MELANIE MILBURNE - Their Most Forbidden Fling

She wondered what it would feel like to be kissed by him .

Molly forced her gaze to reconnect with his. She needed to get her professional cap on and keep it on. They would be working together in the same unit. No one over here needed to know about the tragic tie that bound them so closely. ‘Well, then,’ she said, shuffling her feet again. ‘I guess I’ll see you at the hospital.’

‘Yes.’

She gave him another tight, formal smile and made to move past but she had only gone a couple of paces when he said her name again. ‘Molly?’

Molly slowly turned and looked at him. The lines about his mouth seemed to have deepened in the short time she had been talking to him. ‘Yes?’ she said.

‘You might not have been informed as yet, but as of yesterday I’m the new head of ICU,’ he said. ‘Brian Yates had to suddenly resign due to ill health.’

She gripped the edges of her coat closer across her chest. Lucas Banning was her boss? It put an entirely new spin on things. This first foray of hers into working abroad could be seriously compromised if he decided he didn’t want her working with him. And why would he want her here?

She was a living, breathing reminder of the worst mistake he had ever made.

‘No,’ Molly said. ‘I hadn’t been informed.’

‘Is it going to be a problem?’ he asked with a direct look she found a little intimidating.

‘Why would it be a problem?’ she asked.

‘It’s a busy and stretched-to-the-limit department,’ he said. ‘I don’t want any personal issues between staff members to compromise patient outcomes.’

Molly felt affronted that he thought her so unprofessional as to bring their past into the workplace. She rarely spoke of Matt these days. Even though she had lived with her grief longer than she had lived without it, speaking of him brought it all back as if it had happened yesterday—the gut-wrenching pain, the aching sense of loss. The guilt . Most of her friends from medical school didn’t even know she had once had an older brother. ‘I do not bring personal issues to work,’ she said.

His hazel eyes held hers for a beat or two of silence. ‘Fine,’ he said. ‘I’ll see you in the morning. Don’t be late.’

Molly pursed her lips as he strode off down the street. She would make sure she was there before he was.

Lucas glanced pointedly at the clock on the wall as Molly Drummond rushed into the glassed-in office of ICU. ‘Your shift started an hour ago,’ he said as he slapped a patient’s file on the desk.

‘I’m so sorry,’ she said breathlessly. ‘I tried to call but I didn’t have the correct code in my phone. I’m still with my Australian network so I couldn’t call direct.’

‘So what’s your excuse?’ he asked, taking in her pink face and the disarray of her light brown hair. ‘Boyfriend keep you up late last night, or did he make you late by serving you breakfast in bed?’

Her face went bright red and her grey-blue eyes flashed with annoyance. ‘Neither,’ she said. ‘I was on my way to work when I came across a cat that had been hit by a car. I couldn’t just leave it there. It had a broken leg and was in pain. I had to take it to the nearest vet clinic. It took me ages to find one, and then I had to wait until the vet got there.’

Lucas knew he should apologise for jumping to conclusions but he wanted to keep a professional distance. Out of all the hospitals in London, or the whole of England for that matter, why did she have to come to his? He had put as much distance as he could between his past and the present. For the last ten years he had tried to put it behind him, not to forget—he could never, would never do that—but to move on with his life as best he could, making a difference where he could.

Saving lives, not destroying them .

Molly Drummond turning up in his world was not what he needed right now. He had only recently found out she was coming to work here, but he had assured himself that he wouldn’t have to have too much to do with her directly. He had planned to become director at the end of next year when Brian Yates formally retired. But Brian being diagnosed with a terminal illness had meant he’d had to take over the reins a little ahead of schedule. Now he would have to interact with Molly on a daily basis, which would have been fine if she was just like any other young doctor who came and went in the department.

But Molly was not just any other doctor.

She wasn’t that cute little freckle-faced kid any more either. She had grown into a beautiful young woman with the sort of understated looks that took you by surprise in unguarded moments. Like yesterday, when he’d run into her on the street.

Looking up and seeing her there had made his breath catch in his throat. He had been taken aback by the way her grey-blue eyes darkened or softened with her mood. How her creamy skin took on a rosy tinge when she felt cornered or embarrassed. How her high cheekbones gave her a haughty regal air, and yet her perfect nose with its tiny dusting of freckles had an innocent girl-next-door appeal that was totally beguiling. How her figure still had a coltish look about it with those long legs and slim arms.

He had not been able to stop himself imagining how it would feel to have those slim arms wrap around his body and to feel that soft, full mouth press against his. He had his share of sexual encounters, probably not as many as some of his peers, but he wasn’t all that comfortable with letting people get too close.

And getting too close to Molly Drummond was something he wanted to avoid at all costs.

‘I haven’t got time to give you a grand tour,’ Lucas said, forcing his wayward thoughts back where they belonged. ‘But you’ll find your way around soon enough. We have twenty beds, all of them full at the present time. Jacqui Hunter is the ward clerk. She’ll fill you in on where the staff facilities are. Su Ling and Aleem Pashar are the registrars. They’ll run through the patients with you.’ He gave her a brisk nod before he left the office. ‘Enjoy your stay.’

‘Dr Drummond?’

Molly turned to see a middle-aged woman coming towards her. ‘I’m sorry I wasn’t here to greet you,’ the woman said with a friendly smile. ‘Things have been a bit topsy-turvy, I’m afraid.’ She offered her hand. ‘I’m Jacqui Hunter.’

‘Pleased to meet you,’ Molly said.

‘This has been such a crazy couple of days,’ Jacqui said. ‘Did Dr Banning tell you about Brian Yates?’ She didn’t wait for Molly to respond. ‘Such a terrible shame. He was planning to retire next year. Now he’s been sent home to get his affairs in order.’

‘I’m very sorry,’ Molly said.

‘He and Olivia just had their first grandchild too,’ Jacqui said shaking her head. ‘Life’s not fair, is it?’

‘No, it’s not.’

Jacqui popped the patient’s file, which Lucas had left on the desk, in the appropriate drawer. ‘Now, then,’ she said, turning to face Molly again. ‘Let’s get you familiarised with the place. You’re from Australia, aren’t you? Sydney, right?’

‘Yes,’ Molly said. ‘But I grew up in the bush.’

‘Like our Lucas, huh?’

‘Yes, we actually grew up in the same country town in New South Wales.’

Jacqui’s eyebrows shot up underneath her blunt fringe. ‘Really? What a coincidence. So you know each other?’

Molly wondered if she should have mentioned anything about her connection with Lucas. ‘Not really. It’s been years since I’ve seen him,’ she said. ‘He moved to London when I was seventeen. It’s not like we’ve stayed in touch or anything.’

‘He’s a bit of a dark horse is our Lucas,’ Jacqui said, giving Molly a conspiratorial look. ‘Keeps himself to himself, if you know what I mean.’

Molly wasn’t sure if the ward clerk was expecting a response from her or not. ‘Um … yes …’

‘No one knows a whisper about his private life,’ Jacqui said. ‘He keeps work and play very separate.’

‘Probably a good idea,’ Molly said.

Jacqui grunted as she led the way to the staff change room. ‘There’s plenty of women around here who would give their eye teeth for a night out with him,’ she said. ‘It should be a crime to be so good looking, don’t you think?’

‘Um …’

‘He’s got kind, intelligent eyes,’ Jacqui said. ‘The patients love him—and so do the relatives. He takes his time with them. He treats them like he would his own family. That’s rare these days, let me tell you. Everyone is so busy climbing up the career ladder. Lucas Banning was born to be a doctor. You can just tell.’

‘Actually, I think he always planned on being a wheat and sheep farmer, like his father and grandfather before him,’ Molly said.

Jacqui looked at her quizzically. ‘Are we talking about the same person?’ she asked.

‘As I said, I don’t know him all that well,’ Molly quickly backtracked.

Jacqui indicated the female change room door on her right. ‘Bathroom is through there and lockers here,’ she said. ‘The staff tea room is further down on the left.’ She led the way back to the office. ‘You’re staying three months with us, aren’t you?’

‘Yes,’ Molly said. ‘I haven’t been overseas before. The job came up and I took it before I could talk myself out of it.’

‘Well, you’re certainly at the right time of life to do it, aren’t you?’ Jacqui said. ‘Get the travel bug out of the way before you settle down. God knows, you’ll never be able to afford it once the kids come along. Take it from me. They bleed you dry.’

‘How many children do you have?’

‘Four boys,’ Jacqui said, and with a little roll of her eyes added, ‘Five if you count my husband.’ She led the way back to the sterilising bay outside ICU. ‘One of the registrars will go through the patients with you. I’d better get back to the desk.’

‘Thanks for showing me around.’

Molly spent an hour with the registrars, going through each patient’s history. Lucas joined them as they came to the last patient. Claire Mitchell was a young woman of twenty-two with a spinal-cord injury as well as a serious head injury after falling off a horse at an equestrian competition. She had been in an induced coma for the past month. Each time they tried to wean her off the sedatives her brain pressure skyrocketed. The scans showed a resolving intracerebral haematoma and persistent cerebral oedema.

Molly watched as Lucas went through the latest scans with the parents. He explained the images and answered their questions in a calm reassuring manner.

‘I keep thinking she’s going to die,’ the mother said in a choked voice.

‘She’s come this far,’ Lucas said. ‘These new scans show positive signs of improvement. It’s a bit of a waiting game, I’m afraid. Just keep talking to her.’

‘We don’t know how to thank you,’ the father said. ‘When I think of how bad she was just a week ago …’

‘She’s definitely turned a corner in the last few days,’ Lucas said. ‘Just try and stay positive. We’ll call you as soon as there’s any change.’

Molly met his gaze once the parents had returned to their daughter’s bedside. ‘Can I have a quick word, Dr Banning?’ she asked. ‘In private?’

His brows came together as if he found the notion of meeting with her in private an interruption he could well do without. ‘My office is last on the left down the corridor. I’ll meet you there in ten minutes. I just have to write up some meds for David Hyland in bed four.’