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He would only be here for a few weeks, a month at the most, filling in for The Island Clinic’s permanent cardiothoracic surgeon following a minor boating accident—not just for the Lucy Wells case, or the several other patients awaiting surgery, but for any emergencies—but then he would be gone.
It might not be a huge island, but it was big enough. He wasn’t going to see Talia here. He didn’t even know for sure that she’d returned to St Victoria after she’d disappeared, without a word, from his own life. But even if she had, he wasn’t about to bump into her.
He could still recall the passion in her voice as she’d described to him her job at the local hospital, across the island towards the more populated area near the capital, Williamtown, but The Island Clinic was isolated. The perfect safe haven for A-listers needing medical treatment in an environment where their privacy could be absolutely assured.
No, he wasn’t going to bump into Talia here.
Which was, he assured himself firmly, exactly the way he wanted it.
* * *
‘Hello, Talia. I can’t say I ever expected—or hoped—to see you again.’
A shiver started on the back of Talia’s neck and shot over her skin, permeating every inch of her goose-bumped flesh, through to her veins, turning her blood to ice. She couldn’t turn around. She could barely even lay the last of the instruments in the metal preparation tray.
Her mind spun.
The voice was Liam’s, and yet it wasn’t. She recognised the clipped, unerringly professional tone yet there was also an uncharacteristic hint of ice about it that almost made her want to pull her scrubs tighter around herself. Though whether more for warmth or for protection, she couldn’t quite be sure.
So he had actually come to St Victoria. Even though she’d known it was happening—even though she was the one who had put Liam’s name forward to her chief of staff—she hadn’t quite believed it. She’d been almost convinced he would turn down the case just because it was on St Victoria.
The fact that he hadn’t only proved one thing...that she was so insignificant to him that she hadn’t even factored into his decision-making process. A fact she already knew, of course. She’d discovered that three years ago. To her detriment.
Which was all the more reason why it should make no difference to her whatsoever that he was here, Talia reminded herself desperately.
She hadn’t recommended Liam to Nate because she’d wanted to see him again—because she absolutely had not—she had simply recommended him because she’d known that Duke Hospital’s famous Heart Whisperer would be the best chance for her young, desperate patient.
Her own emotions hadn’t factored into the equation at all.
Not at all.
So why was her body trembling as though it didn’t believe her?
You’re immune to him, she reminded herself desperately, preparing to turn around as she pretended that she didn’t feel half as shaky as she did.
Her one consolation was that at least Liam would never know it had been her who had put his name forward. She had asked Nate to keep that part to himself.
‘Is this what you intend to do for the next month, then?’ His low voice reverberated softly around the room, but she wasn’t fool enough to believe that made it no less dangerous to her. ‘Pretend you can’t even hear me? Only I can’t imagine it’s going to be the most successful play you could make.’
‘Of course not,’ she murmured, taking one final, steadying breath before she spun around—a bright, if uncharacteristically tight, smile plastered to her lips. It promptly froze in place the moment she met his expression of cool appraisal.
Pain slammed into her, hard and unyielding.
This was the man who had taught her what it was to ache, need, sear, just with a look. With a word. Yet right now he was looking at her as though he didn’t know her at all.
Like she was no one more special than a stranger he was meeting for the first time. It hurt more than she could have ever imagined possible.
‘Liam,’ she choked out, the name seeming to stick in her mouth, as though she was trying to savour it just a fraction longer.
It was enough to make her despair of herself, especially when her eyes locked with his and she was unable to drag them away again. Dark and foreboding.
Yet it wasn’t just that expression that was proving her undoing. As Talia found herself struggling for breath, fearing her legs would actually buckle beneath her, she reached behind her and gripped the medical trolley for support.
She’d spent the past three years telling herself that her girlish memories had built Liam up into something far more potent than he could ever truly have been in reality. Yet right now she realised that even her memories hadn’t gone far enough.
The man was as glorious as he’d ever been. From the six-two frame outlined with those broad shoulders, down the unmistakably honed chest beneath that immaculate suit shirt—in spite of the eighty-five-degree St Victoria heat, Talia could see that nothing had changed. His square jaw was a study in masculinity, and so sharp that she thought it would cut her even from that distance. His thighs still so impossibly muscled that she practically wanted to lick them.
She swallowed. Hard.
