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‘Are you aware that people around here are speculating on whether or not you’re dating him?’ Jennifer asked.
Georgie stared at her in wide-eyed alarm. ‘Has someone been spying on me or something?’
Jennifer’s neat brows lifted. ‘So it’s true, then. One of the cleaning staff works part time at a gym in Bondi. She said she saw you working out together, looking pretty chummy. She even said you left together.’
‘That doesn’t mean a thing,’ Georgie said. ‘We happen to be members of the same gym and work at the same hospital and we live in the same suburb. End of story.’
‘He was pretty cut up over his last girlfriend,’ Jennifer said. ‘She was a hospital physiotherapist. She used to work for the group practice responsible for Ben’s post-operative patients. I don’t think he’s dated anyone since.’
‘I’m sorry to hear he had his heart broken but, really, it’s nothing to do with me,’ Georgie insisted.
Jennifer looked up at the clock on the wall. ‘You’d better get down and see what he wants. In the whole time I’ve worked with him I’ve never heard him so impatient to see someone.’ Her eyes twinkled as she added, ‘Maybe he’s falling for you, Georgie.’
‘I don’t think so,’ Georgie said, although her stomach felt like a thousand tiny wings were flapping inside her as she made her way to his office.
Ben’s office door burst open before she could even raise her hand to knock on it. ‘You have a heck of a lot of explaining to do, young lady,’ he growled as he practically dragged her into his office and slammed the door behind her. ‘I’ve had the CEO breathing down my neck all morning about Jonathon Tander’s threats to sue you, me and the entire hospital. What have you done?’
Georgie blinked at him in shock. ‘I—I didn’t do anything.’
He scooped a letter off his desk and thrust it into her hands. ‘Have a look at this. Maybe this will jog your memory.’
She read the wordy legal document, her stomach folding over in alarm, her throat drying up completely as she returned her worried gaze to his furious one. ‘I mentioned what we discussed to a police officer friend of mine. I thought that would be OK as it wasn’t like I was talking to just anyone. She said she’d look into the accident report. I had no idea it would go this far. I haven’t even heard from her about it. The case must have been handed on to someone else.’
His frown was so heavy his eyebrows were almost touching. ‘I told you not to speak to anyone about this. If you wanted to mention it to this cop friend of yours, you should have discussed tha
t with me first. You had no right to talk casually to a friend about a patient under my care. It’s totally unprofessional for a start, not to mention the damage it could do to a high-profile man’s reputation. He’s a high court judge, for pity’s sake! He is clearly devoted to his wife. He has barely left her bedside. What do have to say for yourself?’
Georgie could feel herself shrinking under the blaze of his anger. She struggled to keep the tears back, her chin wobbling dangerously and her teeth digging into her bottom lip to stop it from trembling. ‘I’m sorry …’ she gulped. ‘I didn’t mean this to happen. I thought it would be all right. I had no idea it would come to this.’
‘The CEO has asked me to remove you from the training scheme.’
She brushed at her eyes and swallowed back a sob. ‘I’m so sorry … but I understand you have to do what you have to do.’
His gaze meshed with hers. ‘Well, I’m not going to do it,’ he said after a small silence.
She blinked up at him again. ‘Y-you’re not?’
He scraped a hand through his hair before stuffing both of his hands in his trouser pockets. ‘No, because I had the very same concerns about Marianne Tander myself. It hardly seems fair to dismiss you for what could well turn out to be a real case of attempted murder.’
‘But you said the husband is devoted to her,’ she said, quickly disguising a little watery sniff.
‘I know. But that doesn’t mean it couldn’t all be an act.’
‘I don’t know what to say …’ She twisted her hands in front of her. ‘I feel so stupid. Belinda is a friend from the gym. She was at the accident with little Jasmine, you know … the baby with the heart defect? I trusted her to be discreet in her enquiries. I didn’t for a moment think it would go any further than a covert look at the record of the accident. The investigating officer must have mentioned my name in the report …’
Ben let out a sigh and, taking his hands out of his pockets, touched her on the shoulder with one of his hands. ‘It’s all right, Georgie,’ he said reassuringly. ‘We’ll no doubt have to weather a storm for the next few days, but I’m not going to remove you from the training scheme for at least three reasons. Firstly, I couldn’t bear the fallout from your father, secondly, you’re proving to be a darn good trainee.’
She moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue, her eyes still locked on the dark blue depths of his. ‘You mentioned three things,’ she said in a scratchy whisper.
Ben looked down at her mouth, the slight tremble of her glistening lips making his groin instantly swell with desire. He longed to taste her, to see if she was as soft and sweet as she looked. What would it hurt? he wondered. One kiss was hardly an affair. Besides, it had been months since he’d felt a woman’s mouth on his. It was surely time to get back into the water, even if it turned out he was swimming with a shark. She certainly didn’t look like it with her big brown eyes. She looked tiny and feminine and adorably trusting and vulnerable, as if he held her future in his hands, which to some degree he did.
He felt his upper body tilting towards her, slowly, as if under some invisible entity was pushing him from behind. His mouth was within a breath of hers, her soft breath wafted over his lips, and then the tip of her tongue peeked out again and he was totally lost.
He crushed her mouth beneath his in a kiss that was both hard but tender at the same time, the softness of her lips a perfect bed for the insistent pressure of his. He drove his tongue through her softly parted lips and his lower body leapt in response as her tongue began to dance and play with his. Heat coursed through him, the burning lava-hot need filling him to bursting point as he held her closer to deepen the kiss. She tasted of strawberries and desire, each stroke and glide of his tongue against hers making him realise how in tune their bodies were. It was like nothing he had ever experienced before. He had the normal needs of any full-blooded male and had had his share of fulfilling sexual relationships, but somehow he suspected that with Georgie everything he had experienced in the past was going to pale into insignificance.
One of his hands cupped her face while the other went to the gentle curve of her breast, his palm feeling the tight bud of her nipple pressing into it. Her tongue flicked against his, her soft mouth hot and sweet and her body pressing against his with increasing need.
He sucked and nibbled on her fuller lower lip, the one she had stuck out at him numerous times in a pout, and his skin lifted all over at the thought of driving into her silky warmth. She was unbelievably responsive. Her body seemed to come alive under the brush and stroke of his hands and mouth and it made him wonder if she had experienced desire at this level before.
