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PROLOGUE
‘DIFFICULT CASE, DR PARKER?’
Evie snapped her head off the cool glass of the vending machine at the unmistakeably masculine voice and tried to quash the fluttering of attraction suddenly tumbling in her stomach, despite her inner turmoil.
When was she going to get over this particularly inopportune attraction?
A moment ago, her brain had been swimming with a particularly challenging case. After a day of fighting for her patient and consistently hitting a brick wall, she was feeling drained and unhopeful, but a question from one of Silvertrees’ foremost plastic and orthoplastic surgeons, Maximilian Van Berg, and she felt more fired up than ever.
Just as she did every time she was around the man.
Evie hastily dredged up a bright smile. Professional but not too flirty. He liked professional, as demonstrated by his use of her title rather than just using her first name as other colleagues did. And he didn’t care much for flirts—any more than Evie cared to be thought of as one.
‘Nothing I can’t handle, Mr Van Berg.’
None of this Dr Van Berg for Max. He was old-school, trained by the Royal College of Surgeons, and he used his right to revert to Mr to reflect that.
‘That I don’t doubt,’ Max murmured to her surprise before turning to the vending machine. ‘Has this thing been swallowing money again?’
Wait, did he just compliment her—and in a voice that was sexy as hell?
Her nerve-endings tingled at the uncharacteristic gravelly tone. She was used to his clipped all-business tone with colleagues. In fact it was a shame Maximilian Van Berg wasn’t a paediatric plastic surgeon—she got the feeling he wouldn’t put his own reputation ahead of the best interests of a patient. He had attended the Youth Care Residential Centre where she normally worked a few times, and they’d always seen eye to eye on the cases then. Part of her itched to run this case by him, too, but he would certainly deem that unprofessional of her. She needed to push all thoughts from today out of her head for the night, think about other things and come back to it, refreshed, in the morning.
Instead, Evie allowed herself a covert assessment of the man beside her. He was wearing off-duty gear, which, she concluded grudgingly, only managed to underscore a muscled, athletic physique more suited to some chiselled movie star than the gifted surgeon the man actually was. As a psychiatrist, Evie only came to Silvertrees when she referred a case from her centre for troubled teens, but even she knew that Max was the golden boy of the hospital. And it hadn’t surprised her to learn how high a proportion of the hospital staff had apparently attempted to land the man, succumbing to the heady combination of undeniable surgical skills and brooding good looks.
But it seemed that what made him most irresistible was the fact that Max was also intensely private. He was committed to his career, notoriously elusive, and inflexible in his rules about keeping emotions and personal life out of his department; on the rare occasions he was snapped by the media at high-profile events, his dates were always the most stunning media starlets, hanging perfectly on his arm. He strongly disapproved of co-workers dating and had even earned himself the moniker Demon of Discipline. She had never known him to break his own rules, and she could still hear the censure in his tone when he’d heard about her semi-relationship with one of his colleagues.
And yet, during her not infrequent visits to Silvertrees, hadn’t she sensed some kind of spark between the two of them whenever they’d met?
Not that she meant to act on it, of course. She knew his rigid reputation only too well, which was one of the reasons she’d enthused about whatever—in reality, lacklustre—relationship she’d been in at the time they’d first met. And it had worked: Max had relaxed in her company, assured that she wasn’t flirting with him. Still she’d sometimes felt there was an uncharacteristic softness from him during the rare moments they’d been alone together.
‘Dr Parker?’ He broke into her musings. ‘I asked if the vending machine has been swallowing money again.’
Evie glanced through the glass panel to the item currently lodged, frustratingly precariously, on the half-open metal distribution arm, and sighed.
‘The last of my small change...’ she nodded, unable to help herself from adding ‘...and I’m starving.’
Evie tried not to gape as he fished in his pocket for coins for her. Or to notice the way his trousers pulled tantalisingly taut around well-honed thighs as he did so.
‘What were you after?’ he asked, his eyes not leaving hers.
Evie startled. If it had been anyone else offering to buy her a vending-machine snack she doubted she would have hesitated, but with Max it somehow seemed a more intimate gesture.
‘It’s just a granola bar, Dr Parker.’ He sounded almost amused, as though he could read her thoughts.
She was being ridiculous; she gave an imperceptible shake of her head. It was foolish to allow her own futile attraction to him to lead her to imagine there was more to the simple act than he actually intended.
‘As it happens,’ she managed wryly, ‘it was the raspberry and white chocolate muffin.’
‘A sweet tooth.’ He smiled. ‘I didn’t imagine that.’
A charge of heat fizzed through her. Logically, Evie knew he meant nothing by it but she couldn’t shake the idea that he’d imagined anything about her at all. Just a shame it wasn’t the same X-rated images she’d been unsuccessfully fighting whenever she imagined him.
‘It’s a weakness.’ She fought to show a casual smile, but she couldn’t help her tongue from darting out to moisten suddenly parched lips.
As Max’s eyes flicked straight down to the movement, Evie could have kicked herself for giving too much away. All she could do now was hold her ground and feign innocence, fighting the tingling heat as his eyes tracked up to meet hers. Boy, she hoped he couldn’t really read her thoughts.
‘Mine’s dark chocolate,’ he replied eventually, releasing her gaze as he turned flippantly back to the machine.
‘Sorry?’ She drew in a surreptitious deep breath.
‘My weakness. At least seventy per cent cocoa solids, though probably not more than eighty-five.’
As weaknesses went it was hardly significant yet she felt a thrill of pleasure. In all the time she’d known him she’d never once known him to make such small talk. It loaned her an unexpected confidence.
‘I didn’t think the lauded Max Van Berg had any weaknesses,’ she teased daringly.
‘I have them.’ He met her gaze head-on again. ‘I just make it a point not to show them.’
She swallowed abruptly before taking the proffered muffin from him and promptly tearing off a chunk as her empty stomach growled its appreciation. It had been a long, busy day.
‘I can’t believe you’re still here, going through patient files. Shouldn’t you be home, sleeping after a long shift? Or is that another weakness in your book?’
It was meant to be a joke but in her nervousness it came out more clipped than she’d intended. Fortunately, he didn’t seem to notice as he cast a grim gaze up the corridor.
‘No, I was boxing off my open cases before I leave next week.’
‘Oh, that’s right.’ Evie dipped her head; she remembered hearing something about that. ‘You’re going away to work with Médecins Sans Frontières, aren’t you?’
‘An eight-month project in the Gaza Strip,’ he acknowledged grimly, shadows chasing across his handsome profile as he turned his head away. ‘Helping burn victims, performing reconstructive surgery, amputations.’
‘From the fighting?’ Her heart flip-flopped at the idea of him risking his life in such an environment.
‘Sometimes.’ Max shrugged. ‘But around seventy-five per cent of my patients will be kids under five years old.’
‘I don’t understand.’
