‘Isabella Sanchez,’ he answered slowly, flicking his arm out to where Isabella was leading another guest—presumably the guest originally intended to sit at their table—to Silvio Delgado’s table—as if playing his trump card.
Then again, he was playing it.
Isabella was ultimately responsible for organising this entire programme. She wasn’t a surgeon, or even a doctor, but she practically ran Hospital Universitário Paulista single-handedly. There wasn’t a single thing which went on within the brick, glass and metal walls that Isabella didn’t know about, and she controlled the floors with an iron fist clad in the most silken, smooth glove. She truly was a woman so formidable that even Silvio Delgado would be taking his life into his hands going up against her.
‘Why would she do that?’ Flávia shook her head.
‘Because I asked her to.’
‘Why?’
It still didn’t seem to make any sense.
‘Because I wanted to meet you properly.’ He lowered his voice until she had to lean in to hear him, so that she was no longer sure if they were talking medicine, or not, and it suddenly felt entirely too intimate.
‘I wanted a chance to talk to you.’
Flávia didn’t answer.
She couldn’t.
For the longest time she just watched him, his eyes snagging hers and refusing to let her look away. And she had the oddest sense that she was telling him entirely too much even though she wasn’t saying even a word. That he was reading the truths she preferred to keep securely hidden.
Oh, boy, she really was in so much trouble.
CHAPTER THREE
‘BUT IF A BITE from these vipers could kill a human within hours, or even minutes,’ a Spanish doctor was asking Flávia, ‘surely you can’t cure cancer by injecting the venom without killing them? Not unless you’re reverse-engineering a synthetic version.’
Jake took a spoonful of his dessert, a velvety crème brûlée which he barely even tasted, and tried to work out what the hell he thought he was doing.
Flirting with Flávia Maura?
The way he’d been doing for the past two hours. From even before she’d turned her mesmerising eyes on him and her smooth, lilting voice, which could surely have charmed arboreal snakes from the trees, had wound through him like a boa around its prey.
Business, he reminded himself, savagely turning his attention back the conversation which had all the table joining in.
‘Well, that all depends on the snake, the make-up of its venom and even its delivery method. And, of course, it also depends on what we’re trying to achieve.’ Flávia leaned forward.
There was no doubting that her career truly drove her on, and he couldn’t help but find it an exceptionally attractive quality. She was even more focused than he was—which was saying something.
‘You’ll know, I’m sure, that snake venom is a cocktail of hundreds of different components, including minerals and proteins, peptides and enzymes,’ continued Flávia. ‘Our goal is to isolate and then repurpose certain toxins within this venom, which would ultimately kill cancer cells whilst leaving healthy cells intact.
‘There’s an Australian researcher, Pouliot, who has been working on venom which will stop metastasis in breast cancer. He has been able to reverse-engineer venom from bothrops alternatus, which is a different bushmaster to the one I work with, and lab clone an inhibitor. However, he has still been unable to reverse-engineer and clone an inhibitor from the microvipera lebtina, so for that study he still needs live venom on hand.’
‘Given how aggressive these deadly serpents are, you must be more than keen to reverse-engineer it to isolate and lab clone the toxins you need,’ another of the diners declared. ‘So that you won’t need live snakes so much any more.’
Jake found himself pausing, his spoon halfway to his mouth. Was it only him who noticed the way her body stiffened ever so slightly? The way her back pulled that little bit tenser?
And then Flávia turned that hot, caramel gaze on him and his whole body kicked up a notch.
Business, he roared silently again. Not pleasure.
He suspected he was fighting a losing battle.
Twelve months ago, he would have willingly blended the two. If the chemistry that arced and sparked between them was anything to go off, he could only imagine how glorious the sex would be. Although his mind was doing a sterling job of painting a picture.
Grinding his teeth together, Jake shook his head, as if that could somehow free his mind from the grip of too many deliciously tempting images. But as he’d told Oz—was it really only three days ago?—that wasn’t who he was. Not any more.
Not since Helen’s death, and Brady’s appearance. Not since this whole past horrific year.
‘Actually, quite the opposite.’
He was vaguely aware of Flávia’s response. Albeit through a slight haze.
‘Bushmasters are actually very gentle, sensitive and fragile animals. If you approach them correctly, then they rarely harm. But their backs are like glass, and if you don’t handle them with care they can, quite literally, break their spines twisting away from you. It has always devastated me to think that in the herpetologist Raymond Ditmar’s books from the 1920s and ’30s, the suggested method of catching snakes was to noose them from a safe distance. But for the delicate bushmaster, this will actually snap their backbones.’
A couple of the diners frowned.
‘Nonetheless,’ one of them persisted, ‘lab cloning must be preferable, on the basis that even mishandling the tiny pot of venom extracted from these vipers of yours could kill you, even by simply getting a splash on your skin.’
‘Let me tell you a not-so-secret fact about me.’ Flávia smiled, and Jake thought that perhaps it was only him who could tell that it was just a little too tight at the corners of her mouth to be as genuine and open as everyone else seemed to think. ‘My whole reason for moving into the venom-therapy world of cancer cures was not to save humans, but to save snakes.’
‘I don’t follow?’ another diner pressed, clearly as enthralled as the rest.
And who could blame them—he wasn’t far behind them. For all his self-recriminations.
‘Don’t misunderstand me,’ Flávia pressed on. ‘I love the thought of being able to come up with a solution that halts the metastasis in cancers. But what truly drives me is the knowledge that the bushmasters and others are now listed as vulnerable, because as we humans decimate their natural habitats in the Atlantic Forest, their populations have plummeted.’
‘Surely, all the more reason to reverse-engineer a synthetic toxin?’
Flávia’s smile brightened even further, and once again, Jake was convinced that only he felt its sharpness cutting through the air.
‘Or perhaps an opportunity to educate people to take more care of these snakes. It might not be perfect that we have to prove these animals could save human lives in order for humans to start trying to save the animals in turn, but it’s a good place to start.’
And it was in that moment that Jake grasped the depth of his peril. Because Flávia Maura and her obsession for her work was well and truly under his skin. Where it simply couldn’t be.
Where he couldn’t let it be.
He had no room in his life for anything but Brady and his career. Not that it was love—he knew that wasn’t possible, though perhaps he might have better understood such an emotion if his own parents had set any kind of example of a caring, loving marriage. No, his parents had ensured that emotions weren’t an affliction from which he was ever likely to suffer. But he had responsibilities nonetheless. Like work, and his nephew. He had to get them both back on track. This inconvenient attraction to Flávia Maura couldn’t get in the way of that. It wouldn’t. He refused to allow it.
‘You look a million miles away.’ Her gentle voice tugged him back into the room. And he had no idea
for how long he’d been distracted, but her previously enraptured audience was now, finally, engaging in conversations of their own.
‘Or are you only six thousand miles away?’ she added. ‘Back in London, perhaps? A girlfriend?’
What did it say about him that he was already searching her tone for something approaching...disappointment?
He shouldn’t bite. It made no difference.
‘No girlfriend.’ He told himself he wasn’t still searching for her reaction.
Good thing, too, since she kept her tone excruciatingly neutral.
‘Ah. You just seemed distracted. Or bored.’ Her expression pulled suddenly tight, and her cheeks flushed a dark pink. ‘Meu Deus, have I been rambling too much about the rainforest? Everyone tells me I do that.’
‘No.’ He reached to place his hand on hers before he could stop himself, his whole body jarring as though from a jolt of electricity at the contact. And by the way Flávia was staring down at it, her entire body now stiff, she was equally shocked. ‘Absolutely not. Talking to you has been even more interesting than I had imagined it would be.’
He should stop there. Anything more wasn’t her business. It wasn’t anybody’s business, ever. But especially not when they were at a table with ten of their colleagues, even if those colleagues were beginning to move around now that the meal was over, all engrossed in their own conversations.
‘But... I really ought to go and check on something. Will you excuse me?’
Setting his napkin on the table, Jake stood abruptly. He really did need to go and check on Brady, even if it was just a phone call to Patricia, the retired nurse the hospital had engaged as a quasi nanny for this teaching programme, back in the accommodation the hospital had also provided.
Yet, more than that, Jake needed a reason to put a bit of distance between himself and Flávia Maura.
The woman was like no one else he’d ever met in his life, he thought as he strode across the room, deftly avoiding calls from other colleagues to come and join their conversations. The woman drew him in, slowly, inexorably, until suddenly he’d found himself about to tell her personal details he would never willingly share with anyone else; it was altogether too...disquieting.
He’d known he was attracted to her ever since he’d seen her give that lecture. But he hadn’t been prepared for this. The way she made the air sparkle around her.
Around him.
If he’d thought her career drive and passion, her ability to shape the medical landscape with every project she undertook, was intriguing, then it was only exceeded by her captivating voice, her Delphian smile, her mesmerising body. Flávia Maura was utterly intoxicating.
And he was already captivated.
Reaching the lobby now, Jake slid his mobile out of his pocket. Once he’d ensured that Brady was all right, he would go back and find Flávia. He still had a plethora of questions for her, but this time he was prepared for her.
This time he wouldn’t allow her to slide into his head.
* * *
‘I was beginning to think you’d left.’
Flávia spun around with a low gasp. She’d thought she’d be alone here, in the botanical gardens, where no one else was likely to want to venture at this hour. Especially since, as Jake had told her earlier, they had indeed been locked up and she’d had to bribe the hotel’s concierge to let her sneak in for a few moments.
Sometimes, it seemed, being the infamously mad jungle woman did have its merits.
‘You startled me.’
‘My apologies,’ he offered. Only, he didn’t seem remotely repentant.
Much the same way that he’d refused to apologise for having Isabella change the seating arrangements last minute.
She told herself not to feel so flattered.
‘I’ve spoken to Isabella,’ she told him before she could stop herself. ‘She confirmed that you asked her to change the table plans for the sole reason of talking to me.’
‘You needed confirmation?’ He looked unperturbed, and she flushed slightly.
Still, she was determined to stand her ground.
‘She also told me that you declined her offer to bump me up to your original table.’
He didn’t answer, though he lifted his shoulders—yet somehow it was too gentlemanly to be a crude shrug.
‘You didn’t want Silvio Delgado causing a scene and making me feel uncomfortable.’
It was a stab in the dark, not even an educated guess, but when after the briefest pause Jake dipped his head, she knew she was right.
That he should have been so considerate to her roared through her like a battle cry, screaming at her to fight this insane attraction to a man she barely knew.
Even if her years of following his work made it feel like otherwise.
‘How did you know I was in here, anyway?’ She tried to pull the conversation back onto safer ground.
‘I’ve been looking for you for the past half hour when I remembered you were heading for here earlier to hide out after that first incident with Delgado. What are you doing in here alone?’
‘I’m not hiding out,’ she snapped, a little too sharply.
His mouth pulled at the corners and, too late, she realised he’d been baiting her and she’d fallen for it.
‘Anyway, why were you looking for me? I thought you were meeting someone?’
It was such an obvious attempt to change the topic and yet, despite his attempt to give himself space and regroup, for some inexplicable reason Jake heard himself replying to Flávia.
‘Not meeting, just checking on.’
‘Doesn’t sound remotely stalkerish.’ She arched her eyebrows.
Although—even if she hadn’t heard the stories about the perennial bachelor Jake Cooper—she could never have imagined him chasing after any woman.
‘I’ll bear that in mind.’ His tone was dry, but clearly he wasn’t about to elaborate.
She told herself there was no reason to feel disappointed. Yet still, she did.
Well, what did you expect? she berated herself silently. That wanting to talk shop with you over dinner meant you’re suddenly the man’s confidante?
And then he shocked her by continuing.
‘I went to check on Brady. My nephew. He’s seven and he’s being looked after by one of Paulista’s retired paediatric nurses. Still, he’s in a strange country and a strange room, and I didn’t want him to wake up and be disorientated.’
She wasn’t sure which part of the admission hit her hardest. There were plenty of stories about Jake Cooper the supersurgeon, and just as many about Jake Cooper the stag.
But there were absolutely none about Jake Cooper the doting uncle.
‘You have a...nephew?’ She blinked abruptly, and he paused, but then continued.
‘Yes. My late sister’s son.’
Flávia opened her mouth, then closed it again. She thought of her sister, and her brother-in-law. And then she thought of her young nieces. When she spoke again her tone wasn’t shocked, or gushing. It was just as honest and sincere as she felt.
‘I’m so sorry for your loss. Was it recent?’
It felt like a lifetime that she thought he wasn’t going to engage with her. And then...he did.
‘Ten months,’ he bit out.
‘Was it sudden?’ she pressed gently. ‘Or was there some warning? Not that it’s ever enough.’
Another long beat of silence swirled around them before he answered. Each admission drawn out from him as though he didn’t want to, but as though he couldn’t stop himself. Because Jake wanted to talk? Or because he wanted to talk to her?
Flávia wasn’t sure. She told herself it didn’t matter either way.
‘Oesophageal cancer,’ he growled. ‘Apparently, she went to her local hospital with stomach pains and they told her they suspected
gallstones and sent her home telling her they’d send a follow-up appointment within weeks.’
She could hear the gruffness to his voice and she knew he was trying to eradicate it. Didn’t it speak volumes about the man’s compassion that he couldn’t quite manage to do so?
‘She told me she took painkillers and missed the appointment because Brady had some recital she couldn’t miss. Something about being a single mum.’
‘I can understand that,’ Flávia murmured quietly.
‘By the time things got so bad that she had to call an ambulance, they diagnosed advanced oesophageal cancer and she finally called me to come up from London. We weren’t exactly close the last ten years, the odd phone call once or twice a year.’ She could hear the bitter notes he was trying too hard to conceal, and her heart ached for him. ‘But we led different lives. Anyway, by then there was nothing they could do but move her to a hospice. She died six days later. Ironic, wouldn’t you say?’
She cocked her head, studying him.
‘Why?’ she asked at last, the infinite sadness in his voice seeming to draw some invisible band tight—almost too tight—around her chest. ‘Because you think you should somehow have been able to save her?’
‘I’m an oncologist.’
‘Can you save everyone who walks through your door? Especially when they come to you so late?’
He didn’t like it—she could tell even as she ignored the part of her brain wondering how she could tell.
‘She was my sister,’ he ground out. ‘And she was the only parent that seven-year-old boy had. I should have been able to do...something.’
His voice cracked suddenly. Unexpectedly.
Flávia didn’t think, she just moved. Closing the gap between them and placing her hand on his forearm as though it could somehow offer him a comfort that no words could. And even when he lowered his head stiffly and stared down at it, as if wondering where the contact had come from, she didn’t move.
Neither did Jake.
‘And now you’re doing the only thing you can. You’re his legal guardian.’
‘Yeah.’ His voice hardened to a grim, self-deprecating edge. ‘Jake Cooper, the guy with the reputation as an emotionally detached workaholic.’
Falling For The Single Dad Surgeon (A Summer In São Paulo Book 2) Page 4