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‘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.
