Wasn’t this what he’d intended? Still, he waited, needing to hear whatever it was she was going to say.
‘I understand that your one-night stand suddenly being transferred to your ship is a shock.’ Isla eyed him contemptuously. ‘But trust me, I’m no less thrown by it than you are.’
‘Good, so long as you don’t have...expectations of us now embarking on some great love affair.’
He was acting like a jerk. It was so unlike him, and yet he couldn’t seem to get a grip. Yet another example of how she made him feel like some untried kid.
‘I told you, this is a fresh start for me. I certainly don’t need to get tangled up with any jackass men,’ she added pointedly. ‘Talking of love, which never really exists.’
Something he couldn’t identify, or didn’t want to, caught at him. Whether she’d intended it or not, he found himself hooked, reeled in—wanting to know more. Keen to uncover whatever her opinion of love was, in the puzzle that was Dr Isla Sinclair.
But he hadn’t brought her here to piece her together in his head. He’d come here to remind them both that there could be no repeat of what had happened between them in Chile.
Only the previous night?
It felt like a lifetime ago—could it really have been that recent? Could it only have been hours ago that they had shared a bed? That he’d held her body against his, and around him?
Despite all his brain’s objections, something slammed inside his chest. He might have thought it was his heart picking up pace, if he’d actually had a heart. If it hadn’t been killed years ago, when he’d plunged that knife into his raging father.
And still he couldn’t remember it. Guilt had blocked it out too tightly, clearly. Even now, trying to push that guilt down, Nikhil found himself scrabbling for something else to hold onto. A distraction that would grant him a desperate reprieve.
‘Why are we here, Nikhil?’ she demanded suddenly. ‘Why do we need to clarify anything? Why not just stay away from each other?’
‘I’m First Officer on this ship and you—thanks to Head Office’s little shuffles—are now my junior doctor. Our working paths will unquestionably cross. Regularly. I’ve worked hard at my career, and at keeping my private life wholly removed from my professional one.’
‘And what?’ she snapped, and he found it fascinating the way her eyes sparked when she was angry. He suspected very few people ever got to see this side of the unflappable Dr Sinclair. ‘You think I’m here to broadcast our liaison to the entire ship?’
‘Some women in your position might.’
She snorted—actually snorted—at him. He wasn’t sure anyone had ever snorted at him—at least, not in the last decade. It was so...unexpected.
‘It might have escaped your notice, in your essentially Nikhil-centric way of thinking, but that’s my private life that would be on show too. And I value my career as much as you do. Possibly more, given that, despite all the advances we women have made, who I sleep with will come under more scrutiny than who you sleep with.’
‘I can’t say that I remember much sleeping going on,’ he quipped, before he could stop himself.
Suddenly, in spite of everything, he found himself grinning at her little cry of frustration. She got under his skin that easily.
‘My God, you’re unreasonable.’
He didn’t realise when he’d moved, or how he came to be standing in front of her, but suddenly he was there, within touching distance of her. That dark thing inside him railing in its cage, howling for things it had no right to crave.
‘On the contrary,’ he grated out. ‘I am the epitome of reason.’
At least he usually was. Before this woman had come along and turned everything upside down.
He took another step closer.
‘What are you doing, Nikhil?’ Isla asked.
But her voice had changed. Breathy, and fragile, and hesitant, and she watched him with that expression that made him hard and melting all at once.
It was impossible. She was impossible. And yet she was right...here.
‘I don’t know what you want from me,’ she said, her voice thick, echoing every emotion swirling through his own body.
‘You know precisely what I want.’ There had to be some kind of remedy for this madness he felt every time she was in the room. But if there was, he feared that right now he wouldn’t even take it.
‘Because I want it too,’ he heard himself growl.