all the enthusiasm of a puppy dropping a ball at her feet in the hope that she would want to play.
‘Of course.’ She grinned, then was glad of her long legs when she had to quicken her pace to keep up with him when he strode out of the room and set off down the corridor.
‘Oh, I am so sorry,’ he apologised a moment later, coming to a sudden halt so that she almost ploughed into his back.
‘For what?’ She tried to appear unaffected in spite of the fact that her pulse had just accelerated from sixty to a hundred and twenty beats with his unexpected proximity.
She was close enough to feel the heat emanating from his lean body through the cream-coloured shirt he wore, close enough, even, to be able to see the beginning of a tangle of dark hairs at the unbuttoned throat of that shirt.
Suddenly she was uncomfortably aware that she knew something as intimate as the fact that her new boss had hair on his chest, and Lily felt the beginning of a blush warming her cheeks.
He was staring in amazement when he found that she was right behind him, those dark eyes dropping the length of her long trouser-clad legs with a dawning smile. ‘I was going to apologise for expecting you to be able to walk as fast as I do and rudely leaving you behind. This is the first time…the first time in my life…that a woman has been able to match my pace without running or getting out of breath.’
‘So you’re accustomed to having short-legged women running after you?’ she quipped, then sucked in a sharp breath when she realised that she was actually flirting with the man. She’d never realised before that she even knew how to flirt.
The gleam in his eyes grew more pronounced and his teeth were startlingly white against his olive skin. ‘Some of us have that cross to bear,’ he admitted with mock modesty. ‘And doubtless your long legs have been very useful to you as you leave your many suitors in your dust.’
Many suitors! Hah!
Lily knew what she looked like. She saw herself in the mirror every morning as she brushed her teeth and pulled her hair back into a no-nonsense twist. Even on a good day, she wouldn’t stop traffic, unlike her sisters who had inherited their mother’s better-endowed shape. So, was he mocking her for her lack of feminine attributes, his own subtle way of putting her down?
‘I am sorry. Did I say something wrong?’ He had obviously noticed her rapid change of expression as his broad forehead was pleated into a frown. ‘If I have upset you…’
‘No, no. Everything’s fine,’ she said hastily, averting her face from his intense scrutiny to look along the corridor. ‘So, does this lead directly to the new operating suite?’
For just a moment she held her breath, certain that he was going to pursue the point, then released it in a silent sigh of relief when he began walking again.
‘Nothing in this hospital leads directly to anything else,’ he said wryly. ‘I hope you have a good sense of direction.’
‘If I get lost, you’ll have to send out search parties,’ she suggested, trying to recapture the light-hearted tone of their earlier conversation, but when Razak shouldered his way through the next set of swing doors she came to a sudden halt.
‘Wow!’ she breathed, feeling her eyes grow wider and wider as she looked around at the reception area for the new suite. ‘This is bigger than my whole flat…well, it’s more of a bedsit, really, but…’ She shut her mouth, suddenly aware that she was babbling. That would have been bad enough if it was only in front of her new boss, but to have half a dozen workmen listening in, too…
‘So, you like it?’ he asked, as he beckoned her forward to point out the eventual purpose of each of the rooms, from the lowliest store cupboard to the two spacious theatres. ‘They finished putting in the last of the flooring on Friday so they were given the weekend without any traffic on them to allow the adhesives to set properly. Today, as you can see, everywhere is being decorated.’
‘But there are no doors to any of the rooms,’ she said, suddenly realising why everywhere looked so strangely open.
‘There will be doors,’ he reassured her with a laugh. ‘Apparently, they won’t go in until all the equipment has been installed because otherwise they get in the way and can get damaged.’
‘That’s logical,’ she agreed, ‘especially as so many of them will be on automatic closing mechanisms. And you’re hoping that we’ll be moving in here when it’s completed?’
‘I’m lobbying hard,’ he admitted as he led the way back out into the original part of the hospital. ‘I don’t know who you spoke to when you came for your interview, but did they tell you what I’ve been trying to organise in this new suite?’
‘No one said a thing, other than that I would be working with a surgeon who wasn’t staying very long and would that affect my acceptance of the post if I were offered it.’
‘And you had no objection?’
‘Not if it gave me the chance at a post here,’ she said bluntly. ‘The high standards of orthopaedic surgery in this hospital made it an obvious choice for the next step up the career ladder.’
‘So, you are a career woman, then,’ he said with a thoughtful frown as he paused in front of the door with his name across it. ‘Have you no wish for a husband and children?’
‘Certainly not for the foreseeable future,’ she said firmly, wondering if his background led him to believe, like her family, that women belonged in the home, rearing children and catering to their husbands. ‘I have worked far too hard to get this far to give it all up for nappies and midnight feeds. There is another rung I want to climb on the ladder first.’
‘Well, let us see if we can make the next few months the perfect preparation for that goal,’ he suggested as he led the way into his office. ‘There is much to be done with so many patients waiting months in agony for their turn on the table, and this afternoon we have a clinic to determine the suitability of the next group to take their place. Come, I will show you their files.’
A tiny secret place inside Lily was actually disappointed that Razak had switched to a totally professional tone, completely devoid of any of the previous light-heartedness. The rest of her applauded it, knowing that the more experience she could gain by his side, the better it would be for her career.
After all, she rationalised, her career was more important to her than being friendly with the man who would help to hone her skills.
CHAPTER TWO
BY THE time she staggered back to her bedsit that evening Lily was totally exhausted and wondering if she was ever going to be able to keep up with Razak’s seemingly inexhaustible supply of energy.
Things had started off calmly enough as the two of them had first examined an apparently endless series of patients referred by their GPs, many of them needing orthopaedic surgery sooner rather than later for their painful joints. Later that afternoon they had moved on to the review of the two patients who had been admitted that day for surgery the following morning, but before they had been able to take any sort of a break for her to ask any of the questions already buzzing around in her head, Razak had been contacted for an urgent consultation on a patient in the emergency department and she had found herself running in his wake when he had suggested she come, too.
‘Sir, listen to this,’ exulted a very young doctor as he reached out towards the blood-spattered body on the trolley in front of him. ‘You can actually hear the bones grating when you spring the man’s hips.’
‘Don’t!’ snapped Razak, before he could make contact, the word like the crack of a lash. ‘How many times have you already done that?’
‘A couple,’ he admitted, then smiled almost innocently. ‘It’s the first time I’ve actually heard a break when I’ve done it and I—’
‘And you