Tempted By Her Hot-Shot Doc. Becky Wicks
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sipped her coffee, then put the cup down on the messy table.
‘Ryan is about to go and shoot the third season of Medical Extremes, as you know, and what with all his appointments he hasn’t got time for the memoir, too. We need someone to help him write the book at the same time as he’s filming—gather quotes, insights, interviews, you know? Am I right in thinking you’re still free to take a week or two, probably three, out of London at the moment?’
Madeline nodded blankly. Ryan was so tall and so commanding without even trying. Everyone seemed to be in awe of him. And although she was a little loath to admit it, after the way he’d just acted towards her, it wasn’t hard to see why.
As well as being the sexiest doctor since George Clooney, Ryan was a millionaire who gave selflessly to charities all over the world. He didn’t have a lot else to spend his riches on, apparently. His father was a heart surgeon, famed for working with those less fortunate in the US. Ryan had taken things one step further by setting up his own non-profit organisation and flying all over the world with his team, crossing borders to reach people who’d never get help otherwise.
Samantha lowered her voice. ‘Ryan doesn’t write. Obviously his skills lie in other areas. But with you on board, plus his celebrity status, this book could be a bestseller. Easy. The publishers have a very impressive budget.’
‘And Twitter?’ Madeline said. ‘How many followers?’
‘Over four hundred thousand. He never tweets a damn thing, of course, but we have Amy from Middlesex University who’s his biggest fan. She won the competition to be his Twitter manager. He just got done with a news team covering the story... BBC, I think. How are you at being on camera? You’ve got great cheekbones—I bet it loves you. And you speak several languages, I recall? Always useful.’
Madeline’s stomach lurched. This was turning out to be a lot more than she’d bargained for. But it wasn’t as if she had anything else on the cards.
She mused over the offer as Samantha kept on talking. She vaguely registered her agent mentioning Rio, a remote tribe—‘none of those weird neck rings or anything’—parasites, anaemia... But after a minute she was only half listening, because she could feel Ryan looking at her again from across the room.
She straightened her back again, so that he could see he wasn’t intimidating her in any way, and tried to look enthusiastic and excited. She had to play her cards right. This chance was too good to pass up and maybe Samantha was right. It could be a bestseller by Christmas.
We can both get something out of this, she thought, sending the thought across the void and straight into Ryan’s cool, iceberg eyes.
‘DID YOU KNOW that CAN’s first pilots were called the flag-bearers of the skies? That was in the early nineteen-forties.’
‘I don’t know much about CAN at the moment,’ Madeline said. ‘This was all a bit short notice, as you know. Maybe you could explain?’
She was trying her hardest not to let turbulence affect the way she was talking to Ryan. This plane was far too shaky for her peace of mind, but of course this man flew everywhere for a living and didn’t even look as if he’d noticed they were bumping up and down in what felt like God’s hugest tantrum since the last giant tornado.
‘Correio Aéreo Nacional,’ he said, picking up a packet of peanuts and running a tanned thumb over the seal without opening it. ‘Their mission was to help integrate the most remote Amazon outposts with the rest of the country.’
‘How did they do that?’
Madeline pulled out her notebook, wishing she’d put her laptop under her seat instead of up in the overhead locker. She could type much faster than she could write these days, but there was no way on earth she was climbing past Ryan. She’d rather not risk feeling his eyes on her again as she tripped, or did something else stupid as a result of her nerves.
There was something in his stare, she mused. It stayed with her even with her eyes closed. She’d seen it a thousand times in camera close-ups, of course, and it was part of what drew people in their thousands to watch him in action. It had the power to make you feel like you were the only person on earth. It also had the power to make you feel like an idiot.
Ryan smiled, apparently scrutinising her handwriting from his seat on the aisle. ‘CAN transported isolated residents from riverside communities to places where they could be helped—usually the city. They had dozens of planes flying over the Amazon—more than they do now anyway.’
Madeline scribbled as fast as she could to get his words down, feeling thankful that she’d brought a Dictaphone for later.
When she looked up his grey eyes were fixed on her, and she found herself annoyingly self-conscious. At least she wasn’t wet and covered in coffee this time—she’d put on a very respectable knee-length blue dress for the flight, one that accentuated her small waist, and she’d left her long hair down around her shoulders. Also, he seemed to be making a concerted effort to be friendly, for which she was more than grateful.
‘The flying doctors were known as the Angels of the Amazon, is that right?’ she asked him, reaching for her necklace.
‘Correct,’ he said, watching her fiddling with the silver chain as she slid the small crystal apple up and down on it. ‘They were angels, Madeline. Still are. They deliver medical aid by aircraft. If they didn’t these people would only get help after weeks of travelling on foot through the jungle, or by boat.’
‘So, would you consider yourself an angel now, too?’
Ryan frowned, drumming his fingers on his tray table. ‘I just do what’s necessary—like they do,’ he said. ‘These people live and breathe the Amazon—a place most of us know little about, except that it’s a living pharmacy essential to billions of lives on earth, right? They’re the caretakers of the jungle and everything in it. By helping them and looking after their health we’re helping the environment.’
The plane jostled them again and Madeline’s tray table jumped.
‘Do you know where we’re going?’ he asked, catching her notepad before it slid off.
‘Caramambatai,’ she replied quickly, hoping she was pronouncing it right. ‘Your producer says it’s an indigenous settlement...’
‘The Ingariko tribe, yes. They’re spread all over South America, but this camp is pretty much hidden on the border between Brazil, Venezuela and Guyana. It’s about as remote as you’re going to get. Legend has it people have been swallowed whole by thick morning mists in these parts. They’re more likely to have been finished off by surucucu snakes, if you ask me. Highly poisonous, by the way. If you see one it will probably be the last thing you see.’
She realised, now that he was so close, that he had lines around his eyes—proof of laughter, perhaps, more than age. He’d been happy once. Happier than the media made him out to be now anyway. He looked sexier in person, too, she decided.
Then she caught herself.
Sexier? There was no way she was letting herself think that again. She was here to do a job—and besides, as if anyone would go near her, let alone this guy. Her friend Emma had said she reeked of heartbreak, which wasn’t particularly nice but was definitely true. Hardly surprising after what Jason had done.
Madeline could still recite every line of that love-struck email to Adeline she’d read by mistake after he’d left his laptop open.
I’m just trying to find the right time to tell her, baby. You know it’s not her I’m in love with any more.
‘So, how do we reach these people once we get to Brazil?’ she asked, trying and failing to cross her legs properly under her tray table.
They’d been on the plane for four hours already, and