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And he’d caught her looking.
Slate-grey, almost black, and rather reprobate eyes held hers for just a second, that tiny second where you looked and he looked and it was just a tiny bit too long to be called polite, just that tiny fraction long enough to know that you were definitely female and he was definitely male—and both of you have noticed.
Her heart rate had only just recovered from her workout and now here it was edging over the 100 mark again.
Most of the staff in the room stood, draping stethoscopes round necks, checking paperwork or begging for a pen, while the early lunches remained sitting along with... Who was he?
‘Hey, Iosef—you’ve got those blood gases to do.’ Beth, one of her colleagues, addressed him.
‘I’ll be there soon.’ There was just a smudge of an accent that Annie couldn’t identify as Beth carried on talking.
‘What time are you on until, then?’
‘Ten,’ came the surly reply.
Iosef.
Annie stayed with the pack as they all headed out to the floor and though two of Annie’s most pressing questions had already been answered—his name was Iosef and he was here till ten—it just led to another. What sort of a name was Iosef?
‘Gorgeous, isn’t he?’ Beth nudged Annie as they made their way to Section A, which was the main hub of activity in Emergency.
‘Who?’ Annie attempted, but Beth just grinned. ‘Don’t even pretend you don’t know who I’m talking about—the new senior registrar. Well, he’s made it clear that he doesn’t intend to stay a senior registrar for very long—he wants to be made a consultant, preferably before Marshall retires.’
‘He’s only just started here.’
‘Oh, but he knows where he’s finishing. I hope he gets it,’ Beth added. ‘He’s just gorgeous—not that any of us mere mortals stand a chance. You know who he is, don’t you?’
‘You just said.’ Annie frowned as they arrived at the nurses’ station and waited for Cheryl, the charge nurse, to appear, ready to receive handover. ‘He’s the new senior registrar.’
‘He’s a Kolovsky!’ Beth whispered, and Annie’s jaw dropped. ‘And not just a cousin five times removed— he’s one of the sons.’
The Kolovsky family were Melbourne icons. Russian immigrants, Ivan Kolovsky along with his wife Nina had set up a fashion house years ago and now the House of Kolovsky had a reputation the world over for their stunning fashion designs and gorgeous fabrics. But here in Melbourne, where there was no royal family for the press to snap and a dearth of super-models and Hollywood film stars to photograph, the Kolovsky family added a necessary dash of international sizzle to the gossip columns—their inordinate wealth and lavish, jet-setting ways had them regularly hitting the headlines, and never more so than recently. The eldest son, Levander, a rake by anyone’s standards, had recently fallen head over heels in love and got married, yet even though he and his wife had moved to the UK the press still followed them mercilessly—especially with the recent birth of their baby. And now Ivan Kolovsky, the founder and patriarch of the family, was rumored to be on his deathbed—rumored because at every turn the Kolovskys’ spin doctors issued denials. Barely a week went by without a mention of them in the press and on the news. As a lavish devotee of the glossies, Annie raked through the trashy part of her memory bank and came up with the necessary goods. Beth was telling the truth—one of the sons was a doctor.
‘Wow.’ Annie blinked at the rather drab surroundings, at the 24/7 organized chaos of a busy emergency department that just didn’t somehow equate to the name Kolovsky. Despite the hour of the day a drunk was singing loudly in his cubicle and there was nothing glamorous about the pile of patients in the waiting room or the huddle of nurses awaiting handover—and she couldn’t help but watch as Iosef wandered through, a bag of ice in his hand, presumably on his way to do the blood gases.
‘He’s thoroughly spoken for,’ Beth grumbled. ‘You should see his girlfriend, Candy—she’s absolutely stunning. Mind you, if he wants my opinion, she’s just a touch old for him.’
‘I’m sure he doesn’t.’
‘He might.’ Beth grinned.
‘You’ve seen her?’
‘You will have, too—she’s graced many a cover ofVoguein her day. She pops in now and then—all feverish and ravishing. Cow.’ Beth pouted then gave a cheeky grin. ‘Still, there’s no law against looking.’
Handover took for ever—which it always did on Mondays. The department was heaving with the usual backlog of a heavy weekend, patients waiting in the corridors for the wards to empty out after the Monday morning ward round so they could be admitted.
‘We’ve emptied the obs ward,’ Cheryl said, ‘but Jackie wants it to remain closed till six p.m.’
That was not an uncommon order on a Monday. The observation ward was supposed to be used only for emergency patients who would remain under the care of the emergency doctors—head injuries who needed twenty-four hours of regular observations before discharge or patients awaiting tendon repair—but all too often, when patients had already spent far too long on a hard gurney, it wound up filled with patients that belonged under other specialties, and this was the issue that they were trying to address.
‘Right.’ Cheryl peered down her list of nursing staff for the late shift. ‘Beth, can you cover Resus? Annie, give her a hand if needed, and I want you to take cubicles one through to five.’
‘Sure.’ Annie smiled, though she’d far rather be in Resus.
‘Oh, I forgot to mention cubicle two’s absolutely refusing to get undressed and be examined properly. We managed to get an ECG but that’s it. Iosef said not to push it for now. He’s waiting for a doctor to suture him. I’ve told the intern.’
‘Who’s the intern this afternoon?’
