Summer With Love: The Spanish Consultant
And it was hardly surprising that Libby blamed Jago. The months after he’d walked away had been the worst of her life and Libby had been the one who’d seen her through it.
She bit her lip.
But hadn’t he always warned her that he wasn’t looking for commitment?
Had it been his fault that she’d committed the cardinal sin of falling in love with him?
‘Well, he may have been a rat, but I can see why you fell for him.’ Libby broke off and looked at her with a touch of awe. ‘Jago was the most stunningly gorgeous male I’ve ever met. And to think you actually—’
‘That’s enough, Lib!’ Katy’s nails dug into her palms as memories exploded in her head.
Rapid breathing, the rough scrape of male stubble against sensitive flesh, and heat, pounding erotic heat, heat that burned inside and out …
‘You—the quiet, shy one and Mr Rough, Bad and Dangerous. Where did you ever find the courage?’ Libby looked at her in admiration. ‘I wonder what would have happened if Dad hadn’t found out? Would it have carried on?’
Sleek, hard muscle against soft skin, flesh scorching flesh, mouths locked, bodies joined in untamed, wild passion …
‘Of course not.’ Katy lifted a hand to her head, trying to clear the memories. ‘We were totally different.’
His strength mixed with her gentleness. Raw male power controlling her every movement …
Libby pulled a face. ‘That’s our father talking. To him Jago was a banned substance, right up there with drugs and smoking. He was the unsuitable man. Fine for fighting dirty in the money markets but not good enough for his daughter. He didn’t have the benefit of Lord Frederick’s bloodline.’
‘Maybe Dad was right. It would never have worked,’ Katy said frantically. ‘Now can we change the subject, Libby, please?’
Dark eyes holding hers, possessing her, taking her with him as their bodies exploded.
Her sister appeared not to have heard her plea. ‘Why wouldn’t it have worked? Because you were the rich heiress and he was a bit of rough? Dad’s protégé who clawed his way up through hard work and naked ambition?’ Libby gave a wicked grin. ‘I confess that I would have signed away my share of the family fortune for the chance of one roll in the hay with Jago. He might have been dangerous but he was so-o-o sexy. I’ve always wanted to ask you something.’ She lowered her voice and glanced around to check that no one could hear them. ‘What was it like with him? Was he good, Katy?’
Katy couldn’t breathe.
Good?
Oh, yes, he was good. Better than good. Jago was so skilled that he might have invented sex.
And she’d trained herself never to think about it. Never to remember those few weeks. The agony was too acute.
And now, for some unfathomable reason, her sister was making her talk about it.
She never talked about it.
‘That’s enough, Lib.’ Her voice was hoarse and she lifted a hand to loosen her collar, only to remember that her dress had a scoop neckline.
The constriction came from within.
Her memories were suffocating her.
‘You loved him, Katy. He was the one,’ Libby said softly. ‘The one.’
Her father in one of his terrifying rages. It ends now, Katy. He’s gone. You won’t be seeing him again.
Her childlike belief that her father was wrong.
‘I kept thinking that he’d come for me,’ she murmured, talking as much to herself as to Libby. ‘I thought our love was strong enough to survive anything. How could I have been so wrong?’
‘You were crazy about him, Katy.’ Libby’s tone was gentle. ‘It was true love. How can you marry Freddie after what you had with Jago?’
‘It’s because of what I had with Jago that I’m marrying Freddie,’ Katy said hoarsely. ‘And Jago never loved me. How could he have loved me and walked away?’
She could see now that he’d been way out of her league. A sophisticated, ruthless man so practised in the art of seduction that someone as emotionally and physically innocent as her had never stood a chance. He’d been with her for the novelty value, whereas she’d fallen for him like a skydiver without a parachute and had been left emotionally devastated when he’d ended the relationship.
And she knew that she never wanted to experience that depth of emotional intensity again.
Which was why she was marrying Freddie.
Freddie was safe and predictable and she always knew how her body would behave around him, whereas being with Jago had been a journey into the unknown. A breathless, exciting, terrifying journey. Every look, every touch had caused an explosion inside her that had left scars.
Scars that had never healed.
‘Jago wouldn’t be standing around talking to your father’s friends,’ Libby murmured, not meeting her eyes. ‘He’d be sending you hot looks and dragging you into the bushes, and he wouldn’t give a damn what anyone thought.’
His voice, rough with masculine triumph. ‘You’re mine now, Katy.’
Desperation swamped her and she dropped her champagne glass and ran across the lawn and up the steps, ignoring Libby’s attempt to stop her.
She had to get away.
Her car was parked in the front.
She’d drive.
She’d just drive, and then she’d be all right.
She could leave the memories behind.
Alex stepped up to his sister, his blue eyes narrowed. ‘Did it work?’
Libby bit her lip and stared after Katy, guilt and anxiety clouding her eyes. ‘Judging from her reaction, I think it might have worked a little too well. Oh, hell, Alex, are you sure we’re doing the right thing? You know she hates talking about it and usually we go along with that.’
Alex rubbed a hand across the back of his neck, displaying a rare departure from his customary cool. ‘She’s marrying a man she doesn’t love, Lib, for all the wrong reasons. Anything is worth a try.’
Libby’s eyes shone a little too brightly. ‘But I hurt her.’
‘And you think she won’t hurt when she finally wakes up and realises that she’s made a mistake marrying Freddie? And anyway …’ Alex paused and took a long slug from his glass of champagne. ‘You only made her talk about stuff she thinks about all the time.’
‘I felt like a total rat, not telling her about Jago,’ Libby mumbled. ‘What’s she going to do when she finds out that he’s now a doctor and working in her hospital?’
‘She’ll be shocked, but she needs to confront her past and get on with her life instead of bottling it up,’ Alex said firmly. ‘It’s the right thing to do. Stop worrying.’
Libby glared at her brother. ‘How come you’re always so damned confident about everything? Aren’t you even remotely worried he’ll hurt her again?’
Alex’s jaw hardened. ‘We both know that Dad was somehow responsible for the first time, which was why I didn’t go after Jago eleven years ago, but if he hurts her again …’ There was a brief pause and the warmth of his tone dropped several degrees. ‘Then I’ll kill him. Now change the subject. Dad’s spotted you at last and he’s on his way over. Better hitch that skirt up another inch, Lib. I can’t quite see your knickers.’
CHAPTER TWO
‘RTA COMING in, Jago.’ Charlotte, one of the A and E sisters, replaced the phone and turned to the consultant. ‘Young female had to be cut out of a car. Apparently it’s taken them a while to free her.’
Jago lifted night-black eyes from the X-ray he was studying, his handsome face sharply alert. ‘Details?’
‘Not many. Head and chest but I don’t know how bad.’ Charlotte tilted her head, studying his face, marvelling at how unbelievably gorgeous he was. It didn’t matter how long she’d worked with him, she still stared. All the female staff stared. As one of the cheekier nurses had quipped, ‘Some staffrooms have posters of heartthrobs—we have the real live thing.’ Charlotte pulled herself together. ‘I can hear the siren.’
Jago nodded briefly. ‘Get someone to check Resus while we meet the ambulance.’ With that he yanked the X-ray out of the light-box and strode through the department, broad-shouldered and confident, pausing briefly to hand the X-ray to one of the casualty officers. ‘If you take a close look at this, you can see a lunar dislocation on the lateral view, Alison. You missed it.’
Aware of his reputation for zero tolerance when it came to clinical mistakes, the young doctor regarded him warily.
‘I—I didn’t request a lateral view.’
The consultant’s voice was silky smooth. ‘But fortunately I did.’
‘The AP view looked normal, Mr Rodriguez—’
‘Which is why you should also have requested a lateral view X-ray.’ His tone was icy cold and unsympathetic and the casualty officer shifted in her seat.
‘I—I thought that was a pretty rare injury. I read in a book that it’s quite common to miss that particular injury on X-ray.’
‘Not in my department,’ Jago said softly, visibly unimpressed by her error. ‘Next time request the right views and check them carefully. Expect the unexpected. Rare injuries still happen. Refer the patient to the orthopaedic team for a manipulation under anaesthetic and then join me in Resus. We’ve got an RTA coming in.’
‘Yes, Mr Rodriguez.’ The young female SHO was pink with mortification and Jago gritted his teeth impatiently. The girl was sloppy and over-confident and he’d be relieved when she finished her six-month stint in two weeks’ time. Some people weren’t cut out for emergency medicine and she was one of them. And on top of that, her longing looks were beginning to irritate him. She’d made it obvious that she’d be happy to extend their relationship beyond the confines of the hospital but he had more sense than to break hearts in his own department and these days he was becoming more and more picky about who he shared his bed with.
By his side Charlotte winced. ‘Ouch—you were hard on her.’
Jago lifted a dark eyebrow, his expression cool. ‘You’d prefer that she discharged a patient with a dislocation?’
‘No, but—’
‘Patients have the right to expect the very best care when they come into this department. She has a great deal to learn.’
Ending the conversation abruptly, Jago pushed his way through the swing doors just as the ambulance roared into the ambulance bay.
The paramedics opened the back and lifted out the stretcher. ‘Young female with head and chest injuries. She was shunted from behind so we’ve had her on a backboard. GCS of 7 at the scene but she regained consciousness fairly quickly and it’s 12 now, but she’s not saying much.’ The paramedic frowned. ‘She hasn’t been able to tell us her name or anything, but we’ve got her bag so we need to try and find out who she is.’
Jago turned to look at the still form of the girl lying on the trolley and his powerful body froze in shock. He stared in stunned disbelief, his muscular shoulders tense as his eyes raked over the blonde hair and the endless limbs.
I love you, Jago.
‘I know who she is.’
Only years of exercising rigid control over his intrinsically volatile emotions prevented him from displaying his reaction to her in a very public way.
The paramedic was looking at him. ‘You do? Oh—right. Well, in that case …’
‘Take her through to Resus,’ Jago ordered, his eyes still on the long, primrose blonde hair, now matted with blood.
Do you think I’m pretty, Jago?
‘Her air bag didn’t open properly and she hit the windscreen,’ the paramedic explained as they manoeuvred the stretcher into the A and E department. ‘Her head bled a lot and she’s going to need stitches, but we’ve put a pad on it for now. She might have chest injuries, too, from the way she was thrown against the steering-wheel. Weird really. There didn’t seem to be anyone else involved. You should have seen the car. Frankly, she was bloody lucky to escape alive.’
Jago’s expression didn’t flicker, his eyes as black as night and his manner controlled and totally professional. ‘OK, guys, let’s get to work. Get me some gloves, please—she’s covered in glass. Be careful!’
Someone handed him some gloves and he pulled them on quickly as Charlotte moved closer to the trolley.
‘Hello, can you hear me, er …?’ She glanced up questioningly. ‘Do we have a name?’
‘Her name is Katherine.’ Jago checked her airway and reached for an oxygen mask. ‘Katherine Westerling.’
Huge blue eyes staring into his, innocence mingling with excitement and anticipation as his hard body moved against her softness …
‘Right.’ Charlotte exchanged puzzled glances with one of her colleagues. ‘Why is that name familiar?’
‘She’s the daughter of Sir Charles Westerling, the banker,’ Jago informed her tautly, and Charlotte’s eyes widened.
‘Wow! I’ve seen pictures of her in the glossies, looking glamorous. She’s seriously rich and really, really beautiful.’
And totally lacking in morals.
His relationship with Katy had been the one and only time in his life that he’d lowered his guard with a woman. And he hadn’t made the same mistake since.
Her father, telling him the truth, showing him the evidence …
‘That’s her.’ His emotions held rigidly in check, Jago didn’t look up, his hands moving swiftly as he worked to stabilise Katy. She was just a patient. ‘Now, can we stop gossiping and just get on with the job?’
Charlotte stiffened warily, cast him a curious look and then turned her attention back to the patient. ‘Katherine? Katherine, can you hear me?’
Katy lay with her eyes closed.
She could hear voices but she didn’t respond. It felt nice to hide in the darkness. There was a sharp prick in her arm and hands moving over her.
‘Katherine.’
A kind female voice was calling her name but it felt like too much effort to respond.
Then she heard a harsh, male voice and her body tensed. It sounded so familiar.
‘Her X-rays are fine but she’s got a laceration by her hairline that’s going to need suturing and she was knocked out so she’s going to have to stay in overnight for observation.’ Fingers touched her and then she heard the voice again. ‘She’s shivering. Get some blankets.’
Something soft and cosy covered her immediately but the shivering wouldn’t stop.
‘Any relatives?’
‘She was on her own in the car.’
‘Open your eyes, Katherine.’
Hands touching her, the prick of another needle.
‘OK, she’s stable.’ The familiar male voice again. ‘I’ll leave you to get on with it. Get her a bed on the ward and call me if anything changes.’
‘How’s that head?’
Katy lay in the bed, watching the nurse who was checking her blood pressure. ‘Aching, but I’ll live.’ She moved her head to look around her and then winced as pain lanced through her skull. ‘Which hospital am I in?’
‘St Andrew’s. We put seven stitches in your head but your hair will cover it so don’t worry about having a scar.’
St Andrew’s?
Katy closed her eyes and suppressed a groan. Having a scar was the least of her problems. She was due to start work in this very department in two weeks’ time. How embarrassing!
Should she say something?
Deciding to remain silent on the subject for the time being, she shrank lower in the bed.
‘They reckon you’re lucky to be alive.’ The nurse pulled a pen out of her pocket and scribbled on the chart. ‘What happened?’
‘I don’t know.’ Katy frowned as she tried to remember. ‘I was at a party at my parents’ house and then I left to drive home.’ Running from her past. ‘I saw a rabbit in the road so I slammed on my brakes and that’s the last thing I remember.’
The nurse made a clucking sound. ‘Anyway, your X-rays are clear so you should be able to go home in the morning. We found some details in your handbag and called your fiancé. He’s on his way over.’
Katy suppressed a groan. She didn’t want to see Freddie. Why couldn’t they have called Libby or Alex?
The nurse was looking at her in concern. ‘You look terrible. Is there anything I can get you? Do you need anything?’
Yes. She needed to know that the voice that she’d heard in A and E hadn’t been Jago’s.
Of course it wasn’t Jago’s, she told herself.
Jago was a super-rich banker. How could he possibly be working in A and E?
She had just been imagining things and it was no wonder after the conversation she’d had with Libby.
‘I don’t need anything else, thanks.’
She smiled at the nurse just as the door opened and Jago Rodriguez walked in.
The colour drained out of Katy’s cheeks and her breathing did an emergency stop. Her entire body was frozen to the bed, paralysed by the shocking reality of being confronted by Jago.
‘Mr Rodriguez.’ The nurse straightened nervously, went a deep shade of pink and dropped the chart she was holding.
Stunning dark eyes flickered to the nurse. ‘You can go.’
He held the door open in the manner of someone totally accustomed to having his every instruction obeyed instantly, and the flustered nurse retrieved the chart and hurried across the room, casting a final hungry look at Jago’s profile before slipping outside.
Suddenly the room seemed too small.
Jago closed the door and stood with his back to it, his long, powerful legs spread apart, his expression unsmiling. Dominant, confident and unapologetically male, not by the slightest flicker of those sinfully dark lashes did he acknowledge that they’d ever been more than casual acquaintances.
‘Hello, princess.’ He spoke in a deep, masculine drawl that made Katy’s pulse race. ‘Running again?’
Katy’s soft lips parted and she struggled to sit up. She was in total shock. The subject of all her dreams and nightmares was suddenly confronting her. Jago, whom she’d thought about every waking minute for the last eleven years.
Jago, whom she’d never expected to see again.
Somehow he was standing in her hospital room, frighteningly imposing and super-handsome, displaying not the slightest discomfort at seeing her. Nothing in his body language suggested that he felt the smallest hint of guilt or remorse for the way he’d walked away from her without a word of explanation, leaving her so badly hurt that for a while she’d thought she’d never recover.
She could see that he was waiting for her to speak but she was totally unable to think coherently.
Over time she’d managed to convince herself that her starry-eyed view of him had been coloured by a hormonally driven teenage imagination. She’d decided that he couldn’t have been as gorgeous as she remembered.
She’d been wrong.
Jago Rodriguez was strikingly good-looking. He wore his glossy dark hair so short that in any other man it would have accentuated the faults in his facial features. But Jago didn’t have any faults. He possessed a bone structure that made artists drool and a physique that would have driven athletes to a state of mindless envy. He was impossibly, staggeringly handsome.
And to set him apart from the average man still further, he wore an exquisitely tailored suit that skimmed his wide shoulders and just shrieked of designer label.
In a strange moment of distraction Katy found herself wondering what happened if a patient was sick on it.
Growing hotter and hotter under his steady scrutiny, she lifted a hand to her aching head.
‘Wh-what are you—?’ She broke off, totally unable to believe his presence by her hospital bed. ‘I-I didn’t know you were a doctor,’ she croaked, and a dark eyebrow swept upwards.
‘Why should you?’
Why indeed?
After all, he’d chosen to walk out of her life without a backward glance or giving a forwarding address. To him the relationship had been over and he’d moved on. Unfortunately it hadn’t been so easy for her.
She dug her nails in her palms. ‘I assumed you were still in banking.’
‘I lost my taste for banking,’ he said smoothly, his dark eyes fixed on her pale face. ‘I changed career.’
So that was why her feeble, childish attempts to track him down had failed. She’d used all her contacts at the various banks but with no success. It had never occurred to her that he might have changed profession.
Katy blinked as she did the calculation in her head. If he was a consultant now then he must have started training immediately after he’d left her father’s company and he must have progressed fast. But, then, that didn’t surprise her. Jago had always been frighteningly clever.
‘Why medicine?’
And why this hospital, where she was going to see him every day?
She fought the rush of panic that threatened to swamp her and focused on his tie. Silk. Designer. Sufficiently muted not to induce a headache in a patient with a head injury.
‘I like the adrenaline rush. When you’re dealing with lives, the stakes are higher than in the money markets.’
He gave a careless shrug and she found her gaze drifting upwards to his powerful shoulders. If anything, he was even more spectacular than he’d been eleven years before. Jago Rodriguez was sex in the raw, so overwhelmingly masculine that just looking at him was enough to punch the breath from her body.
Appalled by her own thoughts and the traitorous stab of awareness that she felt low in her stomach, she looked away from him.
What was the matter with her? He’d been in the room for less than five minutes and already her insides were turning somersaults. Did she have absolutely no sense of self-preservation?
It depressed her that she could still react to him, knowing just how badly he’d hurt her. Weren’t doctors supposed to be warm and caring?
For a short, blissful interlude she’d thought that Jago possessed those qualities, but experience had shown that he was capable of being every bit as ruthless, ambitious and macho as her father.
Jago didn’t have a compassionate bone in his body and she certainly couldn’t imagine him as a doctor.
As far as she was concerned, he wasn’t doctor material. She started to shiver.
Why now? Why did she have to bump into Jago now, when she’d finally managed to rebuild an emotionally comfortable life for herself?
She was marrying Freddie and she was never again going to feel that breathless, stomach-churning excitement that she’d experienced with Jago.
Those slumberous eyes, as dark as obsidian, reflected not a hint of warmth or tenderness. Nothing that reflected the intense emotions which had characterised their relationship. The tension in the room sucked the breath from her body but he surveyed her with an almost indifferent coolness that made it blatantly clear he had no positive feelings for her whatsoever.
It was almost as if the very sight of her offended him, which was utterly ridiculous. After all, he’d been the one who’d walked away from her without the smallest explanation.
And maybe that shouldn’t have come as such a surprise. She’d been well aware of his reputation when she’d become involved with him. In fact, his reputation had been part of the fascination, at least to begin with, and he’d always warned her that he didn’t do commitment.
So why had she been so devastated when he’d ended it? And did she really expect him to be harbouring romantic memories about her? Just remembering all her innocent fantasies about him filled her with mortification.
She’d been so naïve.
She suddenly felt horribly vulnerable in her NHS nightie that was open all the way down the back.
If she had to face Jago she would have chosen to be wearing armour.
‘I heard your voice when the paramedics brought me in.’ Her voice was a croak. ‘Was it you who—?’