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days ago.

      It was a difficult time for Dominic and he was self-aware enough to know he had been less than sunny on that day as well.

      And he knew why.

      Dominic had always been serious and a bit aloof but he loathed that, of late—Victoria was right—he was miserable.

      Not to the patients though.

      He shoved his messy personal life aside there.

      And then from outside he heard laughter.

      Victoria’s.

      He came out of the annexe and there she was making up the stretcher with her colleague.

      ‘Victoria.’

      She turned around. ‘Yes.’

      ‘Could I have a word?’

      She rolled her eyes but came over. ‘Are we really going to do this again?’

      ‘No, I wanted to apologise for earlier.’

      ‘It’s fine.’

      She didn’t need it.

      In Victoria’s line of work, a small stand-off with a doctor barely merited a thought and she was trying to keep it at that.

      But this was a genuine apology and he offered her a small explanation.

      ‘Today’s a tough one.’

      He offered no more insight but Victoria knew she was hearing the truth.

      ‘Then I hope it gets better,’ Victoria said.

      ‘It shan’t.’

      She gave him a smile and Dominic knew he had lied because it already had got a bit better.

      Victoria was stunning.

      She was wearing green overalls and heavy black boots and it should have been impossible to look stunning in those, yet she did. Her hair was worn on the top of her head but glossy waves tumbled over her face and her hazel eyes held his.

      Yes, she was stunning.

      And that was why she annoyed him.

      Dominic was not looking to be stunned.

      His personal life was very messy and, furthermore, Victoria was far from his type.

      She was very direct and he usually liked subtle. He liked women who, well, stayed a bit in the background and didn’t demand too much headspace.

      And lately Victoria was starting to command a lot of his thoughts.

      ‘I’m sorry too,’ she said. ‘That bit about you being a misery...well...’ She couldn’t resist a little play. ‘I meant crabby.’

      He got her little joke and smiled.

      It was not the smile he gave to the patients, because they did not have to fight not to blush, as Victoria was doing. This smile felt as if it had been exclusively designed for her and he was holding her gaze as she completed her apology. ‘I went a bit far.’

      ‘That’s okay.’

      And suddenly things could not go far enough.

      There was no way he was going to move things along.

      Dominic had a hell of a lot to sort out before he should even consider that.

      But...

      ‘I’d offer to apologise properly over a drink but in my current mood I wouldn’t foist myself on anyone.’

      Foist.

      That word made her smile.

      First, for the way he said it—his accent was light but very appealing.

      And second, because there would be no foisting required.

      He was gorgeous, sexy, rugged and, yes, she fancied him like hell. He was older than she usually liked; but then again, Victoria liked few.

      She guessed him to be late thirties and she was twenty-nine.

      He made her feel like a teenager though.

      Dominic made her want to blush, but she steadfastly refused to.

      And they kept staring.

      ‘It’s fine,’ she said again, and then the communication radio on her shoulder started cracking and there was suddenly another voice in the room.

      ‘Victoria!’ Glen called, and he must have picked up on the tension as he walked by because he paused.

      Thankfully Glen seemed to miss that the tension was of the sexual kind.

      ‘Is everything okay?’ he checked.

      ‘Everything’s fine,’ Dominic said, and walked off.

      And everything was fine now that he was out away from her gaze. Dominic had been very close to asking her out and now he wanted her gone.

      It was that simple.

      He did not want anyone closer.

      But that did not mean he did not want.

CHAPTER TWO

      DOMINIC PICKED UP the patient card and went to check on the new patient before she went down to X-ray.

      He was a trauma surgeon and so he found himself working in Accident and Emergency a lot and often pitched in.

      ‘Hey,’ he said as he went into the cubicle where the little girl had been placed. ‘Penelope, I’m Dominic.’

      ‘Penny,’ she confidently corrected him. ‘And you’re new here.’

      ‘I’ve been here for nearly six months now.’

      ‘Penny hasn’t been an inpatient for ages,’ Julia said. ‘We’ve had a good run.’

      ‘Well, that’s good to hear.’

      The little girl’s medical notes were so extensive he could be there till midnight if he read them, but Dominic had caught up on the vitals and Julia was very well versed in her daughter’s health.

      Penelope Craig had hypoplastic left heart syndrome, or HLHS, a rare congenital defect. She had had surgery as a baby and all her life she had been either an inpatient or outpatient at Paddington’s. She had presented a few times with infections and that was the concern now.

      Examining Penny, Dominic saw that just from the minor exertion of sitting forward she became breathless and the slight blue tinge to her lips darkened.

      And of course, as Victoria would have well known, it wasn’t just a chest X-ray that was required.

      Dominic took some bloods as a baseline. Penny would require a nurse escort if she went out of the department for her X-ray. But it wasn’t to keep staff levels up that had Dominic call for a portable chest X-ray—he was concerned enough that she was really rather unwell.

      And so he paged the on-call cardiologist and asked him to come down and see Penny here rather than waiting until she was on the ward.

      It was a locum that he spoke to.

      Again.

      With the prospect of Paddington’s closing down, a lot of the regular staff had gone elsewhere and it was proving difficult to attract new staff when no one really knew if the hospital would even be here next year.

      Having spoken to the locum, Dominic went back into cubicle four to inform patient and parent of the new plan.

      ‘Look what Penny just found,’ Julia said as Penny lay there holding up an earring.

      Dominic didn’t need to be told whose it was; he had already noticed that Victoria had been wearing earrings this evening when usually she did not.

      He

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