but maybe she’d like some more time to be with her baby?’
Felicity blinked. ‘What?’ Blind hope surged in her heart even as her head rejected it.
Maybe I could stay?
No. He needed to go. And it was just plain cruel to taunt her with empty possibilities.
He shrugged. ‘I like it here. I like working here. I like that you’re here.’
‘No.’ She shook her head, hardening her heart, refusing to let herself be carried away by his lust-induced sentiment. ‘You can’t hide here, Callum. It’s bad enough you ran away here.’
He took a step back, clearly surprised by her frankness, although surely he was used to her speaking her mind by now? He shoved a hand on a hip. ‘I was after clear air.’
She shrugged. ‘You say potato...’
‘You ran away too, Felicity, when you came here after Ned.’
‘I wasn’t running away. I was running to something.’ She shook her head. ‘Look...you had this brilliant life and career and you knew what you wanted, then it got blown all to hell. I knew what I wanted too and it also got blown all to hell, but I’m out the other side of it now. You’re still in the middle. You said when you first came here that you had something to prove. So go home and prove it,’ she said, goading him.
Goading him to leave her.
It hurt, damn it. So freaking much.
‘Prove that being a GP is what you want.’
‘It is what I want,’ he snapped.
He turned away from her then, striding into the kitchen behind, placing his fists on the edge of the bench as he reached it. Felicity followed him at a slower pace. His shoulders were hunched, his head hung low between them.
‘It’s what you want here, while you’re hiding away in Vickers Hill,’ she said, gentler this time, speaking to his back. ‘Wanting it here is easy. But you have to face the real world, Callum. The people that matter. The only way you’re going to know if it’s what you really want is by going back home. To your surgeon parents and your surgeon friends and their dinner parties full of shop talk about their latest surgical feats. Because it’s only by going back to your old life that you’ll know for sure.’
He didn’t say anything for a long time. Finally he raised his head and slowly turned to face her. He leaned his butt against the bench and crossed his ankles in a casually deceptive pose but every inch of him was tense. ‘Come with me.’
Felicity blinked, her heart beating hard in her chest, as hard as it was bleeding. A part of her wanted to snatch his offer up, throw caution to the wind, just as she’d urged Luci to do.
But this was love. And hers was too big to risk on a man still sorting his life out.
She wanted to be with him but she needed to know she wasn’t another consolation prize. The consolation woman that came part and parcel with the consolation job.
‘No.’
‘I like you. I think there’s something between us. I think it could be more.’
Felicity sucked in a breath as his rumbled admissions played havoc with her sensibilities. The man obviously knew how to push all her damn buttons. She wondered if he had any idea how much his vague, noncommittal words hurt.
She swallowed. ‘No.’
God, how could such a little word be so hard to say?
He cocked an eyebrow. ‘You don’t want to live in Sydney? I have an apartment on the harbour. And if you’re worried about a job—don’t be. With your qualifications and experience you could walk into about a dozen jobs straight away.’
‘No.’ She said it more firmly this time as he didn’t seem to be getting the message.
‘Why?’ he demanded.
‘Because you have a lot of things to confront and you don’t need me hanging around muddying the waters. You need clear air back in Sydney too. I’m not going to be your distraction. A way for you to avoid facing up to the issues.’
‘So you don’t think there could be more between us?’
Felicity had told herself she wasn’t going to cry when she came here tonight but she was just about at the end of her emotional tether. She wanted nothing more than to take up his offer. If only he knew how much it was killing her to keep denying him.
She cleared her throat of the sudden thickening. ‘Of course I do.’
‘So come with me,’ he repeated. ‘Or are you too ma
rried to this place to contemplate leaving?’
‘No. I don’t have a problem with leaving Vickers Hill. I’m just not doing it for someone who’s in the middle of figuring out his life.’
‘Well, I’m really sorry I’m not together enough for you,’ he said, sarcasm dripping from every word.
‘I don’t expect you to be, Callum. I understand you’ve been through a lot. I’m just saying I’m not getting involved while you’re in the middle of it all.’
Felicity rubbed her hands up and down her arms. How could she feel cold when it was still so damn hot?
‘There’s enough pressure on relationships these days as it is,’ she continued, ‘and we’re not going to survive if somewhere down the track, when you come out the other end of this, you decide that I’m not what you want. That I was just a symptom of your deep unhappiness at the time. One that you’re stuck with. I don’t want to become collateral damage or be your consolation prize, like becoming a GP was.’
‘You would never be that,’ he denied quickly, taking a step towards her. ‘Never.’
Felicity took a step back, hardening her heart to the flicker of hurt she saw scurrying across his face. She didn’t doubt his sincerity but he still needed time and space, whether he knew it or not.
‘Please, just come to Sydney and let’s see how things go?’
His words were a cruel blow. See how things go? She was in love with him and he wanted to test the waters.
‘No.’
‘Damn it, Felicity. You want to. I can see it in your eyes. Why are you being so stubborn?’
Felicity didn’t have the emotional energy to go round and round the houses with him. She needed to end it—sever it. Here and now. And she knew just how to do it.
‘Because I’m in love with you.’ The words came out on a rush of pent-up emotions and clanged into a heap between them. It felt good to get it out even if Callum was staring at her like she’d lost her mind. ‘And I want more than “Let’s see how things go”. You can’t give that to me and I’m not settling for less. I’m sure as hell not moving halfway across the country for it.’