Falling For The Single Dad Surgeon (A Summer In São Paulo Book 2)

by Charlotte Hawkes

  ‘He cared about you. He didn’t want you to get bitten again. I can see where your ex was coming from.’

  He sounded almost...angry about it. But that didn’t make sense.

  ‘I’ve been bitten plenty of times over the years.’ She narrowed her eyes. ‘It’s a hazard of my career.’

  ‘Maybe, but have you always risked a bite when there’s been no antivenom on hand?’

  She watched him in silence, not sure why he sounded so accusatory.

  ‘It happened years ago,’ she spoke at last.

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘The incident people talk about. It happened years ago,’ she repeated, as coolly and calmly as she could. ‘There were actually some vials of antivenom, though admittedly not enough.

  ‘The government had received a complaint from some high-ranking official whose condo backed onto the sanctuary’s land.’ She leaned sideways and flopped her shoulder against the concrete pillar opposite his. ‘I believe the guy wanted to build an extension, but he couldn’t build that close to his boundary so he decided the solution was to acquire sanctuary land. But the sanctuary is struggling for more land as it is, without losing any.’

  ‘So you risked your life over land?’

  Something swirled between them—dark and tight—but she couldn’t work it out.

  ‘The government revoked the licence for eight months, maybe nine. But without it, Cesar and Therese only had about four vials of antivenom remaining and they couldn’t acquire any more venom.’

  ‘Someone told me that a nature programme presenter got bitten once and needed nineteen vials to keep him alive,’ he bit out incredulously. ‘Is that true?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So then, how far did you really think four vials would go?’

  ‘We didn’t think about it,’ she told him evenly. ‘There was no choice, so we just got on with it.’

  ‘You could have died.’

  He doesn’t care, she reminded herself urgently. Don’t read too much into it.

  ‘We could have.’ She bowed her head, making no attempt to deny it. ‘But we’ve all been bitten before—we build a little immunity. And, like I said, we had no choice.’

  ‘You had a choice, Flávia. You all had a choice. You could have just kept yourself safe. Fought it in court and then gone back to the snakes when the government reissued the licences, or permits, or whatever.’

  ‘To hundreds of dead or ill snakes? We had a responsibility to them, Jake. We weren’t about to just abandon them.’

  ‘You have a responsibility to yourself as well. And those who love you.’

  ‘Now you really do sound like Enrico.’

  She could actually feel the air around her turning frosty. Taut.

  ‘Is that so?’

  His tone was silky, and quiet. But she knew she didn’t mistake the edge to it. And still she kept pushing the invisible boundaries.

  ‘He didn’t like me putting myself in danger, either. He always wanted me to give up the sanctuary part of my life and focus on working full-time from the research lab. As if the lab isn’t the bit of my job that I endure until I can get back to the forest and escape the city.’

  ‘Sounds very much as though he loved you,’ he gritted out, scowling at her for so long that Flávia wondered if time had stood still.

  ‘Maybe you’re right,’ she offered at length. ‘At the time I didn’t think so. I thought that if he really loved me, then he could never have asked me to choose.’

  ‘And now you realised he cared and you regret your decision,’ he scorned.

  ‘No.’ She pulled her lips together ruefully. And the way Jake’s eyes followed the movement heated up her whole body. ‘I guess the truth is that I just didn’t love him back. At least not enough to want to give up my life for him.’

  Something flickered across those morpho-blue pools. Too fast for her to follow.

  ‘Maybe you just haven’t met the right person yet,’ he suggested.

  ‘Is that an offer?’ The wry question slipped off her lips before she could bite it back.

  ‘That night was a one-off,’ he answered hastily. ‘I have Brady. My career is in the UK...’

  ‘Relax.’ She forced a laugh, and prayed it didn’t sound as hollow to Jake’s ears. ‘I know you’re not in the market for a relationship.’

  ‘Evidently, neither are you.’

  He paused, as though waiting to hear her response.

  ‘No,’ she answered, quelling the voice inside which taunted otherwise. Assuring herself that the voice was wrong.

  ‘I love my job. It’s who I am. Surely, if someone loved me enough, he wouldn’t ask me to change that?’

  Jake didn’t answer, though she wanted him to. More than she would have cared to admit.

  She could imagine he was thinking about Brady, and how much the boy had already lost. And then, though she tried to pretend otherwise, she tried to imagine how he might feel if she and Jake were together and something happened to her.

  And suddenly, she wondered if he’d lost more than he’d realised when Helen had died. She knew the rumours. She knew he’d always had a reputation for avoiding relationships, but now she’d gleaned the little she had about his parents, she couldn’t help wondering if it had been a means of self-defence rather than anything else.

  And had his sister’s death affected him more than even he had realised?

  ‘Perhaps you’re right,’ he murmured, as if feeling he ought to put an end to the conversation, but was unable to. ‘But you’re working on a venom-based therapy that could stop cancer cells from metastasising. That’s incredible, Flávia. And you can still have that. You can still save all those lives. But do you have to be the one at the sanctuary risking your life to do it?’

  ‘Yes,’ she answered.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because, for me, it isn’t just about the research to save human lives, Jake. It’s about the protected habitats we’re creating to save the snakes. It’s about education for people not to club them to death—which you can understand when they know the snake could kill their kid within hours.’

  Neither of them looked at each other, both of them appearing equally distracted by the to-ing and fro-ing of the barbecue guests. She wondered if his was as much of an act as hers.

  ‘I need those snakes, Jake. I need to see them grow older, bigger, healthier, instead of seeing their numbers dwindle year on year. It’s the only tangible reward I receive. I don’t get to see the results in a patient, right there in front of me, telling me how I’ve changed their life.’

  ‘But they’re out there. More and more as each trial is successful.’

  ‘Yes, and you get that. But I don’t. I work in a lab and I work in the sanctuary. So the snakes are my patients. I shouldn’t be told to give them up because it doesn’t fit with someone else’s idea of what I should reasonably do. How would you like it if someone told you that you couldn’t be a surgeon any more?’

  Jake opened his mouth to tell her it was completely different, but suddenly something stopped him. He wanted to argue, but he found that he could see what she was getting at.

  Perhaps understand it. To a degree.

  Even now, he still got a kick of satisfaction from being able to give a patient their life back. He got to see them, and their families, at that moment when they all realised that something he had done had given them the most precious gift of all.

  The gift of time.

  But Flávia, and others like her, never got that. Even though, without them, he couldn’t do what he did.

  So if she considered the snakes to be her patients, then he could understand why.

  ‘You’re right,’ he answered eventually. ‘I wouldn’t like it if anyone asked me to give up what I do. Why should it be any different for you?’

  She didn’t a
nswer out loud. Instead, she turned her head to look at him, scrutinise him, trying to decide whether he really meant it.

  Then, after what felt like an age, she smiled. That soft, quirky smile of hers which seemed to have the knack of reverberating right through his gut and all the way along his sex.

  One step and he could reach her, sweep her up against him and carry her back into the house without any of the guests seeing.

  God, what is wrong with me?

  Gripping his drink tighter, he made himself take a long, deep swig.

  ‘I’ve been watching Brady with Papai. And with the girls,’ Flávia told him a few moments later. Oblivious to the battle he was waging with himself.

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘The hospital isn’t going to help Brady settle, you know. However lovely Patricia is, and whatever clubs they’ve laid on for the few kids who have come with their parents for this summer programme, it won’t work for a boy like him. He won’t be mentally and physically stimulated. He won’t be happy.’

  ‘No, I realise that. But I’ll find a solution.’

  ‘You could always bring him here for days out with Papai, or Maria, and even me. The girls like spending time with Brady.’

  ‘That’s incredibly thoughtful of you, but...’

  ‘It’s a longer commute for you, of course. But Luis makes it every day and he can show you the best routes.’

  ‘I’m not bothered about me...but the imposition.’

  ‘Papai loves taking the girls for walks and teaching them new stuff. I know he’d love Brady’s eagerness for learning.’

  ‘That’s incredibly kind, but you don’t even know what your father or sister would think.’

  ‘Of course I do,’ Flávia scoffed immediately. ‘Whose idea did you actually think it was?’

  He didn’t know what it was, but he couldn’t help grinning. He might have known Flávia would push the credit onto someone else. Although, it was still ridiculously generous of her family to agree.

  ‘It’s really very—’

  ‘Before you turn me down,’ Flávia cut in, ‘I should say that this has nothing to do with the other night. That was a one-off. Never to be repeated. It doesn’t suit you because of Brady and it doesn’t suit me because, frankly, I filled my fun quota for the year with you. Maria can’t hassle me again for at least twelve months.’

  Jake laughed.

  It was amazing how he could have spent ten months not wanting to laugh at a single thing, and then Flávia had come along and in two encounters had brought light—air—back to his dark world.

  ‘One more thing.’ She finally pushed herself off the wall where she’d been lounging and spun around to face him.

  It took everything he had not to haul her to him and take up where they’d left off a week ago.

  ‘And what’s that?’ he asked, feigning an air of resignation.

  ‘Before you decide, remember that this isn’t about you, or me. This is about Brady. And what works best for that seven-year-old boy.’

  Her amber eyes pierced through him. Pinning him down. So intelligent and so caring. But he thought he preferred them best when they were glazed over and spilling with need.

  ‘I know this is about Brady.’ Jake wasn’t sure how he pulled himself together.

  This staying away from her business wasn’t really working. If anything, he thought it was making him want her more.

  Maybe it was time for a differential diagnosis.

  ‘I tell you what,’ he answered thoughtfully, at last. ‘I’ll bring Brady here if you agree to come and watch a medical procedure with me.’

  He saw her eyes flicker with interest before she even spoke.

  ‘What kind of procedure?’

  ‘The kind where I use one of the antivenoms we’re trialling for VenomSci. One of the antivenoms that you helped to create.’

  ‘You know, I have never actually seen one of those for real. Only footage afterwards. And I’ve followed case studies, of course.’

  ‘You’ve never seen what we do close-up?’

  ‘I worked tumour paint in the lab, but I was only a small part of that team, and then I moved on to my own project trying to find this application of snake venom to stop tumours from metastasising.’

  ‘Nonetheless, you were still an integral part of the team that developed VenomSci’s fluorescent dye. Want to see how you’ve helped to reshape the face of surgical oncology for me today?’

  ‘You’d do that for me?’

  ‘Why not?’

  He knew he couldn’t claim his offer was for entirely altruistic reasons. But when she looked at him like that, he didn’t even care.

  CHAPTER NINE

  ‘THE FIRST THING I want to teach you is how to set up your camp correctly.’

  ‘The first thing?’ Jake answered dryly. ‘You took my rucksack from me back at the house to give me one of your own instead. Then we spent the last few hours hacking our route through the jungle—and that was only after you instilled in me how crucial it is to have a machete and know how to wield it.’

  Jake was glad his nephew was safe with Flávia’s family. Only the prospect of a sleepover with his two new best friends, and the promise of a day on an adventure trail with Eduardo, had stopped Brady from kicking up a fuss about not accompanying Jake and Flávia into the Atlantic Forest.

  ‘Are you pining for your luxury city life already, urbanista?’ Flávia teased, the way she’d been doing more and more, ever since they’d left the city.

  As though the rainforest was bringing out the real her, and she was more relaxed and contented than he’d ever known her. As though he was seeing the real Flávia, which very few others outside her family would ever see.

  He found that he liked the sensation. Most likely a little too much. He could picture how it might be if this was the life he and Brady could lead for good. And then it worried him that it was all so easy to imagine.

  No woman had ever made him think of the future before, not to mention that ‘having fun for one night only’ Flávia Maura certainly shouldn’t be the one to break that pattern.

  He had no room in his life for her. For any woman. He’d do well to remember that.

  ‘You’d better believe I am. I simply don’t see how you can prefer tramping through undergrowth, with no idea what lurks within, and eating corned beef hash out of a tin tray to the convenience of a hot power shower, climate control and a beautifully prepared meal.’

  ‘Is that so?’ She shook her head, smiling. ‘Listen, Jake. Tell me what you hear.’

  Jake listened, uncharacteristically obedient. This was her show. Her party.

  ‘Nothing. I hear absolutely nothing,’ he announced at length. ‘No city buzz, no verve. No hooting of cars letting you know the place is full of energy. Alive.’

  ‘Listen again.’ She practically twirled round in bliss, and he found his eyes drawn to the way her cargo pants perfectly cupped her pert backside.

  You’re in the jungle, for pity’s sake.

  ‘You can’t hear all that you just described, it’s true,’ she continued, oblivious. ‘But who wants to? All that noise pollution drowning out what really matters? You might not hear the loud city cacophony, Jake, but you can’t say you can’t hear anything. This place is practically teeming with life.’

  He tore his gaze away and tried to listen again, a part of him loving the way her brow pulled taut in frustration at his admissions, making her look all the more adorable.

  And tempting.

  ‘The jungle is full of animals, and insects, all coming together in a harmonious concerto of sounds. Listen.’ She closed her eyes and held her finger up as if to emphasise her point. And he tried. He really tried. ‘I can hear birds, and frogs, and insects—all chirping, croaking, humming. I can even hear howler monkeys. And take in the scent of all that vegetation
. Soil, wood, flowers, trees. It’s as though the jungle is dancing with our every sense. Seducing them.’

  Whatever innocent picture Flávia had succeeded in painting in his head shattered at that final comment.

  All he could think about was a different kind of seduction. The images in his head were all about Flávia, with that shimmering green dress of hers pooling at her feet, and that look of pure pleasure playing over her features. But Jake kept that to himself.

  His body tightened at the memory, but he kept that to himself, too.

  Instead, she continued.

  ‘The reason I exchanged the rucksack you’d brought for one I’d packed myself is pretty much for this very reason.’ There was almost a merriness to her tone. ‘Bush craft is all about preparation. Working smart and planning out beforehand, so that ultimately you don’t have to work harder than necessary. Especially out in the jungle when everything can be so unpredictable.’

  ‘Go on, then, jungle woman,’ he said softly. ‘Give me your first lesson.’

  She studied him sharply, but he could read that pulse flickering in her neck, and it didn’t help his attempts to stay on topic.

  She cleared her throat.

  ‘When I’m setting up a temporary camp, I like the KISS approach...’ She flushed but rushed on. ‘As in, Keep It Simple.’

  ‘Should I remind you that kiss is spelt with a double S?’ he asked huskily, unable to empty his head of the image of his lips claiming hers.

  ‘Fine.’ Flávia glowered at him, but he noticed the way she swallowed. Hard. ‘Keep It Simple, Stupid.’

  And what did it say about him that he liked how easily he could provoke her?

  ‘In the top of your rucksack, you’ll find a tarpaulin to shelter yourself from the rain, and a hammock to keep you off the jungle floor, each bound up with paracord. Get the tarp first...it’s the camouflage one. Good. Wait—what are you doing?’

  He stopped, looked.

  ‘Don’t leave your rucksack on the jungle floor like that—you’ll get all manner of things trying to crawl in there and hitch a ride. Let me just tie this off...okay, you can hang it on that hook.’