The Doctor's One Night to Remember

Better yet, left to burn in some hell at the centre of the earth.

Nikhil cursed silently. No wonder his head was all over the place. No wonder he was letting the attraction for this woman, this stranger, get under his skin. If he’d been himself, he would have dismissed it as simple physical attraction—pleasant enough but best left unexplored in the middle of a cruise.

He tried to clear his head.

‘Okay,’ offered the young doctor when the silence stretched out an uncomfortable touch too long. ‘Well, I guess I should be going.’

Without warning, something twisted and darted within Nikhil’s veins. The sudden realisation that a few more steps and she would be gone. Inexplicably, he found that he didn’t want her to leave.

‘Wait.’ The command was out before he even realised he was going to issue it.

She stopped, then turned back slowly. As if she didn’t really want to, but felt compelled.

As compelled as he did? The notion was fascinating.

‘Let me buy you a drink.’

She stared at him, not blinking.

‘No,’ sh

e managed at last, and he had the oddest notion that it was harder for her than she thought it should have been.

‘Why not?’ He grinned, liking the way her eyes darted to his mouth, and then she flushed.

As if her thoughts weren’t entirely proper.

‘Because I don’t even know your name,’ she blurted out, and then squeezed her eyes shut, suggesting that she hadn’t intended to say that.

‘Nikhil.’ He inclined his head. ‘And you’re Isla.’

She looked surprised, and Nikhil shrugged. ‘You told Philippe your name, even though he was unconscious.’

‘Right.’ She bobbed her head. ‘Well, you can never be sure how much a person can hear, even then.’

‘So I’ve heard,’ he acknowledged.

It was a topic that had long interested him, yet right now he couldn’t think of anything less fascinating.

‘Now introductions have been made, how about that drink?’

‘I...’ She pulled a rueful face, tailing off into a telling silence.

‘As a thank you.’

Why was he pushing this? He should just return to the ship, finish up his shift and get ready for his rare evening onshore. Alone. Instead, he heard himself speaking again.

‘The company will want to take your details—for their report. I can guide you through filling it out.’

It was true, but it hadn’t been the thought at the forefront of his mind. Odd, since it ought to have been.

‘It’s okay. I can provide a report of my own if necessary.’

There was something in his tone that he couldn’t quite place. He found that he didn’t care for the way it unbalanced him. He’d spent years ensuring nothing, and no one, ever rattled him. Yet this woman affected him like no one else ever had.

It had to be that damned birthday card he’d received yesterday from his brother. If ‘brother’ was what you could call the stranger Nikhil hadn’t heard anything from in practically two decades.

‘The forms are unnecessarily convoluted,’ he warned, shutting down the other, errant thought.