Praise for Annie Claydon

‘A compelling, emotional and highly poignant read that I couldn’t bear to put down. Rich in pathos, humour and dramatic intensity, it’s a spellbinding tale about healing old wounds, having the courage to listen to your heart and the power of love that kept me enthralled from beginning to end.’

—GoodReads on Once Upon a Christmas Night…

‘A lovely story—I really enjoyed this book, which was well-written by Annie, as always.’

—GoodReads on Re-awakening His Shy Nurse

‘Well-written, brilliant characters—I have never been disappointed by a book written by Annie Claydon.’

—GoodReads on The Rebel and Miss Jones

Wow. Just…wow.

By some unknown process which defied medical principles blood rushed simultaneously to Drew’s head and down to another part of his body that he’d been trying to ignore for the last two weeks. Sophie had pulled out all of the stops this time, and the transformation made him want to fall to his knees.

She glittered… no, shimmered…in a dark blue sequinned dress which clung to her curves. High silver sandals made her legs look impossibly long, and she held a small silver and blue clutch bag. Her hair was done in a gravity-defying arrangement of curls which framed her face perfectly.

‘You look…’ Words failed him.

She smiled, and a bright shiver ran down his spine. ‘Is that good speechless or bad speechless?’

‘Good. Definitely good speechless.’ Confounded as he was by her magic, Drew still couldn’t quite square the mathematics of six boxes and only one dress. ‘So what did your fairy godmother put in the other boxes?’

‘I had a choice of dresses.’ She giggled at his obvious confusion. ‘Designers lend things out all the time. It’s good publicity for them if a celebrity wears their latest creation.’

A sudden desire to see her in all six was quenched by the thought that she looked just perfect and he wouldn’t change a thing. He rose, pulling his jacket on and she smiled, looking him up and down unashamedly.

‘You scrub up pretty well too, Dr Taylor.’

Dear Reader,

There are times when being a writer gives me the opportunity to have a great deal of fun. Sophie Warner’s part in a film set in the 1940s meant I needed to know something about the costumes she might wear. And how better to find out than to ask two ladies whose memories stretch way back? I owe a big thank-you to Joan and Betty, who told me everything I needed to know—along with some funny stories that I don’t dare repeat! Thanks also to Lynne, for bringing both laughter and cake.

It makes me smile just to think of that morning. As I wrote this book I came to understand how much I define myself by the things I remember. Sophie’s traumatic brain injury has deprived her of the ability to retain all her memories. Some aren’t important, but what happens when you can’t remember the name of the man you might be falling in love with? And how can she defend herself when she doesn’t remember those compromising pictures on the internet ever being taken?

It’s not easy for Drew Taylor, either. A love affair is all about memories—the first time you kissed, that first touch. He’s not sure how he would cope if Sophie were to wake in the morning with no idea of what had happened the night before.

Thank you for reading Drew and Sophie’s story. I always enjoy hearing from readers, and you can contact me via my website at annieclaydon.com

Annie x

Cursed from an early age with a poor sense of direction and a propensity to read, ANNIE CLAYDON spent much of her childhood lost in books. After completing her degree in English Literature she indulged her love of romantic fiction and spent a long, hot summer writing a book of her own. It was duly rejected and life took over. A series of U-turns led in the unlikely direction of a career in computing and information technology, but the lure of the printed page proved too much to bear and she now has the perfect outlet for the stories which have always run through her head: writing Medical Romance™ for Mills & Boon®. Living in London—a city where getting lost can be a joy—she has no regrets for having taken her time in working her way back to the place that she started from.

The Doctor She’d Never Forget
Annie Claydon

www.millsandboon.co.uk

To my dear friend Betty

Table of Contents

Cover

Praise for Annie Claydon

Excerpt

Dear Reader

About the Author

Title Page

Dedication

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

EPILOGUE

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

FIVE MILES FELT a lot further than it had used to. The final hundred yards of Drew Taylor’s morning run left him feeling dizzy and sick from exertion.

‘Morning.’

If he hadn’t been so keen to gulp down a pint of water and collapse into a chair, Drew would have noticed the canary-yellow sports car parked across the street from his house and reckoned that Charlie would be around somewhere. As it was, the voice behind him came as a surprise.

‘Morning…’ Now that he’d reached his destination, Drew’s body gave up and bent double, his lungs craving air.

‘You’re out of shape, old man.’

‘Very probably. Is that what you came to tell me?’ Drew gripped his knees, staring hard at the paving stones at his feet, gasping for air.

‘Nah.’ Charlie shrugged and waited until Drew had recovered sufficiently to let them into the house. ‘I have a proposition for you.’

Charlie’s propositions were liable to get him into trouble. Their friendship had lasted since their university days on the basis that Drew was choosy about which of them he took seriously. ‘What?’

‘Hydrate first. You look as if you need it.’

‘That sounds ominous.’

‘Nah. This one’s a stroke of genius.’

‘Yeah. They always are.’ Drew poured himself a glass of water, while Charlie flipped open the kitchen cupboard, looking for coffee.

‘You’ve only got one coffee pod left.’

Drew shrugged. ‘Take it. I’m not drinking coffee at the moment.’

Charlie twisted the edges of his mouth down, and put the pod into the machine. ‘Not sleeping?’

‘I’m not used to doing nothing…’ Drew took a mouthful of water. That was only half the story and they both knew it.

It was his own stupid fault that he was stuck at home with nothing to do. When the hospital he’d worked in—actually lived for—had first been threatened with closure, Drew had spearheaded the campaign to keep it open. It had been a two-year struggle, culminating in failure and defeat.

When he’d finally faced the inevitable, and begun to look for another job, he’d landed one with relative ease. Head of a new memory clinic in London, which was due to open in three months’ time. In any other circumstances it would have been the job that Drew’s dreams were made of but now it was tainted by loss, and he was having difficulty working up much enthusiasm for it.

‘You’ll be thanking me in a minute, then.’ Charlie smiled beatifically.

Drew gave up. When Charlie got hold of an idea, he didn’t let go. They weren’t always good ideas, but enough of them had been great to make his friend a millionaire before his thirtieth birthday.

‘Okay. What am I going to be thanking you for?’

‘Someone I know has asked me for a favour, and I think it could work out perfectly for you. It’s a job…’

‘I have a job, remember?’

‘This is temporary. It’s a fantastic opportunity to get away from it all, take a bit of a break. Two weeks, a month tops…’ Charlie stopped, pressing his lips together. ‘This is absolutely top secret. Totally confidential and between ourselves.’

Generally Charlie’s idea of confidential was that it didn’t get as far as the newspapers quite yet, but it appeared this really was a secret. Drew chuckled. ‘Understood.’

‘Okay. Well, you’ve heard of Sophie Warner?’

Drew thought for a moment. The name rang a bell, but he couldn’t place it. ‘I don’t think so.’

Charlie rolled his eyes. ‘She’s a big star. Gorgeous. Didn’t you see MacAdam on TV?’

‘I doubt it. Look, I’ll take it as read. Sophie Warner, brightest star in the firmament. What’s that got to do with me?’

‘Well, a friend of mine from America has contacted me. Carly’s an assistant director and she’s known Sophie Warner for years, since before she was famous. The two of them are working on a film together down in Devon at the moment.’

Friends of friends of friends. In Charlie’s world it was all about who you knew, not what you knew. Drew bit back the comment, reckoning that Charlie would get to the point quicker if he didn’t interrupt.

‘So they did the first lot of filming over here last winter. Just caught that heavy fall of snow we had, which was a bonus, and everything went like clockwork. Now they’re back again to do the summer scenes, and they’ve run into trouble.’

‘What kind of trouble?’ Drew couldn’t think of anything that his particular skills might help with on a film set. Apart from an outbreak of food poisoning, and a local doctor could deal with that.

‘There’s something the matter with Sophie. She’s acting like a diva—tantrums on set, turning up late, not learning her lines. She’s had a load of bad press in the last couple of months…’ Charlie shook his head. ‘We won’t go into that.’

It must be very bad if Charlie’s sense of discretion had kicked in. The woman sounded like a nightmare. ‘And what’s that got to do with me? I’m a neurologist, not a minder for spoilt children.’

‘That’s just the thing. Carly knows Sophie and she swears that this is not just the usual film star bad behaviour. She’s sticking her neck out here, and putting her own job on the line to protect Sophie, because she thinks there’s something wrong with her.’

‘What sort of something?’

Charlie rolled his eyes. ‘If we knew that, we wouldn’t ask you, would we? Apparently Sophie was in a car accident a few months back and she just hasn’t been right since. She’s been shutting herself away for days, running off no one knows where. You get the picture…’

The picture was becoming horribly clear. ‘And your friend wants me to go down there and examine an errant film star, to see if I can come up with some medical excuse for her bad behaviour?’

‘No.’ Drew heaved a sigh of relief. ‘Carly’s already tried to get Sophie to go to a doctor and she won’t have any of it. Sophie’s playing a doctor in this film and so Carly wants to take you on as a set medical advisor. So you can watch Sophie and see if there really is anything wrong with her.’

‘What? You have to be joking…’ Drew drained his glass, setting it down on the kitchen counter with a crack. ‘I can’t do that, Charlie. It’s an ethical minefield.’

‘No, it’s not. I’ve seen you step into situations before without being asked. What about that time you bundled my gran into the car and took her up to the hospital?’

‘She was having a series of mini-strokes, Charlie. That’s completely different.’

‘No, it’s not. You saw something that no one else could see, and you acted on it.’

‘Yeah, and Doris isn’t some wild child looking for excuses.’

Charlie shot Drew an outraged look. ‘So it’s okay if it’s my gran, because nice little old ladies deserve your attention, is that it? You’re far too eminent in your field to bother with people who might be a bit awkward.’

‘No, of course not. You know me better than that, Charlie.’

‘It’d be a challenge…’

Charlie knew exactly what buttons to press. He always had with Drew.

‘Look, even if you could just talk to Carly, as a friend. Convince her to think about her own career for a moment and not let this Sophie character drag her down with her. I’d count it as a personal favour. At the very least it’ll be a couple of days out of town to clear your head. And the bike could do with a bit of a run.’

The thought of garaging the car, and just getting on his motorbike and riding somewhere, anywhere, seemed suddenly like a plan to Drew. Alone, on the open road, he might just be able to leave the bitterness over a past that couldn’t be changed behind him.

‘All right. I’ll talk to Carly.’ He sighed. ‘You’d better tell me whereabouts in Devon I’m supposed to be going.’

To give Charlie his due, everything had gone like clockwork. When he arrived at the comfortable country hotel, the receptionist was expecting him and directed him straight up to a sunny room, overlooking a nearby golf course.

He dropped his overnight bag on the bed. The drive down here had given him time to think. He’d seen this world, or one very like it, before. People who didn’t say what they meant. People who pretended to be one thing when, in fact, they were another. Beautiful people, like Gina, who had taken a young doctor’s heart and squeezed it hard until it had felt empty of anything but pain.

He was older now, and a great deal wiser. He’d talk to Charlie’s friend, make her see sense and go back to London in the morning. No real need to even unpack. Drew was halfway to the bathroom when a knock sounded on the door.

‘Carly DeAngelo.’ A young woman with dark curls, an American accent, and a no-nonsense air held her hand out for a brief handshake. ‘I really appreciate your coming all this way.’

‘My pleasure.’ It seemed that Charlie had already alerted Carly that he was coming and there was no need to seek her out.

‘Is it okay if we get together in half an hour? I’ve got another meeting later on this evening.’

That would be more than enough time to take a shower and change out of his grime-stained clothes. ‘That’s fine. I’ll meet you downstairs.’

Carly nodded. ‘Ask for the Blue Room. I’ll get them to bring us something to eat.’

The Blue Room turned out to be a small, private dining room, overlooking the sea. The highly polished table was set with heavy silver cutlery and Drew moved the centrepiece of dried flowers before he sat down. He had a feeling that eye-to-eye contact was going to be necessary to persuade Carly that this arrangement really was a bad idea.

‘I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to sign this.’ Carly extracted some stapled sheets of paper from a bulging portfolio she’d brought with her, and pushed them across the table towards him. ‘It’s a confidentiality agreement.’

That was fine. Drew didn’t intend to even think about this after tonight, let alone talk about it. He picked up the pen that Carly had placed ready, and she shook her head. ‘Read it first.’

Drew read the pages carefully and signed. ‘Now we can talk.’

The appearance of a waiter put the moment off. Carly ignored the menu and ordered a salad, and Drew decided that he was too hungry to bother with food that could be picked at during the course of a conversation and ordered steak and chips. He wasn’t considering saying much anyway. No just about covered it.

‘Charlie’s told you a bit about this.’ She waited for the waiter to close the door behind himself before she spoke.

‘He’s told me that you’re worried about your friend. That her behaviour’s been erratic recently and she won’t see a doctor.’

‘Yeah. I’m a third assistant director here…’ Drew raised a querying eyebrow, and Carly smiled. ‘That sounds a bit more important than it is. I’m pretty low on the pecking order. Sophie helped me get the job and when we were over here last winter, doing the first lot of shooting, everything went really well.’

‘And now you’re back, things have changed?’

‘Yeah. Joel, the director, knows that Sophie and I are close, and he’s assigned me to her in the hope that I can get her under control a bit. But it’s just impossible. The film world’s a very small one, and no one’s going to touch her when she’s finished here if she’s not careful.’

First things first. He wasn’t a career consultant. ‘If you think your friend is ill, then my first advice to you, or to her for that matter, is that she sees a doctor.’

‘You’re a doctor. If you stay here for a couple of weeks, then you’ll see Sophie all the time.’

‘I can’t make any kind of diagnosis by just looking at someone. It doesn’t work that way.’

‘But you could tell me what you think. What the best way to proceed is. Charlie says you’re a neurologist, you must be able to recognise the symptoms…’

‘The symptoms of what?’

Carly flushed, looking down at her hands. ‘Sophie was in a car accident about four months ago, when we went back to the States after we were here last winter. She hit her head, the side of her face was all bruised up…’ Her hand wandered to her own temple and along the side of her jaw.

‘And she saw a doctor after the accident?’

‘Yes, she was taken to the hospital. They looked her over, X-rayed her, gave her some painkillers and released her. Told her to come back again if there were any problems.’

‘And did she?’

‘No. She called me and said she was going away for a holiday, and she disappeared completely for a couple of weeks. When she got back she was… different, She’s vague, and defensive, and… She’s just not Sophie any more.’

It was obvious what Carly was thinking. Drew knew that this wouldn’t be the first case of traumatic brain injury that had been overlooked in a general examination after an accident, and imagined it wouldn’t be the last. If TBI was what they were dealing with here.

‘I have to ask you this. Are you aware of her being involved with drink or drugs at all?’

Carly’s mouth twisted. ‘You’ve been reading the scandal sheets, haven’t you.’

‘No. I’d ask that question of anyone.’ Maybe not quite anyone. Drew rejected the thought that it had been a little higher on the list than usual.

‘She drinks a glass of wine with dinner sometimes, that’s all. And it’s not drugs.’ Carly flashed him a defiant look. ‘I’d know.’

‘Would you?’

‘I’ve been around this business long enough. I’m not stupid. For a start…’

Carly bent her little finger back, as if she was about to give a list of all the signs of drug abuse, and then swallowed her words as the waiter entered with their food.

‘Something to drink?’

Drew was about to say no. It was early enough to eat and then get back on his bike and go—he’d be home by midnight. Then he caught sight of the tears brimming in Carly’s eyes.

‘A glass of house red would be great. Thanks.’

Carly nodded, and ordered the house white for herself. ‘She’s not using drugs. I’d swear to it. She doesn’t even take painkillers when she has a headache, just shuts herself away in her trailer.’

‘She has headaches?’

‘Yeah. Fewer than she says, sometimes she just doesn’t want to talk to anyone, but there are times when she’s telling the truth.’

How was Carly so sure? Drew’s experience of show business was limited to a couple of photographic shoots he’d been to with Gina, but his impression then had been that everyone treated the truth as if it was an optional extra. Gina had confirmed those suspicions herself, by lying to him with startling aptitude.

The waiter returned with their drinks, and Drew took a sip from his glass. At the back of his mind it registered that it was a very good red, and he took another swallow. ‘Look, Carly…’

‘Don’t. Please don’t tell me you can’t help because I know that you can. Please…’ Carly picked up her glass with a shaking hand and then put it down again and blew her nose on her napkin.

Perhaps Charlie had tipped her the wink that tears would help her case. Drew rejected the unworthy thought and apologised silently to his friend. Lying and manipulation were Gina’s style, not Charlie’s.

‘Okay. What do you want me to do?’ He could at least listen.

‘I’ve got the okay to employ a medical consultant on set. I said that it might help Sophie and right now the director would try just about anything to get her to pull herself together.’

‘I understand that she plays a doctor in the film.’

‘Yes. It’s set in 1944…’ Carly pulled a large, spiral-bound document from her portfolio before Drew had a chance to object that he knew nothing about historical medical techniques.

‘We’ve got this manual, written by an eminent medical historian. That’ll help you. And injuries are injuries, so you won’t have any trouble talking to the special effects guys about making them look authentic.’

‘But you’ve managed this far…?’ Drew picked his knife and fork up, in a signal that none of this held any water, and he was going to eat. The knife sliced through the tender, succulent steak as if it were butter.

‘We had a set consultant when we were here last winter, but we didn’t reckon we needed anyone this time around because there’s less medical emphasis. But when I told the director it might help Sophie, he agreed like a shot. No one cares about the cost of it, we’re talking a multi-million-dollar project here.’

Drew wondered what those many millions might have done, applied a little more usefully. Kept his old hospital open maybe. ‘Even assuming I take the job, I can’t do what you ask, Carly. The thing that will really help Miss Warner is to see a doctor, in a professional setting.’

Carly’s stricken look would have made Drew relent if he hadn’t been so sure that he was right. ‘Okay, then. What does work for you?’

‘What works for me is that I go back to London in the morning. If you want set advice, you get in touch with someone who’s interested in that kind of thing. And if you want advice on Miss Warner’s condition, you persuade her to go and see a doctor.’

Carly thought for a moment. ‘That makes sense. Now, given that Sophie’s adamant that she won’t see a doctor, and that I’m out of options and pretty desperate, is there anything else you can suggest?’

It was a straight question, with an easy enough answer. ‘I could stay on for a day. I’d be happy to meet with Miss Warner and try to persuade her.’

‘And she’ll say no, and then you’ll walk away. Job’s done as far as you’re concerned and nothing changes.’ Carly’s lip curled in contempt.

‘That’s not…’ Drew swallowed his words. It was exactly how it was. He was the one engaging in half-truths and excuses, not Carly. If he didn’t want this job, he should just say so.

But he couldn’t. However unlikely his role here and despite the fact that it wasn’t going to push the boundaries of medical science, it was somehow intriguing. Did he even have the right to call himself a doctor if he chose to turn his back now?

‘If I decided to do it, and I haven’t yet, there’d be conditions.’

‘Fair enough. I want you to tell me how to do this, not the other way around.’ Carly nodded him on, obviously aware that she’d found a chink in his armour.

‘I’m not Miss Warner’s doctor. I’m not going to guess at a diagnosis and I’m not going to report back to you on anything. If I have any concerns, I’ll speak only to her about them and advise she gets proper medical help.’

‘Just advising isn’t going to get you anywhere. Do you plan on being a bit more assertive than that…?’

Carly’s gaze met his and Drew held it for a moment. ‘What do you think? Do I seem assertive enough to you?’

‘Yeah. You do.’ She stretched her hand out towards Drew. ‘We have a deal, then?’

CHAPTER TWO

THE NEGOTIATIONS HADN’T quite finished there. Drew had insisted that a week was quite enough for them both to see whether or not the arrangement would work. For her part, Carly had vetoed his intention of returning to London the following day to pack for the week and suggested he let Charlie throw some things into a bag for him, for the set runners to collect. When he’d acquiesced, Carly had produced a contract, written in the dates by hand, and given it to Drew.

Armed with four hours’ sleep, and the knowledge that he might well have signed away his sanity for the next week, Drew was on the bus with a sleepy film crew at six the following morning. Carly had told him to consider today as an orientation exercise, and Drew was more than content to maintain a watching brief.

‘Five dollars on ten o’clock.’ An American accent sounded from the seat behind him.

‘I’m not taking dollars. I’ll give you three quid that it’s closer to eleven.’ A woman’s voice this time, speaking in a laughing, London drawl.

‘You’re on.’ Silence for a moment and then a chuckle. ‘C’mon, Madame Sophie. If you get outta that bed now, Dawn’ll have to buy me coffee.’

‘In your dreams. She’ll have to disentangle herself from last night’s waiter and wait for the uppers to kick in.’ Dawn yawned loudly. ‘It’s not fair…’

‘You had your eye on a night of passion with one of the waiters, did you?’

‘No.’ Dawn scoffed at the idea. ‘If we turned up four hours late we’d get the sack. She does it, and Joel’s all over her, grateful that she’s made it at all.’

‘She’s the star. We can be replaced, she can’t.’

‘True enough. Though we’ve still careers when this job is finished. I’d like to be a fly on the wall when she tries for her next part.’

Drew stared straight in front of him. If this was true, then Sophie Warner was more of a nightmare than he’d reckoned. If not… The remote chance that Carly was right suddenly seemed worth taking. If Sophie was sick, and she continued to keep quiet about it, then things were only going to get worse.

The bus drew into a cluster of vehicles parked at the end of what looked like the main street of a small village.

‘Looks as if you owe me that coffee, Dawn…’ Drew couldn’t help but look out of the window, in response to the voice behind him. ‘She’s here already.’

‘Yeah, she’s not going to be ready for a while. Look, she’s on her way to her trailer. What’s the betting she’ll stay in there for another four hours?’

Drew saw Carly walking towards a group of trailers with another woman. Small and blonde, almost swamped in the large mackintosh she was wearing against the morning’s chill air. They disappeared in between two of the vehicles and he craned his neck to see where they’d gone but he couldn’t.

The set began to come alive for the day, and Drew maintained his watching brief. Before long, a concentrated buzz of movement centred around the main street of the village, which was a meticulous re-creation of wartime England. Further out, people in period costume mingled with the crew, almost as if the scene was dissolving, melting back into the present day.

From his vantage point, sitting in a fold-up chair at the edge of the activity, Drew suddenly saw a blonde head at the centre of it all, around which the whole shebang seemed suddenly to revolve. He looked at his watch. Eight-thirty. It looked as if Dawn was going to be paying for coffee today.

At lunchtime, the privileged few made for the group of trailers, and everyone else made a rush for the catering truck. Drew decided to wait until the scrum had died down a bit and flipped open the pages of his book.

‘Hello.’ Someone interrupted his reading, and Drew turned into the gaze of the greenest pair of eyes he’d ever seen. Shiny blonde hair, pinned in a wavy arrangement that was reminiscent of his grandmother’s, but to quite a different effect. A dark skirt and a white blouse, under a lacy hand-knitted sweater.

‘Sophie Warner.’ She was looking at him as if he was a mere diversion, in the absence of anyone more interesting to talk to. ‘You’re the new medical consultant.’

Now that she wasn’t half-obscured by distance and the milling entourage of people, he recognised her face from somewhere. Probably the TV, when he’d thought he’d only been half watching it. But he couldn’t have been watching at all because it hadn’t registered that she was gorgeous.

Drew smiled at her. Despite her obvious indifference to him, it was surprisingly easy to do. ‘That’s right. Drew Taylor.’

She nodded, as if there wasn’t much more to say. Drew stood, and pulled an empty chair across the grass for her and she looked at it uncertainly and then sat down.

‘Nice to meet you… um…’

‘Drew.’

She gave a little nod. ‘I’m not very good with names.’

Clearly that was an excuse. But whether it covered a lapse in memory or profound disinterest in him, it was impossible to tell.

‘Have you been watching this morning?’

‘Yes.’ Drew gestured to the copy of the script that Carly had supplied him with. ‘You’re not filming this in the same order that it’s on the page, are you?’

‘No, we’re not. We go to one location, shoot all the scenes we need to do there, and then move on to the next.’ She gave a little shrug.

‘That sounds pretty confusing.’

Her mouth hardened suddenly. ‘I’m a professional. It’s part of the job.’

‘Yes. Of course.’ Drew had known that it would be difficult to get through to Sophie Warner. What he hadn’t expected was that he’d want to, so very much.

‘So have you worked out what the story’s about yet?’ The canvas chair creaked slightly as she settled back into her seat. Her face took on a look of composed interest, which gave Drew the distinct impression that she was doing exactly the same as he was, and prolonging the conversation in order to fish for information.

‘Your character is Dr Jean Wilson, and you work at a hospital in a seaside town. Major Alan Richards is an engineer, working on a top-secret project, building and testing a new submarine. Dr Wilson meets Major Richards when she gets involved with treating some of the men who are injured during testing.’

‘That’s right. Only it’s called a submersible. A submarine’s usually bigger and can work on its own, but a submersible needs to have an outside supply of power and air.’

‘Right. I’ll remember that.’

‘I suppose you must specialise in accident and emergency medicine.’ She hardly even acknowledged his querying look. ‘Since that’s the kind of thing we’re portraying in the film.’

A yes would have been enough. But if Drew wanted her to trust him, then it wasn’t the way forward. ‘I’m actually a neurologist, but I was a member of the hospital’s trauma team. I have plenty of experience of all kinds of injuries, so I’m well qualified to advise here.’

‘Neurology.’ It was interesting that she picked on that one word. For a moment her composure faltered and then she shot him a smile, soft enough to break the strongest man, and clearly calculated to make Drew forget what she’d just let slip. ‘It sounds important.’

‘Yeah. I’m taking a break from important at the moment.’

Her face hardened suddenly and Drew regretted the words. He hadn’t been thinking, and he’d let his prejudices show. That wasn’t going to encourage any confidence on Sophie’s part.

‘Why?’ She almost snapped the word at him.

‘The hospital where I worked closed last month. I’m taking some time to look at my options for the future.’

‘I’m sorry to hear that. It must have been a painful time for you.’ Suddenly the ice cracked and the look of concern on her face seemed meltingly genuine. Drew reminded himself that Sophie was an actress. However beautiful she was, however much she made him long to make her smile, it was all an illusion.

He searched for something else to say. He didn’t want to talk about the hospital or the closure, or how much it had hurt. They were real things, and they had no place here. ‘Your English accent is very good.’

‘I should hope so. I am English.’ She waved away his apology. ‘It’s okay. A lot of people who saw me in MacAdam assume that I’m American.’

‘The TV cop show? I saw the trailers.’

She gave him an amused look. ‘Have you seen anything I’ve been in?’

‘I…’ Drew gave up the unequal struggle, remembering that his first task was to gain her trust, not impress her. ‘I haven’t had much time for TV recently, I’ve been pretty busy. Are you going to be making another series?’

‘What?’ Her sudden glassy-eyed look turned quickly into a frown.

‘Another series.’ Drew deliberately didn’t proffer any more information. If she’d lost the thread of the conversation, he wanted to see if she could pick it up again, without prompting.

‘How would I know?’ She made it sound as if this was a detail that didn’t warrant her attention.

‘I just thought you might.’

‘Well, you thought wrong.’ She’d scanned his face, as if looking for clues, and then the frown gave way to a don’t-mess-with-me glare. Sophie got abruptly to her feet and stalked away from him.

Drew watched her go. As soon as she’d put thirty yards between them her pace slowed a little, almost as if she’d calculated that she was now at a safe distance. Her angry movements gave way to a more graceful rhythm and Drew forced himself to forget the way her waist moved, and consider dispassionately whether she showed any signs of impaired co-ordination.

Nothing. She carried her beauty in a different way from Gina. Gina had known she was beautiful and had used it to wind Drew around her little finger, rock his world, and then smash it. But Sophie dealt her bewitching smiles carefully, playing her cards close to her chest. It occurred to Drew that it was a far more effective form of enchantment, and a great deal more dangerous.

She shouldn’t have done that. Snapping at him and walking away only drew attention to the fact that her mind had suddenly blanked, right in the middle of a conversation. She should have thought of something clever to say to change the subject.

Clever was a bit beyond her at the moment. But she knew enough to know that no medical scenes this morning meant they didn’t need a medical consultant, and Sophie had wanted to find out what he was really here for. And somewhere, hidden deep in those cool grey eyes, she’d found it. A spark of knowingness, as if he already knew the secret that no one else did.

‘Forget it.’ She muttered the words to herself, smiling grimly at the thought that forgetting came far too easily to her these days. People could, and would, suspect anything they pleased. If she didn’t confirm those suspicions, they were nothing but idle speculation.

Carly was sitting on the steps leading up to the door of her trailer, basking in the midday sun. ‘Where have you been, Soph?’

‘I met the doctor.’

‘Yeah? What’s he like?’

‘Good looking.’ Sophie had always liked dark hair and light eyes in a man. ‘Very good looking, actually. I don’t think he approves of us much, though.’

‘Why, because he’s a doctor? Just because your father disapproves, it doesn’t necessarily follow that all doctors disapprove.’

What followed or didn’t follow was more than Sophie could think about at the moment. And she didn’t want to think about her father either.

‘He might just be shy. He’s new here…’ Carly warmed to her point.

‘No. He’s not shy.’ Those grey eyes, the assessing gaze had been anything but that.

‘Perhaps you are, then. You said he was good looking.’ Carly shrugged, betraying a slight unease with the gesture.

‘I don’t know what he’s doing here today. There’s nothing medical in the script.’

‘Forget it. Just sit back and enjoy the scenery.’

‘You’ll enjoy it with me?’ If Carly was around, perhaps the effect of the doctor’s all-too-knowing gaze would be diluted a little.

Carly grinned. ‘Sorry. Can’t help you with that. I’ve only got one piece of male scenery on my mind, and he’s back in the States.’

‘So sweet. I’ll tell Mark you said that.’ Sophie smiled. Mark and Carly were solid, best friends, lovers… Just the sort of thing that she had dared to hope for with Josh. Everyone had told her that he was a risk, that he was a little more in love with her fame than he was with her, and Sophie had refused to believe it of him. But just when she’d been at her most vulnerable, Josh had dealt his most crushing blow.

Carly chuckled, opening the door of the trailer. Inside, the table was set for two, and lunch was waiting for them, the paper cups and plates of the catering truck banished in favour of china and glass. Sophie almost envied the altogether simpler life of rushing for a place in the queue, chatting with the film crew about the morning’s work.

‘Carly…’

‘Yes?’

Wordlessly, Sophie hugged her friend. How could it be that one secret could erode almost everything between them? She missed being able to talk to Carly about everything, but even her closest friends were an unknown quantity these days. And Sophie knew that if she said anything, Carly would only tell her what she didn’t want to hear, and insist she go for a check-up with a doctor.

‘What’s this for?’ Carly was clinging to her tightly.

‘Nothing. Does it have to be for something?’ Sophie gave a final squeeze of her arms around Carly’s shoulders and then let go. ‘Come on. Let’s eat.’

After the noise and chatter of the bus back to the hotel, Drew savoured the quiet of his hotel room for ten minutes, then opened his laptop and typed Sophie’s name into the search engine. Maybe if he could watch a couple of episodes of MacAdam online, he’d get more of a feel for how Sophie had been before the accident. He wasn’t convinced about that—after all she was an actress, playing a part—but he’d be damned if he’d admit to himself that he just wanted to see more of her.

It seemed that the internet knew all about Sophie. Her own website had pictures, a biography and a list of her acting roles, and Drew studied them carefully. Drama school and then some theatre work. She’d done Shakespeare, had small parts in a couple of blindingly awful films, and received critical acclaim for her last three films and for MacAdam. If it was even half-true, Sophie Warner wasn’t all tantrums and bad behaviour.

The bad behaviour was there as well, though. When Drew clicked again, there were reports of reckless driving, an exposé by an ex-boyfriend, and a video clip of her slurring her words on a talk show. Drew watched it carefully, seeing the same look of glassy-eyed confusion on Sophie’s face that he’d noticed this morning.

Drew shook his head. It could be anything. The papers interpreted it as drink or drugs, and Carly thought it was a brain injury. Either of them could be correct, and deciding which was true on the evidence he had so far was impossible.

His finger hovered over a link that mentioned scandalous photographs, then he decided that gossip and rumour weren’t going to get him any further forward. He set about streaming the first episode of MacAdam, and within ten minutes of the opening credits he was well and truly hooked.

CHAPTER THREE

DREW HAD SPENT the whole of the previous evening with Sophie. He’d sat down to watch one episode of MacAdam and ended up watching four, back to back. He’d told himself it was an interesting show, with a great plot, but, in fact, it was Sophie he’d been unable to take his eyes off, and Sophie who’d inhabited his dreams, until it had been time to peel himself out of bed for another early start. This morning, it was in the large conference room at the hotel, which had been temporarily set aside as a rehearsal area.

Sophie looked different again. Different from the tough cop, with personal problems and a heart of gold that he’d watched last night. Different from the neatly dressed doctor he’d met yesterday.

Today she was the actress, dressed in an oversized sweatshirt, which fell by design from one shoulder, exposing the curve of her neck and the narrow strap of her top underneath. Her blonde hair was tied up in a messy bundle at the back of her head, a few wisps framing her face.

And she was alone. Sitting in one of the chairs that had been cleared against the wall to make some space in the centre of the room, yawning as she leafed through the pages of a small, leather-bound notebook.

The swing doors slapped closed behind Drew and she looked up. Even Sophie’s frown was like a ray of sunshine, waking him instantly from the drowsy hangover of too little sleep.

‘Hi.’ She didn’t say his name, and Drew wondered briefly whether she’d forgotten it again. After last night, when he’d thought he’d got to know her so well, it was a humbling experience.

‘Morning. Are you ready to start?’

She shrugged, as if being in attendance was about all he could reasonably expect of her. ‘I already know CPR.’ She slipped the notebook into a large designer handbag, which lay on the seat next to her. He’d give a lot to know what that notebook contained.

He called her bluff, walking towards the dummy, which someone had arranged in a seated position, legs crossed, on one of the nearby chairs. ‘The script says that you’re resuscitating someone who’s been knocked down in the street by a truck.’

Drew arranged the dummy on the floor, in a pose that vaguely resembled the kind of position a road-accident victim might end up in. Sophie looked at it with the bored air of a film star who had better things to do at seven o’clock in the morning.

‘You’re standing on the pavement, right?’

She nodded and he pointed to a spot a couple of feet away from the dummy. ‘So that would be about here.’

‘Yes, that’s right.’ When she stood, she seemed even smaller than she had yesterday, more fragile. Drew thought he saw a flash of uncertain fear in her eyes.

He needed to show her that he presented no threat. ‘Okay. I’ll give the signal and you just do what comes naturally. We’ll work from there.’ He gave her his most reassuring smile.

‘All right.’ She nodded quietly, and Drew took a couple of steps back, giving her some room. Then he clapped his hands to indicate the sickening thud of metal meeting flesh.

She jumped, whirling round in the direction of the dummy, for all the world as if she’d just heard the screeching of brakes and the rending of tyres. Then she moved. Confident, assured, with the professional focus that he’d seen so many times on the faces of the people he’d worked with.

Kneeling by the dummy, she was examining it, counterfeiting perfectly the checks and precautions that a real doctor would take in this situation. Bending over the dummy’s head, she tapped its face with two fingers.

‘Unresponsive… Not breathing…’ She muttered the words to herself, almost as if he’d walked out of the room and she was alone.

‘Great. That’s good.’ As Drew knelt down beside her, her scent brushed against his senses. Sophie smelled like every desire he’d ever experienced.

She tipped her face up towards him and suddenly he was falling, unable to catch his breath. One of her eyes was the same gorgeous green he’d seen yesterday. The other was light brown, shot through with gold. The effect was stunning, the one irregularity in an otherwise perfect face. He was bewitched.

The doctor was staring at her, and this wasn’t his suspicious, searching stare. If she had to put a name on it, she would call it…

No. She was mistaken, it was far too early in the morning for him to make a pass at her. And, in any case, he clearly disapproved of her, and she didn’t like him all that much. Whatever had put that possibility into her head?

‘Have I got breakfast all over my face?’ She brushed one of her cheeks, wondering whether she’d had time for breakfast today.

‘No. I…’ He seemed to force his gaze downwards, towards the dummy that lay between them. The sudden, almost apologetic gesture sent tingles to the tips of her fingers.

‘What is it?’ She brushed the other cheek and then realised what he’d seen. ‘This?’ Sophie made the well-worn joke that she used whenever anyone noticed her eyes. Opening and closing each one in turn, she described a circle in the air with her finger, intoning a spooky melody.

He had such a nice smile. One that could get her into trouble if she wasn’t very careful. ‘You have heterochromia.’

‘Yes. I wear a contact lens in my brown eye for filming, so it doesn’t look weird.’

‘It doesn’t look weird. It’s…’ He shrugged, seemingly at a loss for words.

‘I was born with it. It’s just a pigmentation thing, nothing else.’ Sophie was aware that heterochromia could sometimes be the result of an injury, and she didn’t want him getting the wrong idea.

‘It’s beautiful.’ Clearly his mind was on the aesthetics, rather than any medical implications.

Suddenly, even though neither of them was moving, the space between them seemed to close. As if all the air were being sucked out of the room, and they were being forced together by some trick of physics.

Then the vortex seemed to throw itself into reverse, and he drew back. ‘The patient’s probably dead by now.’ He gave a regretful twist of his mouth, and Sophie’s heart lurched.

‘No one ever dies in a film unless the script says so. We’ll perform a medical miracle.’

‘Be my guest.’ He sat back onto his heels, waiting for her to make the next move.

Suddenly she felt strong. She knew exactly what to do next. ‘Thirty compressions and two breaths?’

‘That’s right.’

‘But I have a second qualified person available.’ She took the risk of testing her recall a little further.

‘In which case?’

‘One delivers compressions and the other rescue breaths. We switch every two minutes or so to avoid getting tired.’

He grinned. ‘So we’ll take it from the top, then?’

Sophie took a breath. Yes. It all came to her, like a well-understood routine. She checked for a response again, coming to the same conclusion as she had before. He helped her position the dummy, and she tilted its head back, ready to deliver rescue breaths.

‘You start with the compressions.’

He nodded, doing as she’d told him, counting aloud when he got to twenty-five. She gave the rescue breaths right on cue, and he nodded his approval, starting the compressions again straight away.

‘Do you want to try a switch?’ He was concentrating on what he was doing and didn’t look up at her.

‘Sure. On your signal.’

The switch was perfect. Almost without thinking, Sophie fell into the lifesaving rhythm, picking up the compressions where he’d left off, using her body weight to help give her the amount of pressure that the doctor had applied. They carried on for five repeats and then switched back again.

‘Perfect.’ He finally sat back on his heels.

‘Not so bad for an airhead, you mean?’ She gave a half-smile to indicate that he could take that as a joke, if he chose.

‘You said it…’

And Sophie knew beyond a doubt that he’d thought it. He hadn’t been able to disguise the surprise in his eyes when she’d shown she really did know how to perform CPR.

‘My father’s a doctor. He taught us all what to do in emergency situations. I’ve never had to do it for real…’ She couldn’t keep the trace of bitterness from her tone. Her father had always assumed she’d become a doctor, and instead she’d taken up a profession that had no value in his eyes. His only response to the news that she was making this film had been a back-handed compliment, saying he was glad she was at least pretending to do something useful.

‘Well remembered, then.’

He smiled, and pleasure trickled across the dull pain of rejection. Sophie wondered whether he’d adjust his opinion if he knew that she was still searching her mind for his first name. Dr Taylor seemed a little formal, since they’d just saved the life of a props dummy together.

‘As you already have a good idea of how to resuscitate someone, you understand the theory behind it all.’

‘Yes.’ Sophie nodded. When he put it that way, she supposed that she did.

‘Which will stand you in really good stead for this.’ He got to his feet, producing a copy of the medical techniques document. She’d studied her copy for hours, hoping that she might retain at least some of it. ‘I guess you haven’t had much of a chance to look at it.’

‘No. Not really.’ He was giving her a way out, and Sophie took it gratefully.

He grinned. ‘I guess that’s my job. It gives a detailed description of how resuscitation was carried out in the nineteen-forties—which is a little different from the way we do it now.’

‘They did chest compressions but no rescue breaths.’ A fragment of fact suddenly popped into her mind.

He nodded. ‘Yes, I’ve managed to find a couple of old training films on the internet. But it may be easier to just try it ourselves.’ He knelt down next to her. ‘Do you want to start with the compressions?’

‘Okay.’ Sophie could do that. She already knew how to do compressions. This morning was going a lot better than she’d expected it to. No tantrums needed to cover her lapses in memory, and the doctor seemed to be going out of his way not to spring anything unexpected on her.

‘Right, then.’ He flashed her a grin. ‘Here we go…’

The morning’s work had been a success. Starting with what Sophie knew and then using gesture and movement to reinforce the new information seemed to have worked. The atmosphere on set lightened considerably as she sailed through her scene that afternoon, even managing to bestow a few smiles on her co-star and the crew.

Joel, the director, spared a nod of satisfaction for Drew, clearly pleased with his tutelage. Carly gave him a beaming smile when she thought no one else was looking, and Sophie ignored him completely.

Even though she clearly didn’t want to think about him unless she absolutely had to, Sophie dominated Drew’s thoughts. He watched her carefully, and as dispassionately as he could. And the more he watched her, the more he realised that he knew what was wrong, and that she was trying desperately to cover it up.

CHAPTER FOUR

THE FOLLOWING DAY didn’t start well. The script had said rain, but real rain seemed to be a problem, and an unscheduled downpour had stopped filming for a while. Rumour had it that Carly was confined to her room at the hotel with a stomach bug, and Sophie’s face was set in a hard, concentrated frown. She avoided him as if he had something catching.

Joel had called cut, and the clapperboard signalled the tenth rerun of a scene that should have been easy. Each time she’d fluffed her lines Sophie’s air of prickly uninterest had increased markedly.

‘It’s all a matter of…’ She stopped suddenly, frowning. ‘This isn’t right, Joel.’

‘Oh, for goodness’ sake…’ Todd Hunter, her co-star, turned away suddenly, frustration and anger showing on his face. Joel moved in to smooth things over.

‘What’s the matter, Sophie?’

‘It’s not right… Give me the script…’ Sophie looked as if she was about to burst into tears.

A copy of the script appeared out of nowhere, and Sophie leafed through it, seemingly too dissatisfied to find the right page, and then threw it to one side. Drew got to his feet, navigating through the circle of cameras and sound technicians around her.

‘It’s nearly lunchtime. We’ll take a break.’ Joel seemed resigned to handling Sophie’s moods and perhaps he thought that the catering truck could do what he couldn’t and get today on a better footing. ‘Sophie…’

Joel’s mouth quirked in an expression of helplessness as he found himself speaking to thin air. Sophie was already on her way to her trailer, cutting a swathe into the crowd around her as they moved to get out of her way.

Jennie, a bright, usually happy young woman, who had introduced herself yesterday to Drew as Sophie’s assistant, ran after her. He saw Sophie turn, aiming a couple of angry words in Jennie’s direction and gesturing to her to go away. Jennie fell back, her face reddening, and Drew frowned. That kind of behaviour really wasn’t necessary.

Drew pushed through the groups of people who were putting some distance between themselves and Sophie. She could act up with Joel, and he’d try to smooth things over to get her co-operation. Everyone else would cave in to her tantrums, in fear for their jobs. But this was one job he didn’t need to keep.

Dammit! One curse vied with another in her head, filling her thoughts with the kind of obscenities that she never spoke out loud. She was turning into a monster. Slowly and irrevocably, and there was nothing she could do to stop it.

‘Sophie…’

The one voice she didn’t want to hear. The doctor. Damn him, too.

‘Sophie…?’

He didn’t give up, did he? She was twenty feet from her trailer and then she could slam the door in his face, lock him out.

She didn’t make it. With just a couple of paces to go before she reached safety, she felt his hand on her arm.

‘Let go of me.’ She whipped her arm away as if he’d grabbed it, not just touched it lightly.

‘Wait, Sophie.’

His tone was so sure, so commanding, and in a sea of misunderstandings and unknowns it was the only thing that seemed to make any sense. Despite herself, she stopped.

‘You haven’t figured out how things work around here yet, have you?’ She glared at him. ‘I’m at the top of the pecking order and you’re at the bottom. You don’t tell me what to do.’

That bloody smile again. Relaxed and assured, the smile of a man who already knew his place in the world and didn’t need anyone to tell him what it was. And dangerous in the extreme. ‘I thought that was exactly my role. I’m an advisor and so I advise.’

‘Don’t be smart with me.’ Sophie rolled her eyes and turned away from him, as if what he’d just said didn’t deserve a proper answer. That always seemed to work when she couldn’t come up with the words she wanted.

He slipped past her, opening the door of her trailer and walking inside. Her private trailer. The only place where she could take some refuge from the noise and bustle of the set. Panic started to rise in her chest.

‘Get. Out.’

‘There seems to be something wrong. I’d like to help.’

‘I don’t need help.’ Anger wasn’t working, and she tried another tack. Right on cue she summoned tears and a look of melting supplication. ‘Please, go…’

He smiled, sitting down in one of the comfortable armchairs in the seating area. ‘Nice one. You’re very good.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ Sophie scowled at him.

‘It means that you’re a tremendous actress. And that you’ll do anything to stop anyone finding out the difficulties you’re having right now. Only I see through it.’

If he’d had any doubts about his conclusions before, the mock tears and that look of seductive pleading banished them altogether. She knew exactly what was wrong with her. If he could get through to her, just talk to her and make her see sense, then he’d be out of here in a week and back to a world where sanity was more of a guiding principle.

She sat down opposite him. That was something. Sitting was better than running.

‘Who sent you to spy on me? Who are you reporting to?’

‘No one. It’s not like that at all, Sophie. When Carly spoke to me she mentioned…’

Wrong move. All the colour drained from Sophie’s face and her hand flew to her mouth. Tears formed in her eyes and this time they looked like the real thing.

‘Carly…? No…’

‘Carly happened to mention that you were under a bit of stress.’ That was stretching the truth to breaking point, but he’d already landed Carly in enough hot water.

Sophie stared at him blankly. Drew had seen that look before, when everything became too much and someone started to shut down.

‘Sophie, listen to me. It’s okay…’

‘You think that any of this is okay?’ she flashed back at him.

Time for the truth. ‘All right. I don’t know anything for sure, but here’s what I think I know. You’re having difficulties with your short-term memory. The things you’ve known for a while are no problem, it’s new information that you can’t process properly. It’s possible that you sustained a mild traumatic brain injury in your recent car accident.’

‘Carly just happened to mention that as well?’ She’d composed herself now, and was staring straight at him.

‘She’s a good friend to you, Sophie, and she’s trying to help you.’ If he could do nothing else, at least he could try to repair the damage he’d done. So far he’d only managed to isolate Sophie even further from the one person who seemed to care about her.

‘Whatever. That’s not really your business, is it?’

‘No, it’s just an observation.’

‘Yes, it’s all just observations, isn’t it? I think it’s all in your imagination.’

‘What’s my name, Sophie?’

She shot him a defiant look. ‘Dr…’

‘My name.’

‘What do I care?’ She looked as if she was about to launch into another diatribe about how she was the important person around here, and his status was that of a cockroach, when a knock sounded on the door.

‘Catering…’

‘Come in.’ Sophie pulled herself together and gave the young woman who entered a composed smile, watching as she set a covered plate on the table and got water from the fridge in the tiny kitchenette at the far end of the living space.

‘Would you bring another plate, please?’

‘For Dr Taylor? Sure.’ The woman turned to Drew. ‘What would you like?’

‘Anything’s fine.’ Sophie’s sudden turnaround was a surprise, but if accepting lunch meant that she was going to let him stay a while longer then he would eat whatever anyone put in front of him.

‘Chicken in a cream sauce, sautéed potatoes, green beans…?’

‘Sounds great. Thank you.’

The woman nodded. ‘Back in a tick.’

He picked up the bottle of water from the table and filled her glass, aware that she was watching every move he made. ‘Thank you.’

‘Don’t get any ideas. It’s only lunch. We’re not best friends yet.’

‘I know.’ She’d obviously come to the conclusion that she couldn’t get rid of him so she was calling a truce. Drew nodded at her plate. ‘Don’t wait for me, yours will get cold.’

He knew. It was one thing for people to speculate, but he was a doctor and his word held some weight. And he wasn’t just speculating, he knew. The only way out of this mess was to stop denying the obvious and try to get him to keep quiet about it.

Lunch gave her an opportunity to think. The doctor never mentioned anything to do with her memory until they were sipping their coffee, but Sophie knew this was temporary. He was biding his time, in just the same way she was.

‘There’s something I have to know.’

‘Okay.’ He handed her the mint chocolate that had come with his coffee. He must have noticed that she’d eaten hers straight away. He seemed to notice far too much.

‘I need you to be discreet.’ She unwrapped the chocolate, nibbling at the edge of it.

He nodded. ‘Carly’s already taken care of that.’ He reached into his pocket, taking out a couple of sheets of paper, stapled together. Sophie wondered if he’d been carrying them around with him in anticipation of just this moment.

She scanned them carefully. A standard confidentiality agreement, with his signature and Carly’s on the bottom. ‘You plan to honour this?’

‘Yes. Even without it, anything you say is confidential. I’m a doctor.’

‘I don’t recall asking for your professional services.’ The jibe came out of nowhere, from the place where everything was a threat and no one could be trusted.

‘No, you didn’t. I’m offering them anyway.’

She shrugged. ‘Do you understand how dangerous rumours like this can be? No one wants to employ an actress who can’t remember what comes next. In big-budget projects like this, it’s too much of a financial risk.’

‘I understand. And it doesn’t matter what your reasons are. Confidentiality is confidentiality.’

Sophie supposed that she would have to take him at his word. ‘I want to make it clear that I’ve never taken drugs and I don’t have an alcohol problem. My accident was nothing to do with either of those things.’

‘Okay.’

‘You believe me?’

‘Yes.’

‘Right. Thanks.’ He could have believed her in a few more words but a yes would do. It was unequivocal enough, particularly when said the way he’d said it.

‘I know it’s tough, Sophie. When you remember some things and not others in what seems to be a completely random way. And the toughest thing is knowing that your memory’s not working properly, and never being sure if there’s something you’ve missed.’

‘If you say so.’ Actually, that was a pretty good description of how she felt. Never being sure of anything.

‘Is it all right if I ask you some questions?’

‘If I say no, you’ll only ask them anyway. So you’d better get on with it.’

‘Okay.’ He grinned at her, and suddenly it seemed so much easier to just go along with him. He did have a very nice smile. ‘This all started around the time of your accident?’

‘Yes. It was much worse at first, and it’s been improving over time.’ There had been no recurrence of the lost days that she’d experienced right after the accident. And she didn’t want to tell him about them. She didn’t even want to think about the photographs that had appeared on the internet afterwards. Sophie couldn’t bear to see the judgement in his beautiful grey eyes.

‘Any clumsiness, loss of co-ordination?’

‘I used to drop things quite a lot. And I’d forget how to do little things, like how to turn the shower on. I knew about traumatic brain injury from my father talking about it, and I knew that I could practise and relearn things.’

‘That must have been very hard to do on your own.’

‘I’m an actress, I’ve been taught how to be aware of movement and gesture.’

‘Even so, it’s a huge achievement. You should be proud of yourself.’

‘Thanks.’ This was the first time that someone had understood. The first time that anyone had praised her for the little things that had been so hard for her. She felt lighter than she had done for a very long time.

‘That’s good to see too…’

‘What?’

‘Your smile.’ His gaze dropped from her face, as if that was the one thing he was embarrassed to have noticed. ‘You’ve never seen a doctor about any of this?’

‘No. I have to keep it quiet.’

‘I understand that but you need to have a proper diagnosis. I can arrange for you to see someone discreetly. No one will know.’

‘I’ll think about it.’

‘Don’t put this off, Sophie.’

‘I’ll think about it. Don’t push me. I can still have you thrown off the set.’

His gaze held hers for a moment, and then let go. They both knew she wouldn’t do that now.

‘All right. So shall we concentrate on getting through today, then? Leave the other things until later.’

That would be good. ‘What do you suggest?’

‘Why don’t you lie down for half an hour then I’ll go through your lines with you. See if we can crack this scene together.’

The way he’d helped her with the CPR scene. She did need some help, and he seemed to know how to fix memories into her head.

‘Okay. Thank you.’

Drew found Joel eating a sandwich and talking to one of the cameramen. With the practised instincts of a man who missed nothing of what was going on around the set, Joel propped his plate on top of his script and rose to meet him.

‘How’s Sophie?’

‘Fine. She’s calmed down and I suggested she take a rest for a while. She’ll be ready to start work in an hour.’

‘You’re sure about that? If she’s going to be spending the whole afternoon in her trailer, I’d rather know now.’ Joel eyed him suspiciously.

‘I’m sure. She’ll be back here in an hour.’

‘Okay, thanks. Keep me informed, will you?’

‘Of course.’ Drew turned before Joel could ask any other awkward questions. The next task, was make sure that Sophie was word perfect and ready to face the world in exactly one hour.

CHAPTER FIVE

THE HAMMERING ON the door of his hotel room was insistent. Drew looked at the travelling clock at his bedside. Half past eleven. Probably someone who’d just been ejected from the hotel bar.

‘Please… It’s Sophie…’ When he hadn’t answered immediately, the knocking got louder, and Sophie’s voice sounded through the door, propelling him out of bed and onto his feet.

‘What…?’ He stepped back as she almost fell into the room. If she’d decided that seducing him would get him to let up on her, a white cotton nightie with a long cardigan over the top of it wasn’t the obvious choice of outfit, but on Sophie it looked entrancing. Something at the back of his mind screamed that being alone in a hotel room, half-naked, with a scantily dressed film star who had a patchy memory showed spectacularly bad judgement.

‘It’s Carly. She’s sick. Please, come.’ She frowned at him. ‘Put some clothes on.’

He was beginning to like it when Sophie put him firmly in his place. Drew reached for his jeans, dragging them on over his boxer shorts, and caught up a T-shirt. ‘What’s the matter?’

‘I don’t know. She seemed better this evening. Her room’s next to my suite and I left the adjoining door open and went to bed. When I woke up just now I heard her crying. She’s in such pain…’

‘Okay, which way?’ Drew hoped she could remember, because he had no idea where Carly’s room was.

She led the way through a maze of corridors, taking a few wrong turns before she reached one of the rooms at the front of the hotel. Carly was curled up on the bed, her knees almost touching her chin, tears streaking her cheeks. Untypically for someone who was obviously feeling very ill, she didn’t look particularly pleased to see a doctor.

‘I’m all right. It’s just a…’ Whatever Carly thought she might be suffering from was lost as she caught her breath in pain.

‘Okay, then. Let’s just have a look.’

Carly resisted him, and Sophie’s voice sounded, firm and calm. ‘Stop messing about and just do what the doctor tells you.’

‘You’re a fine one to talk.’ Carly cursed under her breath but she let Drew roll her over on the bed and pull her hand from her side.

‘Is this where it hurts?’

‘Yeah…’

He pressed gently and Carly winced. When he removed the pressure she cried out in pain. Drew didn’t need a thermometer to tell him that she was running a fever, burning up.

‘Sophie, do you have your phone?’

‘I think so.’ She looked in the pocket of her cardigan and found it, handing it over to Drew. He dialled quickly, telling the ambulance controller that he was a doctor and that he had a patient with all the signs of acute appendicitis.

‘Get off… my case…’ Carly paused to catch her breath. ‘It’s a stomach bug. I’ll be fine in the morning. I’m not going anywhere.’

‘Carly, you’re sick. Please.’ Sophie was standing behind him, close to tears now. ‘You have to go.’

‘Soph…’ Carly was clearly in a lot of pain, but all she could think about was her friend.

‘Look, Carly. I know you brought him here to help me, and I’ve told him everything.’

‘You told… him?’

‘Wasn’t that your plan all along?’ Drew wondered whether he should leave the room to allow the two of them to argue about him in private.

‘None of that matters now, Carly. Since the accident, I can’t remember stuff, but I’ve admitted it now, and everything’s going to be okay. You have to go. Please, I promise I’ll let the doctor help me.’ The words tumbled from Sophie’s mouth in a rush of anxiety for her friend.

‘Is that true?’ Carly looked at Drew.

‘It’s true. You need to go with the ambulance. I’ll look after Sophie.’

‘You only signed for a week…’

‘Forget the contract. I’m staying here until you’re well.’

Carly gave a small nod and let him roll her over onto her side, drawing her knees up in a position that would make the pain easier for her to bear. Sophie pushed past him, getting onto the bed and holding her friend as best she could.

‘Hang onto me, honey. It’s going to be all right.’

Tears began to roll down Carly’s cheeks, and she started to sob. ‘I want Mark…’

‘I know you do. We’ll call him as soon as we have you safe in the hospital.’ She turned her head towards Drew. ‘Mark DeAngelo, Carly’s husband. His number’s in my phone. Will you remember that I have to call him?’

‘I’ll remember.’

It had taken this for Sophie and Carly to finally talk to each other. Drew watched the two of them, curled up together on the bed, holding each other tightly, and hoped that Sophie would remember at least something about her promise to take some help.

The ambulance crew arrived and Sophie slipped away, letting Drew talk to the woman paramedic. He could hear her banging around in the suite next door and he resolved that he’d go and see what she was up to as soon as he could.

‘Okay.’ The paramedic bent over Carly. ‘Carly… Carly, we’re going to take you to hospital. The stretcher’s coming up now and we’ll get you comfortable and carry you down to the ambulance.’

Carly nodded wordlessly. She was lying quietly now, which wasn’t necessarily a good sign. Sudden relief of pain usually occurred when the appendix burst, and Drew wouldn’t put it past her to give a busy A and E department the slip and simply walk out of there.

A noise behind him made him glance around. Sophie was standing in the doorway, fully dressed, her designer handbag slung across her body, looking as if she was planning on going somewhere. That was all he needed. Drew had no intention of letting Carly go to the hospital alone, but Sophie was only going to get in the way.

‘Sophie…’ He walked towards her, leaving the paramedic to tend to Carly. ‘I want you to stay here.’

‘Forget it.’

‘The ambulance won’t take two passengers.’

‘Then I’ll get a taxi and follow you.’

Like hell she would. Having Sophie wandering around a strange hospital in the middle of the night wasn’t his idea of looking after her.

‘I can’t watch out for both of you at the same time. Work with me, Sophie. I want to go with Carly to make sure she’s all right, but I can’t do that if I’m not confident that you’re going to stay here.’

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