‘Doesn’t it?’ he agreed. ‘But be aware that Chef Miguel likes to play with the senses. Whatever you think you’re getting, be prepared for it to catch you out.’
Nodding slowly, Isla loaded a careful amount onto her fork and lifted it to her mouth. Taste and sensation exploded in her mouth and, just as Nikhil had predicted, it challenged her expectations of what she’d thought she’d smelled.
‘That’s amazing. He’s really brilliant.’
‘He is. And, like I said, he’s always evolving and inventing.’
‘I guess I’m going to have to come back and see for myself.’ She grinned, and then felt a jolt. ‘I mean...by myself. I’m not... That wasn’t...’
‘Relax, I understand what you meant,’ Nikhil cut in. ‘I take it your mother would rather have you be a private practice doctor than travelling around the world on a cruise ship?’
‘My mother would rather I not be a doctor at all,’ Isla admitted before thinking twice, as Nikhil pulled his brows together.
‘Really? She isn’t proud of you?’
Was it just her imagination, or did she detect a note of...something in his tone?
‘Sorry, that isn’t fair.’ She wrinkled her nose. ‘My mother is always proud. Although she doesn’t really understand why it’s my dream.’
‘Why not?’
She paused; this wasn’t usually a conversation she had with strangers. Or many people, in fact. But, rather than push her, Nikhil waited, his eyes never leaving hers. So different from the way Bradley had always been far more interested in who he could see, who could see him, what was on his phone.
It was potent to have Nikhil’s attention so assuredly on her. As if nothing else mattered to him but whatever she was saying. It almost had her telling him things that she rarely told anyone.
Isla just about caught herself in time and moderated what she’d been about to say.
/> ‘My mother can’t see the appeal of actually working in the trenches with blood, and vomit, and sick people. Her philosophy is that she can contribute more by marrying well, playing her role, organising fundraisers and raising millions, which she then gives to hospitals and charities.’
‘And your father?’
‘My father died when I was two. I have photos though I don’t remember him. But I had a surgeon stepfather, Stefan, when I was fourteen.’ No need to tell him she’d had five stepfathers so far. ‘He encouraged me to follow my dream and go into medicine.’
‘He was kind?’ asked Nikhil, too sharply and too quickly.
Had he had his own, less fortunate experiences with a stepfather? Stepmother?
‘He was very kind. I was lucky.’ Isla smiled softly.
None of her stepfathers had ever been unkind; her mother would never have married them otherwise. But Stefan had been like the father she’d never known.
‘He even had a daughter, Leonora, who was about the same age as me. She didn’t want to go into medicine. In fact she wanted to be an artist and she could paint the most stunning paintings, and he always encouraged her too. There was never any favour to either of us. He treated us both like we were his daughters.’
‘You speak of it in the past,’ Nikhil pointed out.
‘Yeah, their marriage—business agreement—ended when I was nineteen, though Stefan came to see me a couple of times at the hospital where I did my first few rotations. But Leo and I are still best friends. We’re each the sister the other never had.’
‘It sounds very...civilised,’ Nikhil commented.
She might have said through gritted teeth if she hadn’t thought better of it. Instead, she laughed quietly.
‘Civility is my mother’s mantra. What about you? You don’t have any siblings?’
It took him a beat too long to answer and, when he did, it struck Isla as an incredibly telling and personal statement.
‘I have a brother. But I lost him a long time ago.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ she offered genuinely. The thought of losing Leo wasn’t one she wanted to even consider. ‘You must miss him.’