Reunited with His Long-Lost Nurse

Not, of course, that she had expected a man she’d only been dating for a few months to declare undying love and propose marriage and a family. But, equally, she hadn’t expected such a man to wreck her in more ways than she’d ever thought possible. Leaving the way she had done had been the only way she’d known to save them both.

And now he was here on her small Caribbean island, and Talia found herself desperately fighting the maybes, and the what-ifs. As if there was room for such thoughts. But Liam would only be here for a month while he tended to his patient—the kid of one of Hollywood’s current brightest stars—and then he would be gone.

She’d be damned if she opened her heart up only to let him wreck her again. She simply couldn’t afford to let him see how easily he got under her skin.

How easily he could unravel her.

‘I could say the same thing,’ she ground out instead. ‘But, really, what would be the point of such a conversation?’

‘What indeed?’

His dispassion sliced through her all over again. Leaving her with frost that seemed to spread from the inside out, and had nothing to do with the state-of-the-art air-con of The Island Clinic.

People had warned her that she would end up getting hurt. That Liam Miller was a brilliant surgeon but a lone wolf. A good man but a man with walls. She hadn’t believed any of them.

She’d been wrong. Terribly, desperately wrong. But hadn’t she already shown Liam enough weakness back then? She’d be damned if she gave him a new demonstration now.

‘Is that the reason you sought me out, then? To tell me that you never knew me at all? And to tell me that I was the last person you ever expected to see again? Because I can assure you that I didn’t expect to see you either.’

For a moment he didn’t answer, he merely smiled. An edgy little quirk of his lips that was so sharp it made Talia itch to check that he hadn’t actually cut her. And then he took a step towards her.

Just a single step, and Talia felt as though the entire clinic had lifted and tilted. It was a fight just to stay upright, such was the devastating impact Liam Miller had on her.

Had always had on her, from the moment they’d met on her first day at Duke’s.

‘I’ve just met your chief here, at this clinic of yours. He’s quite inspiring.’

‘Nate?’ She grasped the apparently safe topic with both hands. ‘Yes, he is. He set up The Island Clinic and the sister programme with St Vic’s Hospital after the hurricane here a few years ago.’

‘I’m well aware of the programme.’ His smile became all the more sardonic. ‘And I know many surgeons who would cut a limb off themselves with their own scalpel for a chance to work at the famous Island Clinic.’

‘Right. Of course.’

He’d taken another step towards her and Talia found she was twisting herself up in knots not to react. Not to show any sign of feeling intimidated.

Intimidation? a sly voice asked. Or attraction?

‘Which made it particularly interesting when the same Nate Edwards contacted me a week ago, asking me if I would like to take a look at a special case.’

Uncertainty coursed through her. His tone was so loaded that she almost thought he knew the truth. But how could he? Nate wouldn’t have betrayed her confidence. And now that she’d already pretended not to know what he was doing on the island, she had no choice but to keep feigning innocence.

Still, she flicked a nervous tongue out over suddenly parched lips as she adopted a look of vague interest.

‘Oh?’

‘Oh?’ he echoed, a little too breezily for Talia’s liking.

An almost dangerous nonchalance. Which was odd if she thought about it as Liam was renowned for his cool, even temperament. So laid-back that it almost dipped into emotional detachment.

Even with her. Which was the part she’d hated the most.

There had been a few moments over the long summer they’d enjoyed together—the briefest of flashes when she’d thought he was about to let his guard down and talk to her. But then the shutters had slammed down abruptly on her again, and she’d been left out in the cold. All his thoughts and feelings his, and his alone.

‘So, to be clear, you knew nothing about my arrival?’ he challenged, so close now that she had to tilt her neck up to look into his face.

And suddenly she couldn’t pretend any more. The electricity practically crackled in the space between them, leaving her feeling shaky and drained. Like she was coiled so tightly inside that she was at risk of jumping out of her own skin at any moment.

Whatever she’d told herself, it seemed her body was only too willing to undermine it. Even after all this time, it still wanted him. Ached for him.