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‘The cervical cerclage on the woman with the twenty-week-old foetus,’ Alex answered softly.
He raised his eyebrows, scrutinising the woman again.
‘Indeed. Well, since you were in my surgery, for the record, her name was Gigi Reed. And she’d already named her unborn baby Ruby, just in case.’
‘You remember their names?’
‘It was a difficult case.’
‘Not for you.’ She eyed him anew. As though reassessing him.
Louis gave himself a metaphorical kick. He shouldn’t have let her know he knew his patients’ names. Gifted but arrogant, that was his reputation and he was fine with that. He didn’t need anyone outside his trusted team to realise that he could probably name every patient he’d ever operated on, as well as linking them to their procedure.
What was it about this woman that fired him up the way she did?
People mattered to him. His patients mattered. They always had.
‘The additional complications in this case and the fact that the woman turned out to be such a high-profile businessman’s daughter have made it a high-interest story.’ He went for one of his famous shrugs. ‘Hard to forget her name.’
‘Except that Ruby’s name has never been mentioned.’
She didn’t let up, this woman. He shouldn’t find her tenacity so appealing.
‘Fine, you’ve got me. I remember my patients’ names. They matter to me. Their procedures matter to me. And Gigi’s was a good operation. She’d suffered three miscarriages in the past, probably what had weakened her cervix. Stitching it closed might help prevent premature labour.’
He didn’t add that the procedure carried significant risks, or that every minute, hour, day was crucial. He didn’t need to. Alex clearly understood that or she wouldn’t have been in his OR. The question was, who had let her in, and did some heads need to roll?
‘It’s a hail-Mary procedure that very few surgeons could have even attempted. Fewer still could have actually pulled it off.’
She bit her tongue before she could add whatever else it was she had been about to say. He found himself strangely curious. About what this woman...what Alex thought of him? He eyed her thoughtfully. Finally breaking free of her spell, falling back on what he knew best.
He advanced on her, watching with grim satisfaction as she braced herself, her eyes darkening with the mutual attraction she clearly didn’t want to acknowledge.
‘So you’re Gordon’
s protégé.’
Another humble blush.
‘I wouldn’t put it quite that way.’
‘I would.’ His eyes never left her. He took another step towards her, watching her every reaction. ‘He speaks exceptionally highly of you. He really fought your case for you to be in that surgery. I don’t just let anyone in, you know.’
Was he still talking about his surgeries, he wondered, or had the conversation suddenly split off into a second, less overt direction? When had he let that happen? He deliberately advanced again.
‘You should.’ She almost covered the slight quake in her voice and he flashed another wolfish grin. ‘You’re an exceptional surgeon—any doctor would be inspired by watching you.’
The unexpected compliment caught him off guard. Why did it mean more when it came from this stranger’s lips?
‘Should I be offended that you sound so surprised?’ he drawled in an effort to conceal his rare unsettled state. ‘I understood my reputation as far as my career went was exemplary.’
The hollow, unimpressed laugh unbalanced him even further and Louis didn’t know what to think. He was always in control, always so assured that he found this current state of flux anathema.
‘True, but with your hand-picked teams and closed surgeries, which most of us mere mortals have never actually witnessed in person, you’ll forgive us for considering that your shining reputation could have been coloured by the simple fact that you’re a Delaroche.’
‘Is that so?’
‘It is.’ She affected a shrug. ‘There’s only one thing I don’t understand.’
