The Best Of The Year - Medical Romance. Carol Marinelli
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saw Matt carve his way through the crowd towards me. I stepped down off the podium and straight into his open arms. ‘So proud of you, sweetheart,’ he said. ‘So very proud.’
‘This doesn’t mean I’m coming back to work at St Iggy’s,’ I said.
‘That’s a shame as there’s a patient who’s pretty keen to see you,’ he said, with an excited twinkle in his blue-grey eyes.
Something lifted inside my chest like a sudden updraught of air. ‘Jason’s awake?’
Matt grinned. ‘I got a call from the registrar half an hour ago. Megan was reading Chicken Little to him and he opened his eyes and spoke a couple of words.’
I threw my arms around him and danced up and down on the spot. ‘That’s the best news! I’m so thrilled for him, for all of them.’
Matt swung me around in his arms so high that my dress ballooned out in an organza circle. I was glad I’d put on my best knickers as everyone was probably getting a good eyeful of them. ‘I swore I would never do this in public, but will you marry me?’ he said.
I hadn’t realised until that point the ballroom was completely and utterly quiet. You could have heard a pin drop. Or maybe that was my jaw hitting the floor. I blinked and opened and shut my mouth a couple of times. ‘What did you say?’
He smiled that dancing smile that always made my insides turn over. ‘I know it’s too early to be proposing. How long’s it been, four weeks? But I don’t see the point in wasting months and years waiting to ask you. I love you. I fell in love with you that first day in my office when you stood up to me with your beautiful brown eyes flashing.’
I looked at him in stunned amazement. ‘You love me?’
‘I adore you,’ he said. ‘I love everything about you. I love the way you screw up your nose and twitch like a rabbit when you’re stressed. I love the way you never gave up hope on Jason. I love the way you fight for what you believe in. You’re wacky and a little crazy and I never know what to expect when I see you because you wear such way-out clothes, but I want to see you every day for the rest of my life. I want to have babies with you. I want us to be a family together. So will you do it? Will you marry me?’
‘You love me …’ I said it as if I was dreaming and that someone was going to tap me on the shoulder any minute and tell me to snap out of it.
Someone did tap me on the shoulder. It was Gracie. ‘Congratulations,’ she said, with a huge smile.
‘But I haven’t given him my answer,’ I said.
The crowd began to applaud again, louder and louder, and there was a fair bit of foot-stomping as well. Even the band joined in with a big theatrical drum roll.
Then everything went absolutely quiet again and it was as if it were just Matt and I in that room. It was like we were the only people left on the planet. I saw the love he had for me shining in his eyes. I felt it in his touch as he tenderly brushed back a stray tendril of my hair from my face. I felt it in the energy that passed from his body to mine where we touched thigh to thigh, chest to chest, heart to heart.
I smiled a smile that felt like it was splitting my face in two. ‘Yes,’ I said, and then his mouth came down and met mine.
CAROL MARINELLI recently filled in a form where she was asked for her job title and was thrilled, after all these years, to be able to put down her answer as ‘writer’. Then it asked what Carol did for relaxation. After chewing her pen for a moment Carol put down the truth—’writing’. The third question asked: ‘What are your hobbies?’ Well, not wanting to look obsessed or, worse still, boring, she crossed the fingers on her free hand and answered ‘swimming and tennis’. But, given that the chlorine in the pool does terrible things to her highlights, and the closest she’s got to a tennis racket in the last couple of years is watching the Australian Open, I’m sure you can guess the real answer!
Sigh …
I completely loved writing this book. The only down side to loving my hero, Dr Guy Steele, so much is that he has spoiled any future relationships—because I will for ever be thinking Steele wouldn’t have said that … or Steele wouldn’t have done that … Yes, he’s really that delicious—just so assured and sexy, yet nice.
I’m actually jealous of my own heroine!
Happy reading!
Carol x
‘A compelling, sensual, sexy, emotionally packed, drama-filled read that will leave you begging for more!’
—Contemporary Romance Reviews on NYC Angels: Redeeming the Playboy
Before
‘YOU PAGED ME to see a patient.’
‘No, I didn’t.’ Candy, holding an armful of sheets, smiled when it would have been far easier to stand there and gape. He was stunning—tall, slender, wearing a suit and a tie. His dark brown hair was cut short and his voice was so deep and commanding that it stopped Candy in her tracks. She met his chocolate-brown eyes fully and it took a moment to respond normally. ‘Who are you here to see?’
‘A Mr Thomas Heath.’
Candy walked over to the board. Emergency at the London Royal Hospital was quiet this afternoon but as she was in Resuscitation Candy didn’t know which patients were in the cubicles. After a quick scan of the board, she located Mr Heath. ‘He’s in cubicle seven. Trevor’s the nurse looking after him. He must be the one who paged you.’
‘Thanks for that. By the way I’m Steele.’
‘Steele?’
He watched as her very blue eyes moved to his name badge. ‘Well, Dr Guy Steele, if you’d prefer to be formal,’ he said.
‘Steele will do.’ She must look like a dental commercial, Candy thought, for she simply couldn’t stop smiling at him. He must be thirty or mid-thirties, which was a lot more than her twenty-four years, and he was also way older than anyone she had ever fancied, yet he had this impact, this presence, that had Candy’s heart galloping in her chest.
‘And you are?’ he asked.
‘Candy. Candy Anastasi.’ She watched a smile twitch on his lips as she said her name. ‘I know, I know, I should be tall, leggy and blonde to carry off a name like that!’ Instead, she was short and a bit round with long black ringlets and piercing blue eyes. ‘There’s a story there.’
‘I can’t wait to hear it, Nurse Candy.’
He had the deepest voice that she’d ever heard. Like a headmaster, he was stern and bossy, yet it was all somehow softened by a very beautiful mouth that she could barely drag her eyes from. ‘You’ll never hear the story of my name,’ Candy said.
‘Oh, we’ll have to see about that.’
Had they been flirting? Candy wondered as sexy-as-hell Steele walked off.
‘Who’s that?’ Kelly said as they started to strip one of the resuscitation beds.
‘Steele!’ Candy said in a deep low voice, making Kelly laugh. She continued speaking gruffly while they bent over and tucked