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‘Actually, I had a tour when I came for my interview,’ she reminded him, conscious that his time must be too precious to act as a glorified tour guide. ‘The one bit they couldn’t show me was the new operating suite because it was still a building site. Is it really nearly finished?’
‘Do you want to see?’ he offered, with all the enthusiasm of a puppy dropping a ball at her feet in the hope that she would want to play.
‘Of course.’ She grinned, then was glad of her long legs when she had to quicken her pace to keep up with him when he strode out of the room and set off down the corridor.
‘Oh, I am so sorry,’ he apologised a moment later, coming to a sudden halt so that she almost ploughed into his back.
‘For what?’ She tried to appear unaffected in spite of the fact that her pulse had just accelerated from sixty to a hundred and twenty beats with his unexpected proximity.
She was close enough to feel the heat emanating from his lean body through the cream-coloured shirt he wore, close enough, even, to be able to see the beginning of a tangle of dark hairs at the unbuttoned throat of that shirt.
Suddenly she was uncomfortably aware that she knew something as intimate as the fact that her new boss had hair on his chest, and Lily felt the beginning of a blush warming her cheeks.
He was staring in amazement when he found that she was right behind him, those dark eyes dropping the length of her long trouser-clad legs with a dawning smile. ‘I was going to apologise for expecting you to be able to walk as fast as I do and rudely leaving you behind. This is the first time…the first time in my life…that a woman has been able to match my pace without running or getting out of breath.’
‘So you’re accustomed to having short-legged women running after you?’ she quipped, then sucked in a sharp breath when she realised that she was actually flirting with the man. She’d never realised before that she even knew how to flirt.
The gleam in his eyes grew more pronounced and his teeth were startlingly white against his olive skin. ‘Some of us have that cross to bear,’ he admitted with mock modesty. ‘And doubtless your long legs have been very useful to you as you leave your many suitors in your dust.’
Many suitors! Hah!
Lily knew what she looked like. She saw herself in the mirror every morning as she brushed her teeth and pulled her hair back into a no-nonsense twist. Even on a good day, she wouldn’t stop traffic, unlike her sisters who had inherited their mother’s better-endowed shape. So, was he mocking her for her lack of feminine attributes, his own subtle way of putting her down?
‘I am sorry. Did I say something wrong?’ He had obviously noticed her rapid change of expression as his broad forehead was pleated into a frown. ‘If I have upset you…’
‘No, no. Everything’s fine,’ she said hastily, averting her face from his intense scrutiny to look along the corridor. ‘So, does this lead directly to the new operating suite?’
For just a moment she held her breath, certain that he was going to pursue the point, then released it in a silent sigh of relief when he began walking again.
‘Nothing in this hospital leads directly to anything else,’ he said wryly. ‘I hope you have a good sense of direction.’
‘If I get lost, you’ll have to send out search parties,’ she suggested, trying to recapture the light-hearted tone of their earlier conversation, but when Razak shouldered his way through the next set of swing doors she came to a sudden halt.
‘Wow!’ she breathed, feeling her eyes grow wider and wider as she looked around at the reception area for the new suite. ‘This is bigger than my whole flat…well, it’s more of a bedsit, really, but…’ She shut her mouth, suddenly aware that she was babbling. That would have been bad enough if it was only in front of her new boss, but to have half a dozen workmen listening in, too…
‘So, you like it?’ he asked, as he beckoned her forward to point out the eventual purpose of each of the rooms, from the lowliest store cupboard to the two spacious theatres. ‘They finished putting in the last of the flooring on Friday so they were given the weekend without any traffic on them to allow the adhesives to set properly. Today, as you can see, everywhere is being decorated.’
‘But there are no doors to any of the rooms,’ she said, suddenly realising why everywhere looked so strangely open.
‘There will be doors,’ he reassured her with a laugh. ‘Apparently, they won’t go in until all the equipment has been installed because otherwise they get in the way and can get damaged.’
‘That’s logical,’ she agreed, ‘especially as so many of them will be on automatic closing mechanisms. And you’re hoping that we’ll be moving in here when it’s completed?’
‘I’m lobbying hard,’ he admitted as he led the way back out into the original part of the hospital. ‘I don’t know who you spoke to when you came for your interview, but did they tell you what I’ve been trying to organise in this new suite?’
‘No one said a thing, other than that I would be working with a surgeon who wasn’t staying very long and would that affect my acceptance of the post if I were offered it.’
‘And you had no objection?’
‘Not if it gave me the chance at a post here,’ she said bluntly. ‘The high standards of orthopaedic surgery in this hospital made it an obvious choice for the next step up the career ladder.’
‘So, you are a career woman, then,’ he said with a thoughtful frown as he paused in front of the door with his name across it. ‘Have you no wish for a husband and children?’
‘Certainly not for the foreseeable future,’ she said firmly, wondering if his background led him to believe, like her family, that women belonged in the home, rearing children and catering to their husbands. ‘I have worked far too hard to get this far to give it all up for nappies and midnight feeds. There is another rung I want to climb on the ladder first.’
‘Well, let us see if we can make the next few months the perfect preparation for that goal,’ he suggested as he led the way into his office. ‘There is much to be done with so many patients waiting months in agony for their turn on the table, and this afternoon we have a clinic to determine the suitability of the next group to take their place. Come, I will show you their files.’
A tiny secret place inside Lily was actually disappointed that Razak had switched to a totally professional tone, completely devoid of any of the previous light-heartedness. The rest of her applauded it, knowing that the more experience she could gain by his side, the better it would be for her career.
After all, she rationalised, her career was more important to her than being friendly with the man who would help to hone her skills.
CHAPTER TWO
BY THE time she staggered back to her bedsit that evening Lily was totally exhausted and wondering if she was ever going to be able to keep up with Razak’s seemingly inexhaustible supply of energy.
Things had started off calmly enough as the two of them had first examined an apparently endless series of patients referred by their GPs, many of them needing orthopaedic surgery sooner rather than later for their painful joints. Later that afternoon they had moved on to the review of the two patients who had been admitted that day for surgery the following morning, but before they had been able to take any sort of a break for her to ask any of the questions already buzzing around in her head, Razak had been contacted for an urgent consultation on a patient in the emergency department and she had found herself running in his wake when he had suggested she come, too.
‘Sir, listen to this,’ exulted a very young doctor as he reached out towards the blood-spattered body on the trolley in front of him. ‘You can actually hear the bones grating when you spring the man’s hips.’
‘Don’t!’ snapped Razak, before he could make contact, the word like the crack of a lash. ‘How many times have you already done that?’
‘A couple,’ he admitted, then smiled almost innocently. ‘It’s the first time I’ve actually heard a break when I’ve done it and I—’
‘And you could be responsible for killing the man,’ Razak interrupted fiercely. ‘What’s his blood pressure doing? If the sharp edges of the broken bones damages one of the pelvic arteries he could bleed out in a matter of minutes. Your job here is to stabilise his condition so we can get him up to Theatre, yes?’
‘Yes, sir,’ he agreed, clearly crestfallen. ‘Do you want to use an external fixator before he’s transferred?’
‘Have X-rays been taken yet to show the position of the fracture?’ Razak demanded briskly. ‘If there’s more than one break we may have to. Otherwise, if you can guarantee not to make him any worse while he’s transported to Theatre, we’ll do it upstairs while we do an open reduction and internal fixation.’
Even as he was speaking, the radiographer was positioning the equipment above the moaning patient and there were so many members of staff noisily occupied in taking care of him that Lily wondered for a moment whether they would even hear the radiographer’s warning countdown to the first exposure.
At the last second the last nurse whipped her hands off the body and stepped back smartly, only to step forward just as swiftly as soon as that view had been taken.
The whole process had to be repeated several times to build up an accurate picture of what was going on inside, and all the while the members of the resus team were going about their tasks. Machines were monitoring the patient’s blood pressure and airway but one of the nurses was specifically detailed to document each dose of painkilling drug and every procedure as it was done while another was keeping up a soothing running commentary in the hope that it would make everything just a little less frightening.
At least the hospital had the latest digital X-ray technology, so there was no long wait while old-fashioned plates were hurried away to be developed. With this state-of-the-art equipment, as soon as the shot was taken it was available for viewing on the monitor with the touch of a button.
Razak muttered something vehement under his breath when he saw the first view, and even without knowing his language Lily could tell that he’d sworn. She certainly felt like it when she saw the damage the man had sustained.
‘Definitely an external fixator,’ she murmured as she stepped aside to reach for the wall phone. ‘Who should I ask for to bring the kit down?’
‘Can you see if Colin Wetherall’s free at the moment?’ Razak asked. ‘Tell him what we’ve got here and that I’d like him to do a demonstration for you.’
‘A demonstration?’she murmured under her breath, while someone up in the orthopaedic department checked to see if Colin was still in Theatre. He’d had two operations scheduled that afternoon, a knee and a shoulder. If everything had gone well, he should be nearly finished. But why should she need Colin to demonstrate the fixator kit? It wasn’t as if she hadn’t used it before, although, admittedly, not very often.
Was calling him down Razak’s way of saying that he wasn’t impressed with her level of skill? She didn’t think she’d made any mistakes today, their only disagreements having been over matters of personal preference for various prosthetics.
‘I hope he is free,’ Razak said suddenly, his voice right behind her telling her that he’d come far closer than she’d realised. ‘He spent some time in Russia at the institute where this particular fixator system was developed and he’s nothing short of brilliant with it. The best in the department, I think.’
Lily hadn’t known the man long, but she had a feeling that Razak didn’t give praise easily, so it was with an unexpected feeling of anticipation that she waited to see what would happen. For the moment, her role was more of a passive observer, but that could change at any moment.
To the uninitiated, the external fixator kit that arrived just before Colin might have been confused with a rather sophisticated construction toy with its various shiny rods and connectors, but in the hands of someone who had obviously been taught by masters how to use it best, it was a revelation.
Using the X-rays as a guide, Colin swiftly tightened the special screws into position in the bones then fitted the rods between them, tightening them only when the pelvis had been restored to the correct shape.
‘How’s his blood pressure?’ Colin demanded, without even lifting his head from the last titanium rod, his movements swift and accurate, while Razak automatically braced the unstable pelvis for him.
‘No sign of hypovolaemia so far, but blood is being cross-matched and sent up to Theatre.’
They sounded so calm, but those few words were a measure of the potentially deadly nature of this particular injury. There were so many veins and arteries in this area and this sort of bony injury was often accompanied by massive soft-tissue injury and a more than fifty per cent chance of dying of massive blood loss.
So far, their patient had been lucky. His blood pressure was holding fairly steady, indicating that there was no great dip in his blood volume. He also seemed to have avoided any apparent injuries to his kidneys, bladder or urethra as there was no sign of blood in his urine or on the ultrasound scan that had largely replaced the need for peritoneal lavage.
Now, with Colin straightening up from his completed task and the pelvis stable enough for the patient to make the journey up to Theatre safely, it was just a case of opening him up on the table and performing an internal fixation of each of the fractures. Only then would the bones have a chance of healing normally so that the patient could walk again.
‘Do you want me to finish the job off?’ Colin offered. He tried to sound diffident but Lily had the feeling that this was the sort of case he thrived on. She’d known other surgeons who found the never-ending stream of joint replacements stultifying, only really enjoying the adrenaline rush of repairing life-threatening traumatic injuries.
‘Do you have enough theatre time left?’ Razak asked. ‘You’ve already been operating this afternoon.’
Lily knew what he was asking. Their standard sessions were three and a half hours and this wasn’t going to be an easy job or a quick one. If Colin had already operated on two patients that afternoon…
‘One of mine didn’t make it into Theatre this afternoon, unfortunately. She had a CVI on the ward just after she took her pre-med. She’s up in ICU now.’
‘In which case, be my guest,’ Razak said with a smile, standing aside as the trolley set off towards the bank of lifts. ‘Call me if you need another hand on the screwdriver.’
Lily felt a tremendous sense of anticlimax as everyone dispersed, leaving just the nurses to gather up the debris and get the room cleaned and restocked for the next emergency. She’d honestly believed that Razak would be operating on the patient and had been gearing herself up for the probability that she would be in the theatre with him.
‘Don’t be impatient!’ he teased, and she wondered with a jolt whether he was also a mind-reader. ‘I promise you’ll have your chance tomorrow morning. I’ll be putting you through your paces then.’
The anticipation was different this time, a mixture of excitement that she would be doing what she loved and dread lest he find her skills lacking.
But even as she followed him out of A and E and shared a lift with him up to the orthopaedic department to retrieve her purse and keys, there were questions circling inside her head.
It was nothing that anyone had said…more what they hadn’t said or, even worse, things that had been hinted at. If she was going to be able to give of her best when the two of them were working together tomorrow, she needed to clear the air, and the only way of doing that was to ask for an explanation.
Even then she hesitated and it wasn’t until he had his hand out towards the door of his office that she spoke.
‘I need to speak to you,’she blurted. ‘I…I need to ask you some questions.’
‘Now?’ he asked, turning back to her with a weary smile, and she remembered suddenly that he’d had a late night repairing the damage after a fight outside a pub last night. ‘Of course,’ he said politely, but as he turned to lead the way into his office his stomach growled and her feelings of guilt were doubled.
‘Have you eaten?’ he asked, then shook his head. ‘Stupid question! Of course you haven’t because you’ve spent the whole day in my shadow. So, will you join me for a meal?’
‘Oh, but…’ She was already shaking her head, unaccustomed to such invitations, especially at short notice. And to be invited by her boss… ‘We don’t need to…We…we can talk tomorrow,’she suggested hurriedly, cursing her pale complexion when she felt the searing heat of a blush.
To her surprise, he seemed completely oblivious to her discomfort.
‘We won’t have time to talk tomorrow,’ he said flatly, ‘certainly not without Colin and Reg and who knows who else listening in to every word. And if you have questions, we need to get them answered to clear your mind for the morning. You’ll need all your concentration in my theatre. Anyway,’ he added, not giving her time to come up with a solid objection as he pulled his door shut again and the keypad lock clicked shut, ‘we both need to eat, Dr Langley, and we could talk at the same time. Very efficient.’
What could she do but agree, in spite of her automatic reluctance to share a meal with him? Partly it had been the formal way he’d spoken to her as Dr Langley that had made her give in, but that didn’t explain the strange emotions churning inside her.
She was attracted to the man, that’s what it was, she realised as he ushered her into her seat in the little French restaurant in one of the side streets near the hospital. And it had taken her this long to recognise the feeling because it the first time it had happened to her like this.
But, then, Razak Khan was a rather exceptional man…charismatic, powerful, good-looking, courteous…there wasn’t much she couldn’t admire about him. But somehow she understood that this went deeper than a surface appreciation for a handsome successful man…This was…
Nothing, she told herself fiercely as she buried her nose in her menu. This was her boss and if she was ever going to make it up that final rung of the ladder, she was going to have to keep her concentration where it mattered—on the job.
‘So, explain this big scheme to me,’ she invited brightly, and had to hide a wince when she heard how air-headed she sounded.
‘How much do you know?’ he countered, then had to pause when the waiter arrived to take their order, clearly delighted when Razak switched into fluent French.
If she concentrated hard, Lily found she could actually follow what the two of them were saying, and it was evidence of yet another fascinating facet of the man that she’d love to explore. When had he learned French and why? Was it his native language or…
That is not why you’re sitting here, she reminded herself sternly. He asked you a question and now he’s waiting for a reply.
‘How much do I know?’she said. ‘Apart from the fact that Reg hates it, nothing at all.’
‘Wasn’t it explained at your interview?’ he demanded, clearly surprised by her reply.
‘No. Not that I can…’ She paused, suddenly remembering the moment when one of the bean-counters had started to ask her something, only to be talked down by Reg. Had that been the point when she should have found out what Razak was proposing to do? Had that been the moment when Reg had decided that appointing one of the women he so blatantly despised might be the straw that broke the camel’s back as far as Razak’s scheme went?
The more she thought about it, the more likely it seemed.
Without a strong, committed junior on his team…one with the stamina to keep up the pace for long hours at a stretch…the scheme would never get approval, never mind be a success.
A sudden sickening idea burst into her brain. Was that why she’d got the job in the first place? Not because she was the best candidate for the job but because Reg thought she would be a weak and feeble woman?
‘What?’ Razak demanded, breaking into her unpalatable thoughts.
‘What, what?’ she countered, wondering if he was waiting for an answer to another question. She honestly couldn’t remember.
‘I wanted to know if you’d reached a conclusion?’ he asked patiently.
‘A conclusion about what?’ she temporised, hoping he would tell her which part of their conversation she’d missed.
‘Well, you obviously had some sort of an internal debate going on just then, and from the expressions on your face I would guess that there was something said at your interview, but that someone—either Colin or Reg, but most likely Reg—prevented anyone telling you the whole story. So…’ He frowned in concentration, far too close to the truth for her comfort. He really did seem to be able to read her thoughts. ‘You were wondering why he didn’t want you to know. After all, it would strengthen his case to have good surgeons withdrawing their candidacy for the job because they didn’t like what they were being asked to do…No! That’s not it!’ he contradicted himself with a closer look at her face, as though the words were actually written there. ‘You were wondering whether the reason you were offered the job was because the appointment of a woman as my junior would make it less likely that the scheme would be given the go-ahead. You were wondering whether you got the job because you were the weakest candidate rather than the strongest. Am I right?’
‘Spot on,’she agreed through gritted teeth, steam practically coming out of her ears. ‘Just wait till I tell that pompous—’
‘Hey, don’t get mad, get even!’ he suggested, with a wicked grin that made his teeth seem even whiter in the darkened intimacy of their corner of the room.
‘How?’ she demanded, the thought definitely appealing.
‘Prove him wrong,’ he said simply. ‘Be everything you can be so that he has to eat his words not just about women as orthopaedic surgeons but also about the scheme I’m trying to get going.’
‘And about which I still have no idea,’ she pointed out, and it was like letting loose a tidal wave of enthusiasm.
‘It’s a whole new way of managing lists for orthopaedic surgery,’ he said with all the fervour of an evangelist, barely pausing to sample his meal when it arrived. ‘Not new in America, where some surgeons have been doing it for years, or in France, where they also use a similar system, but as far as Britain is concerned…’
