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She leaned her head on her hand and he could see her shoulders visibly relax as she tore off another part of the croissant.
He waited until she’d started chewing before he spoke again. ‘So, I wondered if we could make a trade.’
She stopped chewing and narrowed her gaze suspiciously. ‘What kind of trade?’
‘A trade for finding out more about the safe haven scheme.’
‘You’re genuinely interested?’
‘Of course I am. You set it up in your country, I want to see if I can set it up in mine.’
The words were out before he really thought about them. ‘What country is that, exactly?’ she asked.
He pasted on a smile again. ‘Just one of the lesser-known Mediterranean countries. It’s not well known but near to France, Italy and Monaco.’
She opened her mouth as if she was going to ask him to be more specific but he cut her off quickly. ‘Tell me as much as you can before the patients get here.’
* * *
The clinic was busy. The weather had been stormy these last few days and it seemed to have irritated just about anyone with a chest condition. She’d spent the morning dealing with kids and adults with asthma, older patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and a variety of chest infections.
The nurses were triaging the patients as best they could, and, in the midst of all the chest complaints, they’d had a man with an MI who they’d had to refer on to the hospital, along with a kid with a fractured wrist that required surgery.
She rounded the corner to speak to Philippe about something but stopped as he was bending over a small boy with a lacerated finger. He was speaking quietly but seemed to have really engaged with the child.
‘Okay, I’m going to need you to be my really brave champion.’ Philippe glanced over his shoulder as if it were a great secret. ‘I mean like a superhero.’
The little boy was mesmerised and Philippe started telling him a superhero story to distract him from the stitches. He was finished in a matter of minutes. Then he threw the little boy in the air, declaring him a new champion superhero. They finished with a fist bump and the little boy left the clinic with a wide smile on his face.
She stopped for a second and gave a sigh. It was just another plus point of the guy she was still a bit unsure of.
Philippe was great to work with. No patient was a problem and she trusted his judgement. He seemed to have tireless energy and could last all day on coffee alone. She envied his commitment. And it made her even more curious about him. A guy who could afford to stay at one of the luxury resorts in Temur Sapora was happier slogging his guts out in a community clinic? She couldn’t make it up.
But it just made the underlying attraction she felt towards him smoulder even more.
Even watching him from afar was becoming more than a little distracting. He had such a way with the patients, and the few conditions that he came across and was unfamiliar with, he wasn’t afraid to come and ask for advice. She liked that. She’d worked with way too many doctors who were arrogant enough never to admit their own lack of knowledge—often to the patient’s detriment.
She couldn’t quite put her finger on it. There was something about him that wasn’t quite off, but just wasn’t quite right. Maybe it was her own hang-ups about the rich, the very rich and the very, very rich, that were skewing her normally sound judgement. But whatever it was, the person he was, the man he was, was definitely getting under her skin.
Besides the good looks and charm, Philippe Aronaz was, at heart, a good guy. Occasionally he drifted off someplace, as if there was something else on his mind, but most of the time he was focused. He related well to the patients. In fact, it was one of the things that was most impressive about him. He could talk to literally anyone, from cajoling the youngest baby, to having lengthy discussions with some of their most elderly patients. It was almost as if he’d been born to it. And she envied him. She’d had to work hard at that part of herself.
There was always that little part of herself she didn’t want to share. She’d shared it once with a colleague at medical school, but the reaction hadn’t been good. Her colleague had instantly wanted to do an Internet search on abandoned babies, cross-check with hospital admissions that could be related to childbirth, and search DNA ancestry websites. It almost turned into a personal quest.
