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But this was so much more personal.
The waiter appeared and placed their entrées in front of them. Sullivan smiled and took the wine from the cooler and topped up her glass. She ran her fingers up and down the stem of the wine glass, contemplating his words. But Sullivan wasn’t finished. He continued, ‘I thought you royal children had something inbuilt into you all—a kind of thing that always said, This could be me. Life changes constantly, Gabrielle. You’re a doctor. You know that better than most. Accidents happen. People get sick. Surely you must have known this could always have been a possibility?’
She shook her head. ‘But I didn’t want this. I didn’t ask to be born into this life. I’ve spent the last few years running away from it—keeping my head down and doing the kind of work that I wanted to do.’
‘And you can’t do that now?’
She stared at her entrée. The jungle seemed a million miles away. Right now it felt as if she would never get back there, never get to lead a team on another TB mission, never to get dance in her tent late at night.
‘I’m not sure I can,’ she whispered.
Sullivan reached over and squeezed her hand as a shiver went down her spine. Saying the words out loud was scary. They’d been dancing around in her head from the second Arun and the rest of the security team had approached her in Paris.
She met Sullivan’s gaze. ‘I feel as if my life has been stolen from me.’ She closed her eyes for a second. ‘And I feel terrible about the thoughts I’m having about my brother.’
‘Is he still incommunicado?’
She nodded her head. ‘Why can’t he even have the courtesy to have a conversation with me? I know things happen. But it wasn’t as if anything in particular did happen here. Andreas left. He chose to leave. He could have waited until I was back. He could have told me he didn’t want to rule. We could have come to some...arrangement.’
Sullivan took a sip of his wine. ‘And what kind of arrangement could that be? Oh, just let me work for the next ten years, Andreas, and then I’ll come back and take over from you?’
Indignation swept through her. ‘What’s so wrong about that? At least then there would have been plans, a chance to think ahead—anything but leave the principality in the state it is now.’
Sullivan picked up his fork. ‘Could there be anything else going on?’
‘You mean besides his wife?’
Sullivan frowned. ‘You said he’d emailed you while we were in the jungle. It’s obvious he hasn’t looked after things well these last few years.’
‘What are you implying?’
He looked her straight in the eye. ‘Could Andreas be depressed, for example?’
She was stunned. It hadn’t even crossed her mind. Not for a second. She had just been so angry with him for disappearing and not answering any calls, texts or emails.
She picked up her fork and started toying with her food. ‘I have no idea. We haven’t been close these last few years. His wife...his wife has been his biggest influence.’
Sullivan must have picked up on her tone. The edges of his lips turned upwards. ‘You don’t like her much, do you?’
‘I don’t have much in common with a TV actress whose idea of a humanitarian act is to donate her lipstick to the nearest charity.’
Sullivan almost choked on his food. ‘Okay, then, I’ll give you that one.’
Gabrielle finally managed to put some of the delicious smoked salmon into her mouth. After a few months in the jungle, some burgers at the bar in Paris and quick hospital sandwich last night and today, it had been a long time since she’d tasted something so good.
She leaned back in her chair and gave a little groan. ‘Can we come back here every night?’
Sullivan nodded. His plate was half-empty. He was obviously already enjoying his food. ‘Fine with me. I think Arun might have something to say about it, though.’ He leaned forward and whispered, ‘I think we caused him a bit of a headache tonight.’
She smiled and looked around, taking the time to pick out some of the familiar sights of the capital city. The cathedral, the old monastery, the brick distillery. All of these had been part of her daily commute to private school.
She could feel the tension start to leave her shoulders. Thinking about Mirinez generally tied her up in knots. She’d been so on edge since she’d got back she hadn’t taken the time to think about the things she liked about being here.
The food. The people. The weather.
Too much of her time had been spent on all the things that made her insides twist and turn. She sipped at her wine as she tried to relax a little. The uptight person she’d been these last few days wasn’t normal for Gabrielle at all, even when she was working as a doctor in a time of crisis.
The waiter came and magically swapped their plates and the smell of her langoustine ravioli made her stomach growl. Sullivan smiled and picked up his fork. ‘Feeling better yet?’
She took her first mouthful. ‘Yes. I’d forgotten how good food like this tastes.’ She gave her stomach a pat. ‘If we eat here every night I’ll need a major workout plan.’
‘You mean besides running a country?’
She nodded as his phone beeped. He pulled it from his pocket, looked at it and stuffed it back. Her heart gave a few thuds against her chest. ‘The hospital? Is there a problem?’
He looked amused. ‘No. Not at all. It was Gibbs.’
‘Gibbs?’ The name of their co-ordinator at Doctors Without Borders jolted her back to reality. Sullivan had agreed to come with her Mirinez—to offer her support—but she had forgotten there would always be a time limit.
‘We’ve just got here. He can’t be trying to send you on another mission already?’
Sullivan shrugged and didn’t answer.
‘He is?’ She
was indignant on his behalf. She knew he’d come straight from one mission to join hers. They’d only just arrived in Paris before they’d come here and then been thrown straight into the mine accident.
‘You need a break. You need some down time.’ Then she shook her head at the irony. ‘And you haven’t exactly managed to get any here.’
‘It doesn’t really matter. I like working.’
‘But there are rules about these things. We’re supposed to have a certain amount of time between our missions. You’ve already stepped into an emergency once, there can’t be another already.’
He raised one eyebrow. ‘Can’t there?’
She put down her fork. It didn’t matter how delicious the food in front of her, for some reason she’d just lost her appetite. ‘What does he want you to do?’
Sullivan finished another mouthful of food. ‘I don’t know. I haven’t phoned him back. And I won’t—not yet, anyway. I want to review the patients I’ve operated on. I might take the miner with the injured hand back to Theatre. I’m worried about contractures. I’ll need to stay for at least...’ he paused for a second ‘...a week or so.’
She gulped. ‘That’s not enough of a break. Plus, you’re actually working.’
‘Not all the time.’ There was a twinkle in his eye now. A little pulse of adrenaline surged through her body.
She picked up her fork and played with her food. That glint was taking her places she couldn’t go anywhere in public. She’d never met anyone who could do that to her with just one look, just one smile.
‘Do you ever have a holiday, Sullivan?’ she sighed. ‘I get the impression maybe not.’
He took a sip of his wine. ‘The last holiday I had was around four years ago. My father decided we should do some touring. We spent three weeks on the road. Started in San Francisco, then went down to Los Angeles, across to Las Vegas then on into Utah and some of the national parks.’ He gave a sad kind of smile. ‘We hired a camper, and after the first week of sleeping in the camper my father could hardly walk. He said it was hotels all the way after that.’ He gave a sudden laugh.
