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Evie opened her mouth, then blew out hard.
‘You assumed wrong,’ came her eventual clipped response. ‘It’s quiet here. And lonely. I’m used to the bustle of family. You should have asked me, checked with me.’
‘You’re right,’ Max acknowledged.
She was hurt, he realised with a jolt.
It was an eye-opener. He’d expected Evie to be furious with him for coming back so soon. But he hadn’t considered she might be hurt that he’d left her alone in the first place. Abandoned her, as she’d put it.
She didn’t even seem to care about what had happened that night before he’d left, apart from her initial dislike of him dismissing it as merely a misstep.
‘Do you want a coffee?’ he asked gently. ‘A tea?’
‘Geez, Max,’ she grumbled, but the initial heat had dissipated from her voice. ‘It’s so early it’s still practically the middle of the night. I’m going back to bed.’
‘Right.’ He swallowed abruptly as she stomped back up the stairs and he noticed her attire for the first time. A strappy vest did a poor job of covering generous curves, whilst light pyjama bottoms followed the contours of her bottom.
He dragged his gaze away but the heat was already suffusing his body.
He was in serious trouble. One tiny indication that she might not be as immune to him as he’d first thought and his resolve was crumbling again, faster than a chocolate sunbed on a sunny beach.
This was shaping up to be more of a roller coaster than their fling had been, and all he could hope to do was hold on and see where the ride took him.
* * *
‘So, that brings us to section six: Sex after transplantation.’
A low groan of objection escaped Evie’s lips and she shifted uncomfortably in the consultant’s office chair.
After her humiliation of the other day, and their cringeworthy row earlier this morning, the last thing she wanted to do was to discuss the intimate details of her libido whilst sitting a foot away from the man who stirred said libido but who couldn’t have been less attracted to her.
‘I really don’t think we need to go into that now.’
Undaunted by her lack of enthusiasm, however, her nephrologist shot her a smile as she slid a pamphlet across the coffee table separating them.
‘Evie.’ Arabella Goodwin cocked an eyebrow at her. ‘We’re all adults here and, whilst I appreciate you and Max kept your relationship impressively discreet whilst you were working between here and the centre, we do nevertheless need to consider the fact that you clearly have a healthy sexual relationship.’
‘Oh...no...we don’t...that is, there is no...relationship.’
‘I do understand you don’t want to be part of the rumour mill, Evie,’ the woman cut in, not unkindly, ‘but I also understand that you have a daughter together, and therefore we really do need to cover this material as part of your post-operative care. However, please rest assured that nothing said in here will leave my office.’
‘No...it’s just...’ Evie tried again, her cheeks stinging with humiliation as she felt unusually flustered. She wanted to look to Max for support but was concerned that he might not wish to be dragged further into it. Besides, she couldn’t bring herself to meet his gaze. As a doctor she might have asked similar kinds of personal questions without thinking twice, but it was very different from discussing her own sex-life with former colleagues. And, again, there was that little issue of doing so in front of Max.
As if reading her mind, Max shifted in his own seat and cleared his throat calmly. She waited for his icy tone to set his colleague straight once and for all.
‘Please, Arabella.’ His voice was controlled, polite. ‘As you say, we kept things discreet when we were colleagues but, yes, we have a daughter together. Do continue.’
With a squeak of embarrassment Evie snatched her hand away from the pamphlet.
She snapped her head around, no longer too ashamed to look him in the face, only to be met with his steely gaze. Clearly he wasn’t encouraging—what threatened to be a deeply intimate—conversation for his own entertainment or to make her feel any more humiliated than she already did. But his expression was unreadable. She was going to have to go along with it, for now, but she made a mental note to challenge him just as soon as they were alone again.
Not that that was a particularly thrilling prospect at this moment, either.
‘Thank you. Let’s start by noting that there are many factors which can influence sexual desire after transplantation, not least a patient’s self-confidence.’
With a whoosh of breath, Evie resigned herself to the inevitable conversation, which already had her feeling as uncomfortable as she had when, as a teenager, she had been caught with her boyfriend at the time by her bumbling stepfather, who had subsequently attempted to have The Talk. She reached subconsciously once more for the pamphlet as Professor Goodwin continued.
‘During the pre-operative period, especially when on dialysis, there are obviously more toxins around the body, which might have influenced your physical health. But also going through the process of dialysis could understandably have made you feel less confident in yourself?’
