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that he was looking at the time in Australia.

      ‘What does your father think is wrong with the baby’s heart?’ Freya asked.

      ‘Some defects aren’t picked up at birth but when the ducts close at around a couple of weeks old... It might be nothing, it might be a small lesion that could have waited, but if my father’s ringing me that means he’s seriously worried because nothing would get that proud old bugger to call me otherwise.

      ‘Hell, I still can’t believe that he did.’

      ‘Well, you are a cardiac surgeon.’

      ‘Ah, but he’d prefer...’

      Zack stopped and then handed her the phone. ‘If PICU calls...’

      ‘Sure.’

      ‘Or are you going home?’

      ‘I’m staying tonight.’

      ‘You don’t usually.’

      ‘No.’ Freya didn’t know what to say—she was here because she wanted to be and Zack didn’t know what to say because it was actually a help to him that she was.

      He didn’t like leaving his pagers with others, though he had to at times, of course.

      He looked at Freya and he told her more about Paulo’s operation. ‘I thought twice I’d lost him,’ he said, and for the first time he told another person what he usually put in his reports, though he gave Freya a far less comprehensive version.

      ‘And if you put any of this in your press releases...’

      ‘I never would,’ Freya said. ‘I’ll email them to you first if you prefer.’

      Zack nodded. It felt odd to be unloading thoughts that he usually kept in his head and he was grateful that Freya, when he was too tired to do so, drew a very firm line to ensure that nothing he said he could live to regret.

      ‘I called a colleague last night to go through the surgery I planned and also to check that it wasn’t my ego taking him to Theatre. He agreed that Paulo had a chance and that he’d proceed. It’s actually the guy Tara’s baby has gone to. I spent a year working on his team.’

      ‘So the baby’s in good hands.’ Freya smiled.

      ‘The best of hands,’ Zack said, and then continued to talk about the surgery he’d performed. ‘When I first opened him up I was just going to close him and then five hours in I actually wished that I had. I was just going through the motions for the last hours, repairing what I could, remembering all I’d been taught. When they took him off bypass and I saw that heart fill...’ The adrenaline that had kept him going through surgery and again when his father had called was still surging through his veins.

      ‘I can’t switch off,’ Zack admitted.

      ‘When are your days off?’ Freya asked.

      ‘I’m not going to get out of this place for the next couple of days.’

      ‘Do you want to come riding at the weekend?’ It just popped into her head and then she realised that it might be open to misinterpretation. ‘I meant horses.’

      He grinned. ‘I got that. Do you ride?’

      ‘Not very well,’ Freya said, ‘but I love it when I do, it helps me to unwind... It was a part of my rehab.’

      ‘Really?’

      Zack was about to say no but then thought about it and, yep, a few hours on horseback to look forward to sounded like a good way of staying sane during these coming days.

      Freya could see, though, that he was hesitant.

      ‘No strings, Zack. I’m not asking you out on a date.’

      She’d got his back-off message yesterday loud and clear.

      ‘I know,’ Zack said. ‘Are we awkward?’

      ‘A bit.’ Freya shrugged slightly. ‘But that’s because I’ve never done this before.’

      ‘Done what?’

      ‘Not now,’ Freya said, and shook her head. Now really wasn’t the time to explain how she was struggling with her feelings for him and the inevitable ending of them. Maybe there would never be a suitable time to tell him all he was starting to mean to her, Freya realised. ‘I’d better go.’ Only that was the problem—she didn’t want to go. She wanted to be here with him and she’d never stop wanting him.

      The energy between them was undeniable.

      How much easier would this all be if she could simply stand up and walk away, instead of looking down at him where he lay?

      Zack broke his own ‘nowhere near work’ rule and his hand went to the back of her head to pull her down to his mouth. The long, slow kiss that evolved she wanted just as much he did. And it blew beyond proportion in a moment as her hand moved down. He put his hand over hers, though not to halt it, and then Freya moved her mouth back from the kiss and licked her lips as she had the night they had met.

      She wanted to sink to her knees just as much and just as naturally as she had that first time, and he wanted ten minutes of pleasure to get out of his head.

      ‘Do I stay or go?’ She ran a finger along his erection.

      ‘I thought you said you didn’t like it?’

      ‘A concession?’ Freya smiled.

      ‘Lock the door.’

      She got up and did so and as she walked over he went to check in that she was okay with this, because he had pulled back from the two of them last night, Zack knew that. ‘Freya—’

      ‘I get it, Zack.’

      They did not need a long discussion tonight so they got back to what they were supposed to be about—sex.

      Yet this was different, because Zack never brought it to work and he never just lay there and did nothing except moan with want and relief.

      And he could never have known that for Freya this was very different indeed; she had never done this before. She just knelt on the floor and lavished him, loving the pressure of his hand and how he held her hair tight. She took him first with her tongue and then deeper as her hand worked his base.

      ‘More,’ Zack moaned, just as she did on occasion, and she took him in as deep as she could and gave him the oblivion he craved.

      He sank into bliss and she knelt up higher and her thighs were pressing together at the noises they made, and on the most hellish day and at a less than romantic coupling, they were possibly the closest they had ever been.

      Feeling him start to come in her mouth, hearing his shout of relief, Freya came to the salty taste of him.

      He made her dizzy.

      Her cheek rested on his stomach and she gathered back her breath as Zack lay there. She took it as no insult that his hand slid from her head and he was already asleep.

      There was one odd talent Freya had, from too many years hiding in the bathroom, and that was performing a quick tidy up. Freya dealt with all that, she popped it all back and retied his scrubs, then slunk out of his office and sat silent in her own.

      And she admitted it properly then.

      The life goals she’d had just a short while ago had all shifted.

      She was thirty-one years old and, for the first time in her life, Freya was wondering if she was falling in love. Never could she imagine she’d have done what she just had. Zack had no idea that the thought had always made her feel ill.

      Not now.

      Was this love?

      Very possibly, because the thought of him leaving, hurt enough for it to be.

      

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