AllFreeNovel
Share Us
‘Excellent.’ She nodded. ‘That gives me more than I was expecting to work with.’
Running through the remaining points, Jake finished up his team’s part of the operation and moved to clean up. If he was quick, he realised, he could probably catch Brady for lunch.
And if that was another means of occupying his attention and avoiding Flávia, then he pretended he didn’t notice.
It was only once he found himself scanning the cafeteria that he realised he was looking for Flávia.
As he always did.
Everywhere he went in this place, it seemed that he was scanning for her, listening for her, disenchanted when he didn’t see her. It was foolish. Added to that, it was dangerous. This wanting...more.
He never wanted more. Not from any woman.
He wouldn’t have categorised himself as a playboy by any standards, but he never went in for long-term relationships. When did he ever have time? Even before, when he’d been a so-called carefree bachelor. And certainly not now that he had to be responsible for his nephew.
Yet he searched for Flávia, all the same. Like he wanted their one night together to be something that it wasn’t.
It was insane.
He’d even tried telling himself that the unexpected intensity of the attraction was because, since he’d become sole guardian to Brady, he hadn’t had any women in his personal life, at all. The poor kid had been through enough turmoil without having his uncle bringing random women home.
Yet the other night, he’d gone and booked a suite just so he could take Flávia, a virtual stranger, to bed.
As if he hadn’t been able to help himself.
He gripped his cup, willing the memories away. This attraction had to stop now. For Brady’
s sake, if nothing else.
As if to consolidate the idea, his nephew chose that very moment to walk through the cafeteria doors, but there were too many people milling around and Brady didn’t see him. Jake stood, ready to wave, but then he saw his nephew stop dead, his attention clearly arrested by someone or something.
Standing resolutely, Jake picked up his coffee cup and strode across to the tray corral. He could still just about see Brady but now, to his surprise, the characteristically serious, silent nephew was chatting—somewhat animatedly. Jake watched, but it was next to impossible to spot people from this distance. Even so, his stomach dipped oddly when he caught sight of the back of a head sporting long, glossy waves just like Flávia’s. He craned his neck for a better glimpse, but there were too many people and he still couldn’t tell who the boy was talking to.
He was seeing ghosts, he reprimanded himself sharply. He’d been thinking about Flávia and so his imagination had conjured her up.
But he was here for Brady. Not her.
He would not just stay here, hoping that this woman would walk through the door any moment. He would attend her lecture, like every other doctor there using the summer programme as a chance to broaden their knowledge base and keep up to date. But other than that, he wasn’t interested in seeing Flávia Maura again.
Then, tossing his rubbish into the bins, Jake weaved his way through the tables.
* * *
Flávia had been scanning through her lecture notes in the cafeteria when the young voice had penetrated her concentration.
‘Did you know that the terms venom, poison and toxin aren’t synonyms?’
She had looked up slowly, taking in a young kid with an English accent who was wearing cargo pants and A Bug’s Life tee, which probably explained his opening question. She had followed his gaze as it flickered onto her laptop case, the VenomSci logo emblazoned on the pristine black material, then she’d glanced back at him.
Even in that moment, her traitorous heart had begun to pound a little faster. Surely, there was no one else this kid could be but Jake’s nephew? Which meant Jake couldn’t be far behind. She had tried in vain to stop her eyes from darting around the room, bouncing off every wall and every person, as they looked for Jake.
She’d ignored the dip of her stomach when they finally confirmed what some intuitive part of her already knew—that he wasn’t there. He couldn’t be. Still, the hairs on her neck had stood up with some kind of awareness.
Time to calm down, she had remonstrated herself. Seeing Jake’s nephew here was pure coincidence, nothing more.
Except that she’d known that was a lie. There was only one reason that she had frequented Paula’s Café more times in the last week than she had probably used it in the last twelve months, and that reason was about six foot two, with dark hair, and almost as serious and earnest as the boy standing at her table.
However, it was the haunted expression which had poked its way into her, scraping at her. The brief story that Jake had told her about the boy’s mother had echoed painfully around her chest. Oesophageal cancer. So sudden and unpredictable. How easily could that be Julianna or Marcie?
