A Medical Liaison. Sharon Kendrick
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hair on his chest. And his feet were bare. She found herself staring at them.
‘Yes? What is it?’ he demanded perfunctorily.
There was nothing of his earlier manner about him now, his attitude was brisk and businesslike, almost as if they had never spoken before.
‘I’m afraid I’ve been working and didn’t realise it had got so late,’ she began, attempting to give him a pleasant smile.
‘Get to the point, will you?’
She bit back an angry retort to his rudeness—she was, after all, asking him a favour!
‘I’m very hungry, and think I must have missed the canteen—and wondered if you’d lend me something to eat? I could repay you tomorrow.’
There was something so very un-English about asking for favours, particularly from a comparative stranger, she thought, interpreting his frown as one of irritation at her request.
He looked at his watch. ‘Yes, you will have missed supper.’
Behind him she could see into his room—a replica of her own—but it shared none of the untidiness of the sitting-room she had seen earlier. She wondered who he had been sharing a meal with.
She could see everything neatly arranged, the bed smooth, books in neat lines on the shelves, and, judging from the light at his desk and the open books, he too had been studying.
‘There isn’t anything very much,’ he said ungraciously. ‘I was planning to make myself an omelette—you’re welcome to share that if you like.’
She had definitely not anticipated dining with him, but she couldn’t really insist on taking his food and then eating it in the privacy of her own room!
Instead she nodded. ‘An omelette will be fine, thanks.’
She stood there for a moment hesitantly, and he must have taken the hint because he closed his door and led the way through into the kitchen.
‘Do you want me to do anything?’ she asked.
‘I think I can just about manage an omelette,’ he said sarcastically.
What a bad-tempered man he was, she thought as she sat down at the kitchen table, tucking her slim legs underneath. She would much rather he had given her the eggs and she could have cooked for herself after he had finished. It seemed a bit of a farce to eat a meal together when he obviously couldn’t stand the sight of her.
She watched as he cracked the eggs into a glass bowl, and beat them with milk and salt and pepper.
‘Cheese OK for you?’
She nodded. ‘Thanks.’
He was certainly very organised—he melted butter in the pan and swirled the mixture on to it like a past master of the art, even browning the omelette under the grill so that it puffed up to twice its size.
When he placed the plate before her she smiled up at him—however crotchety he was, her stomach was certainly grateful!
He reached down into the bottom shelf of the fridge.
‘Do you want a beer?’
In fact she rarely drank much at all, but the hassle of requesting a cup of coffee from someone so unforthcoming was too much to contemplate.
‘Yes, please.’
He poured her out a glass of lager, and sitting down at the table opposite her, drank his own straight from the can. She sipped thirstily in between mouthfuls of omelette and brown bread.
She finished her meal to find that his own was scarcely touched, and he was regarding her with almost a glint of amusement in his eyes.
‘Why, you’ve hardly eaten any of yours!’ she exclaimed. ‘Aren’t you hungry?’
He actually smiled at her! ‘Not as hungry as you were, obviously! Do you want something else? Yoghurt? Fruit?’
She finished off the last of her beer. ‘No, thanks—that was plenty. I might just make a cup of coffee in the morning—if that’s all right?’
He indicated a cupboard by the cooker. ‘Sure. It’s all in there. Help yourself.’
She stood up a little unsteadily; the glass of unaccustomed alcohol on a virtually empty stomach had affected her more than it should have done.
She cleared her throat, and the icy turquoise eyes glanced at her questioningly.
‘I’m sorry there’s been this mix-up,’ she babbled. ‘I’ll come and collect my things tomorrow, when they find me somewhere else.’
He gave her the faintest of smiles and she could have kicked herself—she hadn’t meant it to sound as if she was apologising for being here. She paused in the doorway, the beer seeming to have given her an uncontrollable urge to talk.
‘I don’t expect you are very hungry.’ She smiled, remembering the dishes she had washed up on her arrival. ‘It looked a delicious bolognese sauce!’
What had she said to offend him? He looked absolutely furious. He stood up suddenly and stared at her as witheringly as if she had been some small mollusc on the floor in front of him.
‘How like a woman,’ he muttered in disgust. ‘Even when there’s nothing to say, she’ll always come out with some meaningless babble. What is it they say about empty vessels?’
She stared at him, speechless for a moment. She had never in her life been spoken to in such a rude, dismissive manner by a virtual stranger. What God-given right did this man have to behave in such an unpleasant way?
She regarded him coldly, suddenly completely sober again.
‘You seem to have a problem with communication, Dr Forrester. How surprising for someone who has worked so much in the media! You are rude and boorish. And a bully,’ she added, thinking of how he had snapped so unnecessarily on the telephone. ‘Personally, I’d get something done about it if I were you—it can’t make you a very good doctor, now can it?’
She didn’t bother to wait around for his reply, but she saw that her barb had definitely reached its target, for his face was as black as thunder.
The short walk back to her room seemed to last forever. It felt as though she was walking the plank. She didn’t know what she was expecting him to do—rush after her and blast her out—but, in fact, he did nothing.
Once inside, she waited until she heard him go back to his room before she hurried in to use the bathroom. She bathed and brushed her teeth and wrapped her dressing-gown around her tightly before going back to her room, remembering his words and feeling stupidly afraid that perhaps she might come face to face with his naked body.
She read her book for a while longer, and decided to turn in for an early night before starting her new job—she wanted to be refreshed and rested to face all the hard work which lay ahead of her.
And then she did something she’d never done in all the time she’d lived away from home.
Turning the key in the door, she locked herself in.
LOUISA awoke with that curious feeling of disorientation which accompanied the first night spent in a strange bed. Even before she opened her eyes she seemed to sense the unfamiliar surroundings, and she came to slowly, seeing the pale light of the winter morning come creeping through the ghastly hospital curtains of orange and brown.
She sat up and clicked off the alarm clock she had not needed—she was so used to waking before seven that it had now become second nature to her. Her fears of the night before now served only to niggle her with an embarrassed shame. No doubt the women doctors who had fought for this particular equality would be appalled if