A Surgeon with a Secret Page 17
He wasn’t himself.
He hadn’t been since he’d received the birthday card from Daksh yesterday.
Daksh. The brother he hadn’t heard from in over two decades but who now, out of the blue, apparently wanted to meet. Right here, in Chile.
How the hell Daksh had even tracked him down was beyond him. But, worse than that, the man who was his brother in nothing but name was stirring up old ghosts that should be left buried. Preferably as deep as possible.
Better yet, left to burn in some hell at the centre of the earth.
Nikhil cursed silently. No wonder his head was all over the place. No wonder he was letting the attraction for this woman, this stranger, get under his skin. If he’d been himself, he would have dismissed it as simple physical attraction—pleasant enough but best left unexplored in the middle of a cruise.
He tried to clear his head.
‘Okay,’ offered the young doctor when the silence stretched out an uncomfortable touch too long. ‘Well, I guess I should be going.’
Without warning, something twisted and darted within Nikhil’s veins. The sudden realisation that a few more steps and she would be gone. Inexplicably, he found that he didn’t want her to leave.
‘Wait.’ The command was out before he even realised he was going to issue it.
She stopped, then turned back slowly. As if she didn’t really want to, but felt compelled.
As compelled as he did? The notion was fascinating.
‘Let me buy you a drink.’
She stared at him, not blinking.
‘No,’ she managed at last, and he had the oddest notion that it was harder for her than she thought it should have been.
‘Why not?’ He grinned, liking the way her eyes darted to his mouth, and then she flushed.
As if her thoughts weren’t entirely proper.
‘Because I don’t even know your name,’ she blurted out, and then squeezed her eyes shut, suggesting that she hadn’t intended to say that.
‘Nikhil.’ He inclined his head. ‘And you’re Isla.’
She looked surprised, and Nikhil shrugged. ‘You told Philippe your name, even though he was unconscious.’
‘Right.’ She bobbed her head. ‘Well, you can never be sure how much a person can hear, even then.’
‘So I’ve heard,’ he acknowledged.
It was a topic that had long interested him, yet right now he couldn’t think of anything less fascinating.
‘Now introductions have been made, how about that drink?’
‘I...’ She pulled a rueful face, tailing off into a telling silence.
‘As a thank you.’
Why was he pushing this? He should just return to the ship, finish up his shift and get ready for his rare evening onshore. Alone. Instead, he heard himself speaking again.
‘The company will want to take your details—for their report. I can guide you through filling it out.’
It was true, but it hadn’t been the thought at the forefront of his mind. Odd, since it ought to have been.
‘It’s okay. I can provide a report of my own if necessary.’
There was something in his tone that he couldn’t quite place. He found that he didn’t care for the way it unbalanced him. He’d spent years ensuring nothing, and no one, ever rattled him. Yet this woman affected him like no one else ever had.
It had to be that damned birthday card he’d received yesterday from his brother. If ‘brother’ was what you could call the stranger Nikhil hadn’t heard anything from in practically two decades.
‘The forms are unnecessarily convoluted,’ he warned, shutting down the other, errant thought.
‘I just had my finger in your crewman’s arse cheek. A ship’s form doesn’t faze me.’
A ghost of a smile played at her mouth, and it seemed to jolt through his entire body. Somehow, it was more than just attraction. He was well-versed in sexual chemistry, and equally skilled at controlling it, not giving in to it. But this was...different. She—Isla—got to him. And he didn’t care for such a realisation.
‘Is that so?’
‘It is.’ She bobbed her head. ‘I may not be one of the doctors on your ship, but I am actually Port-Star Cruise’s newest doctor.’
‘Say again?’
She laughed unexpectedly and her face lit up so stunningly, so vibrantly, that for a moment he was sure she’d eclipsed the hot Chilean sun.
Suddenly he realised he wanted more of that smile. More of that joy. As if he’d taken a shot of something earth-shaking. And now he needed more.
‘You work for Port-Star?’
‘I do. The Jewel of Hestia will come into this port in two days’ time, and it will be my first assignment.’
‘A new career move then?’ he mused. ‘All the more reason to celebrate, surely.’
And although it should have been a question, Nikhil realised that it hadn’t been.
‘Dinner, I think. I’ll collect you around seven-thirty. Where are you staying?’
‘What if I have a boyfriend?’ she asked, but he could tell it was more curiosity than refusal.
‘You don’t,’ he answered simply. ‘You have a line where you have recently removed a ring. Judging by the width of it, I’d say an engagement ring, not a wedding ring. And, as you just said, your assignment on the Hestia will be your first. So, a fresh start.’
And if the fact that he’d noticed so much about her in so short a time worried him, he was determined to ignore it.
She stared at him for a long moment, those expressive eyes of hers threatening to draw him in with every sweep of her gaze.
What the hell was he doing?
‘Fine,’ she answered after what seemed like for ever. ‘I don’t have a boyfriend, but I have...friends here, with me. I can’t just ditch them.’
‘You’ve ditched them now,’ he pointed out. ‘Or they’ve ditched you. Either way, you clearly don’t live in each other’s pockets. You have your last night with them tomorrow, and presumably that’s the big farewell meal, so you’re free to meet me tonight.’
She opened her mouth but then closed it again.
She was tempted...and that gave him more of a kick than it had any right to.
‘Plus it’s my birthday—are you really going to leave me to celebrate it alone?’
Why the hell had he told her that?
Fury shot through him. It had to be Daksh’s letter and imperious command to meet that had rattled him.
He never told anyone when his birthday was.
If he were honest, Nikhil didn’t know why it was such a secret, or how it had come to be this big thing. Nor did he know quite why he got such a kick out of the fact that no one on board knew. Perhaps it was because, in these close-quarter confines, everybody knew everything about everyone else’s business and this was one little nugget he could keep to himself—save for the Captain and HR, both of whom would have been in breach for divulging it.
Yet now he’d just announced it to the newest member of Port-Star. It should have been his cue to turn around and walk. Instead, he heard himself speaking again.
‘Which hotel then, Isla?’
Her blue-grey eyes sparked, and yet still she didn’t shut him down.
‘Okay,’ she answered suddenly, biting out the name quickly.
His eyebrows shot up; too late, he wished he hadn’t reacted. But that hotel was well-known to be a playground for the rich and famous. Certainly not somewhere the average ship’s officer might stay, not even a doctor, and the last thing he wanted to do was get involved with the monied crowd.
They, apparently, were more his brother’s crowd than his.
‘A farewell gift from my...friends,’ Isla said suddenly, as if reading his thoughts. Though he could tell she was holding something back. ‘We thought we’d push
the boat out, if you’ll pardon the pun.’
He could understand that. Didn’t he do the same thing each year, when he booked twelve months ahead just to eat in Chile’s world-renowned Te Tinca restaurant?
Alone.
‘Ah. And they can’t spare you for an evening?’
So why was he now insisting on the stunning doctor accompanying him?
It had to be his way of avoiding Daksh.
‘I... They... I suppose they could,’ she hazarded after a moment. ‘Not a date, of course.’
‘Of course not,’ he demurred. ‘Well, Little Doc, shall we say seven-thirty? In this lobby.’
And then, before anything else could be said—or any more damage done—Nikhil turned around and strode away.
Copyright © 2021 by Charlotte Hawkes
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ISBN-13: 9781488074790
A Surgeon with a Secret
Copyright © 2021 by Alison Roberts
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
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