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  She halted.

  There was an angry edge to his voice, but that wasn’t what stopped her—she didn’t think he even knew her name, so his use of it surprised her.

  ‘Don’t just shrug and walk off when I’m trying to have a conversation.’

  ‘A pointless one,’ Victoria said as she turned around. ‘In fact, we had the same conversation three days ago.’

  His mood had been just as bloody then and she watched as his eyes shuttered for a moment.

  ‘As I said then, I just go where I’m told and deal with the inevitable angry consequence—I get your ire if I bring the patient here, or the ire of the ward if they arrive without the X-ray.’

  She went to walk off, but this time it was Victoria who changed her mind and continued the conversation.

  ‘Sometimes it’s made easy though and the staff get that I’m just doing my job. That’s generally the case at Paddington’s, though I guess it just depends who’s on. I have to go and move my patient and then I’m out of here. Which is just as well...’

  And then she crossed the line.

  For the first time she made it personal. ‘Your misery is catching.’

  Dominic watched as she swished out of the annexe and he let out a long breath.

  They were both right.

  There were limited resources and the staff all fought for the charges in their care.

  She had rattled him though, not just with her little sign-off comment, but the reminder that they had had this conversation three days ago.

  It was a difficult time for Dominic and he was self-aware enough to know he had been less than sunny on that day as well.

  And he knew why.

  Dominic had always been serious and a bit aloof but he loathed that, of late—Victoria was right—he was miserable.

  Not to the patients though.

  He shoved his messy personal life aside there.

  And then from outside he heard laughter.

  Victoria’s.

  He came out of the annexe and there she was making up the stretcher with her colleague.

  ‘Victoria.’

  She turned around. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Could I have a word?’

  She rolled her eyes but came over. ‘Are we really going to do this again?’

  ‘No, I wanted to apologise for earlier.’

  ‘It’s fine.’

  She didn’t need it.

  In Victoria’s line of work, a small stand-off with a doctor barely merited a thought and she was trying to keep it at that.

  But this was a genuine apology and he offered her a small explanation.

  ‘Today’s a tough one.’

  He offered no more insight but Victoria knew she was hearing the truth.

  ‘Then I hope it gets better,’ Victoria said.

  ‘It shan’t.’

  She gave him a smile and Dominic knew he had lied because it already had got a bit better.

  Victoria was stunning.

  She was wearing green overalls and heavy black boots and it should have been impossible to look stunning in those, yet she did. Her hair was worn on the top of her head but glossy waves tumbled over her face and her hazel eyes held his.

  Yes, she was stunning.

  And that was why she annoyed him.

  Dominic was not looking to be stunned.

  His personal life was very messy and, furthermore, Victoria was far from his type.

  She was very direct and he usually liked subtle. He liked women who, well, stayed a bit in the background and didn’t demand too much headspace.

  And lately Victoria was starting to command a lot of his thoughts.

  ‘I’m sorry too,’ she said. ‘That bit about you being a misery...well...’ She couldn’t resist a little play. ‘I meant crabby.’

  He got her little joke and smiled.

  It was not the smile he gave to the patients, because they did not have to fight not to blush, as Victoria was doing. This smile felt as if it had been exclusively designed for her and he was holding her gaze as she completed her apology. ‘I went a bit far.’

  ‘That’s okay.’

  And suddenly things could not go far enough.

  There was no way he was going to move things along.

  Dominic had a hell of a lot to sort out before he should even consider that.

  But...

  ‘I’d offer to apologise properly over a drink but in my current mood I wouldn’t foist myself on anyone.’

  Foist.

  That word made her smile.

  First, for the way he said it—his accent was light but very appealing.

  And second, because there would be no foisting required.

  He was gorgeous, sexy, rugged and, yes, she fancied him like hell. He was older than she usually liked; but then again, Victoria liked few.

  She guessed him to be late thirties and she was twenty-nine.

  He made her feel like a teenager though.

  Dominic made her want to blush, but she steadfastly refused to.

  And they kept staring.

  ‘It’s fine,’ she said again, and then the communication radio on her shoulder started cracking and there was suddenly another voice in the room.

  ‘Victoria!’ Glen called, and he must have picked up on the tension as he walked by because he paused.

  Thankfully Glen seemed to miss that the tension was of the sexual kind.

  ‘Is everything okay?’ he checked.

  ‘Everything’s fine,’ Dominic said, and walked off.

  And everything was fine now that he was out away from her gaze. Dominic had been very close to asking her out and now he wanted her gone.

  It was that simple.

  He did not want anyone closer.

  But that did not mean he did not want.

  CHAPTER TWO

  DOMINIC PICKED UP the patient card and went to check on the new patient before she went down to X-ray.

  He was a trauma surgeon and so he found himself working in Accident and Emergency a lot and often pitched in.

  ‘Hey,’ he said as he went into the cubicle where the little girl had been placed. ‘Penelope, I’m Dominic.’

  ‘Penny,’ she confidently corrected him. ‘And you’re new here.’

  ‘I’ve been here for nearly six months now.’

  ‘Penny hasn’t been an inpatient for ages,’ Julia said. ‘We’ve had a good run.’

  ‘Well, that’s good to hear.’

  The little girl’s medical notes were so extensive he could be there till midnight if he read them, but Dominic had caught up on the vitals and Julia was very well versed in her daughter’s health.

  Penelope Craig had hypoplastic left heart syndrome, or HLHS, a rare congenital defect. She had had surgery as a baby and all her life she had been either an inpatient or outpatient at Paddington’s. She had presented a few times with infections and that was the concern now.

  Examining Penny, Dominic saw that just from the minor exertion of sitting forward she became breathless and the slight blue tinge to her lips darkened.

  And of course, as Victoria would have well known, it wasn’t just a chest X-ray that was required.

  Dominic took some bloods as a baseline. Penny would require a nurse escort if she went out of the department for her X-ray. But it wasn’t to keep staff levels up that had Dominic call for a portable chest X-ray—he was concerned enough that she was really rather unwell.

  And so he paged the on-call cardiologist and asked him to come down and see Penny here rather than waiting until she was on the ward.

  It was a locum that he spoke to.

  Again.

  With the prospect of Paddington�
�s closing down, a lot of the regular staff had gone elsewhere and it was proving difficult to attract new staff when no one really knew if the hospital would even be here next year.

  Having spoken to the locum, Dominic went back into cubicle four to inform patient and parent of the new plan.

  ‘Look what Penny just found,’ Julia said as Penny lay there holding up an earring.

  Dominic didn’t need to be told whose it was; he had already noticed that Victoria had been wearing earrings this evening when usually she did not.

  He noticed rather too many details about Victoria.

  And even her earrings had intrigued him. They were large diamonds, and during their discussions he had been trying very hard not to picture Victoria dressed up to go out.

  ‘It’s Victoria’s earring,’ Penny said to Karen as she came in.

  ‘There it is.’ She smiled. ‘I’ve just had a call from Victoria to ask me to look out for it. You’ve saved me a job. Good girl, Penny. I’ll put it in the safe. Oh, and, Dominic, there’s a phone call for you.’

  ‘Take a message, please.’

  ‘It’s your father,’ Karen said. ‘And he says that it’s important.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  Deliberately Dominic left his mobile phone in his locker at the start of each shift. He did not want his private life intruding on work.

  Yet it was about to.

  This call was, in fact, three days overdue.

  Yes, there was a reason he hadn’t been sunny on that day.

  The receiver had been left lying on the bench and Dominic hesitated. He let out the tense breath that he was holding on to. He had had months to prepare for this moment and had examined it from many angles, but even as he picked up the receiver, still he hadn’t worked out what he would say.

  ‘Hello.’ His voice was as abrupt as it had been with Victoria.

  ‘Dominic...’ William MacBride cleared his throat before speaking on. ‘I’m just calling to let you know that as of an hour ago you’re an uncle.’

  And still, even with the baby three days overdue, Dominic did not know what to say.

  ‘Dominic?’ William prompted.

  ‘Are they well?’

  ‘They’re both doing fine.’

  Dominic knew that he should ask what Lorna and Jamie had had and whether or not he had a niece or nephew.

  He looked out to the busy Emergency Department, and given it was a children’s hospital, of course there were children everywhere. There was Penny, being wheeled over to rhesus for her portable X-ray and in the background there was the sound of babies crying.

  Dominic fought daily to save these precious little lives and so, naturally, he should be relieved to hear that mother and baby were well and doing fine.

  And somewhere he was.

  Yet it was buried deep in a mire of anger and grief, because for a while there he had thought that the baby born today was going to be his.

  Dominic tried his best not to recall that first moment of truth—when he had realised the baby that his long-term girlfriend was carrying could not possibly be his.

  But then his father spoke of the brother who had caused the second painful moment of truth.

  ‘Jamie’s thrilled.’

  Dominic held in a derisive snort.

  What had taken place wasn’t his father’s fault. Dominic knew that his parents simply did not know how to handle this.

  Who would?

  ‘Will you speak to your brother?’

  ‘I’ve nothing to say to him.’

  A year ago it would have been unfathomable that on the day Jamie became a father Dominic would have nothing to say.

  They had always been close.

  Dominic had been five when a much wanted second child had been born. Jamie was spoiled and cheeky and always getting himself into trouble, but the rather more serious Dominic had always looked out for him.

  Or he had tried to.

  Jamie had been run over when he was ten and Dominic was fifteen.

  It hadn’t been the driver’s fault. Jamie simply hadn’t looked and had stepped out onto the street and on that occasion Dominic had been too late to haul him back.

  It had felt like for ever until the ambulance arrived, and then Dominic had watched the paramedics fight to save his brother’s life. Later, at the hospital, as his parents cried and paced, Dominic had gone to try and find out some more. The doors to Resuscitation had opened to let some equipment in and he had seen the medical team in action, doing all that they could to save Jamie.

  He had been steered away and sent back to the waiting area but on that terrible day Dominic had decided on his future career.

  Jamie had survived and Dominic had really pushed himself to make the grades and get in to study medicine.

  Family had been everything to Dominic—right up until the day he had found out that his girlfriend had been cheating on him with his brother, and that the baby Dominic had thought was his had been fathered by Jamie.

  Jamie and Lorna had married a couple of months ago.

  Dominic had declined his invitation.

  Did they really think he was going to stand there dressed in a kilt, smiling for photographers and pretending to family and friends that things were just fine?

  No way could he do that.

  Not yet anyway.

  ‘We have to move on from this, Dominic,’ William said.

  ‘That’s why I’m in London,’ Dominic responded. ‘Because I have moved on.’ He went to hang up, yet there was more he had to know. ‘What did they have?’

  ‘A wee boy. They’ve called him—’

  ‘You don’t need to tell me,’ Dominic interrupted.

  ‘You don’t want to know?’

  ‘I already do.’

  Dominic was named after his paternal grandfather, as was the Scottish tradition for a firstborn son.

  The new baby, if a boy, had always been destined to be called William—whatever brother Lorna happened to be sleeping with that month.

  Hell, yes, he was bitter.

  ‘Dominic...’ William pushed. He wanted resolution for his family but it would not be happening today.

  ‘I have to get on,’ Dominic said.

  He didn’t.

  Dominic’s working day was over, but he headed up to the wards, then to ICU to check on a patient.

  All was in order.

  Only he was in no mood to go home.

  That would mean collecting his phone and seeing all the missed messages, as well as spending the night avoiding going online. Oh, he’d blocked Jamie and Lorna ages ago, and his parents weren’t on there. But there were cousins and mutual friends, and all would be celebrating.

  A baby had been born after all.

  * * *

  ‘You’re very quiet,’ Glen commented as he drove them back to the station. ‘Did MacBride upset you?’

  ‘Please!’ Victoria made a scoffing face and Glen grinned.

  He knew firsthand just how tough Victoria was.

  And she was.

  Men.

  She worked alongside them.

  And, in her line of work, she saw a lot of them at their worst as the pubs and clubs emptied out at night.

  Victoria had seen an awful lot.

  She relied on no one and hid her feelings well.

  But that tough persona had been formed long before she had chosen her profession.

  There had been no choice but to be independent growing up, for there had been no one who had cared to hear her fears and thoughts.

  She was outwardly calm and did not get upset about things others might. Even when she realised she had lost an expensive earring, she just checked the ambulance thoroughly and then called Paddin
gton’s and asked Karen if she could look out for it.

  ‘You’re taking it very well,’ Glen commented. ‘Hayley would be hysterical.’

  ‘Well, I’m not Hayley.’ Victoria shrugged.

  Sometimes, she could make life easier playing sweeter, careful of a man’s ego.

  And sometimes she did.

  Like now, as she went into the female changing room to get ready for her date.

  She showered and then let down her hair and brushed it so that it shone. Wrapped in a towel she put on some mascara and lip gloss and then pulled on a gorgeous black dress and high shoes.

  Sometimes it was nice to dress up, given that she wore overalls for most of her day. But even as she dressed, Victoria knew tonight wasn’t going to work out.

  He didn’t want to hear about her work.

  Which wasn’t really a good sign, when Victoria worked an awful lot.

  As for attraction?

  Well, she had rather hoped that might develop.

  And that wasn’t a good sign, surely.

  The condom in her purse would remain unused.

  God, it had been ages, Victoria thought, and there was almost an ache for contact and to be close to another, even if just for a little while.

  No, her date tonight could in no way deliver the zaps that Dominic’s eyes had.

  And so she cancelled it.

  Right there and then, Victoria pulled her phone out of her purse and told him that she’d changed her mind about going out tonight.

  ‘Another time...?’ he went to suggest, but Victoria didn’t play games.

  ‘No.’

  All dressed up and nowhere to go.

  Or nowhere she wanted to be.

  She had broken up with someone a few months ago when he had started to make noises about them living together.

  No way!

  There was no way on earth that Victoria would consider sharing her space with another.

  And so she had ended it.

  With the same lack of drama as she ended things tonight.

  Victoria pulled on her coat and headed out.

  ‘Goodnight,’ she called out to her colleagues, but as she walked off Glen called her back.

  ‘Paddington’s just called. Your earring is in the A&E safe.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Do you want me to drop you off?’ he offered, but Victoria said no. The ambulance station was just a ten-minute walk from Paddington’s and, though cold, it was a clear night and she wouldn’t mind the walk.