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‘You look like hell,’ Leo said cheerfully.
‘Gee … thanks.’ Compared to last night he felt like a million dollars.
‘You going to head home or shower here?’
Ethan ran his hands through his hair. ‘I’ll use your bathroom.’ He always kept spare clothes in his office, and a private bathroom was one of the perks of being the director—or related to him anyway.
Ethan owned the clinic jointly with his brother, but had gladly ceded control to him when he’d decided to leave everything tainted with the Hunter name behind and put his medical degree to good use in the army. Leo had been angry that he was skipping out on his family responsibilities, especially with the clinic in such trouble after his father’s scandal, and had spent the next ten years trying to involve his younger brother in the day-to-day running of the clinic.
But Ethan hadn’t cared. He’d not wanted any part of lipo and boob jobs on a bunch of movie stars. He’d been doing real work and Leo could do whatever the hell he liked to salvage the professional and financial reputation of the once renowned Hunter Clinic.
And then he’d been blown all to hell and Leo had made him an offer he couldn’t refuse. An offer he’d desperately needed to stop him from sliding into an abyss of self-pity.
Leo pushed up off the arm. ‘When you’re done I’ll buy you breakfast.’
Three quarters of an hour later they were sitting inside a nearby café, tucking into a traditional English breakfast. They were both on their second cup of coffee.
‘So. You saw Olivia last night, I take it?’
Ethan looked up from his plate. ‘Yes. Nicely orchestrated,’ he said with derision.
Completely unabashed, Leo said, ‘How did that go?’
‘How do you think it went?’
‘Not as well as I’d hoped, by the sounds of it.’
‘Let’s just say I wasn’t in the best shape when she arrived. She pretty much accused me of being one step away from the old man and then chewed my ear off about not doing my physio.’
Leo laughed. ‘Still the same blunt old Olivia, huh?’
Ethan grunted, then took a sip of his coffee. ‘She is and she isn’t. There’s a … reserve about her … she’s not her usual vivacious self.’
‘Maybe that’s just being around you?’
Ethan contemplated his brother’s observation. Maybe it was. Anyway … it didn’t go well. She has your decanter of whisky too, by the way.’
Leo laughed harder. ‘Did you discuss the case at all?’
Ethan shook his head. ‘She’s coming to your office at nine to brief us both.’
Leo quirked an eyebrow at his brother. ‘Am I to be an intermediary?’
Ethan looked at his older brother. His tone was light but their history with Olivia Fairchild was complex. And, apart from one aborted attempt on the day of Leo’s wedding, Ethan had never really apologised for his behaviour where that was concerned. He’d not only hurt Olivia but he’d also hurt Leo—deliberately.
Because he could.
He put his coffee cup down in its saucer. ‘No. Of course not. About that … about Olivia … about what happened between all of us—’
‘Don’t worry about it,’ Leo interrupted. ‘Water under the bridge.’
‘No.’ Ethan shook his head. ‘I was out of line.’
‘Yes, you were.’ Leo grinned. ‘But … I knew deep down she never really liked me—not in that way. She certainly never gave me any reason to think there was anything other than friendship on her behalf. But … she was so gorgeous … my ego got in the way.’
Gorgeous. Yes, Leo was right. Olivia had been vivacious, sparkling, witty. Quick with a laugh and a snappy one-liner.
And utterly gorgeous.
‘That doesn’t make my behaviour any less reprehensible. You were right. I was using her to get at you and I’m sorry. I was pretty self-destructive there for a while, huh?’
Leo shrugged. ‘Losing Mum was hard on you.’
‘And not on you?’
‘Ethan … we’ve made our peace. We both did things wrong and I don’t expect you to spend the rest of your life apologising for something that happened a long time ago which we’ve put behind us.’
He paused and pierced his brother with a look that Ethan had come to know as his clinic director look.
‘And I’m not the one you need to apologise to. That’s what you were supposed to be doing last night.’
Ethan grimaced. ‘Yeah. That didn’t happen.’ He glanced at his brother, who held his gaze with unwavering intensity. ‘She refused to accept my apology last time. What makes you think she will now?’
‘It’s been a long time,’ Leo said. ‘And she’s never struck me as being someone to hold a grudge.’
‘It was pretty unforgivable.’
Leo nodded in agreement. ‘You need to make it right, though. You’ll be working with her again over the next few months. You have to clear the air.’
Ethan knew Leo was right. Once upon a time that would have rankled, as everything about his brother’s authority and over-protectiveness had rankled. But he’d done a lot of growing up and recognised good advice when he heard it. ‘I know.’
There was silence for the next few minutes as they finished their breakfast. Leo put his utensils down on his plate and looked at his brother. ‘I thought you and her might …’
Ethan glanced up from his breakfast. The possibility of he and Olivia glimmered for a moment. Her touch on his leg last night was almost tangible again, the way they’d been together settling around him in a fine mist he could almost taste.
But then memories of another woman—a woman he’d loved, a woman he’d left to die—pushed into the possibilities, beating them back, drowning them in a tide of guilt.
Aaliyah.
Ethan threw his napkin on his plate. ‘Let’s go.’
CHAPTER THREE (#u97c79ebd-bfc4-52d4-ac64-625ed1dda7b1)
RUNNING EARLY THIS time, Olivia smiled at Leo as she walked into his office an hour later. She’d always had a soft spot for the incredibly hard-working elder Hunter brother and it hadn’t been killed by time, distance or past wrongs. Yes, she’d told them their relationship was toxic but that hadn’t really been Leo’s fault.
Leo had been caught in the middle between his father and his brother and had practically killed himself to do right by both of them.
It was Ethan’s bitterness that had been the true destructive force.
She thrust the whisky decanter she’d hauled all the way back in the taxi at him as she neared. ‘I relieved Ethan of this last night.’
‘Yes, he mentioned it.’ Leo grinned taking it from her and then sweeping her into a huge hug.
‘I can’t believe it’s been ten years,’ he said as he pulled back. ‘How have you been?’
Olivia gave her standard reply. ‘Fine.’ Because the truth was less than fine, and she refused to give it power over her. ‘But now … what about you? Not only married but a baby on the way? I have to meet this girl!’
Easily deflected, Leo chatted for ten minutes about Lizzie and babies and their life together and Olivia was heartened to hear that Leo had found the happiness he’d always deserved. She’d valued and enjoyed his friendship and had been saddened by its becoming another casualty of Ethan’s destructive streak.
If she’d only been smarter she would have chosen the older Hunter brother. But the heart wanted what the heart wanted, and from the moment she’d laid eyes on Ethan she’d been officially off the market!
She’d fallen hard for his good looks, charm and intelligence. Yes, he’d been angry, and hurting too, but he’d oozed undeniable potential from every cell in his being. She’d just known that one day he would do great things.
And that had been pretty damn irresistible.
But she would have resisted had she known she was going to cause an even bigger rift between the two brothers. She’d thought she’d be able to help them reconnect, to heal the cracks in their relationship that had been gutting to watch.
Her tender heart had been touched by the suffering they’d endured—their mother’s death and the scandalous details of her life that had come to light after, and their father’s messy slide into the bottle. Coming from a background that placed family above everything, she hadn’t been able to bear the thought of what the Hunter boys must have been through growing up and she’d desperately wanted to help.
She’d wanted to show Ethan, and Leo by extension, how wonderful a loving relationship—like the one her parents had—could be. And to bring them back to each other.
But Ethan had been on a different page and she hadn’t got the memo.
The light chatter stopped as soon as Ethan entered the room. Olivia was relieved to see him looking much more human this morning. Back to his usual level of ooh la la in a suit and tie. He’d hadn’t shaved, but the lines around his eyes had disappeared. His gait was strong and sure even with the slight limp as he strode towards the desk.
She’d lain awake half the night thinking about their reunion and the state of his health. He seemed even more messed up than he had been a decade ago. Lucky for her, life had hardened her sappy little heart over the years, and the urge to fix Ethan Hunter had withered and died a long time ago. He was a big boy who could take care of himself.
Leo looked from one to the other as she and Ethan stood awkwardly in front of his desk. ‘Let’s get down to it, shall we?’ he suggested.
‘Yes,’ they both said in unison, and then glanced guiltily at each other before simultaneously looking away.
Leo sighed. ‘Take a seat,’ he said, indicating the chairs opposite him, and Olivia wasn’t sure whose butt was on whose respective chair faster—hers or Ethan’s.
Clearly Ethan was keen to get this over with.
Good.
That made two of them.
Ethan strode into the Lighthouse Children’s Hospital just prior to lunch. He’d walked from Harley Street. Last night the thought of walking any distance had been beyond him, but he usually walked from the clinic to the Lighthouse, and also to Princess Catherine’s Hospital, time permitting.
The Hunter Clinic and its team of surgeons had operating privileges at both hospitals and neither was far to walk. Still, after Olivia’s dressing-down last night he was using his stick, even if he did have plans to abandon it just prior to seeing his patients.
Olivia had accused him of vanity last night and he’d set her straight on that. Drawing attention to himself, to his injuries, wasn’t something he was keen on. But it was more than that. A surgeon with a walking stick just sent the wrong kind of message. Especially in the world of plastics and reconstructive surgery. Patients wondered about a surgeon who couldn’t heal himself.
Leaving his stick in one of the empty offices, he did his rounds. Being a visiting surgeon, he didn’t have any junior doctors to accompany him but always made sure one of the nursing staff on each ward did. Nothing annoyed the nurses more than a doctor coming in and making changes to treatment and then leaving again without informing them.
And Ethan had learned a long time ago never to upset the nursing staff. That nurses were a vital part of the medical team—the interface between the doctor and the patient.
And you annoyed them at your own peril.
He prided himself on having good relationships with the nursing staff wherever he went, and at the Lighthouse particularly.
He left Ama to last. There was a lot that needed to be done before she went to Theatre next week and he wanted to have a clean plate today so he could focus solely on her. Plus Olivia was with her, and for some reason he was unaccountably nervous. It was obvious from her briefing this morning that this case was dear to her and he found himself not wanting to disappoint her.
He’d done that once already and was desperate to make amends.
He made his way to Ama’s room by himself, assuring Ama’s nurse, who was busy with another of her patients, that he would keep her up to date with the tests and procedures he was ordering. He heard laughter as he approached—Olivia’s laughter. With her petite frame she looked as if she’d have one of those light and tinkly girly laughs, but it was surprisingly deep and throaty and it always came out at full roar—coming not just from her belly but from her heart.
He remembered it well from back when she used to smile at him, when she used to laugh.
It evoked powerful memories of a turbulent time in his life. A time when her laughter had helped ease a lot of his frustrations.
She had her back to the door when he pulled up and he lounged against the frame, observing her for long moments. She was sitting on the bed opposite a little girl who sat cross-legged in the lap of an older woman. Their skin was as dark and burnished as the finest ebony.
Ama and her mother, he assumed. Although he could only see them in profile and therefore the defect, which he knew to be quite significant, wasn’t showing, given that it was the other side of Ama’s face. He also noted the colourful headscarf that Ama wore draped over her affected side, obscuring it completely.
Looked at from this vantage point, Ama looked perfectly normal. But he’d seen the pictures—NOMA had ravaged the right side of her face, leaving her terribly disfigured.
A chequerboard sat between them and they were engrossed in a lively game. A third person—a young woman with skin more of a mocha colouring—sat on a chair beside the bed, also involved, switching between English and an unfamiliar language and laughing as Ama made a run of the board.
‘Ama, you are getting much too good at this,’ Olivia said, and laughed that full throaty laugh again.
The woman in the chair spoke to Ama in what he presumed was her own language and the girl giggled, her eyes sparkling in absolute delight.
Ethan was struck by how intimate the cosy little circle appeared. They all seemed very comfortable in each other’s company. Ama’s mother was looking at Olivia as if she was some kind of saint and Ama was smiling so big at Olivia, her eyes sparkling so brightly, it was like the sun shining.
Olivia passed over a red chequer piece to Ama and Ama laughed again, the whites of her eyes flashing as she held on to Olivia’s hand for long moments before accepting the spoils and crowning her victorious piece.
Ama said something in her own tongue and the woman Ethan assumed was the translator said, ‘Ama thinks she’s winning.’
Olivia laughed again, and even with the distance between them, it whispered against his skin.
‘Oh, does she, now?’ Olivia said with mock indignation. ‘We’ll see how easy it is for her to win when I’m tickling her,’ she announced, raising her hands and wiggling her fingers in Ama’s direction before launching a tickle attack on a giggling, squealing Ama.
The chequerboard was upended, but nobody seemed to mind as general pandemonium ensued.
Ethan was struck by the genuine connection between Olivia and Ama and her mother. There was nothing forced or stilted—just an easy familiarity. But there was also an unspoken trust in their byplay, and Ethan knew how hard Olivia would have had to work to gain that trust. To take them out of their own country, away from everything they knew and trusted, and bring them to a strange place with strange people and strange customs.
But most of all it was just a joy to see the return of the Olivia he’d once known. Last night she’d fluctuated from reserved to distant to tense, and this morning she’d been polite and professional. Hell, even when she’d been angry with him there’d been an aloofness that he’d never seen in her before.
But this was the Olivia of old. The one who got way too close to her patients. Who’d spend time at the end of a very long intern shift playing games or reading books to the kids in her charge, or stopping in at the shop to buy a favourite snack or a goofy toy for a child in her care.
Their bosses had frowned upon it, and he had teased her about it endlessly, but it was what made Olivia so good at what she did—she wasn’t just their doctor, she was their friend.
That had, of course, led to tears on occasions. Every death or negative outcome she’d taken to heart. She’d considered herself a partner in a patient’s journey and she’d felt it deeply when things went wrong.
Many a time he’d been a shoulder for her to cry on.
