LITMIR.BIZ

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witnessed Louis in action for herself. It had been an incredible experience.

      Louis didn’t simply measure up to the stories, he surpassed them. A surgeon of such skill and focus that he eclipsed any other surgeon she’d seen. And when she’d mentioned it to her mentor—the anaesthetist who must have promised Louis the earth in order to get him to allow her in to observe in one of Louis’s infamously closed-door surgeries—Gordon had merely rewarded her with one of his conspicuously rare smiles.

      She’d finally seen what Gordon had known for years, that Louis was a pretty unique surgeon. The more she’d run back over the surgery all week, the more she’d realised that it hadn’t been luck that the entire procedure had gone so smoothly, so without complication. Louis had made so many tiny, almost imperceptible adjustments so instinctively throughout the operation that he’d headed off any little bumps before they’d even had a chance to develop.

      Some surgeons reacted well to incidents in the OR, others were a couple of moves ahead. Louis, though she hadn’t realised it immediately, was akin to a chess grandmaster who could foresee multiple patterns ahead and then made the best single move, even if it wasn’t the most obvious one.

      She might even go so far as to say Louis was gifted. And after years of feeling proud—perhaps maybe even a little superior—that she was immune to some of the best-looking but arrogant doctors she’d worked with throughout her career, it was galling to realise that, of all people, playboy Louis Delaroche should be the man to breach her defences.

      Not that she was about to let him know it. She rolled her eyes at him and pressed on.

      ‘You’re wrong. The board isn’t doing a fine job at all. As I understand it, the Lefebvre Group is now almost wholly comprised of the Delaroche Foundation, ever since the death of the old chairman a few months ago. Your father’s foundation has been voting to transfer various assets from the Lefebvre Group to the Delaroche Foundation, at very advantageous prices.’

      ‘They can’t do that.’

      ‘Tell that to the board,’ she spat back. ‘Some of these assets they intend to keep and some they want to shut down or sell off. Rainbow House is located in the centre of town, it’s prime real estate. Shut it down and any developer would pay millions for the site.’

      ‘No.’ Louis folded his arms over his body, the move only highlighting the powerful muscles there. ‘That won’t be why he wants to shut Rainbow House down.’

      ‘You’re telling me he has no choice?’ She dragged her gaze back to his shadowed face. ‘Because I can’t believe that.’

      ‘I didn’t say that he didn’t have a choice. I said he isn’t driven by the money.’

      Disappointment bubbled up inside her. She couldn’t explain why she’d imagined she’d sensed a possible ally in Louis, but watching it slip from her grasp was almost like watching her own father slip away from her. They amounted to the same thing.

      ‘Seriously? You, of all people, are now claiming he’s philanthropic after all?’

      ‘I’m not claiming anything. I’m simply telling you that selling the site for millions won’t be the reason he’s closing it down.’

      ‘It’s a much-needed centre. It benefits hundreds and hundreds of children and their families. We work hard to raise our own funds and we don’t ask much more of the Delaroche Foundation than lending their name to it.’

      In that instant it was as though everything around them had frozen, leaving only the two of them locked together in some kind of void.

      ‘You work there?’

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘Why?’ The question came out of nowhere. Not a challenge but a soft demand. Unexpectedly astute. Unavoidable. As though he knew she had to have a personal connection.

      She couldn’t explain it, she only knew—somehow—that it wouldn’t pay to lie to him.

      ‘I volunteer there,’ Alex began hesitantly. ‘With my father. My brother was... Years ago...we used Rainbow House.’

      ‘Your brother?’ Louis demanded sharply.

      She flicked out a tongue over her lips, managing a stiff nod of confirmation.

      ‘Yes. Jack.’

      ‘And now?’ His voice softened a fraction, he sounded almost empathetic. A flashback to the Louis who only usually emerged for his patients.

      If anything, that just made it harder for her to keep her emotions in check. Alex fought to keep her voice even, the air winding its way around her.

      ‘He died. Twenty-one years ago. He was eleven. I was eight.’

      ‘I’m sorry.’

      Simple. Sincere. And all the more touching for it.

      ‘Thank you.’

      Instantly the air finished winding its way around her and instead began slowly constricting her. Like a python immobilising its prey. And she felt she was sinking into the depths of those rich-coloured eyes.

      She fought to control her heart as it hammered so loudly within her ribcage that he must surely be able to hear it. And then abruptly, rather than suffocating her, the silence seemed to cloak them, drawing them a little closer together and almost suggesting an intimacy that hadn’t been there before. She realised she was holding her breath, not wanting to break the spell.

      Funny, because she was usually so quick to move conversations on from talking about her brother.

      ‘So that’s why Rainbow House means so much to you.’

      ‘Right,’ she agreed, shutting off the little voice that urged her to tell him about her father.

      Where did that come from? That was no one else’s business but her and her father’s. Certainly not Louis’s. She lifted her head, determined to throw it back onto him.

      ‘I suppose that’s why I don’t understand why Rainbow House doesn’t mean as much to you. Given what it meant to your mother.’

      The icy change was instantaneous. She might as well have struck him physically. He reacted as though she had. Reeling backwards before he could stop himself, even as he recovered his composure.

      ‘I don’t know what that means. So when is this closure supposed to be taking place?’

      It all happened so fast that anyone else might have missed it. They probably would have. But she wasn’t anyone. It was her skill for observing the little things, picking up on the faintest of shifts, whether in patient symptoms, monitor readings or merely attitude, which made her particularly good at her job. A skill in which she had always taken such pride.

      Right now, it was an unexpected glimpse of the less-than-perfect image of Louis that he carefully hid from eager media eyes. She couldn’t help pressing him.

      ‘It means I know your mother was Celine Lefebvre, and I know it was your maternal family who founded Rainbow House over fifty years ago when your aunt, your mother’s younger sister, was diagnosed with childhood leukaemia.’

      ‘How quaint that you know a little of my family history.’

      His voice was as fascinating yet deadly as the ninja stars that her brother had always dreamed of one day being able to master. A dangerous cocktail of sadness, frustration and desperate hope flooded through her.

      ‘I also know that your mother fought hard to keep Rainbow House open over twenty-five years ago when original Lefebvre Group members who had been appointed were running it into the ground. That was around the time she convinced your father to set up the Delaroche Foundation and oversee the group until you were of an age to take control. I’m guessing that she expected to train you to run it but...she never got the opportunity.’

      ‘Which means it’s nothing to do with me now.’

      She

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