LITMIR.BIZ

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for a while. Lola, you’re going to stay there and rest.’

      Lola sat up. ‘I can’t do that. There’s too much—’

      ‘Shh. I’m the doctor and you’ll do what I say. I’ll go with Cameron. Once we’ve got the barbs out you can get some rest. You’ve had a bad shock.’ Not as shocking as necking in an ocean, to be honest, but there it was. He lifted her swollen leg onto a footstool, on which he’d laid out a dressing pack and drape, then he crouched down. ‘Now, this is going to sting so I’ll go slowly.’

      ‘It won’t sting if I do it.’ She reached for the tweezers, bent her legs and shuffled so she could see the barbs. She didn’t want him to see her frustrated tears or her weakest moments. She just wanted him to go and leave her to recover in peace.

      He watched, eyebrows peaked. ‘And pray tell me how you’ll stop the sting if I can’t?’

      ‘I don’t know. Just let me do it and stop asking questions.’

      ‘Okay. Go right ahead.’ He rocked back on his heels and smirked as she tried to reach, couldn’t quite, and twisted some more. She got a deep ache low in her back. And still the barbs were stuck in her leg. ‘Go on, Lola, I’m waiting.’

      ‘Okay, clever clogs, you do it then.’ She all but threw the tweezers at him.

      He rocked forward and grabbed them. ‘Stop me any time, there’s no hurry.’

      ‘No problem.’ She wasn’t sure where this big brave act was coming from, but in truth she didn’t want to owe him anything or to let him see how upset she felt. She was a grown-up, smart adult woman—she could deal with this. ‘I’ll be fine.’

      His eyes were gentle and warm as he smiled. ‘Sure you will. You can handle anything, Lola.’

      ‘Yep.’ At least one of them had some faith in her. She sucked in a breath as he touched her leg, sending shivers of pain through her calf. She would not shout. She would not cry.

      He paused, tweezers in mid-air, and it was worse to see compassion mixed with teasing in his eyes. ‘It is okay to scream. I have ear plugs somewhere.’

      ‘Get on with it, man. The suspense is killing me more than the damned venom ever will.’

      The next few minutes passed in a blur of angry stinging, fierce tensing of muscles she hadn’t known she had and almost ripping the stuffing from the chair arm. When Jake felt satisfied he’d removed every barb, he smoothed cream over the now very puce ankle and calf and gave her another dose of painkiller. ‘You did well. Lie back and get some rest. I’m going up to the house to talk Cameron into letting you stay here.’

      ‘Good luck with that. I doubt she’ll be happy. It’s okay. Give me a few minutes for the pain to calm down and I’ll come with you.’

      ‘You’ll stay right there, missy.’

      ‘Or what?’

      ‘Or you’ll get a spanking.’ His hand was on the door but instead of leaving he looked at her and shook his head. ‘I shouldn’t have said that.’

      She smiled on a sigh. ‘Promises...promises.’

      ‘Lola...’ There was a warning in his voice but a glint in his eyes.

      ‘I know, I know. Timing. Work. Stuff. Life. I get it. If you look for excuses you’ll find them.’

      ‘They’re everywhere, Lola. I don’t need to look. Now, I’m going to tell Cameron that you have to stay here.’

      ‘My money’s on an immediate departure to the set for all of us, dogs included.’

      But Cameron, it seemed, had other ideas. Very surprising.

      Apparently she insisted that her assistant stay at the lodge and that Jake stay with her. A situation they both found irritating. More Jake, it seemed.

      He slumped down in the chair opposite Lola, grumbling, ‘She was surrounded by Alfredo’s guests and just wafted her hand and told me to stay with you as if it was no big deal that a top neurosurgeon was wasting his time here—and I couldn’t get to talk to her privately. She demanded I come all this way, cancel my clinics and rearrange my schedule, and now she doesn’t even need me to go with her, and won’t let me talk to her.’

      Lola lifted her head from the couch then laid it back again when the room started to spin a little. ‘I think you’re just her insurance policy. She hasn’t been feeling great over the last few months on that stupid diet. She probably just needs to know you’re close by in case of emergency. You’re here, filming’s only a few miles away, she can call if she needs you.’

      ‘Which was exactly what she said to me.’

      ‘Why do you want to go anyway? Seems to me you don’t want to be here in the first place, so an afternoon off would suit you just fine.’

      ‘It’s my job.’ He shrugged, pulling out his laptop. ‘Right, if you’re okay with it I’ll log into the clinic intranet and get some work done. I can’t sit around doing nothing.’

      ‘Me neither.’ Lola swung her legs from the stool and tried to stand. It was relatively easy to bear weight, but the pain knocked the wind out of her lungs. ‘Oof.’

      ‘What do you think you’re doing?’ He glared at her over the top of his computer screen.

      ‘Going to get my phone. I’ll do some ringing around, sort out a dress for Cameron for the after-shoot dinner tomorrow night.’

      ‘All that luggage and she didn’t bring a dress?’

      ‘Of course she did. I packed more than enough clothes for a whole month. But there are some fabulous Bahamian designers and she wants to try their clothes. I call, they send. She wears. Or not. It’s routine. She could make them a lot of money being seen in one of their creations. Top one on my list is Evelyn Rice—some of her dresses were worn at awards ceremonies earlier in the year and—’

      ‘Okay.’ Jake came over to her and made her sit back down, his hand slipping around her waist. He was comfortable around her body when there wasn’t the immediate threat of a kiss, it seemed. His voice was soothing. ‘I’ll get your phone. You can make one call. One. Then you need to do something that isn’t work. Solitaire? Knitting? Your script? Yes. Your script. This is legitimate sick time, which means no work—just relaxation.’

      ‘You know, you can be quite bossy when you try.’ But she had to agree it would be nice to sit and do something for herself. The extra-strong painkillers had started to make her head feel woozy and her limbs like melting honey—limpid and weak. She felt as if she was sinking and flying at the same time, which was doubly weird. ‘My phone’s in my beach bag and my script’s on my dresser in the bedroom.’

      ‘By the look of you, those meds are kicking in. Very soon you won’t want to do anything, you’ll be asleep in five minutes.’

      When he came back she was still trying to find a comfortable position on the sofa. ‘The cushion doesn’t feel right.’ And she was indeed very tired. Very tired indeed.

      ‘Hold on.’ Jake put her phone and her script on the arm of the sofa and sat down next to her to plump up the cushion. ‘Better?’

      ‘Not really. But thank you for trying and for talking to Cameron. I know she doesn’t mean to be difficult, she’s just learnt to be like that. She can be really nice—she gave me a dress once, just because I liked it. But I get how everyone sees the bad in her when she gets so demanding. If I could just sell my screenplay then I wouldn’t have to stay... Where did you put it?’ Why was she only hearing her own voice? Was she talking too much? She probably was, but she couldn’t stop even though it was getting harder to control her mouth movements. She had to concentrate to say the words. ‘Ah, there it is. Thank you.’

      ‘Have you sent it to him to read yet?’

      ‘My dad?’ Her

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