by Becky Wicks
Liv worked as an accountant, so technically she could work anywhere, like Freya.
Freya bit her tongue and focused on a dog with long, bouncing ears, who was scampering after a red ball in the grass, followed by a giggling toddler. Her heart was thudding now, the way it always did when she was rudely reminded of how her best friend from St Cuthbert’s had made a move on Freya’s American boyfriend, who’d been all too happy to reciprocate, nine months into med school.
‘I mean, at least you were only dating Johnny for a few months before he got together with your friend...’
‘Nine months, Liv,’ she reminded her stiffly. ‘That was a pretty long time.’
‘OK, well, I just wasted four years on Jed. I’ll never get that time back. What if they get married, like Johnny and Beatrice did?’
A few ducks waddled past on the grass, quacking loudly as bicycles whizzed past on the gravel tracks beyond. Liv went on about her boyfriend’s betrayal and Freya found herself witnessing her own experience all over again in her mind’s eye: Johnny with his hands in Beatrice’s hair as he kissed her passionately, still dressed in most of his soccer kit; her best friend’s long legs wrapped around his middle. Their wedding photos, three years later, had been all over Facebook. Their mutual friends had all been invited. She’d deleted her account after that.
‘You should visit first rather than come back here permanently, Liv. It’s a big move and your break-up is still fresh. Give me a few more weeks to get my head around everything here and we’ll talk about it again,’ she said.
‘OK. Have you spoken to Mum since you arrived there?’
Here we go again, Freya thought. ‘No, not yet.’
‘She’s back from Reykjavik now.’
‘Reykjavik?’
‘Stijn took her there for a holiday, I told you that.’
‘Did you? I don’t know, it seems like she’s always going somewhere...’
‘Not unlike someone else we know.’
Freya pulled a face. ‘Liv, I’ve been so busy...’
‘She knows you deserve Anouk’s house, Freya. There’s never been any dispute over that, in case you were wondering.’
Freya kept her eyes on the dog with the ball, and heard her half-sister sigh down the phone at her silence. She knew Liv was disappointed that she barely ever spoke to their mother but Liv was oblivious to the fact that Elise had barely noticed or cared about Freya till after Liv had come along. Ugh, it was too nice a day for these bad memories, but unfortunately for her Amsterdam was full of them.
‘I have to go,’ she said quickly. Lucas Van de Berg had just appeared in the park, looking impossibly handsome. He held up an acknowledging hand from where he was jogging along the track beside the bike path, and changed direction to head her way. ‘I really am sorry about Jed. If it’s any consolation, you will meet someone else who’s worthy of you. You’ll get over it. I did.’ she added.
‘Get over what?’ Lucas had reached her on the grass. He carried on jogging on the spot in front of her as she shoved her phone back into her bag, taking in his workout clothes—a tight black gym shirt with neon yellow bands around the arms, and track pants with black sneakers.
His damp, dark chestnut hair hung over his blue eyes before he raked a hand across his forehead. She blinked up at him into the sun, realising she’d never seen him in casual clothes, let alone workout gear. She couldn’t help admiring his impressive physique even more now. He was as hot as a model in his scrubs but in gym clothes...he was making the back of her neck break out into a nervous sweat.
‘You jog on your lunch breaks?’ she heard herself say, trying not to notice his long, lean calves, the way his muscles gave extra definition to his tanned skin in the sunlight.
He raised an eyebrow. ‘Sometimes. You sound surprised.’
‘I am,’ she admitted. ‘Most surgeons I know say they don’t have the time to exercise.’
‘Well, we’re all busy enough,’ he said, still jogging. ‘Everyone’s busy, but if you don’t make the time to look after yourself, you’re not in the best place to give health advice to others, are you.’ He said it like a statement, not a question. She smiled to herself. This was the Dutch way. Blunt. She actually admired it.
Lucas dropped to the grass on his haunches and started stretching out one leg. ‘So, who has to get over what?’
‘You’re nosy, aren’t you?’ She could see the delineation of his six-pack through his shirt. Lucas was definitely not your average surgeon and she hoped humour would distract him from the fact that she was clearly staring at his abs. She wished she wasn’t so drawn to him. If he carried on being so sexy on top of everything else, things could get very complicated for her.
‘I like to think interested, rather than nosy,’ he said, and Freya struggled not to stare at his biceps flexing rigidly as he tossed the ball, which rolled over and sent the dog speeding after it.
‘That was my half-sister, Liv. She just found out her boyfriend of four years did something pretty unforgivable.’
Lucas scowled at the grass a second. ‘Did he go off and marry someone else?’
‘What?’ Freya emitted a snort through her nose. ‘No, of course not.’
Lucas was frowning at his kneecap now, stretching out the other leg.
‘He cheated on her with a friend they both know,’ she told him, raising her eyes to the sky at an orange plane zooming low over the park from Schiphol airport.
‘You said she’d get over it, like you did?’ When she turned to him, Lucas was looking right at her, which made her feel even hotter. She stopped her hand from wiping a bead of sweat from her forehead and contemplated being just as blunt; telling him she didn’t want to talk about it. Why drag up the past in a new place? But he seemed genuinely interested, and honestly? When was the last time a guy this hot had offered her his complete undivided attention?
‘I had a best friend called Beatrice, my only friend, really, back then,’ she relented.
‘When?’
‘At boarding school. I kept myself to myself as a kid, till we met. We did everything together. Anouk—she hated being called Gran—was our inspiration. She was a medical researcher and her mother was a paediatrician in World War II. She cared for children with rheumatic fever mostly, that being the biggest cardiac problem they had to deal with back then.’
‘I know,’ he said. She felt her mouth twitch again with a smile. Of course he would know that.
‘Well, Anouk was the one who made us both want to get into medicine, when Bea used to visit me in Amsterdam. We got it into our heads that we wanted to study in the US together. I don’t know, maybe we watched too many medical dramas on TV. Come to think of it, I just wanted to move as far away as possible from...’ She trailed off. No need to mention her mother. ‘We both got places at medical college in Wisconsin.’
‘Wisconsin?’
She smiled absently, remembering how excited they’d been, packing their bags, practising bad American accents. ‘We applied to a bunch of places. I got into them all, but that was the only college that offered us both a place. It felt like a dream came true, getting to move there together.’
Lucas was staring at her mouth, she noticed, while she spoke, and she wondered if he found her attractive. The thought that he might made her nervous, but so did the thought that he might not. Then he sat down fully, cross-legged on the grass. ‘So, what happened at college with Beatrice?’
She swallowed a lump in her throat, more at his proximity than having to relive her story. ‘We moved into the halls of residence. A shared apartment. Our roommate Johnny was... Well, Johnny was a lot of things. Mostly he was Texan.’
‘You fell for his accent? Or was it the gun he kept in his locker?’
‘Very funny.’ She smirked. ‘Actually, he was the kind of guy who’d bring pots of homemade ceviche to a party when everyone else broug
ht potato chips. He knew about art and books and...’ She realised Lucas’s eyebrows were knotting together, like she was reminding him of something that wasn’t particularly pleasant. ‘Anyway, I ended up dating him. I thought it was getting serious after nine months together, but it turned out he’d fallen for someone else, right in front of my nose.’
Lucas pulled at the grass between them with his fingers. ‘I sense a betrayal coming on.’
She smiled wanly, still trying to ignore how his presence out here in the sunshine was actually unnerving her more than the memories she was recalling.
‘I came home early from class one afternoon. The worst part was that I pretended to be a delivery guy, to surprise them. I’d got us all pizza, sneaked up to the window outside and banged on it. That’s when I saw them, all tangled up in Bea’s dress on the couch. The best friend and the boyfriend. Is there anything more clichéd?’
Lucas raised his eyebrows, dragged a hand through his hair again. ‘It’s a cliché precisely because it happens all the time.’
‘Don’t tell me your best friend stole your girlfriend and finally took up his rich parents’ offer of a penthouse suite in a private apartment block off campus?’ she teased.
‘Not exactly. So, did Beatrice move into the penthouse, too?’
‘Yes, three weeks later.’ Freya had no idea why she was opening up to him with all this information. She wasn’t used to sharing so much so soon with people she didn’t really know, and she rarely invited the same from others, she realised, letting her eyes linger on the form of his muscles in his shirt for another moment. He already knew she was staring at his body, she was sure of that. But he wasn’t exactly trying to cover it up.
‘What happened to you, then?’ she asked now, noticing how he was pulling harder at the grass between them. ‘Do I sense a betrayal coming on?’
His mouth kind of twisted for a second. ‘I thought I’d met the woman I would marry. I guess I was wrong. I don’t want to bore you with the details, Freya. She’s back in India now.’
‘Back in India, huh?’
She watched a look of mild discomfort at her question cross his face, which made her wonder exactly how much this woman from India had hurt him, right before he pulled a buzzing phone from his pocket. So, the doctor had a girlfriend from India...or used to. Someone who’d caused him difficulties and pain.
Freya caught herself. It wouldn’t do to start speculating about Lucas Van de Berg, even though she’d told him enough about herself already. Maybe it was being out here in the sunshine, seeing him dressed like a normal, regular guy that had made her feel more like opening up. If he didn’t want to answer any of her questions, she couldn’t force him to.
‘They’re sending a three-year-old girl called Maeve to the hospital, she’s on her way in the ambulance,’ Lucas said now, interrupting her thoughts. He held his hand out to help her up. Registering the thud of her heart at the gesture, as much as the emergency that must have befallen an innocent toddler, she waved his hand away and stood up herself, gathering her belongings and her thoughts.
‘Go, go,’ she told him. ‘I’ll catch you up on my bike.’
CHAPTER FOUR
‘MAEVE IS STABLE, but acute decompensated heart failure, or cardiogenic shock due to severe aortic stenosis, is a pretty bad diagnosis in anyone, let alone a child, as you know, Frey—Dr Grey,’ Lucas said, correcting himself.
He glanced up when the door shut, meeting her soft brown eyes over their masks. The harsh lights were shining solely on little Maeve. As discussed in her interview, she was observing his work, poised with her notebook and a pen wedged sexily behind her left ear. He wondered if she knew how hot she looked.
He cleared his throat, adjusting his glasses on his nose.
‘Operative risk in patients like this is exceedingly high, even here, where we have far more opportunities to help patients than anywhere else you’ve been on your travels, I’m sure.’
‘No doubt about that,’ she said, stepping closer. ‘We had nothing like this in Cambodia. I’m pretty sure there won’t be anyone with your skills in Vietnam either.’
‘Vietnam?’ He was only half listening. Lucas had performed thousands of transcatheter aortic valve insertions, and while every procedure performed on a child carried an immense amount of weight on his heart, he’d grown pretty good at keeping his emotions at bay. Under Freya’s watchful eye the pressure was piling up anyway, so he was having to fight for extra focus.
‘Just somewhere I’m thinking of taking my next contract,’ she said absently. ‘It’s a long way off, anyway. What do we have here?’
Lucas frowned to himself; six months wasn’t that long a time in the grand scheme of things, and he hadn’t been aware she was even looking at alternative destinations already. Her announcement both irritated him and filled him with a sudden sense of apprehension, but he needed to pull himself together and concentrate.
He kept his tutorial going, pretending he was only marginally aware of her presence, her shadow, the sound of her shoes on the floor tiles, and the revelation that she wouldn’t extend her six-month contract if there was something better she could be doing in Vietnam.
‘So...this has proved to be a safe procedure in comparison to surgical aortic valve replacement... We know that the chances of bleeding are less with the kind of transcatheter aortic valve insertion I bring to the table, using this.’ He held up the stent, one of a set they’d had made especially in Sweden. ‘Renal failure and the need for dialysis is also far, far less than with your regular catheter-based procedures...’
‘Such as emergency balloon aortic valvuloplasty,’ Freya mused, chewing her lip as she got up close to observe it under the same light. Freya’s brown hair was back up in a professional-looking bun, but he couldn’t stop replaying the sight of her in the park, out of her white coat, the glossy tumble of her hair across her shoulder blades.
He could almost feel time stop as their breathing synced. He had a flashback suddenly of he and Roshinda in a similar situation, working so closely...sometimes too close for comfort, especially back when he had been trying, and failing, to stay away from someone he knew could never be his.
Freya was single, no marriages arranged that he knew of. Yet somehow she was even more unreachable than Roshinda had been, always flying away somewhere new. He knew he should stay away from her at all costs. But, damn it, her ambitions made her even more desirable.
* * *
‘Dr Van de Berg operated on Maeve with great success.’ Freya scanned the face of the dark-skinned, sleep-deprived mother, Mrs Vasque, and the equally worried father from her place opposite them on the plush couch.
‘She was in the very best hands possible, I witnessed it myself. She’s still unconscious so she’s not in any pain, and we’re monitoring her twenty-four seven until the anaesthetic wears off. That’s when we’ll run more tests. Nurse Joy, who you met outside, will be on constant watch, on rotation with Dr Bram—Oh, here is Dr Van de Berg now.’
She looked up in surprise as Lucas entered the room and felt a jolt of adrenaline like a lightning bolt, just seeing him. ‘Just checking in,’ he said, catching her eye and nodding as he strode towards them and held out his hand. ‘I know you asked to see me, Mrs Vasque?’
He’d changed out of his scrubs and was dressed in the same dark navy trousers and a different pale blue shirt. He took a seat next to her on the couch, and Freya felt his leg brush the fabric of her coat momentarily against her thigh before she crossed her the legs the other way, conscious of the sparks. He was still wearing his glasses. Good God, he looked sexy as hell in them.
‘Yes, I did. Thank you so much for everything you did, Dr Van de Berg, you have no idea what this clinic means to us.’ Freya watched in pride and surprise as Mrs Vasque reached for his hand and squeezed Lucas’s fingers hard. ‘Our Maeve might not be alive if it wasn’t for you.’
Lucas seemed to brush off her praise. ‘I was honoured to be able to do what I do best for your daughter.’
‘Can we see her?’
‘Of course you can see her. Maeve is a little sleeping beauty,’ Freya said, smiling. Their little girl had a shock of black hair, thick and dark, like Liv’s when she’d been born.
‘With a little bit more time we’ll know more about what we can expect to deal with going forward,’ Lucas interjected. ‘But she’s a strong little lady. And our team here will be right here for all of you, whatever the outcome, whatever comes next.’
Freya listened as he answered their questions, happy to accept his opinion and expertise under the circumstances. She could tell Lucas was as careful with hearts as she was...but now she couldn’t stop seeing him with washboard abs and the sun on his face in the park. Maybe she was starting to like him a little too much already and that was probably why she’d just casually brought up going to Vietnam, she thought to herself. She’d been creating distance between them, even though his closeness was intoxicating. She was still wondering about his ex in India. Who was she? Why had she left a man like Lucas?
Her phone started flashing on silent. The words Mother. Don’t answer, sent a jarring bolt of adrenaline through her, just as embarrassment flushed her cheeks. She’d been meaning to change that.
Reaching to end the call on the table in front of them, she was quick to turn the phone face down and refocus on the Vasques, but she didn’t miss the look Lucas shot her while he was talking. She almost mouthed, ‘Sorry’, but she kept her head high and her back straight.
Lucas was still watching her. It made her feel nervous. She cared what he thought, whether she wanted to or not.
Of course she would have to talk to her mother eventually. But the fear of all the words that had been left unspoken for so long filled her with dread. How sad was it that she could be like this for other people—open, direct, honest and unwavering—but when it came to her own mother and addressing their fractured relationship, she could never seem to find the right words to say?