CHAPTER ONE

      ‘I CAN’T WAIT to get rid of you,’ Danielle said. ‘You’ve made me miserable, you’ve stopped me doing everything I love doing, and I do actually hate you.’

      She looked up to see Alex, the new consultant on the maternity ward, standing in the open doorway of her office.

      He raised an eyebrow. ‘Practising your break-up speech?’

      Dani felt the colour flood into her face. ‘I hope I’d be a little kinder than that.’ Certainly kinder than Leo had been to her, last Christmas Eve, when he’d told her that their marriage was over and he was leaving her for someone else. Someone else who was expecting his baby—when he’d told Dani only a few months before that he wasn’t ready to start a family.

      She pushed the thought away. ‘If you must know, I was talking to my walking cast.’

      ‘Right.’

      There wasn’t even the glimmer of a smile, and she sighed inwardly. From what she’d seen of him over the last couple of months, Alex Morgan was good with their patients, but all his social skills seemed to switch off as soon as he had to deal with his colleagues on anything other than a work basis. He hadn’t been to a single team night out, always ate lunch on his own, and if he was in the staff kitchen he never joined in with the conversation.

      She didn’t think he was being snooty; but she didn’t think he was shy, either. There was obviously a reason why he kept his distance from everyone else, but Dani—who’d always got on well with everyone—had no idea how to reach him. He was possibly the most difficult person in the department to have as the co-organiser of the ward’s Christmas party, but she’d just have to make the best of it.

      ‘You wanted to see me?’ he asked.

      ‘We need to talk about organising the ward’s Christmas meal. Are you busy at lunchtime today, or can we discuss it over a sandwich?’

      ‘Sorry. I have meetings,’ he said.

      Dani didn’t believe a word of it, but the ward’s Christmas meal still needed to be sorted out. If she gave Alex a longer timeframe, he’d be forced to pick a day. And if he picked one of the two evenings this week when she was busy, then she’d move her other arrangements because she really wanted to get this done and dusted. She gave him the sweetest, sweetest smile. ‘OK. Do you have time for a coffee after work some time in the next two weeks to discuss it?’

      He masked his expression quickly, but not before Dani had seen it. He’d obviously realised what her game plan was, and he couldn’t think of a decent excuse that would work for two whole weeks.

      Gotcha, she thought in satisfaction.

      He took his phone out of his pocket and made a show of checking his diary, though she was pretty sure it wasn’t that full.

      ‘How about tomorrow?’ he suggested.

      ‘That’ll be fine, as Hayley’s training with Sam tomorrow night.’ She glared at her