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How she wished she could take her words back. Swallow them. Instead, she tried to regulate her breathing enough to answer.
‘Yes.’
Seven hours of blissful, uninterrupted sleep in the company jet’s bedroom suite had inarguably been more comfortable than the doctor’s accommodation at the New York clinic where she’d snatched the odd hour or so whilst pulling her second thirty-six-hour shift of the week.
‘Clearly it wasn’t enough—you still look tired.’ He peered at her, concerned.
It was hard to ooze the nonchalance for which she was so ironically well known when her whole body was going into overdrive at the mere suggestion of solicitude from him.
‘Gosh, thanks for the compliment.’
She even managed to keep her voice from shaking, but Myles ignored her dry tone.
‘You should look after yourself more.’ He apparently felt the need to hammer home the point.
Rae chastised herself for hoping for something more praiseworthy from him.
‘Says the man who, if you’re anything like my brother, exists on four hours’ sleep a night.’ She kept her laugh deliberately light.
He shrugged as though it was okay for him.
Her chest cracked.
So much for Myles being her bodyguard, meant to protect her, to ensure she didn’t get hurt. As far as Rae was concerned, he was the one person who could wound her more deeply than anyone else ever could.
Just as he had done before.
Clearly fifteen years had taught her absolutely nothing.
CHAPTER THREE
‘CASE C CONCERNS emergency foetal intervention at twenty-five weeks and four days into the pregnancy, for a sacrococcygeal teratoma. That is, a congenital tumour growing at the base of the foetus’ spine. It is one of the most common tumours amongst neonatals, occurring in approximately one in every forty thousand babies. But because it arises from stem cells it can be made up of any kind of tissue from anywhere around the body.’
It took a while for Myles to realise that he was as caught up in her lecture, her enthusiasm for her subject matter, as everyone else in the ballroom.
She looked magnificent up t
here on the stage and holding the entire conference in silent rapture. He had hugely underestimated her. Underestimated the residual feelings that still ran between them, and now he was here. Paying the price.
He tuned back in, unable to help himself.
‘Ultrasound. And because the teratoma has a blood supply, the baby’s heart was pumping much harder. It was as if they were in competition and the tumour was winning, resulting in a significant risk of the baby going into cardiac arrest.’
Myles shifted his position.
He’d been a battlefield trauma surgeon for so long. He’d never imagined doing anything else. Never wanted to.
But that was before.
In seventeen years, nothing had quite got to him like that day with Mikey, and what had happened in that village. And, suddenly, he’d found himself never wanting to pick up another scalpel for the rest of his life. Not because he was afraid of what he might do. But more he was afraid of what he might no longer be able to do.
Ever.
PTSD. Not uncommon after so many back-to-back tours, and so many atrocities, but that didn’t make it any easier to accept. It didn’t make the idea of going back to operating any more appealing. Which was why accepting Rafe’s suggestion of clinical observation—a sort of halfway house—had made sense, even if he hadn’t actually liked the idea.
He had his qualifications. And it wasn’t as though he was doing anything else. The death threats to Rafe’s family had been the proverbial added bonus. The tie-in with Rae almost like fate. He focussed back on Rae.
‘The de-bulking of the tumour on the actual foetus usually takes less than half an hour,’ she was telling them. ‘The majority of the five-hour operation is spent opening up the uterus in the first instance, and then stitching it closed again. Our biggest concern is to avoid compromising the health of the mother, and we have to make sure the uterus is sealed and watertight.’
