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CHAPTER ONE

OLIVIA COATES-CLARK STRAIGHTENED up and indicated to a nurse to wipe her forehead in an attempt to get rid of an annoying tickle that had been irritating her for some minutes. ‘Is it me, or is Theatre hotter than usual this morning?’

‘I haven’t noticed,’ Kay, the anaesthetist, answered as she kept an eye on the monitors in front of her. ‘Sure you’re not stressing about tonight, Olivia?’

‘Me? Stress?’ Olivia grimaced behind her mask. She was a control freak; of course she stressed. ‘Okay, let’s get this second implant inserted so we can bring our girl round.’

‘So everything’s good to go for the gala fundraiser?’ Kay persisted.

‘Fingers crossed,’ Olivia muttered, refusing to think about what could go wrong. Her list of requirements and tasks was complete, neat little ticks beside every job and supplier and by the name of every attendee, including the seeing eye dog coming.

‘I bumped into Zac yesterday. He’s looking forward to catching up with everyone.’ Kay’s forced nonchalance didn’t fool her.

‘I’m sure everyone feels the same.’ The anaesthetist had hit on the reason for Olivia feeling unnaturally hot. Zachary Wright. Just knowing he’d be at the function she’d spent weeks organising made her toes curl with unwanted anticipation. Not to mention the alien nervousness. ‘Zac,’ she sighed into her mask. The one man she’d never been able to delete from her mind. And, boy, had she tried.

‘You need more mopping?’ the nurse asked.

‘No, thanks.’ That particular irritation had gone, and she’d ignore the other—Zac—by concentrating on supervising the plastic surgery registrar opposite her as he placed the tissue expander beneath the pocket under Anna Seddon’s pectoralis major muscle on the left side of her chest wall.

The registrar had supported Olivia as she’d done the first insertion of an expander on the right side, watching every move she made, listening to every word she said, as though his life depended on it. Which it did. One mistake and she’d be on him like a ton of bricks. So far he was doing an excellent job of the second breast implant. ‘Remember to make sure this one’s placed exactly the same as the first one. No woman is going to thank you for lopsided breasts.’ This might only be the first stage in a series of surgeries to reconstruct Anna’s breasts but it had to be done well. There was no other way.

The guy didn’t look up as he said, ‘I get it. This is as much about appearances and confidence as preventing cancer.’

‘Making a person feel better about themselves is our job description.’ Her career had evolved along a path of repairing people who’d had misadventures or deforming surgeries. But she didn’t knock those specialists working to make people happier in less traumatic circumstances. Everyone was entitled to feel good about themselves, for whatever reasons; to hide behind a perfect facade if they needed to.

For Olivia, looking her absolute best was imperative: a confident shield that hid the messy, messed-up teenager from the critical world waiting to pounce. Making the most of her appearance hadn’t been about attracting males and friends since she was twelve and the night her father had left home for the last time, taking his clothes and car, and her heart. Leaving her to deal with her mother’s problems alone.

Kay glanced down at the table. ‘This isn’t the first time I’ve seen a perfectly healthy woman deliberately have her breasts removed, but I still can’t get my head round it. I don’t know if I’d have the guts to have the procedure done if I didn’t already have cancer.’

Olivia understood all too well, but … ‘If you’d lost your grandmother and one sister to the disease, and your mother had had breast cancer you might think differently.’ Bad luck came in all forms.

‘I’d do whatever it took to be around to watch my kids grow up,’ one of the nurses said.

‘You’re right, and so would I.’ Kay shivered. ‘Still, it’s a huge decision. You’d want your man on side, for sure.’

‘Anna’s husband’s been brilliant. I’d go so far as to call him a hero. He’s backing her all the way.’ A hero? If she wasn’t in Theatre she’d have to ask herself what she was on. Heroes were found in romance stories, not real life—not often anyhow, and not in her real life. Not that she’d ever let one in if one was on offer.

As Olivia swabbed the incision a clear picture of Zac spilled into her mind, sent a tremor down her arm, had her imagining his scent. Oh, get over yourself. Zac wasn’t her hero. Wasn’t her anything. Hadn’t been since she’d walked away from their affair eighteen months ago. But—she sighed again—what would’ve happened if she’d found the courage to push the affair beyond the sex and into a relationship where they talked and shared and had been there for each other? Eventually Zac would’ve left her. At least by getting in first she’d saved herself from being hurt. Tonight she’d see quite a bit of him, which didn’t sit easily with her. The day his registration for the gala had arrived in her inbox she’d rung him for a donation for the fundraising auction. Since then she hadn’t been able to erase him from her mind. Come on. He’s always been lurking in the back of your head, reminding you how good you were together.

‘So there are good guys out there.’ Kay’s tone was acerbic.

Zac might be one of the good guys. She hadn’t hung round long enough to find out. She’d got too intense about him too quickly and pulling the plug on their fling had been all about staying in control and not setting herself up to be abandoned. Going through that at twelve had been bad enough; to happen again when she was an adult would be ridiculous. So she’d run. Cowardly for sure, but the only way to look out for herself. And now she had an op to finish and a gala to start. ‘Let’s get this tidied up and the saline started.’ She had places to be and hopefully not many things to do.

An hour later she was beginning to wish she’d stayed in Theatre for the rest of the day. The number of texts on her phone gave the first warning that not everything was going to plan at the hotel where the gala evening would be held; that her list was in serious disarray.

As she ran for her car, the deluge that all but drowned her and destroyed her carefully styled hair, which she’d spent the evening before having coloured and tidied, was the second warning. At least her thick woollen coat had saved her silk blouse from ruin. But rain had not been on her schedule, which put her further out of sorts. Everything about tonight had to be perfect.

Slamming the car door, she glared out at the black sky through the wet windscreen. ‘Get a move on. I want you gone before my show starts tonight.’

The third suggestion that things were turning belly up was immediate and infuriating. One turn of the ignition key and the flat clicking sound told a story of its own. The battery was kaput. Because? Olivia slapped the dashboard with her palm. The lights had been left on. There was no one to blame except herself.

Olivia knew the exact moment Zac walked through the entrance of the plush hotel, and it had nothing to do with the sudden change in noise as the doors opened, letting in sounds of rain and car horns. She might’ve been facing the receptionist but she knew. Her skin prickled, her belly tightened, and the air around her snapped. Worse, she forgot whatever it was she’d been talking about to the young woman on the other side of the polished oak counter.

So nothing had changed. He still rattled her chain, made her feel hot and sexy and out of control—and he hadn’t even said a word to her. Probably hadn’t recognised her back view.

‘Hello, Olivia. It’s been a while.’

That particular husky, sexy voice belonged to only one man. ‘Since what, Zac?’ she asked, as she lifted her head and turned to face him, fighting the adrenaline rush threatening to turn her into a blithering wreck. This was why she’d left him. Zac undermined her self-control. How had she found the strength to walk away? Not that there’d been anything more to their relationship than sex. Nothing that should be making her blood fizz and her heart dance a tango just because he stood a few feet from her. No way did she want to jump his bones within seconds of seeing him. She shouldn’t want to at all. But no denying it—she did. Urgently.

Black-coffee-coloured eyes bored into her, jolting her deep inside. ‘Since we last spent the night together, enjoying each other’s company.’

‘Go for the jugular, why don’t you?’ she gasped, knowing how wrong it was to even wish he’d give her a hug and say he’d missed her.

Zac instantly looked contrite. ‘Sorry, Olivia. I didn’t mean to upset you.’

‘You didn’t,’ she lied. Behind her physical reaction her heart was sitting up, like it had something to say. Like what? Not going there. ‘The bedroom scene was the grounds of our relationship.’ That last night she’d got up at three in the morning, said she couldn’t do it any more, and had walked out without explaining why. To tell him her fears would’ve meant exposing herself, and that was something she never did.

‘So? How’s things? Keeping busy?’ Inane, safe, and so not what she really wanted to ask. Got a new woman in your life? Do you ever miss me? Even a teeny, weeny bit? Or are you grateful I pulled the plug when I did? Right now all her muscles felt like they were reaching for him, wanting him touching them, rubbing them, turning her on even more. Had she done the right thing in leaving? Of course she had. Rule number one: stay in control. She’d been losing it back then. Fast.

Zac had the audacity to laugh. ‘What? You haven’t kept tabs on me?’ His grin was lazy, and wide, and cut into her with the sexiness of it. There was no animosity there whatsoever, just a deliberate, self-mocking gleam in his beautiful eyes. He was as good as her at hiding emotions.

Shaking her head at him, Olivia leaned back, her hands pressed against the counter at her sides, the designer-jeans-clad legs Zac had sworn were the best he’d ever had anything to do with posed so that one was in front of the other and bent slightly at the knee, tightening the already tight, annoyingly damp denim over her not-so-well-toned thigh. ‘My turn to apologise. I haven’t kept up with any gossip.’

‘Dull as dishwater, that’s my life.’ Unfortunately that twinkle she’d always melted for was very apparent, belying his statement.

‘Right.’ She rolled her eyes at him, unable to imagine Zac not being involved in and with people, especially feminine, good-looking, sexy people. Was she jealous? Couldn’t be. She’d done the dumping, not him. But Zac with another woman? Pain lodged in the region of her heart.

‘Never could fool you.’ It was inordinately satisfying to see his gaze drop to the line on the front of her thigh where the mulberry three-quarter-length coat cut across her jeans. Even more gratifying when his tongue lapped that grin, which rapidly started fading. And downright exciting to see Zachary blink not once but twice.

She didn’t need exciting in her life right now, and Zac and exciting were one and the same. ‘I keep to myself a lot these days too,’ she muttered, not really sure what she was talking about any more with the distracting package standing right in front of her.

‘Now I’m shocked.’ The grin was back in place, lion-like in its power to knock her off her feet and set her quaking.

‘Why? It’s not as though I’ve ever been a social butterfly.’

‘There’s never been anything butterfly-like about you, Olivia.’

Confidence oozed from Zac that didn’t bode well for the coming evening when they’d be in the same crowd, the same venue. At the same table. Of all the things she’d organised she should’ve been able to arrange that he sat on the opposite side of the room. It had proved impossible as they were the only two people attending the gala who were on their own. All the others were in pairs.

‘You’re saying I’m not a flapper?’ They were toying with each other. Reality slammed into her, made her gasp aloud. They’d teased each other mercilessly the first night they’d gone to bed together, and had never stopped. Well, she was stopping now. Time to put distance between them. She needed to get on with what she was supposed to be doing. ‘I’ve got a lot to do so I’ll see you later. I hope you have a great evening.’

Disappointment flicked through his eyes, quickly followed by something much like hurt but couldn’t be. Not hurt. She hadn’t done anything more than push him aside, though that’d probably spiked his pride. He had a reputation of loving and leaving.

It had taken the death of a small child in Theatre to throw them into each other’s arms for the first time. Desperate to obliterate the anguished parents from her mind, Olivia had found temporary comfort with Zac. She’d also found sex like she’d never known before. How they’d spent years rubbing shoulders at med school and not felt anything for each other until that day was one of life’s mysteries. From then on all it took had been one look and they’d be tearing each other’s clothes off, falling into bed, onto the couch, over the table. They’d done little talking and a lot of action.

Tonight, if they were stuck together for any length of time, she’d talk and keep her hands to herself. That had been the plan, but so far it wasn’t working out. Not that she’d touched Zac yet. Yet? With her mouth watering and her fingers twitching, it would take very little to change that. She had to get serious and focus on what had to be done. ‘I’ll leave you to check in.’ Her voice was pitched high—definitely no control going on there.

‘I’m not checking in.’

She should’ve remembered that. She knew all the names of the people who’d elected to stay the night here instead of driving home afterwards. ‘Do you live nearby?’

‘Over the road.’

‘In that amazing apartment building designed to look like a cruise ship, overlooking the super yachts and high-end restaurants?’ Oh, wow. He had done all right for himself. Of course, he came from a moneyed background, but she recalled him saying he’d paid his own way through med school. She had never told him she also came from money or that her mother had used it to bribe her to keep her onside until she was old enough to work out that hiding bottles of alcohol from her father wasn’t a joke at all.

‘Are you staying here?’ he asked casually, making her wonder if he might have plans to pay her a visit if she was.

‘Yes.’ The house she’d bought last summer was less than twenty minutes away in upmarket Parnell. ‘I’m going to be busy here right up to kick-off, and going home to get ready for the evening would use up time I might not have if things go wrong.’ Which plenty had done already. She looked over at the receptionist, suddenly remembering she’d been in the middle of another conversation before Zac had walked up. ‘Can you let me know when Dr Brookes and his family check in, please?’

The girl nodded. ‘Certainly, Dr Coates-Clark.’

‘I’ll be in the banquet room,’ Olivia told the girl needlessly. The hotel staff had her cell number, but right now she wasn’t doing so well on remembering anything she should. Better get a grip before the evening got under way.

Zac shrugged those impressive shoulders that she’d kissed many times. ‘I’ll give you a hand.’

‘Thanks, but that won’t be necessary. I’m getting everything sorted.’ As much as having someone to help her would be a benefit, Zac would probably get her into a bigger pickle just by being in the same room. Turning on her heel, Olivia headed to the elevator that’d take her up to the room where tonight’s dinner, auction, and dance would be held. The evening was due to get under way in a little over three hours and she wanted to check that everything was in place and see if the flowers had finally arrived. Something about bad weather causing a shortage of flowers at the markets that morning had been the harried florist’s excuse. But bad weather didn’t explain why the place name cards were yet to arrive from the copy centre.

Unbelievable how she’d softened on the inside when she’d first looked at Zac, despite the heat and turmoil he instantly ramped up within her. Like she’d missed him. But she hadn’t known Zac beyond work and bed so not a lot to miss apart from that mind-blowing sex. Odd she felt there was more to him she wanted to learn about when she hadn’t been interested before. Not interested? Of course she had been. That’s what had frightened her into ending the affair.

A large palm pressed the button to summon the elevator. ‘It’s out there on the surgeons’ loop that you need some help with running the auction tonight. I’m stepping up. Starting now.’ Zac looked down his long straight nose at her, his mouth firm, his gaze determined. ‘No argument.’

Why would he want to do that? It meant being in her company for hours. She’d have sworn he would’ve planned on keeping well away from her, and that the last five minutes had been five too many in her company. ‘Thanks, but no thanks, Zac. I’ve got it covered.’ Second lie in minutes. She doubted she could spend too much time with him without dredging up all the reasons why she’d been a fool to drop him—instead of remembering why it had been a very sane move. No one was going to walk away from her ever again.

She made the mistake of looking at Zac and her tongue instantly felt too big for her mouth. Zac was so good looking, his face a work of art, designed to send any female who came near him into a lather. Including her. Olivia closed her eyes briefly, but his face followed her, seared on the insides of her eyelids. Zachary Wright. If ever there was a man she might fall for, it was Zac. That was a big ‘if’. Painful lessons growing up were a harsh reminder that there was only one person who’d look out for her—herself.

But one touch and Zac had always been able to do anything he liked with her. Not that he’d taken advantage in a bad way. He wasn’t that kind of man. See? She did know something about him. Hopefully he hadn’t known how close she’d come to being totally his, as in willing to do absolutely anything to keep him.

‘You all right?’ He touched her upper arm, and despite her layers of clothing the heat she associated with him shot through her, consumed her.

‘F-fine,’ was all Olivia could manage as she stared at him, pushing down hard on the urge to touch him back, to run her hand over his cheek, and to feel that stubble beginning to darken his chin.

Taking her elbow, Zac propelled her forward, into the elevator. ‘Third floor?’

‘Yes,’ she croaked. Go away, leave me alone, take your sexy body and those eyes that were always my undoing, and take a flying leap off a tall building. I don’t need this heat and need crawling along my veins. Go away.

‘I’m not going anywhere for the rest of the day, so get used to the idea, Olivia.’

Ouch. Had she said that out loud? What else had she put out there? One glance at him and she relaxed. He hadn’t heard anything about jumping off a building. But she couldn’t relax fully until tonight was put to bed.

Olivia groaned. ‘Bed’ was so not a safe word when she was around this man. It brought all sorts of images screaming into her head. Images she refused to see or acknowledge. They were her past, not her future. Or her present.