Seduced by the Heart Surgeon Read online

  Very rigorously!

  And she had also partied hard.

  James had hauled her out of a nightclub and, too weak to row with her brother, Freya had collapsed and been rushed to hospital.

  There she had been stripped and put into a gown and then James had been allowed back in, and that was when he had seen her spine and the true extent of her problem had been exposed.

  Now, fourteen years later, she would stand today with the most loathed part of her body on show and, joy of joys, eat at the top table.

  Freya was better now—so, so much better.

  Recovered, healed, whatever the best word was, but there were still hurts and repercussions that she had to deal with, and one of the big ones was that she rarely had a period.

  Seriously rarely.

  Once, maybe twice a year.

  ‘It’s your own fault,’ Freya told her reflection, and then came away from the mirror and headed out to the elevator.

  She got in and closed her eyes, resting against the wall as she angled her neck to release tension. When she opened them, instead of being on the mezzanine level, she was on the ground floor, and looking into the eyes of Him!

  ‘Well, you prove my theory,’ he said in a deep, sexy voice.

  It was Him!

  The man she had seen a few days ago.

  Freya had been speaking with the hotel’s events coordinator and working out how long they would need to freeze the escalators for, when they’d both stopped talking as the sound of Cuban heels had rung out on the marble floor. And they had stopped talking with good reason. Tall, tanned, with shaggy, curly black hair, he had walked past them in dark jeans and tight T-shirt, carrying a large backpack. He had been just so sexy that he’d simply stopped conversations. Both women had watched him go up to the desk to check in and then shared a guilty smile once they’d finished checking him out.

  And now Freya was in the lift with Him.

  ‘And your theory is?’ Freya asked.

  ‘That all the good girls are taken.’ He asked her which floor she wanted. ‘I’ve already pressed...’ Actually, no, her selection had been erased. ‘The mezzanine level.’ She watched as long suntanned fingers pressed said level and then he pressed for floor twenty-eight and she wished, how she wished, she had given the thirtieth floor as her choice of destination, just for a minute or two more alone with him.

  ‘Shouldn’t brides be smiling on their wedding day?’ he asked, and Freya tried to place his accent.

  ‘Believe me, the bride is smiling,’ Freya said in a dry voice. ‘I’m the bridesmaid.’

  ‘Did I hear the word maid?’

  Freya laughed at the cheeky inference and the slow smile he gave in return had her stomach tighten. Sexy green eyes were looking right at her, and he didn’t make her feel like an old maid in the least...

  Freya blinked at her own thought process.

  The hotel events coordinator had, when they’d been watching him, sighed that he was probably gay and Freya had said if that were the case, again, then she really had to get out of LA.

  Oh, he was so not gay. His eyes might as well be blowtorches because he had her face just turn to fire.

  Sadly the doors pinged open.

  ‘Enjoy the wedding...’ he said.

  ‘Oh, I shan’t, it’s going to be a very long evening,’ Freya replied, peeling herself from the wall, when she really didn’t want to get out.

  ‘Yeah, I get it.’ he said. ‘I do my best to avoid weddings.’ He met her eyes. ‘Especially my own.’

  Was he telling her that he was single?

  She thought back to the flirty emails that she would live to regret tomorrow, but flirting was kind of fun, Freya was finding out, and she was very single.

  ‘And me,’ Freya said.

  The elevator doors were open but the conversation wasn’t closed and he put one big boot out to keep them open as he asked Freya a question. ‘Why did she want a big white wedding on a Thursday?’

  ‘Because it’s New Year’s Eve.’

  ‘So it is! Well, thanks for reminding me, I’d be in trouble if I didn’t call home.’

  ‘You’re Australian?’ Freya asked, now that she’d placed his accent.

  He nodded.

  ‘LA’s a long way from home.’

  ‘It is,’ he answered. ‘And I’m suddenly lonely.’

  He didn’t look lonely in the least, not with that smile.

  ‘Poor you,’ Freya replied, and met his smouldering gaze. His deep green eyes were thickly lashed and she looked down to a dark red mouth and stubbled jaw.

  He was so hot, so direct, so bad, so sexy and her reaction to him so acute that Freya could possibly have forgiven herself if she’d hit the button to close the doors and leapt up onto those lean hips.

  ‘I’d better go,’ she said, because, yes, she’d better. ‘It was nice to meet you...’ Freya fished for his name.

  ‘We don’t need names, do we?’

  She ought to have been offended, Freya thought. She ought to be very, very offended and yet she wasn’t.

  ‘Enjoy the wedding,’ he offered, ‘and thanks for messing up my theory.’

  ‘But I haven’t,’ Freya said, simply unable to resist prolonging this delicious, rare flirt and, just as when she had hit ‘send’ on that blasted email, she offered a verbal response that would be just as hard to retract. ‘I’m not a good girl.’

  ‘It would seem that you are,’ he answered smoothly, ‘given that you’re about to get out.’

  The bow around her middle was killing Freya. She wanted to tear it off, and the dress too, and stamp on them. Instead she stood as his eyes performed a long and slow perusal of her aroused body and Beth would be furious because her nipples were throbbing. They needed his mouth. Oh, yes, they did.

  Oh, she was in no position to take offence as his gaze lingered and lingered, because Freya was doing the exact same thing to him. Down that wide chest her eyes went. He was wearing a silver-grey T-shirt and he too had two nipples, she knew that because she counted them slowly and carefully. Then she looked down to his flat stomach. His T-shirt was half-tucked in and she fought not to lift it free. He had on a heavy leather belt that made her thighs want to press together. She looked at the thick bulge in his jeans and was frustrated by the button-up flies, because she’d break her nails tearing at them just to get to him. What the hell was happening? Freya wondered. Because she completely wanted to sink to her knees and to do just that.

  It was, for Freya, the oddest feeling. She wasn’t very free in bed and she wasn’t the most generous lover. She just hoped to have her needs met. ‘One for you, one for me’ type of thing, and if her needs weren’t met then she’d lie twitching with resentment. Actually, even if they were met, it was so underwhelming that she lay twitching anyway, wondering why she couldn’t enjoy it. Freya controlled everything that went in her mouth and what she was looking at now wasn’t one of them.

  Freya licked her lips, not deliberately but very provocatively, it would seem, because he just grew before her eyes. She watched as that lovely hand that had earlier pressed the button had no choice but to make a little room and he rearranged himself to her eyes.

  Freya tore them from his bulging crotch and he gave her a slow, appreciative smile in reward for her lovely effort to get him so hard and so soon.

  ‘I’m impressed,’ he said.

  ‘With what?’ Freya breathed. She could hardly speak.

  ‘It takes great skill to be such a turn-on in that dress.’

  And Freya had more than seen just how turned on he was. ‘I have to go.’

  ‘Then go.’

  He didn’t remove his boot from the door, and Freya could either step over his leg or walk around him. The scent of him mingled with her arousal and Freya had t
his terrifying moment of absolute conviction that she wasn’t going to make it to the chapel in time.

  He was sex.

  And suddenly, for the first time in her life, so was she.

  Freya didn’t walk around him, she put one high-heeled foot over his calf and proceeded to step over the hurdle.

  She’d never gotten over them at school and was having the same trouble now.

  He was terribly polite, for such a filthy animal he really was extremely polite, because his hand settled on her arm to help her over.

  Oh, she needed help because the feel of his warm fingers on her bare skin had Freya wanting to straddle his calf and she knew that the bastard knew it.

  ‘Do you want to come up for a drink?’ he offered in that low, sexy, deep voice but, really, why bother attempting to be polite? Freya thought. A drink was the very last thing on either of their minds.

  ‘I have a wedding to get to,’ Freya croaked. ‘I really do.’

  ‘Then you’d better go, or you’re going to be extremely unpresentable very soon.’

  Oh, those eyes, Freya thought, unwilling to leave the heat of his gaze, but then she looked at his mouth as he stated what he’d already achieved.

  ‘I want to mess you up,’ he said. ‘I want you dishevelled.’

  She deserved a gold medal and the national anthem sung in her honour because she had made it over his leg. Freya tried to walk off, she really did, but her muscles were protesting and her damp knickers were demanding that she take them off.

  ‘Hey,’ he called to her blushing shoulders. She could feel his eyes on her spine and it didn’t make her feel ill, instead it made Freya, foolishly, dangerously, turn around. ‘If the wedding gets to be a bit...’ He shrugged. And then, with utter and no doubt practised ease, he gave her a free pass to heaven. ‘Room 2812.’

  CHAPTER TWO

  ‘FREYA?’ THE HOTEL’S events coordinator prompted when Freya didn’t answer her question.

  ‘I was just taking it all in,’ Freya said, rather than admit her mind was still back in the elevator. She looked around the ballroom. ‘Yes, Beth’s going to be very pleased.’

  The tables were dressed in red but instead of having flowers as centrepieces Beth had decided on huge bows. There were bows on the chairs too. Freya’s carefully worded response told the hotel events coordinator that she had done an amazing job with terrible directions.

  They shared another small smile and Freya nearly burst out laughing, a part of her wanting to tell the other woman about her little...er...encounter with the man they’d been admiring a few days ago. Instead, she headed off to the chapel where guests were starting to arrive, hugging the memory to herself and smiling. It had been fun and Freya had never had fun like that.

  Freya knew that she was a private, prickly person.

  She was, thanks to her psychology degree that lay languishing unused on her résumé, very self-aware. And her very self-aware self knew why she didn’t let her guard down.

  Freya didn’t trust anyone with her feelings.

  And walking towards her was yet another reason why.

  Edward!

  ‘Freya, we have to stop meeting like this.’ He smiled.

  ‘Well, now that all our friends are married, we shall,’ Freya answered coolly.

  ‘Won’t I be getting an invite to yours?’ Edward asked.

  ‘That would be a no,’ Freya said.

  ‘Are you here with anyone?’

  Freya was not going to prolong this conversation so she gave him a very tight smile and walked off.

  Oh, how she loathed him.

  He was married now and had twins but that hadn’t stopped him from trying to chat her up at the last wedding they’d been at. Freya knew, because she’d been dealing with the RSVPs, that Cathy, his wife, wasn’t attending tonight as one of their children was unwell.

  Oh, a come-on from Edward she so did not need.

  Not when she had Mr Room 2812, Freya thought with a sudden smile.

  Of course she wouldn’t be taking him up on his offer but it had been such, such a nice offer to have that it got her through the wedding and then the meal.

  The endless five-course meal at the top table.

  It was hard to explain, even to herself, but set menus were for Freya the hardest.

  Chicken or beef was served alternatively and Freya let out a small breath of relief that she was given chicken, which would have been her choice.

  ‘Would you mind...?’ Beth’s mother said. ‘I don’t like red meat.’

  ‘Of course.’ Freya smiled, to show that it didn’t matter in the least to her, and they swapped plates.

  She had been worried about the meal at the wedding and had thought about talking to her friend, Mila, about it. She sometimes discussed her eating disorder with Mila, because Mila didn’t treat Freya as if she had two heads and tiptoe around her. But weddings were a bit of a touchy subject between Freya and Mila, given James had jilted her friend at the altar. Also, she was avoiding Mila a bit at the moment, because Freya still hadn’t told James that the Bright Hope Clinic charity was run by his ex-fiancée.

  James didn’t even know they’d remained friends.

  Oh, it was a long dinner and then came the speeches.

  Freya glared at the cameraman, who was getting stuck into the champagne. She would have preferred Beth to have chosen someone else, but the wedding budget was getting tight, Beth had said. Freya had gently suggested losing a few bows but that hadn’t gone down well.

  ‘My wife and I have an extra surprise for you all,’ Neil said. ‘You’ll be thrilled to know that the stork arrived early....’

  The whole room melted and clapped and the cameraman must have seen Freya’s stern glare because he panned to the guests and then back to the happy couple. Neil made a joke about more free cocktails for him on their cruise. This had Freya’s jaw tense.

  Then the dancing started but Freya still couldn’t relax as Beth had yet more requests.

  ‘I want him to film messages for us from all the guests.’

  ‘I know that you do.’

  ‘But I don’t want the messages to just be about the baby,’ Beth said. ‘I want them mainly to be about me.’

  Me, me, me, me, me, Freya thought as she nodded and smiled.

  Freya took a glass of champagne from a passing waiter and then Edward came over. ‘You’re looking gorgeous, Freya,’ he said.

  She looked terrible, as Mr Room 2812 had so sexily pointed out!

  ‘Can I get you another drink?’ Edward offered.

  ‘No, thank you.’

  ‘You were blonde last time I saw you,’ he said. ‘You’ve gone back to brunette.’

  ‘Really?’ Freya’s response was sarcastic. ‘Thanks for letting me know.’

  ‘I’m actually staying here tonight,’ Edward said. ‘How about a dance for old times’ sake?’

  ‘How about I throw this champagne in your face?’

  Freya walked off with her drink and headed outside to drag the cool night air into her lungs. She loved LA in winter and she promised to take herself riding some time soon. It was her best method for relaxing and she had been introduced to it when she had been in rehab.

  Freya never cried.

  Not even in rehab had she let them break her but tonight she suddenly felt close.

  It wasn’t Edward, she harboured no hidden feelings for him—well, no nice ones.

  It was how they’d ended things that still stung, all these years on.

  Her long stint in rehab had been spread far and wide across the media and everyone had thought she’d been on drugs. At the age of twenty-three, when they’d started dating, he’d asked about it and Freya had told him about her eating disorder.

  It had been hard
to reveal but she’d pushed on and had told him she was recovered, or healed, or whatever the best word was. But when she’d told him that she probably couldn’t have children he had, on the spot, dumped her and accused her of stringing him along. It had felt as if Edward had only been dating her on the assumption that one day she’d be pregnant.

  ‘I thought we were enjoying each other’s company,’ Freya had said. ‘Not looking for future mating partners.’

  ‘Well, it’s preferable to have that option,’ had been his callous response.

  It had hurt, it had been such a horrible blow to her recovering self, but she had refused to let it plunge her back into hell.

  Freya knew she should go back inside but she could not face Edward.

  Did he think she’d have an affair, that married men were all that was left? Oh, no, she would rather, far rather, get in that elevator and...

  Why not? Freya thought.

  They’d both, in that brief exchange, stated that they were single.

  And she’d promised this coming year to do more of the things she liked and to try new things.

  No.

  Freya simply couldn’t see it.

  Going up and knocking on Sexy Bastard’s door just for sex.

  Or maybe he’d left it open and she would just slip in.

  Actually, Freya could see it.

  And she had promised to keep her New Year’s resolutions...

  New Year.

  Yikes! Freya remembered a little too late that she had to get everyone out for the photo shoot and the next twenty minutes were frantic indeed.

  It had been a long and difficult night, Freya thought, and a part of her longed to just head upstairs and to find out what simply letting go and having fun actually meant.

  * * *

  An aching part of Zack had really wished she would head up!

  He’d arrived back in his room so turned on and waiting.

  Come on, he’d thought.

  God knew, he’d needed the distraction.

  He’d unlatched the door and lain on the bed, hands behind his head.

  She was stunning.

  Dark eyes, dark hair and that mouth... She’d looked a little familiar but all he had ever seen of LA till now had been the airport so Zack had shrugged that thought off. It would come to him overnight.