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‘What happened?’ she asked softly.
His eyes came back to hers, the flicker of pain in their bluer than blue depths striking at the tender core of Georgie’s heart. ‘Tractor accident,’ he said in an emotionless tone that she instinctively knew was a facade. ‘It rolled when a part of the bank he was driving on collapsed.’
‘That must have been truly devastating for you and your mother and your sister,’ she said.
He looked at her, his eyes narrowing slightly. ‘I don’t recall telling you I had a sister,’ he said. ‘Have you been discussing me with the staff?’
Georgie felt her face start to heat. ‘Jennifer Patterson in A and E mentioned you had a sister who’d been injured in an accident,’ she explained. ‘I wasn’t searching for information, if that’s what you’re thinking.’
‘She’s my half-sister,’ he said after a small but taut silence.
‘How old is she?’
‘She turned sixteen a few weeks ago.’
Georgie ran her tongue over the dryness of her lips. ‘Is she OK now?’
His eyes met hers again. ‘Yes. She made a complete recovery. She’s a good kid, works hard at school and loves horses and the usual girl stuff. She’s coming to stay with me this weekend. It’s my mother and stepfather’s anniversary so I thought I’d offer to take Hannah to the beach and do some shopping.’
Georgie felt her antagonism towards him melt like ice cream under the force of a blowtorch. He sounded like the perfect big brother, adoring, supportive and affectionate. She could hear it in his voice, the love he had for his sister, and it made her wonder if she had been a little too hasty in her judgement of him.
She fidgeted with her coffee-cup again, her eyes not quite managing to meet his. ‘I … I feel very bad about what happened yesterday,’ she began awkwardly, ‘you know, me knocking you off your bike like that. I didn’t really apologise properly and when I heard what had happened to your sister and the patient you had three weeks ago I started to understand why you had been so … so …’
‘Forget it,’ he said. ‘No lasting damage was done.’
She bit her lip as she lifted his gaze back to his. ‘You’re being very gracious about it. You have a perfect right to be annoyed. I should have looked before I opened the door but I was in a hurry to get to the hospital and … well, you know the rest.’
‘It’s fine, Georgie,’ he said. ‘I shouldn’t have treated you the way I did. I can assure you it’s not my usual
style at all.’
She smiled at him tentatively. ‘So you really are the laid-back nice guy everyone told me you were?’
He smiled back at her, the whiteness of his teeth against the tan of his face making her realise all over again how very attractive he was. ‘I’m not an overbearing ogre,’ he said. ‘But I do have high standards when it comes to the care of patients. I have a responsibility to train you and as long as you are prepared to work hard, I’m sure we’ll get along just fine.’
‘In spite of who my father is?’ she asked with a little arch of one brow.
He held her look for a lengthy moment, his smile slowly fading. ‘I realise that it’s often hard for a family member to understand or even recognise the issues other people have with the ones they love. Your father is what I would consider a difficult personality, but that’s not to say he isn’t a good father. After all, even the world’s most murderous dictators still went home and hugged their own children.’
Georgie felt her hackles begin to rise all over again. ‘I’m not sure I like the idea of my father being compared to a murderous dictator.’
‘Would you agree he is at times a difficult person to deal with?’
‘No, of course not,’ she said. ‘My father has always been wonderfully supportive and easy to get along with.’
‘That’s probably because you’ve got him wrapped around your little finger,’ he said. ‘You only have to speak to a few of the theatre staff who’ve worked with him in the past to find out he was an arrogant, bombastic, instrument-throwing tyrant when things didn’t go his way. I certainly hope you’re not going to follow suit for I will not tolerate it.’
She gritted her teeth, fighting the urge to toss the contents of her coffee-cup in his face. ‘You really can’t help yourself, can you?’ she asked.
His eyes went to the white-knuckled grip she had on her cup before returning to her flashing brown eyes. ‘Rule number one, Dr Willoughby,’ he said. ‘If you throw that coffee in my face, you will be off the training scheme so fast you won’t know what hit you.’
Georgie got to her feet so abruptly her thighs bumped the edge of the table, sending the contents of her cup straight into his lap. She swallowed in horror as the dark stain spread, her heart thumping irregularly as the silence began to thicken the air until breathing became difficult.
He slowly got to his feet, his expression rigid with anger as he mopped up the spillage with his napkin.
‘I—I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I didn’t mean to do that.’
His eyes cut to hers. ‘Didn’t you?’
