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And it went far beyond that awful day ten years ago.
He didn’t know how to love a woman. He doubted he’d ever known. Not even Lydia.
‘How did you find me?’
Evie turned to face him, amazed at this version of Finn before her, lounging in a chair, casually knocking back a beer.
Had he ever been this chilled?
Okay, there had been a wariness in his gaze since she’d arrived but this Finn was still a stark contrast to Sydney Harbour Hospital Finn. The old Finn was a serious, driven, sombre professional who oozed energy and drive from every pore. His mind was sharp, his tongue even more so, and his pace had always been frenetic.
His drink of choice was seriously good Scotch.
This Finn was so laid back he may as well have been wearing a Hawaiian shirt and a flower behind his ear. His body was more honed, spare, and his skin had been kissed to a golden honey hue. A far cry from the haggard shadow he’d been when last she’d seen him.
Had he been surfing all this time?
The incredible blue of his eyes, so often frigid with disapproval, were like warm tropical waters amidst the golden planes of his stubbly face. And she wanted to dive in.
She’d been nervous that he’d take one look at her and know she was pregnant. Which was ridiculous given that it would be at least another month, maybe more, before it was obvious to anyone. But she really needn’t have worried. This Finn didn’t look like he’d be bothered if she’d turned up with his triplets.
Something rose in her chest, dark and ugly. It twisted and burned and she realised she was jealous. This was the kind of Finn she’d longed for, had known was there somewhere. The one he’d never shown her.
‘Daddy get a private detective?’ he goaded.
His voice had an edge that she recognised as the old Finn and she found herself responding accordingly. She was like Pavlov’s dog, still salivating over the slightest crumb.
She cleared her throat as emotion lodged like a fist in her trachea. ‘Lydia.’
‘Lydia?’ Finn sat up. ‘Lydia told you I was here?’ Isaac’s widow, the woman he’d had a seriously screwed-up co-dependent relationship with in the aftermath of his brother’s death, had been talking to Evie?
He frowned. ‘You know Lydia?’
Evie nodded calmly. Well, she’d met her anyway—she still had no clue as to their relationship. ‘I met her outside your apartment a couple of days after you left. She came to pick up some stuff for you. Told me you were okay. That you needed space. Time … She gave me her card.’
Finn shut his eyes and leaned back into the canvas hammock of the squatter’s chair. Trust Lydia to interfere. He opened his eyes to find her looking at him.
‘Your arm is better, I see.’
Finn looked down at it. He clenched and unclenched his fingers automatically, still amazed that he could do so. ‘Yes.’
Evie pressed her butt hard into the railing. She wanted to launch herself at him, throw herself into his lap, hug him to her, tell him she’d known it would get better, that he’d just needed a little faith and a lot of patience. But he didn’t look so laid back now and memories of what had happened last time she had been in his lap overrode everything else.
There was even more between them now than there’d ever been—more than he certainly knew—and she couldn’t think about any of it until she had him back in Sydney, until after he’d operated on their celebrity patient, until after she’d told him about the baby.
‘You must be very relieved,’ Evie murmured.
Finn didn’t want to make small talk with her. His mind had been clear ten minutes ago and now it was all clouded up again.
Seeing Evie after five months’ break made him realise how much he’d missed her wide hazel eyes and her interesting face. How much he’d taken her presence for granted when they’d worked in the same hospital, when she’d been there for him during his ops. How much he’d come to depend on seeing her, even though he’d pushed her away at every turn.
He’d been able to ignore all of that five hundred kilometres away from her—out of sight out of mind. But it was impossible to ignore now. She made him want things he didn’t know how to articulate.
And he wanted her gone.
So he could go back to ignoring her and all the stuff that bubbled to the surface whenever she was around all over again.
‘Why are you here?’ he demanded.
Evie swallowed at his sullen enquiry. His gaze was becoming chilly again and she shivered. ‘Prince Khalid bin Aziz.’
Finn frowned at the name from his past. Several years ago he’d revived a man who had collapsed in front of him on the street a couple of blocks from the hospital. He’d had no way of knowing at the time that the man was a Saudi oil prince. There’d been no robes, no staff, no security. He’d just been another heart to start and Finn’s medical training had taken over.
But it had certainly worked out well for the hospital, which had benefited from a huge donation.
‘What does he want?’
‘He wants you.’ Not as badly as she did, however. ‘He needs a quadruple bypass and he wants you and only you to perform it.’
Finn gripped his beer bottle harder as Evie opened a door he’d shut firmly behind him and a surge of adrenaline hit him like a bolt from the blue. He could almost smell the chemical cleanliness of the operating room, hear the dull slap as an instrument hit his gloved hand, feel the heat of the overhead lights on the back of his neck.
He shook his head, quashing the powerful surge of anticipation. ‘I’m not ready to come back.’
Evie’s looked down at him as he absently clenched and unclenched his right hand. Her heart banged loudly in her chest. What on earth was he talking about? Finn was a surgeon. The best cardiothoracic surgeon there was. He had to come back. And not just for the amir.
For him. For his sanity. For his dignity. The Finn she knew needed to work.
‘You look physically capable,’ she said, keeping her voice neutral.
Finn pushed up out of the chair as the decision he’d been circling around for five months crystallised. He walked to the railing, keeping a distance between them, his gaze locking on the horizon. ‘I don’t know if I’m going to come back.’
Evie stared at his profile. ‘To the Harbour?’
Finn shook his head as he tested the words out loud. ‘To surgery.’
Evie blinked, her brain temporarily shutting down at the enormity of his admission. Quit being a surgeon?
That was sacrilege.
She turned around slowly so she too was facing the horizon. Her hand gripped the railing as the line between the earth and the sky seemed to tilt. ‘My father will not be pleased,’ she joked, attempting to lighten the moment while her thoughts and emotions jumbled themselves into an almighty tangle.
‘Ah, yes, how is the great Richard Lockheart?’
Evie would have to have been deaf not to hear the contempt in Finn’s voice. It was fair to say that Finn was not on Team Richard. But, then, neither was she.
‘Already counting the pennies from the big fat donation Prince Khalid has promised the hospital.’
Evie wondered if Finn remembered that it was through Prince Khalid’s misfortune that she’d first met him. At the gala dinner that the prince had thrown in Finn’s honour the first time he’d donated one million dollars to the Sydney Harbour Hospital’s cardiothoracic department.
Finn had been as unimpressed as she to be there.
He snorted. ‘Of course. I should have known there would be money involved.’
Evie had never heard such coldness in Finn’s voice before. Not where his work was concerned, and it frightened her. She was used to it regarding her and anything of a remotely personal nature. But not his job.
She’d never thought she’d have to convince him to come back to work. She’d just assumed he’d jump back in as soon as he possibly could.
Just how long had his hand been recovered for?
‘So don’t do it for him,’ she said battling to keep the rise of desperation out of her voice. ‘Or for the money. Do it for the prince.’
‘There are any number of very good cardiac surgeons in Sydney.’
‘He doesn’t want very good. He wants the best.’
Finn turned to face her, propping his hip against the railing. ‘No.’
Evie turned too, at a complete loss as she faced him. ‘Please.’
She seemed to always be asking him for something he wasn’t prepared to give. Saying, please, Finn, please. And she was heartily sick of it. And sick of being rejected.
And if she wasn’t carrying his baby she’d just walk right away. But she was. And he needed to know—whatever the fallout might be.
She opened her mouth to tell him. Not to bribe him into doing what she wanted but because she could see his mind was made up, and before he sent her away for the last time, he had to know.
But Ethan striding out onto the veranda interrupted them. ‘Finn—’ Finn looked over Evie’s shoulder. ‘Oh … sorry … I thought I heard the car leave,’ Ethan said, smiling apologetically at Evie as he approached.
‘It’s fine,’ Evie murmured.
‘What’s up?’ Finn asked, dragging his gaze away from Evie’s suddenly pale face.
‘What’s the name of that agency you were telling me about?’
Finn frowned. ‘The medical staffing one? Why?’
‘Hamish’s father-in-law had a heart attack and died two hours ago. He’s taking two weeks off. I’ve been ringing around everywhere but no one’s available and I can’t run this place without a medico on board, it’s a government regulation.’
‘For God’s sake, Ethan,’ Finn said, his voice laced with exasperation, having had this conversation too many times before. ‘I’m a doctor.’
Ethan shook his head firmly. ‘You’re a client.’
Finn shoved his hand on his hip. ‘These are extenuating circumstances.’
Ethan chuckled. ‘No dice, buddy. Them’s the rules.’
‘You never used to be such a stickler for the rules.’
Ethan clapped him on the back. ‘I wasn’t running my own business back then.’
Evie was surprised at the obvious affection between the two men. Surprised even more at the spurt of jealousy. Finn wasn’t the touchy-feely kind. He maintained professional relationships with his colleagues and he’d been known to sit at the bar over the road from the hospital and knock back a few whiskies with them from time to time but he was pretty much a solo figure.
He and Ethan, a big bear of a man with a grizzly beard and kind eyes, seemed to go back a long way.
‘Problem?’ she asked, at Finn’s obvious frustration.
Finn shook his head then stopped as an idea took hold. He raked his gaze over her and knew it would probably be something he would come to regret, but choices were limited in the middle of nowhere.
Maybe the current pain in his butt could be Ethan’s silver lining. ‘Evie can do it.’
‘What?’ she gaped, her pulse spiking. ‘Do what?’
Ethan smiled at Evie apologetically. ‘I’m sorry. He’s not very good with social nuances, is he?’
‘She’s a fully qualified, highly trained, very good emergency doctor,’ Finn continued, ignoring Ethan’s remark.
‘You can’t just go springing jobs on people like that and acting like they have no choice but to take them,’ Ethan chided, his smile getting wider and wider. ‘Not cool, man. Maybe you should try asking the lady?’
Finn turned to Evie, his palms finding her upper arms, curling around her biceps. ‘I’ll come back and do Khalid’s surgery. But only if you do the two weeks here first.’
Ethan crossed his arms. ‘That’s not asking.’
Evie felt her belly plummet as if she’d just jumped out of a plane. She wasn’t sure if was due to his snap decision, his compliment over her medical skills or his touch but she couldn’t think when he looked at her with need in his eyes.
Even if it was purely professional.
‘C’mon, Princess Evie,’ Finn murmured, trying to cut through the confusion he could see in her hazel eyes. ‘Step outside your comfort zone for a while. Live a little.’
‘You suck at asking,’ Ethan interjected.
Evie swallowed as she became caught up in the heady rush of being needed by Finn. Not even the nickname grated.
Why not?
It would kill two birds with one stone—Khalid got his op and she bought herself some time. And her father had told her to do anything to get Finn back.
‘Okay,’ she said, hoping her voice didn’t sound as shaky as it felt leaving her throat.
Finn nodded and looked at Ethan. ‘You’ve got yourself a doctor.’
Ethan looked from one to the other, his bewildered look priceless. Like he couldn’t quite believe that in less than a minute his major problem had been settled.
Neither, frankly, could Evie.
CHAPTER TWO
EVIE CLIMBED ONTO the back of the four-wheeler behind Ethan the next morning for the grand tour. Beach Haven retreat covered a couple of hundred acres and wasn’t something that could be quickly traversed on foot. Finn, who had disappeared shortly after he’d bribed her into staying for two weeks, was still nowhere to be seen. She didn’t ask Ethan where he was and he didn’t tell her.
Her father hadn’t been happy with the two-week delay but as the prince’s blocked arteries had been found on a routine physical and hadn’t been symptomatic, the surgery wasn’t urgent.
