Lily pressed back against the ancient wall, hoping that she would be invisible in the deep shadows of the colonnade

She had no idea what had woken her. Perhaps the sound of Razak’s voice through the open door that led out to the atrium—although she hadn’t realized it was open until she saw the filmy curtain billowing gently.

“Why him?” she breathed, closing her eyes tight against the threat of tears. Why did she have to go and fall in love with someone so unattainable?

She must have made a sound, because the next thing she knew he was there in front of her, a dark silhouette against the beaten silver of the moonlit pool behind him.

“Lily?” he murmured, framing her shoulders with the gentle warmth of his hands and angling his head to peer into her face. “You should go inside, away from the breeze,” he said. But when she thought he would usher her into her room and return to his own, he accompanied her through the gauzy curtains and turned her to face him again.

“Don’t look away,” he whispered, cupping his fingers around her face and tilting it up toward his again. And she was lost, gazing into those dark eyes that had captivated her the first time she’d seen them.

Dear Reader,

When Razak Khan appeared in A Family To Come Home To, so good-looking and charming, he was only supposed to be a minor character. Then I started wondering about him—about his background, about his career and his private life, about the things that were important to him and his future.

Then I wondered what it would do to all his plans if he were to meet someone who challenged him and his view of the future.

To Lily, her career had been her main focus since she was a young girl, so meeting a man like Razak—a man who made her aware that she was a woman as well as a surgeon—was bound to turn everything on its head. How was she going to resist him when they were spending so many hours a day in each other’s company, their eyes speaking volumes over the tops of their masks without a word being said?

The obstacles between them and the way they are overcome only go to prove something I have always believed—that anything worth having is something worth fighting for.

I hope you enjoy their story as much as I enjoyed writing it.

Happy reading,

Josie

Sheikh Surgeon, Surprise Bride

Josie Metcalfe

www.millsandboon.co.uk

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ONE

‘SO, HAVE you hooked yourself a doctor, yet, Lil?’ her sister Iris asked, but the question could just as well have been put by anyone of the noisy group gathered in her parents’ cramped living room.

‘I’m not trying to hook one. I don’t need to because I’m a doctor myself,’ Lily pointed out rationally, but that cut no ice with her family.

‘A complete waste of time and money, that’s what I call it,’ her mother pronounced—as usual—as she heaved herself off ‘her’ corner of the settee to put the kettle on again. ‘You’ve got more debts than your father and I have had our whole lives and you still can’t find yourself a husband. By the time I was your age, I’d already had five children and there was another one on the way.’

Lily had heard that particular refrain so many times that it was easy to tune it out. Her mother wouldn’t deliberately hurt any of her children, although her habit of speaking her mind had caused more than a few hidden bruises.

It was her sisters and sisters-in-law that she found it harder to deal with. Their pitying glances in her direction and their conversations were just quiet enough for them to pretend that she wasn’t supposed to hear but loud enough that she was left in no doubt what they thought of the ‘uppity cow’ trying to pretend that she was so much better than they were.

She stifled a sigh when her father gave a pointed jerk of his head to tell her that, as the eldest, she should have followed her mother out of the room to help her get his meal. She couldn’t remember the first time she’d done it. It had been so many years ago that it was hidden in the mists of time, along with the memory of the first time she’d spooned food into her younger siblings’ mouths and changed their nappies.

Sometimes she wondered why she bothered coming home at all when it felt as if she had to spend the whole time apologising for who she was and the choices she’d made. Of course, she knew why she did come—because she loved her family, no matter what. It was just that sometimes she wished…

‘Do you still remember how to peel potatoes, now that you can afford to eat out all the time?’ demanded her mother, as she bustled around a kitchen that had hardly changed from the day Lily had been born. Appliances had been replaced as they had given out and the cupboards had been repainted, but the colour scheme was the same magnolia and white it had always been. It was ironic that tastes in interior decorating had turned full circle so that it was back in fashion again.

‘Doctors don’t have time to eat out all the time, even if they could afford it,’ she said quietly, as she reached for the peeler and the first of a mountain of potatoes. ‘As students, we’re so short of money we can barely afford to eat and once we’ve qualified, we’re left with massive debts to pay off, so we still can’t afford it.’

‘So where was the point in doing all that studying?’ Rose Langley demanded impatiently. ‘Your father started working shifts as soon as he left school but at least the two of us got time to see each other. You seem to do nothing but work, and men don’t like it when a woman doesn’t pay them any attention…’ Lily saw her throw a sideways glance at her eldest’s well-worn jeans and generic sweatshirt. ‘Or when she doesn’t make the effort to do herself up a bit.’

That jab hit a sensitive spot and Lily winced. In spite of her sisters’ taunts that there was ‘no point in gilding the Lily’, it was still a fact that she was the plain one of the family, even if she had been the only one of the girls to inherit her father’s long, lean build.

‘Everything I wear is clean, bought and paid for,’ she pointed out defensively. ‘I have to dress smartly to meet the patients in the orthopaedic clinic but when I’m in the operating theatre I’m in cotton scrubs.’

‘I’ve seen them on the telly. Totally shapeless green pyjamas,’ her mother said, and tut-tutted with distaste. ‘How is any man going to be attracted to you in that? Now, if you had a boob job, or something, to give you a bit of shape…’ She shook her head wearily. ‘I know. I know. You couldn’t afford to even if you wanted to, but if you’re ever going to get married and have a family you’re going to have to buck your ideas up before all the good ones are gone. You’re over thirty already.’

Her tone of voice made it sound like eighty and Lily supposed that to a woman who’d already had most of her family by that age, she’d even gone beyond being classed as a late starter. It was definitely time to redirect the conversation, and subtlety wasn’t an option.

‘Mum, I think you got the last really good one,’ she said with blatant flattery, her tongue firmly in her cheek. ‘How can I get married to someone who doesn’t measure up to Dad?’

‘Well, there is that, I suppose,’ her mother agreed, with more than a touch of smugness. ‘Your dad’s never let me down in all the years we’ve been married. He brought his pay cheque home to me every week…until work started putting it straight into the bank for him. He’s not a smoker or much of a drinker, not like most of his mates, nor does he chase around after other women.’

‘He doesn’t need to,’ Lily pointed out, with a sly look at her mother to see how the sweet talk was going down. ‘He got all the woman he needs when he got you.’

‘Get on with you,’ Rose said dismissively, but a coy grin lifted the corners of her mouth at Lily’s implied compliment.

The deliberate innuendo had the desired effect of side-tracking her mother’s perennial complaint, but the strange thing was, deep down Lily actually meant what she’d said. Her parents were well matched and totally content with their separate roles within their marriage, and her father was the sort of honest, hard-working man that was a million miles from the self-obsessed hustlers and chancers around today. Where had all the solid, reliable hard-working men gone…the ones who would make a commitment and stick to it through thick and thin? She certainly hadn’t come across any…not that she was looking. She still had years of work before her debts were paid and she achieved the coveted position of consultant.

Now, if only someone would come up with an alternative topic of conversation over the dinner table—something other than Lily Langley’s many shortcomings—she might be able to return to her flat without indigestion.

She’d actually hoped that someone would have remembered that she was due to start her new job in the morning and that it was, hopefully, the last rung in her career ladder before she reached the very top.

Unfortunately, the inner workings of the hospital hierarchy couldn’t be less interesting to this cheerful gathering, especially with a traditional roast dinner in front of them and at least half a dozen members of the next generation needing assistance to refuel for the next noisy round of hide and seek in the garden.

‘Give me strength!’ Razak pleaded with the oblivious walls of his flat then let loose with a string of curses in his native language. He knew he was not very good at waiting around when something needed doing, and the interminable delay while committees talked something to death was driving him crazy.

‘When are they ever going to get off the fence and make a decision? It’s been weeks since I outlined my plan, and the new surgeon starts tomorrow.’

It was bad enough that the problems with the foundations of the new building had set completion back by several weeks. He’d really hoped that he would have had an answer by now so he could have begun recruiting staff. It was important that everything should be up and running with as few glitches as possible. With everything ironed out before the new surgeon arrived they could have jumped straight into the new system, and he’d been waiting for the decision—the final decision?—all afternoon, knowing that the committee was due to meet today. But, then, he didn’t know whether his proposal was even on the agenda.

He would have to look on the bright side and treat the aggravating delay as a chance to see the new member of his team at work. His plans called for a skilled surgeon who could combine work of the highest standard with a willingness to work hard and fast without direct supervision. He might need several sessions of observation before he would be confident about handing his patients over for closing. And all the while, at the back of his mind, was the fact that even if he did get the go-ahead, he didn’t have long to find out whether the system worked. It wouldn’t be long before he came to the end of his time here and he needed so much more experience before he’d be ready to take on the responsibility for setting up a whole new orthopaedic department.

‘So, I can make best use of the delay, but if the committee doesn’t make the right decision in the end, and soon…’

His railings were curtailed by the chirp of his mobile phone and he fished it out of his pocket. A glance at the number displayed on the screen had him smiling immediately.

‘Hey, Karim! How are you, baby brother?’

‘Not so much of the baby, thank you,’ the voice on the other end growled in mock anger. ‘You should show me more respect, even if you are some big important doctor. It won’t be long before you have to make obeisance…’ He cut himself off with a curse of his own. ‘I’m sorry about that. It was thoughtless in the circumstances when the honour is yours by right and will only be passed on when our father is…with us no more. It’s just…’

‘Forget it, Karim. That sort of jest is part of the way we relate to each other and has nothing to do with being impatient for someone to die so you can step into their shoes,’ Razak finished for him, sparing his brother’s blushes at such a faux pas. ‘Don’t worry about it. I know you weren’t being disrespectful but…how are they?’

‘Much the same as usual,’ Karim reported cautiously. ‘Physically, they’re far frailer than they’d ever admit, but mentally as sharp as ever. And your mother is forever begging your father to order you to return home so she can persuade you to change your mind about the succession. She still expects to put on a lavish wedding when you return. Dita will have taken all her exams by then.’

Razak’s antennae went up when he heard the change in Karim’s voice when he’d mentioned Dita’s name. Could it be that the girl he’d been betrothed to almost from the cradle had grown up into the sort of woman who would catch Karim’s eye?

Unfortunately, to Razak she could never be anything other than an extra sister—there had never been that extra spark between them. That was one of the reasons why he’d been so willing to help Dita fight for permission to travel abroad to study. With her horizons widened, she would be far less likely to allow her parents to browbeat her into a marriage that neither of the participants wanted.

And if Karim were to take her eye…?

‘How is the project coming on?’ Razak demanded briskly, turning his mind away from the more frivolous side of life. He had goals to achieve before he could even think about taking a mate. ‘Will everything be finished by the time I return?’

‘Of course,’ Karim said confidently. ‘By the time my brother the eminent consultant orthopaedic surgeon returns to his homeland, there will be a brand-new, fully equipped orthopaedic centre ready and waiting for him. Don’t forget, it is Karim the Organiser managing this project, so all will be well.’

They bantered for several minutes before Razak remembered that he was still hoping that he would get that all-important phone call from his present hospital.

‘I must go,’ he said with a pang of homesickness. It had been so many years since he’d made anything more than a cursory visit there, but in a matter of months he would return for good. ‘You will let me know if…if they need me to come back sooner?’

‘Of course, big brother,’ Karim reassured him quietly. ‘I won’t let you down. Go with God.’

Razak sighed heavily and sank back into the comfort of his recliner when the connection was broken. Sometimes he felt really guilty for being so far away when his parents were growing so frail. Not that he would be allowed to take care of their health even if he were right on the spot. His mother was far too traditional to be comfortable with a male doctor and his father would always see him as a little boy and consequently ignore any advice he gave him.

‘A thirty-one-year-old boy,’ he scoffed aloud even as he shot back his cuff for another glare at his watch, then gave a growl of annoyance when he realised that he wouldn’t be getting any answers today. ‘At this rate, I’ll already have finished my contract and returned home by the time they make their minds up.’

For a moment he contemplated staying where he was to watch some mindless pap on the television, but the idea didn’t appeal. He seemed to have spent most of the day sitting down and felt a desperate need for some exercise.

‘A gallop on horseback,’ he said longingly, remembering the muscular feel of the back of the horse between his thighs and the hot wind streaming through his hair the last time he’d been home. But this was neither the time nor the place. The only horse suited to a city street certainly wasn’t the sort of beast he was happy riding. His tastes ran to pure-blooded Arabians, hardy, strong far beyond their refined appearance, more intelligent than any dog and with an intrinsic fire that was bred bone-deep in them.

‘That’s the first thing I’ll do the next time I go home,’ he promised himself. ‘I shall take a horse out and lose myself for a day, so I can refresh my soul.’ But in the meantime he had a choice of running round and round on the indoor track at his sports club or swimming endless lengths in the pool, and he could make that decision when he got there. Then it would be time to sleep if he was going to be refreshed enough to deal with the fresh blood coming into the department in the morning.

‘Dr L. Langley,’ he mused aloud, wondering what the L stood for. He’d been angry when he’d first heard that a female surgeon had been appointed to his team, believing that the more senior consultants in the department had done it deliberately to spoil his chances of making a success of his project. But as he was only here on a short contract, he’d been allowed no say in the decision and would have to hope that if she wasn’t up to doing what he needed at the moment, she was at least willing to learn.

‘Enough!’ He hefted his sports bag over his shoulder and grabbed keys and phone, determined to switch his brain off to everything connected to work.

He would get to know all about Dr Langley soon enough. Hoping that she was a dedicated surgeon with the power and stamina of a plough horse was definitely not politically correct, but he didn’t need some delicate, willowy, model type who couldn’t carry her share of the load, no matter how easy she might be on the eye.

‘Women don’t belong in orthopaedics,’ said a voice behind the door, just as Lily began to push it open, and she froze in disbelief as it continued with all the authority of some demi-god pronouncing from on high. ‘They just don’t have the upper-body strength for it. If they want to do surgery, they should stick to something they’re more suited to.’

For just a second she contemplated turning on her heel and retreating to the locker room, but retreat had never been her way. Otherwise she’d never have got so far in her chosen field. With her chin tilted just a fraction higher, she forced a smile to her face and took the last step that brought her denigrator into full view. ‘So, while most of the one and a half thousand orthopaedic surgeons in the country are running waiting lists of up to a hundred and forty patients, each waiting for up to nine months for their operation, you’re suggesting that I should spend my time doing tummy tucks instead?’ she said, while inside her head she was groaning, Not again!

She’d hoped that, having got this far, she would at least have proved to the ‘old school’ orthopaedic surgeons that she was capable of doing the job, but it seemed as if their prejudices were still alive and festering unchecked in her new job. Did her immediate boss feel the same way?

Of the all-male group that had turned to face her, it was easy to spot the one looking uncomfortable at being overheard and he was the one she strode towards first with her hand outstretched. She took a grim delight in demonstrating that he was nearly a head shorter than she was and he was also definitely past his prime, with a large gut filling out his theatre greens like an advanced pregnancy.

‘I’m Lily Langley,’ she announced, probably completely unnecessarily as they’d just been discussing her appointment. Well, she mused as she deliberately made a point of offering her hand to each in turn, forcing them to introduce themselves, there was one good point about that embarrassing start—at least she hadn’t been left in any doubt about their attitude towards her.

One, Colin Wetherall, even went so far as to try to crush her knuckles under the guise of shaking her hand but he was the one left wincing, the hours she’d spent in the gym finally paying off in spades.

Not that she’d hurt him, she reassured herself silently as she worked her way around the semi-circle. She’d only flexed her hard-won muscles enough to let him know that his attempt at a power play hadn’t worked. Then she turned to face the final member of the group.

‘Hello,’ she said, as she actually had to look up a couple of inches to meet eyes so dark that with the light behind him it was almost impossible to see where pupil and iris met. But it was the twinkle of humour in them that robbed her of words.

‘Razak Khaled Khan,’ he said, the harsh syllables of his name softened by a voice that flowed like honey over her nerves, then he held out his hand, lowering his voice as he added, ‘Be gentle with me, please!’

Lily laughed aloud. She couldn’t help it when he’d managed to tickle her sense of the ridiculous. She wouldn’t even attempt to intimidate someone like this, especially when he was her boss.

He had such innate presence that she didn’t know how she’d managed to miss seeing him immediately when she’d walked into the room, but now that she’d met his eyes, it seemed impossible to look away.

‘Not all of us feel the same way as Reg and Colin,’ he reassured her. ‘Some of us have actually learned that it’s not just what we do but how we do it that matters.’

‘Thus proving evolutionary theory correct?’ she queried, suddenly realising that her hand was still securely wrapped in his and tugging surreptitiously. To her surprise, he resisted, tightening his grip fractionally to prevent her retrieving it.

He tightened his grip still further and nodded when she automatically matched the pressure with her own. ‘Good. You have worked hard to improve your strength, but have you sacrificed dexterity?’ he challenged.

‘I can thread a needle with the best of them,’she reassured him. ‘But you’ll see for yourself when we start work.’

‘Not if he has his way,’ interrupted Reg with an unexpected touch of venom to his tone. ‘He’s been trying to get the hospital to agree to some ridiculous conveyor-belt system that will mean we wouldn’t even have time to breathe, let alone speak, and as for mentoring…Forget it! Thank goodness the hospital’s administrators have got more sense than wasting scarce resources on it.’

Lily saw the way Razak’s face fell with disappointment and she felt an unexpected pang of sympathy. Whatever this scheme was, it was clearly close to his heart.

‘They have sent the department a written decision?’ he demanded, turning on his heel to stride towards the pigeonholes on the wall behind the door, then flicking impatiently through the handful of items waiting in the slot labelled ‘Khan’.

‘Well, no,’ Reg admitted reluctantly. ‘But it stands to reason that they will, man. It’s taken years to get the funding released for that new theatre suite to be built. Do you really think they’re going to hand the whole thing over to a surgeon who’s only going to be here for a few months, just so he can waste time, effort and precious resources trying to prove an…an alcohol-fuelled brainwave?’

‘I don’t drink alcohol,’ her new boss said with admirable restraint. ‘And I would have thought you would jump at the chance to have someone else working in the new theatres. Then he could suffer while all the teething problems are sorted out.

‘Anyway.’ He turned to face Lily and his sombre expression was immediately lightened by a smile. ‘It is time to give you the guided tour, Dr Langley. You will need to know your way around the rest of the hospital in case we get a call from A and E, and also to know where everything is within the department in case they send something urgent up to Theatre.’

‘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…’

‘Mr Khan?’ she interrupted with a touch of impatience.

‘Yes?’ his own impatience was even greater for having been halted in mid-flow.

‘What system are you talking about?’

‘Oh! Yes!’ He threw her a brilliant smile. ‘I forgot to start at the beginning, didn’t I?’

‘Yes, you did, Mr Khan,’ she agreed, for the first time feeling like smiling back.

‘In that case, I apologise, Dr Langley, but I—’

‘Lily,’ she offered, before he could go any further. ‘My name is Lily.’

‘Lily,’ he echoed thoughtfully, tilting his head on one side before shaking it. ‘No, that’s not the flower I was thinking of. I would have said jasmine.’

He’d actually been thinking about her name or…

‘I’m wearing jasmine,’she blurted, wishing she’d kept her mouth shut when she realised she would have to explain. ‘My mother’s called Rose and she named us girls after flowers, too…Lily, Iris, Violet and Marguerite…and for years she’s given us flower-scented toiletries for Christmas and birthday presents. This year mine was—’

‘Jasmine,’ he finished for her, then shocked her to the core by taking her hand in his and bringing her wrist up to his nose. ‘No, nothing there,’ he pronounced, almost seeming disappointed.

‘Too much hand-washing,’ she suggested, to cover the shiver of response that travelled the length of her spine when his dark eyes almost seemed to take inventory of the other places he might search out to find the elusive scent.

‘Ah…you were saying?’ she fumbled as she tugged to retrieve her hand, horrified by how swiftly things had strayed away from the purely businesslike. ‘About the new system?’ she prompted, as she knotted both hands together on her lap, trying to quell the strange tingle that lingered where his fingers had held hers.

‘Ah…yes.’ She saw him blink as though it took an effort to gather his concentration. ‘It’s production-line surgery, to put it at its crudest. Have you heard anything about it?’

‘Where the surgeon has a whole string of operating theatres on the go at one time, with juniors starting and closing the operations while the consultant does the complicated bit in the middle? Yes, I’ve heard of it,’ she agreed with a buzz of excitement. ‘Is it true that some can keep twelve theatres busy at once?’

‘I believe so, although I didn’t witness it when I was over in the States, or when I was in France, where orthopaedic surgeons use a version of the same system.’

‘So what are the advantages over what happens here? Doesn’t it tie up an enormous number of other staff—anaesthetists, nurses and so on? And then there’s the number of specialist staff for post-operative care, too…and physiotherapists for mobilisation…and the number of beds needed all at once and…’

‘I know! I know! These are all the objections that Reg has been pointing out ad nauseam to anyone who will listen, even though I have told him that I only want to use two theatres and to operate for five hours instead of three and a half.’

‘So tell me about the benefits,’ she challenged.

‘For the hospital accountants, the first one is obvious,’ he said with a shrug. ‘The most expensive member of an operating team is the surgeon, and at the moment the hospital is paying for him…or her…to spend unnecessary time sitting drinking tea or coffee while they wait for the theatre to be cleared and restocked and their next patient to be prepped. It just doesn’t make economic sense to pay them to be idle.’

‘And secondly?’ she prompted, already seeing that he’d thought deeply about this, having seen the system working in other countries.

‘The benefit to the patients is when the waiting lists are cut to nothing,’ he said decisively. ‘Other countries are horrified by the idea that someone already in pain and needing replacement surgery for a hip, maybe, should then be put on a list and have to wait for up to nine months before their pain can be relieved. For some, the only bearable option is to pay to go privately, but for many, even that option is not possible because of the high costs involved. This just doesn’t happen in France, for example, because the production-line system means that the theatres and surgeons are utilised properly…to full capacity.’

‘And the disadvantages?’

‘Once again, financial, with the cost of building and equipping extra theatres, and then there’s the specialist theatre and ancillary staff. There’s also the fact that if the waiting lists disappear, far fewer people will be interested in paying for their operations privately, so the surgeons who are boosting their incomes with private work will feel the pinch, apart from having to work longer shifts and work harder during the hours they’re on shift.’

‘So it’s no wonder that Reg and his coterie are less than enthusiastic about your plans,’ Lily said with dawning comprehension. ‘If they agree with you, it’s tantamount to upping their workload by nearly fifty per cent while dropping their income by a similar amount.’

‘Don’t forget the fact that their tea-breaks will virtually disappear!’ he added, then gave a sigh. ‘It all just so frustrating when the theatre suite is all but completed and I’ve already got the anaesthetists and theatre staff on board.’

‘So,’ Lily mused thoughtfully, ‘the last thing you needed was to have a female surgeon foisted on you. I suppose you see me as the last nail in the coffin of your plans.’

‘To be honest, I won’t know that until I see you work,’ he said bluntly, those dark eyes fixing her steadily, unequivocally. ‘If you’re a good surgeon, you could actually be the card that wins the game.’

‘So, before you start pushing them for the go-ahead, you need to know that Reg appointed the right person in spite of himself. I take it that when we’re in Theatre together tomorrow morning, you’ll be watching me like a hawk?’

‘Will that worry you?’ One dark brow lifted quizzically but there was a watchful stillness about the man that sent an atavistic shiver through her.

That was enough to put some steel into her spine. She’d never allowed any man to intimidate her and wasn’t about to now.

‘Not in the least,’ she said firmly, confident of her abilities. ‘I might not have had the experience you have, but I’m good at what I do. Very good, because I’ve worked hard at it.’

There was an unexpected warmth and…was it respect?…in his eyes. ‘I’m looking forward to it,’ he said softly.

If ever there was a challenge to put her on her mettle, Razak Khan was that challenge, she thought as they finished their meal, tacitly agreeing to stick to more general topics as they got the measure of each other.

It was only when he’d walked her back to the hospital and she was making her solitary way towards her cramped bedsit that she remembered her idea of having a word with the chairman of the committee, just in case Reg had read the bean-counters right.

Initiating this new scheme was going to use up finite resources, with a full staff on duty in both theatres simultaneously, but if Razak had the support of everyone on those teams, even his untried junior…If everyone knew that she was fully behind Razak’s initiative, would that remove any of their reservations?

Of course, much of that would largely depend on how well she performed the next day, whether she and her new boss could find that elusive synchronicity that made for a good operating team, and if she was too tired, it definitely wouldn’t happen.

Razak flung the bedcovers to the floor in a fit of impatience and swore softly into the darkness.

‘What on earth is wrong with me?’ he demanded aloud. ‘So what if she’s a woman? She’s an orthopaedic surgeon, and that’s what matters.’

Except she wasn’t like any other orthopaedic surgeon he’d ever met. He’d never met anyone who presented such a calm, serene exterior while underneath…Did she even know the depth of passion that was hidden under the surface? He doubted it. There was such an untouched air about her that it aroused the hunter in him the way no woman ever had.

She didn’t even look like any of the other women in his life. His upbringing had conditioned him to appreciate the lush voluptuous woman who knew how to pleasure a man, while Lily…

She was so much like her name…tall, slender, elegant, cool, with her pale gold hair and even paler skin the colour of rich cream sprinkled with just a handful of cinnamon freckles. For a crazy moment he found himself speculating whether those sun-kissed spots were confined to her face and arms or whether they extended to the rest of her body. He was seized with the urge to explore beneath the camouflage of her neat professional clothes to find…

‘No!’ he growled, and winced when he heard the throaty tones of arousal in his voice. Was she some kind of witch that she’d tied his thoughts up in her, his body already in thrall?

It couldn’t be allowed, not if he was going to achieve his goal. He must be allowed to set up this programme if he was going to strengthen his claim in time for his return to his homeland. There were so many willing to point the finger and to whisper of nepotism. This was important to him. This was one thing that he needed to achieve on merit alone. He was so close to achieving his dream that he could almost touch it, and he couldn’t allow anything—or anyone—to stand in his way.

‘So, tomorrow you will watch Lily as she operates and you will do it with eyes as sharp as the scalpel in her hand,’ he told himself sternly. ‘You will assess her skills and her weaknesses and you will decide whether she is going to be an asset or…’

He shook his head. There could be no or. Failure was not an option. Lily Langley was his junior, for better or worse, and if he needed to retrain her himself in time for the start of the project, he would do it.

‘I just hope you’re up to it, pretty Lily,’ he growled. ‘If not, the next few months could be misery for both of us.’

CHAPTER THREE

LILY deliberately arrived early the next morning, nearly an hour before her shift was due to start, with a squadron of butterflies in her stomach.

She was determined to have one last check through the equipment she was going to be using for the first operation and wanted to do it before Razak arrived and began monitoring her every action, but she was too late. He was already there, as alert as if he always enjoyed a full eight hours’sleep a night, while she was so nervous that she felt as if she might fly apart at any second.

‘Keen and eager?’ he asked her, as he strode along beside her towards the theatre they’d been allocated that morning, but she was certain that somehow he knew that it was nerves that had brought her in this early.

‘Looking forward to getting on with the job,’ she agreed, wishing she dared cross her fingers for luck. Although she had a feeling that luck wouldn’t be enough to take her through this first operation. She was going to need to demonstrate every bit of the skills she’d learned so far, while learning everything she could from the man who had so much expertise to impart.

And the first thing she learned was a lesson in simple humanity.

Their patient had stuck in her mind from their meeting yesterday, soon after her admission to the orthopaedic ward.

Cicely Turner wasn’t a very tall woman, and she weighed hardly more than a sparrow, which was probably the only reason why she’d managed to keep going as long as she had on hips that were so damaged it was a wonder she was still able to stand, let alone lead a full and active life with dozens of grandchildren and children around her.

‘My mother’s hip replacement was a success but my father’s was a disaster,’she’d told them bluntly when the two of them had invited her into Razak’s office to review her case notes, the X-rays prominently displayed on a view box. The whole procedure had then been discussed with her in detail before she had been asked whether she had any questions.

‘Not really, no, thank you very much,’she’d said politely. ‘I’m certainly not expecting to be able to run a marathon when you’ve done it. I just want you to promise me that you’ll take the pain away so I can help my children out by doing a bit of babysitting now and again. I do love getting my hands on the babies,’ she confided in an aside to Lily. ‘Luckily, by the time I couldn’t have any more of my own, my children had started producing their own, so I’ve always had plenty to cuddle.’

Razak had pointed out, quite properly, that he couldn’t guarantee the success of any operation. ‘All I can guarantee is that we’ll both do our very best,’ he’d said seriously.

And that morning, before the anaesthetist had put her under, he’d made a point of going through to hold her hand and tell her that he hadn’t forgotten his promise.

The smile of relief on the woman’s face wasn’t something that Lily would forget in a hurry, neither was the fact that Razak had understood just how frightened Cicely would be in such an alien situation. It was proof of something special in the man that, despite the time constraints on their limited theatre hours, he had sacrificed a couple of those precious minutes to put her at ease.

The operation itself was textbook perfect, as was the meshing of their skills as the procedure unfolded.

The joint was badly worn, their first view of it once it had been disarticulated confirming Razak’s diagnosis that this patient would be requiring a complete prosthetic replacement for both components of the ball-and-socket joint.

‘I still think the Exeter will be the best choice for her,’ Razak murmured, with another long look from the open joint in front of them to the most recent X-rays displayed on the wall.

‘One of the earliest designs and still the best?’ Lily suggested, wondering if he could tell that she was smiling behind her mask. ‘I believe it got its name because the man who designed it worked at Exeter University in the engineering department.’

‘That’s probably why it has stood the test of time with so few modifications, then—because it was designed to stand up to the stresses to which it would be subjected, rather than to look pretty,’ he commented, even as she saw him checking his measurements to ensure the finished leg length would match its opposite number.

It was strange how, as soon as she’d touched the scalpel to the woman’s prepared flesh, all hint of nerves disappeared. She was still overwhelmingly aware of Razak standing just inches away from her as she dissected her way through the layers of skin and muscle but when his hands came into the operating field it wasn’t as an intrusion into what she was doing but rather as if she’d somehow grown another pair of hands to help her to complete the task.

‘Ready to close?’ he asked, when the cement that had been specially developed to hold the prosthesis to the bone had set properly and the smooth new ball of the joint had been relocated in the relined socket. Lily had been concentrating so hard that it seemed that just moments had passed since the initial incision. A quick glance up at the clock hung prominently on the theatre wall showed that, in fact, the patient had been under anaesthetic for nearly three hours. ‘Are you happy with everything?’ Razak added, almost as an afterthought.

For just a second she wondered if the question was some sort of test and she began to doubt herself, but a quick inspection of the operating site told her that all was exactly how it should be.

‘I’m happy,’ she confirmed, and held out her hand for the first of the absorbable sutures that would be buried deep inside the muscles of the thigh.

Her technique was flawless, Razak mused as he stood aside to watch Lily closing the final layers of the wound with the neatest row of stitches he’d seen in a long time.

Her requests and comments to the other staff had been calm, clear and concise and her concentration…probably better than his own, he admitted with a wry smile behind his mask. Particularly today when his focus had continually been interrupted by an awareness of the soft floral scent that had drifted around him from her skin.

This strange sensitivity towards a work colleague had never happened to him before, even though he’d been surrounded by women in every operating theatre he’d worked in.

Was it just her perfume? That was unlikely. The human sensory system was designed to be able to switch off such input after a relatively short time.

So, was it Lily herself? It certainly seemed that way, although he had no idea what it was about the woman that was affecting him this way. There was something about her that was different to every other woman he’d known but…was she that different that she could interfere with his usual level of concentration?

He suddenly realised with a frown of concern that he might be in a different sort of trouble if his scheme didn’t get the go-ahead.

At least with Lily working in the other theatre, prepping and closing each patient in turn, he wouldn’t be working beside her. It might be the only way he’d be able to demonstrate that the scheme worked, and that was so important to him when he had much less than a year left before he returned to his own country at the end of his contract. After all, it was exactly this sort of system that he was hoping to instigate when he returned home and he needed a success here to silence any doubts.

And still he couldn’t help watching her as she straightened up from applying the final wound dressing, taking in the way she ran a smoothing hand over the supportive anti-embolic stockings that Cicely had been helped into before the operation. They would be removed and replaced twice a day for skin inspection and hygiene purposes.

Then he saw her checking that the notes specified the correct doses of post-operative pain relief and that the antibiotic prophylaxis that had commenced preoperatively would continue until healing had taken place. The last thing any of them needed was for their patient to suffer a deep vein thrombosis or develop a post-operative infection that could destroy their work.

‘Good,’ he said quietly, when she finally stepped back and the trolley was wheeled through to the post-operative ward where Cicely’s recovery from the anaesthetic would be closely monitored. ‘That went very smoothly. I am pleased.’

He could see from the way her eyes lit up that she was smiling, even though her expression was still largely hidden behind her mask. He’d had years of discovering how much a man could learn about a woman when he could see little more than a pair of expressive eyes, but for the first time was discovering just how much physical effect they could have on him.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw her strip her bloodstained gloves off, the way she automatically tucked one inside the other without having to watch her hands performing the manoeuvre a testament to just how many times she’d done it. Her aim into the bin was equally accurate.

Only then did she pull her mask down around her throat to show him that her smile was every bit as wide and just as delighted as he’d imagined.

‘Really? You’re pleased with the way I…it…?’ She stumbled to a halt, an endearing hint of pink darkening that creamy skin. He took pity on her.

‘Yes, I was pleased with the way the operation went and, yes, I was most definitely pleased with your technique,’ he said firmly. ‘Now, let’s get out of here so the staff can get everything ready so we can do it all over again.’

He gestured for her to precede him out of the room, ironically looking forward for the first time to wasting some of their precious theatre time drinking tea with her and rehashing the recently completed procedure.

It was only as she strode ahead of him and his eyes slid down the long slender length of her legs that he noticed that where other theatre staff had written their names or initials on the clogs they wore in Theatre, Lily had drawn a simple stylised picture of the flower she had been named after. The unexpected touch of whimsy suddenly made him realise that there could be far more to this woman than the fact that she was a talented junior surgeon.

The second procedure, a debridement and removal of osteophytes from an osteoarthritic knee, went every bit as smoothly as the first and his heart lifted with the realisation that, whether he had intended it or not, Reg had certainly chosen a perfectionist to be his junior.

His only lingering concern as they reached the end of their shift was whether someone so slender would have the stamina to keep up that standard over the longer operating sessions he wanted to instigate, and neither of them would know the answer unless or until they were given a chance to find out.

‘Dr Langley. A word, please,’ Reg Smythe said pompously as she was just about to leave the orthopaedic department at the end of her shift.

Lily glanced swiftly at her watch, delighted to see that she really didn’t have time to find out what he wanted to say. She had a strong feeling that he wouldn’t have used the same unpleasantly autocratic tone if she’d been a man and her respect for the head of department took a further dip.

‘I’m sorry, Mr Smythe, but I’m going to be late for an appointment.’

‘An appointment?’ he echoed superciliously, as though nothing could be more important than his request.

Lily didn’t want to give the man any more excuses to dislike her. ‘With someone in the administration department,’ she added helpfully.

‘The administration department?’ he repeated impatiently.

‘That’s where they sort out contracts and tax codes and things, isn’t it?’ Lily elaborated blandly. She certainly didn’t want to give him a hint that it was the senior administrator’s office that was her destination. It would be better if he didn’t know what she hoped to accomplish that evening.

‘Ah, yes. Probably,’ he said dismissively. ‘I suppose you’d better run along, then. I’ll have a word with you later.’

Not if I see you first, she said to herself as she hurried away from him, hoping she didn’t look half as guilty as she felt, but until she knew what the chairman of the committee wanted to talk about, she wasn’t going to risk any conversation with Razak’s nemesis. For all she knew, the man who was one of the hospital’s most senior administrators did want to talk to her about her tax code or her pay scale, unlikely though that might be for a man of his status. His message had given her no reason to think that it could be anything to do with the proposed change in operating methods.

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