The Doctor's One Night to Remember
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Charlotte Hawkes
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16
CHAPTER ONE
‘WHICH ONE OF them is faking it, do you think?’ Isla Sinclair wondered breezily, as she eyed the honeymooning couple frolicking together on the Chilean beach.
Her stepsister Leonora—former stepsister, if Isla was going to be strictly accurate—put down her summer cocktail and turned gracefully to look.
‘Don’t let what Brad-the-Cad did turn you into some hardened cynic, Isla.’ Leo smiled softly. ‘Maybe they’re actually in love?’
‘And you’re such a hopeless romantic.’ Isla grinned, making a conscious effort to thrust any unwelcome memories of her ex-fiancé out of her head. ‘You know as well as I do that someone is always faking it. If they’re really lucky, then they’re enjoying a mutually advantageous marriage, like my mother and your father had.’
Or at least it had been mutually advantageous for a blissful five years, ending perfectly amicably thirteen years ago, when Isla and Leo had been nineteen.
Onwards and upwards. Certainly that was a lesson Isla had learned at the knee of her beautiful, charming mother who had bounced her, cooed to her and whispered to her just what had to be done in order to negotiate for her next, richer, even more well-connected husband.
Marianna Sinclair-Raleigh-Burton had always seen marriage more like a business negotiation, with each party agreeing in advance what the other would bring to the table.
‘I can just hear your mother now.’ Leo shook her head affectionately. ‘Why complicate things by pretending to be in love, girls? Far better to be up-front. That way, there are no nasty surprises.’
‘Ugh!’ Isla mimicked one of her mother’s comical, yet simultaneously elegant shudders. ‘Perish the thought.’
Leo laughed, a tinkly kind of sound that Isla had always thought was the prettiest laugh she’d ever heard.
‘You sound just like her, Isla.’
‘I can live with that. Where is my mother anyway?’
‘She said she was going to have a lie-down.’ Leo pulled a wry face. ‘But what are the chances she’s found herself a new suitor?’
‘Well, firstly, she’s a new divorcee, again.’ Isla ticked the points off on her fingers. ‘Secondly, she insisted on coming out here and turning it into a holiday, even though I told her that I had come out early for some quiet, to get my head around my new role as ship’s doctor in two days. And thirdly, she booked us into the most expensive hotel in this part of the region—possibly in the whole of Chile. So if she hasn’t already eyed up a new husband for herself then I’d be surprised.’
‘Better her looking for herself than trying to set one of us two up,’ Leo groaned, though there was no rancour in her tone.
Both girls knew that, for all her faults, Marianna was the closest thing Leo had ever had to a mother, even all these years after their respective parents’ divorce. And in Isla’s eyes too, Marianna was the most loving, generous mother she thought a girl could ever have.
Still, that didn’t stop her from rolling her eyes good-naturedly now. ‘Quite. But I won’t hold my breath.’
‘Me neither.’ Leo turned to eye the honeymoon couple again. ‘Maybe they really are in love.’
‘Maybe.’
With a sigh, Isla let her eyes drift back to them. They certainly looked like they were loving life.
It just wasn’t the life that Isla had ever wanted for herself.
‘Anyway, I fancy checking out a few little stores I saw on the walk down here.’ Leo finished her drink and pushed it to the side. ‘Do you want to come?’
Isla hesitated for a moment. ‘No, actually, if you don’t mind I think I’d like to go for a walk along the beach. Once I’m on board, it might be a while before I get a chance to set foot on land again.’
‘Makes sense.’ Leo slipped off the stool and hooked her summery purse over her head. ‘See you back at the hotel?’
‘Yeah, about an hour?’
‘An hour.’ Leo nodded, heading daintily out of the bar and, unsurprisingly, in the direction of the honeymooners.
Typically romantic Leo. Isla smiled to herself.
But she definitely wasn’t here for love, or even for a holiday romance—the idea of either was enough to make her shudder—she was here for work. Better than that, she was here for the job of her life, the job she’d dreamed of doing ever since she’d been a kid—junior doctor on a cruise ship.
The Jewel of Hestia.
Perhaps not the incredible Queen Cassiopeia, the flagship of the Port-Star Cruise Line fleet that was anchored out at sea right now, but a good one all the same. One that would allow her to do the work she loved combined with travelling around the world.
What could be more perfect?
And if it also got her away from the humiliation of Bradley, and away from her mother’s next shenanigans, then wasn’t that a bonus?
Downing the last of her drink, Isla stood up and made herself smile. This wasn’t about the past; this was about the future. Or, until her ship sailed into port in a couple of days’ time, this was about living in the present and exploring as much as she could of what this part of Chile had to offer.
The sudden commotion behind her made Isla spin around to where an argument between two young men was going on in the next bar. Two six-foot, muscle-bound lads squaring—rather drunkenly—up to each other, both of whom might have looked at home in a boxing ring.
Clearly, the crowd seemed to think so. As much as they were entertained, they were evidently keeping their distance, not wanting to get caught in the middle.
That’s my cue.
Weaving through the tables, the occupants of which were mostly focused on the fact that the argument was turning into a brawl, Isla made her way to the strip of walkway between the bars and the beach and turned in the opposite direction from the fight. And the loud crash that ensued.
It wasn’t her business, and she didn’t care. She kept her head down and picked up her pace, right up to the moment when a deafening crash split the air.
Isla’s heart jolted and she whirled around despite herself—just in time to see a ship’s officer vaulting over the barrier to the sand and racing to haul one of the drunken young men—still flailing and punching—off the one who was now lying unconscious on the ground, as though the lad weighed little more than a sack of potatoes.
With one word, the newcomer had the crowd flipping from ghoulish spectators to concerned citizens, grouping around the injured party and checking him over, whilst the officer pinned the still-agitated second lad to a concrete pillar to stop him from reaching his quarry to rain down yet more punches.
The officer was at least as tall as the would-be boxer and, even though he wasn’t as obviously bulked up, there was no doubt that he was strong and skilled enough to control the bigger man, apparently quietly and smoothly talking him down before pressing a couple of the other stronger locals into taking the lad further away until he calmed down completely. Then he pulled a walkie-talkie from his waist and issued more instructions into that.
It was mesmerising how smoothly and efficiently the man had seemed to take charge of a situation which could have escalated far too easily. Her heart jolted again, and she told herself it was nothing more than an adrenalin rush due to the situation. Or perhaps it was because it highlighted, so aptly, all of her ex’s failings. Brad had liked to pretend that he was that kind of bark-a-command-and-everyone-jumps alpha male, but the truth was that he’d been more of a make-the-bullets-for-someone-else-to-fire kind of a man.
So what did it say about her that it had taken her so long to see the truth?
Enough! Isla chastised silently, shaking the guilt and shame from her thoughts. This was why she was here in Chile, waiting for the Jewel of Hestia to arrive. The ship’s junior doctor wasn’t just a new career; it was to be a new start.
Isla turned to leave, when suddenly she heard a series of shouts, mostly for emergency services, and then one shout which she couldn’t ignore.
‘Médico? Es alguien médico?’
Swinging back, her stomach lurching slightly, she surveyed the severity of the scene for a moment. Almost hoping someone else might step forward.
Nobody did.
‘Soy médica,’ she muttered at length, stumbled forward and pushed her way through the tight throng, her eyes taking in each detail as it came into focus.
Close up, she could now see that the man who had fallen had crashed through a glass-laden table and was now lying on his back on the ground, the table and shards of glass beneath him. Blood pooled somewhere around his lower back.
‘You.’ Isla pointed to some random gawking bystanders as she quickly and efficiently picked her way through the debris. ‘Can you move the tables? Mover las mesas?’
She crouched down beside the casualty, but until the glass was swept away she didn’t dare kneel.
‘And you...a sweeping brush...un cepillo para...’ her brain scrabbled for the words ‘...para barrer los...fragmentos de vidrio.’
She only paused long enough to see the bartender acknowledge her before she turned her focus to the patient. Not unconscious after all, but certainly groggy.
‘Hello, can you tell me your name? Cómo se llama?’
He groaned and weakly tried to push her hand away, possibly hearing her but not processing her words. Another observation to file away for the ambulance crew.
‘Okay—you’re okay. I’m a doctor. Soy médica.’
A quick check of his pulse suggested an erratic beat, hardly surprising after a bar fight and then demolishing a glass table. But there were no shards on his front, which meant the blood had to be coming from an injury on his back.
‘Someone has called for an ambulance? Ambulancia?’
‘Sí, sí,’ several people relayed at once, flowing into a torrent of Chilean Spanish that Isla wasn’t entirely sure she understood.
At least the barman had now swept away the worst of the broken glass and she could tend to the patient, although the guy was big and muscular and moving him was proving harder than she’d expected.
‘Help me roll him onto his front,’ she instructed anyone who was listening. ‘Ayudar me...rodar...’
‘Leave him, please.’
Isla jerked her head up at the commanding voice, unprepared for the man who was bearing down on her. The cruise ship officer from before—as if her body hadn’t already prickled in awareness. She told herself it was just the heat—the downdraught that his body created as he moved closer—and nothing more.
Her eyes seemed intent on drinking in every inch of him, not least the epaulettes on his shoulders. A senior officer, at that. A first officer—practically the Captain’s right-hand man.
‘I take it he’s one of yours?’ she bit out, furious with herself. ‘Good—you can tell me his name?’
‘He is one of mine,’ First Officer McHotty growled. ‘And he clearly needs a doctor.’
‘I am a doctor.’
‘Is that so?’ He barely paused a fraction of a beat. ‘What I mean is that we have our own doctors to deal with our crew.’
‘Right, but they aren’t here, are they?’ Isla kept her eyes on the patient, her hands finding a good purchase. ‘However, I am here, and he’s bleeding out. So I suggest you help me roll him. And tell me his name. Oh, and what language does he speak?’
She sensed rather than saw the moment of hesitation as McHotty took in the scene for himself, but she was having enough trouble focusing.
Impressive enough from a distance, up close he was also possibly the most breathtaking specimen of a male that Isla thought she’d ever seen, as galling as that was to admit. He wasn’t classically handsome; that would have been too banal for the man. Instead there was an arresting quality about him, from the sharp, square jaw to the blade of a nose. His eyes were the richest, deepest caramel she’d ever seen, with a smokiness to match that raw masculine voice. And his body? Her brain refused to go there—she didn’t even want to start thinking about his body.
It was unfortunate then that her brain didn’t appear to be in control of anything right now. Despite all her silent cerebral protestations, her eyes slid—seemingly of their own volition—to the body crouched down beside her.
The powerful thighs brushing hers, and unwittingly sending little bolts of electricity through her. His pristine uniform clung like a lover to hewn muscle, from strong thighs, to contoured torso, to wide shoulders—no wonder he’d had little trouble besting the brawny would-be fighter.
If the world had stopped spinning, Isla wouldn’t have been all that surprised, and yet the entire interaction took less than a couple of seconds. Nonetheless, it galled her beyond all measure that her mouth felt parched as her eyes drank it all in. As if she’d never seen a man before in her life.
Only, if she were to be honest, she’d certainly never seen a man like this before. Surely the hottest male specimen to have ever walked the planet? And, judging by the doe-eyed females in the crowd, she definitely wasn’t the only one to think it.
Isla thrust the traitorous thought aside and forced her attention back to her unexpected patient.
‘What language, please?’ she repeated, as firmly as she could.
‘His name is Philippe. He can speak English.’
‘Okay, Philippe, I’m Isla, I’m a doctor, I’m here to help you. We’re going to roll you onto your stomach, okay?’ she warned, as McHotty crouched down beside her—so close that it made her feel altogether too many sensations in too many places, the heat seeping from his body into hers playing havoc with her insides.
Then he took the patient, rolling the muscle-bound hulk as if he weighed nothing.
The crowd collectively sucked in a breath.
A long, sharp shard of glass was protruding from the man’s left buttock, blood surrounding the area. There was no doubt that it had severed his superior gluteal artery.
As her new, unwelcome companion grabbed his walkie and issued another irate command for the ship’s doctor, Isla looked around for some material, eventually settling on her own chiffony scarf. Wrapping it around her hand, she prepared to grab the shard.
‘What are you doing now?’ McHotty demanded abruptly, dropping back next to her.
‘I need to remove the glass.’
‘If you remove it, won’t he just bleed all the more? Or can you tourniquet it?’
‘I can’t tourniquet his backside.’ She shook her head, drawing the shard out carefully. ‘And yes, the artery will need occluding.’
‘I suggest you would do better to leave it in place,’ he continued in a voice which bore little resemblance to a suggestion and entirely too much like a command. ‘Certainly until my ship’s doctor arrives.’
This last comment was clearly a slight. She’d heard them before; there was no reason this should rankle more just because it was coming from this stranger.
She forced herself to keep her tone even. ‘Your ship’s doctor is taking their time. Time this patient may not have.’
She could tell that he was caught between wanting to make another call and not leaving her alone with his crewman. What did it say about her that she got a tiny kick out of unsettling this man, who was clearly acutely accustomed to being the one in control?
‘Not when he’s unconscious and his heartbeat is so erratic. What if he suddenly needs CPR? Also, it’s best to remove glass immediately to reduce the risk of infection, and to prevent any allergic response. I need to remove the foreign body and clean the wound.’
‘Not just a patient. My crewman. You will wait.’
‘I’m afraid not. You might be second in command on that floating city out at sea, but right here, right now, this is a medical emergency and I’m the only doctor on scene. So you need to wind your neck in; we’re doing it my way.’
Had she really just told a man who was senior enough to be her boss to wind his neck in?
When was the last time anyone had got under her skin the way that he seemed to have done?
She could practically feel the castigation in his glower; it zinged through her.
‘You misunderstand...’ he growled, and a lesser woman might have quaked at the warning tone in his voice.
After Bradley, Isla had certainly had enough of being the lesser woman.
‘There,’ she cut in, holding aloft the long shard and smiling sweetly. ‘All out.’
The giant of a man glanced down, and she could swear, just for a fraction of a moment, that he blanched. So fleeting that she thought she might have imagined it.
‘He’s still bleeding,’ McHotty rasped. ‘How are you going to stop that now?’
‘Like this,’ she said grimly, quickly cleaning up the wound and plugging it with her finger.
As though it was every day that she stared at the hottest man she’d ever seen in her life whilst her finger was plugging some other guy’s arse cheek. Worse, she was almost sure she saw amusement flicker over his impossibly arresting features.
‘See?’ She glowered. ‘Now where’s that damned ambulance?’
Nikhil Dara listened as the doctor—Isla, she’d said her name was—wound up her handover to the emergency services, and instructed himself to concentrate on how efficiently she performed her job, rather than how particularly ravishing she was. It was surprisingly difficult—certainly for him.
He knew his reputation for being single-minded, and exacting—as well as several less polite terms his crew used, particularly when they were exhausted and he was making them run a scenario one more time to ensure that it was right. Rather than balk at such nicknames, however, he had always prided himself on them. Yet now, for the first time in memory, he found himself struggling to focus purely on the task in hand without letting his gaze slide to the arresting doctor.
As if being at sea meant he’d somehow been deprived of female company when the truth was that his life as First Officer on a cruise liner often entailed women—crew and passengers—offering themselves up to him daily on a silver platter. On one occasion, quite literally.
He never bit.
Certainly never on board and, if on shore, then never with anyone he would see again. It was a measure of control on which he prided himself. Which made it all the more aggravating that he seemed to have to fight his own body to keep his distance from the young doctor, as he concentrated on instructing his recently arrived junior officer to accompany Philippe in the ambulance and then for said officer to keep him informed of the hospital’s progress.
Helping the crew to close the doors, he watched the vehicle speed off and finally turned to the doctor and bobbed his head in acknowledgement.
‘Thank you for your help. Philippe is fortunate that you were there.’
‘No problem.’ She shrugged, hauling out her phone for a moment and frowning as she read some message.
There was no reason on earth for him to wonder what it was that had irritated her. Or why he should notice quite how her blue eyes looked almost silvery-grey when she nodded back and swung away from him. Or how her golden-brown hair skimmed her shoulders from the ponytail high on the back of her head.
Ridiculously fanciful, he berated himself, with a rough shake of his head. As if he could dislodge the ball of pressure that had been squatting on his brain for days, pressing up against his skull, creating a dull throb. One that no amount of headache medication could hope to touch.
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.
