had an hour to spare and they were all giving up their lunch-breaks to attend. There were a few empty seats but that was normal. Some people couldn’t make it on the day, even if they were rostered to present a case, but that was OK, too, because they always had more cases lined up than they ended up having time to discuss.
She’d give Alex exactly one more minute to show up.
‘Aren’t you supposed to be at Monthly Report?’
‘Yep.’ Alex Rodriguez was facing his half-brother, Cade. Both men were semi-crouched and already sweating in the midday September sunshine that bathed the small area out the back of the ambulance bay where a basketball hoop was attached to the wall.
Alex had control of the ball right now, bouncing it in sharp movements as his body wove from side to side, looking for an opening to get closer to the hoop.
‘So why aren’t you?’
‘Could ask you the same question.’
‘Hey, I was only going to listen. Aren’t you supposed to be presenting a case?’
Alex ignored the question. With a lunge, he dived sideways, scooping up the ball and firing it at the hoop. With a resounding thump it hit the backboard and went through the net.
‘Yes …’
Both men went for the ball as it bounced on the tarmac. This time Cade made contact first and gleefully took control.
‘You may as well give up, bro. Go and have a shower and make Layla happy.’
‘What the hell is that supposed to mean?’
‘Whoa …’ Cade caught the ball instead of bouncing it and spun it on his hand. ‘Who put the burr under your saddle?’
Using Layla’s Texan drawl, along with a phrase they’d both heard her use, was like rubbing salt into the wound. With a move Cade didn’t see coming Alex knocked the ball from his hand and took off across the court, scoring another goal.
Cade laughed. Game on. For several minutes they played hard, ignoring the heat and the sweat and how out of breath they were getting.
No way was Alex going to go to that meeting and make Layla happy. It wasn’t so much that this was obviously a public pat on the back for a case that had gone so well, it was the string-pulling that he could sense going on behind it.
OK, he’d done Layla a favour but he’d done it in order to face his own demons, not to protect her. He didn’t want her thanks.
Hell, no …
Because if she got close enough to thank him properly, he knew exactly what could happen. Had already happened. That chemistry between them would explode and they’d end up in a clinch, kissing like there was no tomorrow.
And, God help him, he was not going to let it happen again.
Who the hell did Layla think she was that she could pull a string or two and have people dancing to her tune?
He’d told her that he didn’t want to present. She’d had plenty of time to back down and change the agenda and she hadn’t done so despite knowing that it could kick off a fresh wave of gossip. Well … he wasn’t even going to put in an apology for the meeting.
He just wasn’t going to show up. They might have to work together again but was going to do it on his terms, thank you very much.
She could deal with that. By herself.
This was getting borderline embarrassing.
From her position on the podium Layla nodded at the group. It was time to begin. Her heels sounded loud on the podium, rapping smartly on the wood as she moved to the microphone attached to the lectern. She tapped it gently to check it was on.
‘Howdy, folks. Glad y’all could make it.’ Her smile was bright. Along with good manners, Layla Woods had grown up knowing exactly how to present the perfect public face, no matter what was going on inside her head.
Or her heart, for that matter.
‘Looks like our first presenter is missing in action,’ she continued, ‘so let’s get the ball rolling with our second case. Dr Donaldson is going to share one of our neonatal department’s case histories.’
‘Thanks, darlin’ …’ Tyler reluctantly let go of Eleanor’s hand and strolled up to the podium. He winked at Layla as he inserted a memory stick into the data projector.
Layla kept her smile in place with difficulty. She knew what that wink was about just as clearly as she could sense the significant looks being passed between the people seated in the tiered rows in here. They all knew that Alex’s name was on the top of the agenda. Now they were all wondering if he really had an emergency keeping him away or if there was something else going on. Were some of those rumours circulating about a romantic involvement between Alex and Layla true?
‘Meet Madeline,’ Tyler Donaldson announced, as a photograph of a tiny, premature baby almost hidden by wires and tubes came up on the screen. ‘Born at a gestation of twenty-five weeks, this li’l gal weighed in at six hundred and eighty grams and measured thirty-two centimetres. She was intubated immediately after birth and given positive pressure ventilation due to her prematurity.’
To outward appearances, Layla was listening attentively to the presentation of all the complications this baby had had but in reality she was trying to unravel the knot of anger forming in her gut.
He could have put in an apology for the meeting. Or arranged for Ryan to present the case. They could have both kept their dignity intact and made a fresh start by putting their professional lives onto some kind of an even keel. The gossip would be fuelled by his non-appearance with no explanation. Layla didn’t like being the subject of gossip. She didn’t like the ashes of the past being raked over. Would she ever get away from the mistake she’d made in getting involved with Alex in the first place?
Don’t you mean get over him?
That tiny voice in the back of her mind got ruthlessly silenced. Layla glared at Tyler.
This was all his fault, wasn’t it? They’d known each other practically their whole lives. Ty knew how badly her marriage had ended and how strained her relationship with her family was. OK, maybe he hadn’t known about the affair that had spelt the end of that marriage, or that Alex had been the man she’d had an affair with, but it had been Ty who’d persuaded her to apply for the job here at Angel’s.
The job that meant she and Alex were working at the same hospital.
Again.
Layla took a deep breath and tried to tune in to what Tyler was saying about the complex surgery baby Madeline had had to go through. The fleeting thought that his specialty had to be harder now that his fiancée was pregnant with his own baby only led Layla straight back to her own personal issues.
Like how she was going to deal with the tension between Alex and herself. It wasn’t just about avoiding damage to their reputations, was it? There was still something there. Something powerful. That kiss had been more than enough to make it obvious. And, despite what Alex had said, she didn’t believe that doing the right thing had been the only motive for defending her against the management board.
Did he care about her on some level?
Did she care about him?
Not like that. Layla may have fallen in love with him the first time around but the disaster the affair had created in her life had been enough for those emotions to morph into simmering resentment at how thoroughly her life had been derailed. Whatever was still hanging around was about lust, not love. But, man, that sexual chemistry hadn’t lost any of its power, had it?
She just needed to learn to control it.
Like she tried to control everything else in her life?
Good grief, that little voice was annoying. A control freak? Her? Well … Layla had to admit she’d