Falling For The Single Dad Surgeon

This he admitted as he strode forward and cut a slick path through the crowd to Isabella Sanchez—the woman running the gala evening’s slick operation.

Three more nights, Flávia Maura chanted silently to herself as she took her leave from her colleagues, Doctors Krysta Simpson and Amy Woodell, and edged her way through the crowded ballroom with something approaching relief.

Three more nights of awkward social hospital events and then she could be out of the city and back to the rainforest, where she felt most at home.

It wasn’t that she didn’t like Krysta or Amy—far from it. She admired both women, who were incredibly accomplished in their careers and who seemed as kind as they were successful. She’d simply never been very good with crowds.

Animals were fine, but people...? Not so much. In fact, not only had her six-and nine-year-old nieces spent the previous weekend trying to give her a crash course in superficial conversation, but their mother—her own sister—had spent two hours this afternoon primping and preening her like some fun pet project.

Typical bossy Maria, Flávia thought fondly even as she anxiously tried to keep her balance in the unfamiliar skyscraper heels, and smoothed down her long gown. Her sister had practically bullied her into this dress tonight, and although it would undoubtedly look sleek and sophisticated on any other woman, it was all such a far cry from her usual uniform of trusty hiking boots and sensible, light grey cargo pants with a black tee that she felt like she might as well have been wearing little more than a scantily clad, samba carnival dancer.

Either that or like a little girl trying on her mother’s clothes and high heels and lipstick, as her nieces had taken to doing with Maria’s clothes. Flávia grinned to herself at the image of them playing princesses, even as an uncharacteristically melancholic pang shot through her. She loved the two little girls with all her heart, but sometimes—just occasionally—their lives reminded her of all that she and Maria had missed in their own childhoods. Not least the fact that their own mother had never stuck around long enough to give the sisters time to grow up and start to play dress-up in her clothes.

No. Their beloved papai, Eduardo, had raised them single-handedly, usually under the canopy of the Amazon or Atlantic rainforests, with explorer clothes instead of princess gowns, and animals for company rather than people. And Flávia had never regretted a moment of it.

Except when it came to taking life lessons from her nieces and then walking in on her sister stuffing condoms into her purse just before the taxi had arrived this evening, with an encouraging, If you meet a cute doctor, why not try having a little fun for once in your life, Livvy?

But she didn’t want to have a little fun. She was here because her boss demanded it, not because she had any desire to be; the sooner the night was over, the better.

She’d take a deadly bushmaster viper, a Brazilian wandering spider or a poison dart frog over trying to make conversation with a normal human being any day of the week. So between the hospital’s packed social calendars, it was proving to be a particularly tense week.

Still moving—or rather, teetering—Flávia desperately scanned the ballroom, telling herself that she didn’t need an escape route but searching for one all the same. Before her eyes alighted on the doors at the far end and a sense of consolation poured through her.

The botanical gardens were quite busy during the day, but at this time of evening they would probably be closed. If she could sneak in, it would give her a much-needed chance to regroup, and to quell the unfamiliar sensation of champagne bubbles up her nose from the glass she’d been trying to drink for the past hour.

She turned direction sharply, almost straight into one of her least favourite surgeons.

‘The hospital should be more careful of their reputation,’ the condescending tones of Dr Silvio Delgado—clearly pitched to be heard by as many luminaries as possible, as though by denigrating everyone else he somehow elevated himself—reached her ears. ‘First they hire the crazy selvagem woman, then the gigolo, and to add insult to injury, they then bring some frump in to lecture. This one looks like a street person.’

A better person, a stronger person, would have carried on walking, not letting that interminably pompous man get under their skin. But Flávia froze, shame momentarily rendering her immobile before eventually allowing her to twist herself around uncomfortably, a scowl pulling her features taut despite her best efforts not to react.

Selvagem—jungle woman.

It wasn’t the term itself—she’d been called selvagem plenty of times and it didn’t usually bother her—so much as the utter contempt in this particular man’s tone. The pejorative way he spat out the word—selvagem—as if she was as feral as the animals found in the rainforest. Or was that just because Delgado had said as much to her face, many times in the past?

Perhaps that was why Flávia tried telling herself it was the fact that he was also insulting a new colleague—a visitor to Paulista’s—which rattled her most.

Frump.

As though what Krysta wore mattered more than the fact that the woman was a focused, driven individual, already a leader in the combined fields of otolaryngology and facial reconstruction.

Flávia felt as though she ought to say something. She wished she could. Then again, what was to be gained from drawing attention to something half the crowd mercifully hadn’t understood, anyway, given that Delgado had spoken in Portuguese? Anyway, he’d only laugh her off, and she would probably let him.

All the more reason to get to the gardens and be alone.

Flávia gritted her teeth and gingerly lifted her foot, hoping she wasn’t about to do something as stupid as catching the heel in the hem.

‘Is that guy always such an abhorrent boor?’

Perhaps it was the clear-cut English accent which gave away the fact that the speaker was Dr Jacob Cooper. Or it could have been the rich, utterly masculine timbre, suggesting a barely restrained dynamism. Or maybe it was the fact that she remembered that voice only too well. It had featured in her pitiful dreams several times over the past eight months—and in those it wasn’t just asking that one question after her lecture.

Whatever the truth, sensations skittered this way and that, like interlopers, inside Flávia’s chest. The mere sound of his voice ignited every inch of her nerve endings, leaving her feeling as though her entire body was...itching. On fire.

An effect that no one had ever had on her before. Not even Enrico, the man who she had once called her fiancé.

Holding herself steady, Flávia spun slowly back around to face the speaker.

And promptly wished she hadn’t.

CHAPTER TWO

THE MAN WAS—her brain faltered, flailing to understand what her eyes were seeing—simply extraordinary.

Last time she’d seen him, he’d been one figure in a sea of faces, every one of them clad in work suits, and yet, to her, he’d stood out. Now, he wore the same impeccable tuxedo as every other man. His hair the same, neat style as every other man. He was well groomed, with intelligent eyes the same blue as roughly three hundred million other human beings in the world. And yet...he wasn’t the same as them.

There was nothing the same about Jacob Cooper, whatsoever. Indeed, far from her memory making more of the man than had ever really been, Flávia now realised, to her horror, that her brain hadn’t nearly recalled quite how magnetic he was.

Flávia couldn’t quite put her finger on it and yet it was there, nonetheless. Maybe it was that he seemed infinitely leaner, taller, more powerful, than any other man she’d ever known. Perhaps it was the way those eyes—as blue as a morpho butterfly—rooted her to the wooden dance floor. And yet simultaneously made her feel as though she was floating a good foot or so above it. Or possibly, it was the fact that the air around her seemed to be heating up, as if flowing right from this stranger’s body straight into hers.

Like nothing she’d ever experienced before.

She eyed the empty champagne glass accusingly. Evidently, the alcohol had allowed her sister’s ridiculous have a little fun instruction to get into her head, and now it was running riot, upending the customarily neatly arranged compartments in her brain.

Vaguely, she recalled that he’d levelled a question at her, although for the life of her she couldn’t remember what that question had been.

Her mind spun, the cogs slipping in their haste.

Ah, something to do with Delgado being a boor.

She really ought to speak, but how could her brain form words when it couldn’t even think straight? Flávia slid a discreet tongue over her teeth, unsticking them from her suddenly parched lips, and forced her vocal cords back into operation. And if her tone was a touch huskier than usual, well, was he really to know? From one lecture?

‘You speak Portuguese?’

‘A little.’

‘That’s unusual.’

He didn’t so much as shrug to give the semblance of it.

‘I made it my business to learn the language when I got the invitation to this summer’s teaching programme and I knew that your man over there was head of the oncology department.’

Interesting.

‘Why do that?’ she couldn’t help but ask. ‘There are so many countries attending these annual summer teaching programmes that the common language is generally English, anyway.’

For a moment she wasn’t sure he was going to answer her. His eyes bored into her and she felt something unfurl from her toes right the way up. Then, suddenly, he spoke.

‘Let’s just say that I make it my business to understand the nature of the people with whom I’ll be working closely over the next few months. I like to know their character and I like to know their mettle.’

He smiled. Or, at least, he bared his teeth into something which could equally have been a smile, or a grimace. And Flávia couldn’t have said why it made her think that she pitied anyone who tried to stir things up with this man.

It also made her more open with him than she might otherwise have intended.

‘Dr Silvio Delgado’s grandfather was one of the founding contributors to this hospital.’ As the man was all too fond of telling people at every opportunity. ‘He believes that gives him an inalienable right to insult whoever he pleases.’

Like calling her ‘jungle woman’ and turning it into an insult.

Then again, was it surprising she was sensitive to it? A childhood of being mocked by the other kids—her sister leaping in to fight her battles—had left more of a scar than Flávia would have liked. Yet she suspected, right at this moment, that it was the idea of Jacob Cooper thinking she was a bit...odd that bothered her more than anything that idiot Delgado could ever say.

‘Indeed,’ he offered in a tone so neutral that Flávia couldn’t ascertain anything from it.

It irritated her that she was trying.

Why should she care what this stranger thought?

‘Jacob Cooper,’ he introduced himself, his words like the sweetest caramel moving through her veins.

‘Yes, of course.’

‘Of course?’ he echoed, a hint of a smile toying with his altogether too-mesmerising mouth. ‘I didn’t think we’d met.’

Flávia blinked, heat rushing to her cheeks. She could only hope that her colouring, and the light levels, concealed her embarrassment.

‘Well, I mean...of course I know the name. After all, who, with any connection to the oncology world, doesn’t?’ She was babbling, but for the life of herself she couldn’t stop. ‘Dr Jacob Cooper...that is, you...have a reputation for pushing boundaries. Running clinical trials that others were too afraid to touch, like the scorpion-venom-based fluorescent dye which lights up cancer cells like some kind of personal beacon. Making Hail Marys look like a proverbial walk in the park.’

Oh, Lord, now she sounded like she was fangirling. This was why she hated people. She really had no idea how to talk to them without coming across as either aloof, or a bit of a fool. A bobo.

‘Well, I’m flattered.’ His voice sounded all the richer, and more luxurious, and Flávia wasn’t sure she cared for the effect it was having on her.

Turning her into even more of an idiota.

She didn’t want to shake his hand. She feared what that contact might do to her given the effect the mere sight of him had. Yet she watched her arm reach out nonetheless, as if under some form of energy other than her own muscles.

When he enveloped her not-exactly-petite hand in his much bigger one, making it seem more delicate than it ever had before in her life, her heart stopped. Hanging there for a beat, or ten—sensations raining down on her like she’d charged into the ocean splashing spray high into the air and was letting it land on her skin—before pounding back into life like a thousand horses galloping in her chest.

‘Flávia Maura,’ she bit out by way of introduction. And only after what felt like an eternity.

His eyes glinted, but still she couldn’t read them.

‘I know,’ he answered evenly. ‘If we’re going for a mutual love-in, then I feel duty-bound to point out that you’re one of today’s foremost authorities in the field of venom-based medicine. I caught your lecture on the application of a cancer-targeting toxin in Brazilian wasp venom some months ago.’

‘Oh...’ she offered, hoping that her scorching cheeks didn’t give her away. ‘Right.’

She could hardly admit that she recognised him from one question out of the raft of them she’d had that day, could she? Hardly tell him that his face had invaded her dreams ever since, like she was exactly the kind of weirdo Silvio Delgado would love the world to believe. Hardly confess that she’d looked for him after that lecture, wanting to ask him questions of her own.

So, instead, she fell back on her usual safety net. Discussing facts like they were the only conversation she knew how to have.

‘Polybia-MP1. It exploits the unusual make-up of lipids and fats within cancer-cell membranes and essentially creates holes in the latter. These gaps can be wide enough to let molecules like proteins escape, and since the cancer cells can’t function without them, the toxin ultimately acts as an anticancer therapy.’

She stopped abruptly, aware that this time his mouth was more than twitching with amusement.

‘As I said. I caught the whole lecture.’

‘Yes...well...there you go.’

With more effort than she cared to admit, Flávia attempted to propel herself forward again, away from this mesmerising man, needing the quiet respite now more than ever.

‘So what are you working on now?’

She stopped.

‘I... Well... I’m pretty much living my dream. Working as a naturalist and researcher, splitting my time between caring for pit vipers in a sanctuary in the rainforest, and my work at Paulista’s.’

‘I heard you were looking for ways to use venom to halt the metastasising of cancer cells in humans? Amazing to think that what had started as a passion for the wildlife of the Amazon rainforest can now enable you to save human and snake lives, alike.’

Flávia froze, her body practically shaking.

‘You’ve read my recent interview?’ Her voice cracked with shock.

‘Indeed.’

‘In Portuguese,’ she added weakly.

That slow, sexy grin of his was going to be her undoing. She was sure of it.

‘So I noticed.’

It stood to reason that he would know of VenomSci’s work. But the fact that he’d read a piece on her life, and her naturalist goals, and then quoted them back at her...? Well, that was doing insane things to her insides.

She needed to get away. Now. Before she did something as ridiculous as her sister had suggested.

Turning sharply, Flávia lurched off. It was only when she was a metre or so away that she realised he was falling into step beside her.

‘Where are we heading?’

‘We?’ she managed. ‘We are not heading anywhere. I was heading to the gardens.’

He moved with an enviable ease and confidence. A self-awareness as though he expected people—the world—to make way for him. Then again, it probably did, given the way people were hastily repositioning themselves to make way for him.

‘That desperate to escape already, huh?’ His voice actually seemed to rumble through her. ‘Well, sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but the gardens are locked now.’

‘They are?’ She snapped her head around. ‘How do you know?’

He hesitated. So fleeting that anyone else may not have noticed it. But Flávia wasn’t anybody. She hadn’t avoided being bitten by the fast, deadly vipers she had come to love by failing to miss tiny, telltale signs. It piqued her curiosity in an instant, although Jacob had apparently already shrugged the moment off.

‘I tried earlier,’ he answered smoothly. ‘They told me it was closed for the night.’

‘I see.’

There was something else. Something more. She’d lay a bet on it.

‘May I recommend the bar instead? That far end looks pretty quiet.’

She ought to decline.

Her mind was still racing. Trying to fill in that missing moment. And then she shocked herself again by flashing a dazzling smile, which her sister was always telling her to use more often with people other than merely her beloved nieces.

‘Why not? I’m sure we can have quite the party of our own.’

She ought to tell him she wasn’t interested in a party of their own. She ought to be mingling, the way her boss had told her to do. She ought to draw more people into the conversation—she could see a couple of other medical and surgical oncology team members hovering for a chance to talk to the highly respected Dr Cooper.

Yet she didn’t say any of those things, and by the time she reached the bar, Flávia found herself alone with a man who made her body fizz disconcertingly, and an empty countertop.

Then, with nothing more discernible than a diplomatic hand gesture, two fresh drinks materialised in front of them. A glass of champagne for her and, she hazarded a guess from the deep amber colour of the liquid swirling in the tumbler, a top-drawer whiskey or cognac for him. And suddenly, inexplicably, it all felt slightly too...intimate.

Flávia opened her mouth to refuse the drink and take her leave—not that she really believed her single glass of champagne was to blame for this...thing that hummed between them, but why take any chances? And then he thanked the bartender.

She had no idea what it was about the simple gesture, so understated yet so polite, and so unlike too many of the doctors in this room who thought themselves too good for something as apparently irrelevant as good manners.

She turned her head to look at him again and, once again, her heart slammed into her chest for no apparent reason. Was breath truly seeping from her lungs like a popped balloon or was she just imagining it? And never mind the dress feeling constricting and small, right now it was her very skin which seemed to be too tight for her own body.

Flávia couldn’t help it—her eyes scanned over him. Quickly. Then slowly. Like they didn’t know where to start. Or maybe where to stop. And still she stood there. Still. Ensnared.

No man had ever got under her skin like this. Ever. She told herself it meant nothing. That she must just be feeling out of her depth at this welcome gala, and vulnerable after Delgado’s dig.

‘Dr Cooper—’ she began.

‘Jacob,’ he interjected.

She sucked in a breath. ‘Jacob,’ she began, then paused. As ridiculous as it was, his name sounded altogether too intimate on her tongue. She tried again. ‘Jacob...’

‘But you can call me Jake,’ he interrupted, and this time she knew she didn’t mistake the amused rumble in his tone. ‘And for the record, you really shouldn’t let oafs like Delgado get to you.’

‘I don’t,’ she denied hotly, then cursed herself for sounding so defensive.

‘I beg to differ. It was clear from the way you reacted that he had rattled you. And you have to know that’s only going to encourage him all the more. Bullies like him thrive off making others feel small.’

‘I’m well aware of that.’ She bristled, despite her attempts not to. ‘But it was the doctor he called a frump who I was most concerned about.’

‘Who? Krysta Simpson? I’m running a case with her at the moment... Actually, it would interest you—the patient has oral cancer and I’ll be using the scorpion-venom-based fluorescent contrast agent when I remove the tumour in their jaw. But the point is, there’s no need for you to worry about Krysta. She’s more than secure enough in herself not to let such a comment get to her.’

Yes, that much was clear. Flávia couldn’t help thinking that if she had a fraction of Krysta’s confidence then she, too, could be wearing a dress which—if she had to be entirely honest—might not be the most flattering, but in which Krysta looked entirely comfortable.

What must it be like to be so cool and self-assured when chatting with these people?

Instead here she was, feeling utterly self-conscious in a figure-hugging dress and statement shoes, both of which her far more fashion-forward sister had insisted on foisting on her for tonight’s event. Yet all Flávia could think was that one couldn’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear—and she most definitely felt like a sow’s ear. And no matter the shocked compliments she’d been receiving all night.

Hastily, she told herself that she felt nothing at Jacob’s... Jake’s...apparent appreciation. Assuming that was what this was, of course. And if he did appreciate her, then it was the dress he admired—her sister’s dress—not her, per se.

Only, she wasn’t sure she believed that. Or, more pertinently, wanted to believe it.

Admittedly, she adored the colour—a forest green which shimmered to inky black as she moved, the stunning colour so like another of her beloved snakes—but other than that, she was too plagued with self-doubt to relax. Was the neckline too low? The slit in the skirt too high? Did it cling to her a little too much when she moved?

Her only consolation was that if she had looked as on display as she’d feared, then Silvio Delgado would surely have taken great delight in mocking her clothes, as well as her choice of career.

So maybe it was more that the clothes mirrored her environment and how she felt about her state of mind? Out in the forest, in her bush gear, she felt strong, powerful, in control. She spent practically twenty-three hours out of twenty-four in blissful solitude, with the glorious orchestra of the rainforest pleasing her senses. Here in this ballroom, in this city, harsh sounds assailed her from every side.

Some people loved the city with its shimmering lights, vibrant sounds and bustling life—her sister and brother-in-law being prime examples—but Flávia had never been able to understand its allure. Whether it was the light pollution, the noise pollution, the air pollution, Flávia couldn’t be sure.

She felt out of her depth, like she was suffocating.

At least, she had felt that way, right up until a few minutes ago—ever since Jacob Cooper. Now, the butterflies were still there, but instead of flutterings of fear and discomfort, she could swear they were flutterings of...awareness? Anticipation? Not least because he was looking at her as though he thought she was the only woman in the room.