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Whew. Catastrophe averted.
‘A shame,’ she said. Her voice was cool and so were her eyes as she reached out to skim her fingernail over his right arm, at the top of his biceps where the sleeve of his T-shirt had been pushed up just enough to reveal the lower edge of a black tattoo circlet. Her lips turned up in an approximation of a smile. ‘Because I like tattoos. They’re a real turn-on for me. Would have been fun.’
He stared at her, fighting the urge to drag her back against his chest, not quite believing the disdainful humour he could hear in her voice, see in her eyes. Wondering if he’d imagined the yielding softness only moments ago.
At Tina and Brand’s wedding he’d sensed that there was something wrong with her. It had made him uncomfortable to be near her. Made him want to get away from her.
He had the same feeling now. Only this time he couldn’t get away. He would be damned if he’d let Tina’s sister stagger home drunk and disorderly, with a pounding head and a split lip. Oh, yeah, that’s the reason, is it? Tina?
Ella shrugged—a dismissive, almost delicate gesture. ‘But don’t worry, I won’t press you,’ she said calmly. ‘I’ve never had to beg for it in my life and I won’t start now, tattoos or not.’
She stood suddenly and smiled—the dazzling smile that didn’t reach her eyes. ‘I’d better go,’ she said.
‘I’ll take you home,’ he said, ignoring the taunt of all those men she hadn’t had to beg. None of his business.
‘I’ll walk.’
‘I’ll take you,’ Aaron insisted.
Ella laughed. ‘Okay, but I hope we’re not going to drag some poor driver out of bed.’
‘Where are you staying?’
‘Close enough. I can walk there in under ten minutes.’
‘Then we’ll walk.’
‘All right, then, lead on, Sir Galahad,’ Ella said lightly, mockingly.
And that was exactly why he didn’t like her.
Because she was just so unknowable. Contrary. Changeable. Ready to seduce him one moment and the next so cool. Poised. Amused. They made it to the street without him throttling her, which was one relief. Although he would have preferred a different relief—one for inside his jeans, because, heaven help him, it was painful down there. How the hell did she do that? Make him both want her and want to run a mile in the opposite direction?
Ella led off and Aaron fell into step beside her, conscious of her excruciatingly arousing perfume. The almost drugging combination of that scent, the damp heat, the sizzle and shout of the street stalls, the thumping music and wild shouts from the tourist bars, was so mesmerisingly exotic it felt almost like he was in another world. One where the normal rules, the checks and balances, didn’t apply.
The minutes ticked by. A steady stream of motorbikes puttered past. A short line of tuk-tuks carrying chatty tourists. Jaunty music from a group of street musicians. Sounds fading as he and Ella walked further, further.
‘Needless to say, tonight’s escapade is not something Tina needs to hear about,’ Ella said suddenly.
‘Needless to say,’ he agreed.
A tinkling laugh. ‘Of course, you wouldn’t want it getting back to your wife either. At least, not the latter part of the evening.’
‘Ex-wife,’ Aaron corrected her. He heard a dog barking in the distance. A mysterious rustle in the bushes near the road.
‘Ah.’ Ella’s steps slowed, but only very briefly. ‘But not really ex, I’m thinking, Sir Galahad.’
Aaron grabbed Ella’s arm, pulling her to the side of a dirty puddle she was about to step into. ‘It’s complicated,’ he said, when she looked at him.
She pulled free of the contact and started forward again.
‘But definitely ex,’ he added. And if she only knew the drug-fuelled hell Rebecca had put him through for the past three years, she would understand.
‘Oh, dear, how inconvenient! An ex who’s not really an ex. It must play havoc with your sex life.’
She laughed again, and his temper got the better of him.
The temper that he never lost.
‘What is wrong with you?’ he demanded, whirling her to face him.
She looked up at him, opened her mouth to say—
Well, who knew? Because before he could stop himself he’d slapped his mouth on hers in a devouring kiss.
Just what he didn’t want to do.
And she had the audacity to kiss him back. More than that—her arms were around him, her hands under his Tshirt.
Then he tasted blood, remembered her lip. Horrified, he pulled back. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said.
She ran her tongue across her lower lip, raised her eyebrows. ‘Definitely would have been fun,’ she said.
‘I’m not looking for a relationship,’ he said bluntly. And where had that come from? It seemed to suggest he was after something. But what? What was he after? Nothing—nothing from her.
It seemed to startle her, at least. ‘Did I ask for one?’
‘No.’
‘That’s a relief! Because I’m really only interested in casual sex. And on that note, how fortunate that we’re here. Where I live. So we can say our goodbyes, and both pretend tonight didn’t happen. No relationship. And, alas, no casual sex, because you’re married. Oh, no, that’s right, you’re not. But no sex anyway.’
‘I should have left you with the engineer.’
‘Well, I would have seen a lot more action,’ she said. She started forward and then stopped, raised her hand to her eyes.
‘What is it?’ Aaron asked.
‘Nothing. A headache,’ she answered. ‘I’ll be fine.’
‘Goodbye, then,’ he said, and turned to walk back to the hotel.
A lot more action! Ha! Aaron was quite sure if he ever let himself put his hands on Ella Reynolds she wouldn’t be able to think about another man for a long time. Or walk straight either.
But he was not going to touch her, of course. Not.
Ella made her way to her room, cursing silently.
Her head was throbbing and her joints were aching and she longed to lapse into a thought-free coma. She’d just realised she’d contracted either malaria or dengue fever. She wasn’t sure which, but either way it sucked.
But when she’d taken two paracetamol tablets and clambered into bed, praying for a mild dose of whatever it was, it wasn’t the pain that made the tears come. It was shame. And regret. And a strange sense of loss.
Aaron James had wanted her. Ordinarily, a man wanting her would not cause Ella consternation. Lots of men had wanted her and she’d had no trouble resisting them.
But Aaron was different. He’d kissed her like he was pouring his strength, his soul into her. And yet he’d been able to fight whatever urge had been driving him.
Why? How?
She manhandled her pillow, trying to get it into a more head-cradling shape.
Not looking for a relationship—that’s what he’d said. How galling! As though it were something she would be begging for on the basis of one kiss. All right, one amazing kiss, but—seriously! What a joke. A relationship? The one thing she couldn’t have.
Ella sighed as her outrage morphed into something more distressing: self-loathing. Because she was a fraud and she knew it. A coward who used whatever was at her disposal to stop herself from confronting the wreck her life had become since Javier had been kidnapped in Somalia on her twenty-fifth birthday.
She’d been in limbo ever since. Feeling helpless, hopeless. Guilty that she was free and he was who-knew-where. In the year after his kidnapping she’d felt so lost and alone and powerless she’d thought a nervous breakdown had been on the cards.
And then she’d found Sann in a Cambodian orphanage, and life had beckoned to her again. Two years old, and hers. Or so she’d hoped. But he’d been taken too. He’d died, on her twenty-sixth birthday.
And now here she was on her twenty-seventh birthday. Still in limbo, with no idea of what had happened to Javier. Still grieving for Sann.
Panicking at the thought of seeing an Asian child with an adoptive parent.
Unable to entertain even the thought of a relationship with a man.
Pretending she was calm and in control when she was a basket case.
Her life had become a series of shambolic episodes. Too many drinks at the bar. Getting picked up by strange men, determined to see it through then backing out. Always backing out, like the worst kind of tease, because no matter how desperate she was to feel something, the guilt was always stronger. Coping, but only just, with endlessly sad thoughts during the day and debilitating dreams at night.
She knew that something in her was lost—but she just didn’t know how to find it. She hid it from the people she cared about because she knew her grief would devastate them. She hid it from her colleagues because they didn’t need the extra burden.
And she was just … stuck. Stuck on past heartbreaks. And it was starting to show.
No wonder Aaron James abhorred the idea of a ‘relationship’ with her.
Ella rubbed tiredly at her forehead. She closed her eyes, longing for sleep, but knowing the nightmares would come tonight.
Dr Seng slapped his hand on the desk and Aaron’s wandering mind snapped back to him. ‘So—we’ve talked about malaria. Now, a few facts about the hospital.’
Kiri had been whisked off to do some painting—one of his favourite pastimes—on arrival at the Children’s Community Friendship Hospital, so Aaron could concentrate on this first meeting.
But he wasn’t finding it easy.
He had a feeling … A picture of Ella here. Was this where she was working? He wasn’t sure, but he kept expecting her to sashay past.
Dr Seng handed over an array of brochures. ‘Pre-Pol Pot, there were more than five hundred doctors practising in Cambodia,’ Dr Seng said. ‘By the time the Khmer Rouge fled Cambodia in 1979 there were less than fifty. Can you imagine what it must have been like? Rebuilding an entire healthcare system from the ground up, with almost no money, no skills? Because that’s what happened in Cambodia.’
Aaron knew the history—he’d made it his business to know, because of Kiri. But he could never come to terms with the brutal stupidity of the Khmer Rouge. ‘No, I can’t imagine it,’ he said simply. ‘And I’d say this hospital is something of a miracle.’
‘Yes. We were started by philanthropists and we’re kept going by donations—which is why we are so happy to be associated with your documentary: we need all the publicity we can get, to keep attracting money. It costs us less than twenty-five dollars to treat a child. Only fifty dollars to operate. Unheard of in your world. But, of course, we have so many to help.’
‘But your patients pay nothing, right?’
‘Correct. Our patients are from impoverished communities and are treated free, although they contribute if they can.’
‘And your staff …?’
‘In the early days the hospital relied on staff from overseas, but today we are almost exclusively Khmer. And we’re a teaching hospital—we train healthcare workers from all over the country. That’s a huge success story.’
‘So you don’t have any overseas staff here at the moment?’
‘Actually, we do. Not paid staff—volunteers.’
‘Doctors?’
‘We have a group of doctors from Singapore coming in a few months’ time to perform heart surgeries. And at the moment we have three nurses, all from America, helping out.’
‘I was wondering if …’ Aaron cleared his throat. ‘If perhaps Ella Reynolds was working here?’
Dr Seng looked at him in surprise. ‘Ella? Why, yes!’
Ahhhhh. Fate. It had a lot to answer for.
‘I—I’m a friend. Of the family,’ Aaron explained.
‘Then I’m sorry to say you probably won’t see her. She’s not well. She won’t be in for the whole week.’
Aaron knew he should be feeling relieved. He could have a nice easy week of filming, with no cutting comments, no tattoo come-ons, no amused eyebrow-raising.
But … what did ‘not well’ mean? Head cold? Sprained toe? Cancer? Liver failure? Amputation? ‘Not well?’
‘Dengue fever—we’re in the middle of an outbreak, I’m afraid. Maybe a subject for your next documentary, given it’s endemic in at least a hundred countries and infects up to a hundred million people a year.’
Alarm bells. ‘But it doesn’t kill you, right?’
‘It certainly can,’ the doctor said, too easily, clearly not understanding Aaron’s need for reassurance.
Aaron swallowed. ‘But … Ella …’
‘Ella? No, no, no. She isn’t going to die. The faster you’re diagnosed and treated the better, and she diagnosed herself very quickly. It’s more dangerous for children, which Ella is not. And much more dangerous if you’ve had it before, which Ella has not.’
Better. But not quite good enough. ‘So is she in hospital?’
‘Not necessary at this stage. There’s no cure; you just have to nurse the symptoms—take painkillers, keep up the fluids, watch for signs of internal bleeding, which would mean it was dengue haemorrhagic fever—very serious! But Ella knows what she’s doing, and she has a friend staying close by, one of the nurses. And I’ll be monitoring her as well. A shame it hit her on her birthday.’
‘Birthday?’
‘Two days ago. Do you want me to get a message to her?’
‘No, that’s fine,’ Aaron said hurriedly. ‘Maybe I’ll see her before I head home to Sydney.’
