LITMIR.BIZ

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‘It’s always there in the background, other times...’ He shrugged, reluctant to explain it. ‘My parents, though, still grieve every day.’

      ‘That must be hard to watch.’

      ‘Which is why I don’t,’ Zack said.

      Subject closed.

      And so she knew something but so little about him and that was proven on his second week at work as the day of Paulo’s surgery neared and Freya wanted more for another press release.

      ‘Everything you need is on my résumé,’ Zack said, clearly less than impressed to be in her office.

      ‘Well, can we go with the small-town angle?’

      ‘It’s hardly small,’ Zack snapped. ‘It’s the size of LA.’

      ‘I meant the population.’

      ‘If you bring my family into this,’ Zack said, ‘then you’d better find a stand-in for Paulo’s surgery. Oh, that’s right, you won’t be able to, so you can go and tell his mother why the clinic lost the only doctor prepared to operate on her son.’

      ‘I’ll take that as no!’ Freya was used to difficult doctors. Putting the new brochure together had been difficult enough, but running promo on Zack took the cake. ‘Can we just get a photo of you with him?’

      ‘I don’t work like that, Freya. You’re not getting your cheesy photo.’

      ‘Fine,’ Freya snapped. ‘What am I supposed to write?’

      ‘That a child from the Bright Hope Clinic with a complex tetralogy of Fallot is being operated on at The Hollywood Hills Clinic and that—’

      ‘I’ve already got that part, thanks.’ Tough Freya wasn’t working so she lodged an appeal with her eyes but he stared back coolly and dismissed her flirt. ‘People like to see the human angle.’

      ‘Then get it elsewhere,’ Zack said. ‘Because it’s not coming from me.’

      ‘I still need your head shot.’

      ‘Take it, then.’

      ‘Do you want to go and freshen up?’

      ‘No.’

      ‘You haven’t shaved.’

      ‘I don’t shave on the week of a big operation.’

      ‘Really?’ Freya’s eyes lit up. ‘Zack, that’s just the type of information people want to—’

      ‘Freya,’ Zack warned, ‘I’m getting tired of this.’

      She took out her camera. Usually she’d dab a bit of powder on the subject’s face but she didn’t think it would be appreciated in this case. Usually when someone was about to have their picture taken they would now be at the mirror, fixing their hair or rearranging their tie or stethoscope.

      Zack just sat there and stared back.

      ‘Can you at least smile?’

      He gave her such a fake smile that Freya actually laughed. ‘I’ll settle for scowling.’

      She got her shot and it was actually an incredibly good one.

      ‘Can I go now?’

      ‘Sure. Do you want to come over tonight?’ she asked, but he just stood up and walked off.

      Zack kept her hanging.

      Oh, they’d agreed to never discuss the other side of them at work, but just some indication about where she stood might be nice.

      Except she knew where she stood.

      Zack had made it very clear.

      He didn’t come to her apartment. They played at his hotel.

      Which meant she should not be sending her phone a copy of his photo and she should not be wondering, hoping, that night as she left work, if Zack was going to call.

      He did.

      Or rather he fired a text that night at eight to see if she wanted to meet at the bar of the hotel.

      She wanted him to come to her home.

      Freya fired back her answer.

      Busy tonight.

      She wasn’t.

      Well, there was always work she could catch up on but she was starting to struggle with her end of things.

      No problem.

      Zack’s response annoyed her.

      There were no questions or comment, no I miss you, no Pity. There was nothing to indicate that her response mattered to him.

      It did.

      Zack was actually relieved that Freya said no to coming to the hotel.

      Well, not relieved in a sexual sense, just that he knew now that he would not be seeing her again socially for several days now.

      They were getting too involved for his comfort. Too many times through the day he went to call her or saved something in his head to tell Freya about that night. Certainly he wasn’t comfortable with the idea of going over to her home.

      He didn’t want a relationship.

      He thought of his brother, chained till the day he’d died to a life that he hadn’t wanted, and it would never happen to Zack. And yet he didn’t feel chained when he was with Freya, he felt more open and honest than he ever had.

      It was too much to think of now.

      So, yes, he was relieved that she’d declined coming over as it meant that he didn’t have to worry about his increasing feelings towards Freya for now. He would be in bed early tomorrow, preparing himself for a very long operation, and he would be living more or less between his office and Paulo’s bedside for a couple of days afterwards.

      If Paulo made it.

       CHAPTER EIGHT

      ZACK WASN’T AT work the next morning.

      Freya noticed.

      All night she had been fighting with herself not to change her mind and go over to his hotel but really, Freya knew, she wanted more than she was getting from Zack.

      ‘How’s it all going?’ James asked as Freya dropped by.

      ‘Very well,’ Freya said. ‘James, I’m just going to Bright Hope to take some posters over for them to put up.’

      ‘Well, I don’t want any posters put up here,’ James said.

      ‘I wouldn’t tarnish your walls,’ Freya said.

      ‘Is everything okay?’ James checked.

      ‘Everything’s fine. Why?’

      ‘You just seem...’ James shrugged.

      ‘I’m just busy and I’m also...’ Freya knew that she had to tell him. Mila’s name was on the posters she was holding in her arms. If the operation was a success it was going to be all over the press and it was time that her brother found out what had been going on behind his back. ‘James, we need to talk.’

      ‘Sit down, then.’

      James had always made time for her and she could see the concern in his eyes. She wished he’d stop being so protective, so ready to assume that at any moment she might slip back into ways of old.

      Freya was tired of being treated like glass and didn’t get why they couldn’t speak openly about things.

      That time in their lives hurt too much, Freya guessed.

      And what she was going to say now would hurt James, she guessed too, which was

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