Playing the Playboy's Sweetheart. Carol Marinelli

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      ‘It’s fine, I get it …’ Though he didn’t. Poor Gregory, Hugh thought as he reclaimed his hand, because five minutes from now he’d have had her knickers off.

      ‘He’s in Scotland, so we don’t see each other as much as—’

      ‘You really don’t need to explain.’

      And so the phantom Gregory was born.

      When her father and Donna broke up in the New Year it was to Gregory she turned, rather than Hugh, though they did touch on it once, because Hugh came into the staffroom when Emily was on the phone.

      ‘Donna, I get it that you have issues with my father but I don’t understand what that has to do with me. If you don’t want to see me that’s fine but can I just take the twins to the park or for an ice cream every now and then …?’ She turned in her chair and saw that Hugh had come in just as Donna told her that, no, she’d prefer Emily didn’t have extra contact with the twins—she could see them when her father bothered to.

      ‘Is she not letting you see the twins?’ Hugh asked when she came off the phone.

      ‘I can see them when they’re with my dad, which isn’t very often. I asked if I could take them out at the weekend but it unsettles them apparently.’

      ‘Can she do that?’

      ‘Of course she can.’ Emily stood and went to walk past but Hugh caught her arm.

      ‘Emily?’

      ‘What?’

      ‘Do you want …?’ Hugh didn’t really know what he was offering.

      Emily did.

      Yes, she did want.

      She wanted to burst into tears, she wanted him to take her out and not cheer her up, just share …

      She wanted to share with him.

      Emily looked down at the fingers that still held her wrist.

      Oh, he could hurt her, Emily thought, and then looked up to his eyes. He could really, really hurt her.

      ‘I’ll sort it out,’ Emily said. ‘Gregory is going to try and speak with her.’

      At the mention of Gregory his hand disengaged from her arm.

      For the next three months, every time Emily went to visit her mother Hugh was brought up to speed through vague conversations. However, just as he was starting to wonder about the fact that Gregory never seemed to come down to London, Emily actually found her perfect guy for real, so Gregory was swiftly dumped.

      Marcus was perfect.

      Dark haired, terribly serious, he was a social worker at the hospital and liked to hike at weekends. Sex happened on Saturdays, occasional Tuesdays, and Emily developed solid calf muscles from trips up hillsides.

      It was perfect for close to two years when the breaking news arrow shot across the hospital grapevine that Marcus had been found in a compromising position in the X-ray department with Heidi, the Swedish radiographer.

      Hugh, now a senior registrar and going out with Olivia by then, expected tears in the staffroom, blushes and drama—the usual type of thing that happened with a very public break-up. With Emily that didn’t happen, though …

      Oh, she was a curious thing.

      Emily just shrugged it off and got on with work.

      The very next Monday they stood in Theatre and Emily glanced up as the alarm went off on the cardiac monitor when the anaesthetised patient kicked off a few ectopic heartbeats.

      ‘All fine,’ Rory, the anaesthetist, called as the patient’s heart steadied back into a regular rhythm.

      There were no flashing lights, no drama—it was hardly an event really.

      And that was just how Emily liked things.

      It was how she kept control.

CHAPTER ONE

      ‘I DON’T WANT to work there.’

      It was, for Emily, as simple as that.

      She and Hugh had been working together for close to three years now and often caught up on a Monday. Now, in their lunch break, they sat in the staffroom at their favourite table, putting the world to rights.

      ‘I think you’d be very good in Accident and Emergency,’ Hugh said. ‘Anyway, it’s only for three months.’

      ‘Well, why don’t you go and work in Labour and Delivery for three months and then get back to me with that statement.’

      ‘Fair point,’ Hugh conceded.

      ‘I’m going to speak to Miriam today and see if there’s any way I can get out of doing it.’

      Miriam, the head of Critical Nursing, had, last year, decided to rotate the staff on the units. Emily had reluctantly done a three-month stint in ICU and had thought that would be the end of it, but Miriam had decided to press on with internally rotating the staff. Emily had been told that in June she would be commencing a term in Accident and Emergency.

      Theatre was Emily’s stomping ground. The thought of working in Emergency was unsettling—the drama of it, the emotion, the constant loaning out of your heart if you chose to empathise, or the burn-out that left you a tough bitch. Emily couldn’t decide what was worse. She had no intention of revealing to Hugh the real reasons she was so opposed to the idea, so instead she changed the subject.

      ‘So, is it true?’ Hugh didn’t reply to her question but Emily pushed on. ‘Have you and Olivia broken up?’

      ‘Yep.’

      ‘I thought you two were happy.’

      ‘We were,’ Hugh said. ‘When we were together.’

      ‘What do you mean?’

      It was Hugh who sat silent for a moment now. He and Olivia had been happy. Everyone had said how suited they were and, yes, their relationship had ticked most boxes.

      Two boxes had been missing, though.

      Olivia’s jealousy and trust issues were one and as for the other …

      He looked across the table to where Emily was peeling open her croissant and sprinkling more black pepper onto the cheese and tomato that filled it. She loved black pepper—there were always a couple of sachets in the pocket of her scrubs.

      He knew a lot more about her than he had three years ago.

      Just not enough.

      ‘I don’t know how to explain it, Em,’ Hugh admitted. СКАЧАТЬ