LITMIR.BIZ

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brilliant.’ Leo smiled and carefully checked them. ‘I’m really pleased.’ Marianna was flying out to join Ferdinand the next day and they chatted for a little while longer before Lizzie and Leo headed back to the clinic, but as they walked through the hotel foyer and reached the doors, Leo suddenly changed his mind.

      ‘How about afternoon tea?’

      ‘We’ll never get a table,’ Lizzie said, because she’d rung up at the weekend and found out that if you weren’t a guest you had to book weeks in advance.

      Not if your name was Leo Hunter, apparently.

      ‘They should pay me commission.’ Leo grinned as they took a seat. ‘I’ve sent more clients their way than I can count.’

      Lizzie wasn’t used to being spoiled.

      Afternoon tea was sumptuous and Leo was very good company. ‘Do you do this a lot?’ Lizzie asked.

      ‘Not too often,’ Leo said. ‘It’s nice to pause sometimes.’

      She felt dreadfully gauche. It was a pause in Leo’s day and yet Lizzie felt tempted to whip out her phone and take a photo as afternoon tea was delivered to their table and the china cups filled. ‘My mum would have loved this.’ She glanced up. ‘Sorry, that sounds really maudlin. My mum loved anything to do with food—she was a wonderful cook.’

      ‘Was?’

      ‘She has Alzheimer’s.’

      ‘How bad is she?’

      ‘She had good days and bad,’ Lizzie said. ‘Mainly she has no idea who I am but every now and then her face lights up and we talk, though it’s mainly a teenage Lizzie she’s talking about. It’s good to know that she does recognise me sometimes.’

      ‘What about your father?’

      He’s in the same home as Mum. He’s relatively well, though …’ She didn’t really want to discuss it. Yes, she’d chatted away to Ethan about how her father, despite her best efforts, refused to even come out for a coffee with her. How he didn’t even want to go out to the shops. But she just didn’t want to bore Leo. ‘This is lovely.’ She looked at the gorgeous surroundings. ‘It’s a big change from my old job.’

      ‘You’re from Brighton?’ Leo checked, recalling her résumé.

      ‘I came to London a couple of years ago, once my …’ She stopped. All her conversations seemed to lead back to her parents. ‘Mind you, I’m seeing a different side to things since I started the job. I’ve never been to a formal ball.’

      ‘It will be fun,’ Leo said, taking out a sweetener and flicking it into his tea.

      Lizzie let out her breath and asked the question that had been plaguing her, though of course she knew the answer. She was just fishing for a hint about what Leo would expect her to wear. ‘What’s the dress code for the ball?’

      ‘Evening wear, formal.’ Leo was spreading jam on a scone when he glanced up. ‘You’ll be fine.’

      It was all so easy for him.

      ‘I’m just a bit worried—’

      ‘You’ll look stunning,’ Leo interrupted, doing his best to put her at ease and failing miserably.

      For Lizzie things came to a head just before home time when she heard Kara, one of the plastic surgeons, talking about the ball. She kindly tried to bring Lizzie into the conversation. ‘Do you know what you’re wearing yet, Lizzie? I hear Leo’s taking you.’

      ‘That’s right.’ Lizzie nodded. ‘I haven’t decided yet.’

      God, she had to say something to him. She wouldn’t just be letting herself down. Leo expected glamour on his arm and later in that afternoon Lizzie finally caved, knocking on his door.

      ‘Who is it?’

      ‘Lizzie.’

      ‘Come in.’ He turned briefly from the basin as she entered. ‘I’m surprised you bothered knocking.’

      ‘What are you doing?’ Lizzie asked, and if she sounded brusque it was to cover up her embarrassment at the sight of Leo. He was naked from the hips up, his suit pants sat low on his hips and there was a fresh shirt over the chair. He had, she presumed, just finished shaving and was now trying to take out his own stitches. ‘You can’t take your own stitches out.’

      ‘It’s harder than I thought,’ Leo admitted.

      They were tiny sutures, and Leo was having more trouble than he’d expected, getting the tiny blade to snip the thread, but, given where he was going, it was essential he looked his best.

      ‘I’ll do it.’ Lizzie sighed.

      ‘Sorry to trouble you!’ Leo quipped, and well he might. After all, he was paying her extremely well, but only as he sat down and put his head back did he realise her discomfort, only then was he suddenly aware of his own naked skin, because Lizzie was leaning over him, and trying not to touch him as she soaked the wound to soften it so that the stitches wouldn’t stick or catch on their way out.

      Breast implants? Leo wondered as one hovered above his view, and he desperately tried to quash that thought, not just because it was inappropriate but rather more the effect it was starting to have on him. ‘Just take them out.’

      ‘I’m going to.’

      No, there were no implants, Leo knew his silicone from his saline and these were just soft and ripe, and his jaw clamped down as he focused on the blade in an effort to keep things down!

      Lizzie’s hands were shaking slightly. She could smell his cologne and his bare arm seemed to burn her skirted thigh as she leant over and tried to slip the blade beneath the suture.

      ‘Stay still,’ she warned.

      ‘I am staying still,’ Leo snapped, because ninety nine per cent of him was, it was just the flood to his groin that was the problem. He lay there refuting the body surface area charts he’d studied in his medical training, because that part of his anatomy certainly accounted for more than one per cent right now.

      He did his twelve-times table backwards and breathed in the scent of antiseptic rather than focusing on the fresh smell of her, and when that didn’t work he reminded himself that Lizzie could be sleeping with Ethan.

      Olivia.

      With just one word he averted disaster.

      ‘Done.’

      ‘Thank you.’

      ‘You need a little adhesive strip here,’ Lizzie said. ‘It’s a teeny bit open in the middle.’

      ‘It’s fine.’

      ‘Whatever.’ Lizzie shrugged.

      No!

      Both said it in their heads as their eyes met.

      This is so not going to happen.

      ‘You should keep it dry …’

      ‘I know the drill.’

      ‘Of course.’

      ‘Lizzie?’

      ‘What?’

      He didn’t know how to ask her, yet he had to know if there was more between her and Ethan, but the time wasn’t right now—there was somewhere else he needed to be. ‘I’d better get on.’ He stood and pulled on his shirt as she cleared the dressing pack away and put the blade in the sharps box.

      ‘Are you going somewhere nice?’ Lizzie asked, as he opened a bag and pulled out three new ties, with the extortionate price tags still on.

      ‘Somewhere very nice,’ Leo said. ‘And I’m actually nervous.’

      ‘Oh?’

      ‘Which tie?

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