Her Honourable Playboy. Kate Hardy

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ date date. It was going to be fine.

      So why did he have this uneasy feeling prickling the back of his neck?

      ‘You are going to need full body armour before you go out there,’ Fliss told Alyssa, laughing, as Alyssa walked into the ED staffroom and headed for the coffee-machine.

      ‘Full body armour? Why?’

      ‘Because every woman in the hospital’s out for your blood today.’

      ‘What?’ Alyssa frowned at the nurse. ‘Sorry, Fliss, you’ve lost me completely.’

      ‘You won. Last night.’

      Were they in a parallel universe or something? ‘Won what?’

      Fliss groaned. ‘You definitely need that coffee to wake you up, Alyssa. You won the night out with Seb.’

      Alyssa shook her head. ‘Not me. I didn’t buy a ticket.’

      Fliss raised an eyebrow. ‘You must have done. Otherwise how could you have won?’

      Alyssa folded her arms. ‘I didn’t buy a ticket. I gave Tracey a donation.’

      ‘Enough to buy several tickets,’ Tracey said, overhearing them and coming to join them. ‘So I put your name on a couple of tickets for you. One of them just happened to be the winner.’

      Alyssa’s lip curled. ‘Well, I’m more than happy to donate the prize to somebody else.’

      Seb, who’d overheard the last part of the conversation, stopped dead in the corridor. Hang on. Alyssa Ward was supposed to be on night shift—wasn’t she?

      No. He’d assumed it. Assumed that anyone who’d bought a ticket would have been there to collect her prize, unless she happened to be on duty.

      Not only had someone else bought the ticket for Alyssa, she didn’t want the prize.

      And that rankled.

      Seb might not want to settle down, but he knew how to give someone a good time. He’d taken Vicky’s advice about what to offer. A make-over, dinner in a swish restaurant and good tickets to see a show. What wasn’t to like about that?

      Clearly, he was the sticking point.

      He frowned. He couldn’t remember the last time someone had refused to go out with him. Actually, he didn’t think anyone ever had. This was a first. And he didn’t like it one little bit.

      So he was going to find out what the problem was. Here and now.

      ‘Why?’ he asked, walking into the staffroom. ‘Do I have a personal hygiene problem or something?’

      At least Alyssa had the grace to blush. ‘No. I just don’t go out on dates.’

      Oh, so that was it. And even though he should have been pleased—he hadn’t wanted the winner to get the wrong idea and think it meant the beginning of a relationship—her reluctance stung him even more. ‘This isn’t a date,’ he corrected. ‘It’s a night out, the prize for a fundraiser. A one-off.’ And he was annoyed enough to add, ‘Oh, and it’s tonight.’

      To his surprise, she didn’t back down. ‘What if I’m busy?’

      ‘Then you can reschedule.’

      ‘I think, Mr Radley, you can reschedule. Or go on your own.’ She looked at him, unsmiling, and put her undrunk coffee down on the table. ‘Don’t ever try to boss me around again.’

      Fliss whistled. ‘That’s put you in your place,’ she said as Alyssa walked off.

      Maybe, Seb thought. He’d barely noticed Alyssa Ward before. She was just the quiet, studious registrar he’d worked with a few times—efficient, pulled her weight, good with patients, did her job without complaining, yada yada yada. She always wore plain dark trousers and a cream shirt underneath her white doctor’s coat, and he’d barely registered that she was female. She was a professional colleague, that was all.

      And he certainly hadn’t noticed that stubborn streak. It was an overworn cliché, but maybe her chestnut hair had something to do with it. And maybe she was only quiet because she knew that she had a temper and needed to keep a tight rein on it.

      Which made Alyssa Ward a very interesting proposition.

      Hmm. They’d have that night out tonight. And he was going to pull out all the stops.

      Later that day, Seb had the case from hell. Resus was quiet for once, so he took his fair share of working through the cubicles.

      Which meant Seb had to deal with the four-year-old boy who’d caught himself in his zip.

      Great, he thought when Mel on Reception handed him the notes. Why couldn’t he have had a difficult geriatric, or the six-foot-six body-builder who’d been in a fight and was still drunk and stroppy? But no. He got the kind of patient he found hardest to handle. A kid.

      Seb was hopeless with kids. Always had been. Thank God he’d never have to have any of his own. He was only the spare and not the heir to Weston—with any luck, Charlie and Sophie would make a baby really soon and let him off the hook completely.

      The little boy was crying and the mum was clearly panicking. Seb switched on his professional smile. ‘Come through here with me. We’ll soon have him sorted out.’

      ‘He wanted to get dressed himself. I turned my back for two seconds and, and…’

      ‘It’s OK. It happens a lot. Little ones forget to put their underpants on, try to get dressed too quickly and catch a bit of skin in the zip.’ Oh, please, please, make the boy stop crying. Seb hated the sound of children crying. It went right through him—it was far worse than the sound of chalk squeaking on a blackboard.

      ‘But the zip’s jammed! I can’t undo it,’ the woman said. Her face turned bright crimson. ‘And it’s his willy! What if it causes…well…problems?’

      ‘It won’t,’ Seb soothed. ‘Trust me, I won’t have to do any surgery. I’ll give him something to numb the pain so I can manipulate the zip without hurting him any more. Sometimes mineral oil will do the trick—otherwise I’ll need to cut the zip, if that’s all right?’

      ‘I don’t care—I hate the things anyway. His grandmother bought them because she says he looked too scruffy in the pull-up joggers he normally wears. She said he ought to have proper trousers, like they had when my husband was small.’

      ‘Mothers, eh?’ Seb said, smiling wryly. Your own mother was meant to be nice and the mother-in-law was from hell. Given what his mother was like, he never wanted to test that theory. The woman who was worse than Mara hardly bore thinking about.

      And the kid was still crying. Oh, hell. He hated this. And his attempts at jollying the little boy along clearly weren’t working. He needed help. A nurse. Someone who was better with kids than he was. ‘I’m just going to get the kit I need. Back in two seconds,’ he said, and left the corridor with relief.

      The first member of staff he met, he’d beg for help.

СКАЧАТЬ