The Doctor's One Night to Remember

‘It doesn’t look like nothing,’ she pressed softly. In truth, he looked tormented. Defeated. And she could feel her insides twist themselves in knots as she fought the urge to go to him and try to make everything all right. Because she knew she couldn’t.

She wasn’t his girlfriend; she was...little more than a booty call. A supposedly mutually agreeable booty call, but suddenly she wondered if her mother had truly been right all these years.

Had her marriages always been mutually advantageous, or was it possible that they had been more one-sided than Marianna had ever realised? Or indeed admitted. Could it be that the husbands Marianna had selected had each fallen a little bit in love with her, in their own way?

Nikhil had warned her that he couldn’t offer her anything more than enjoying each other’s company, and she had agreed on the premise that she’d never wanted to get hurt again after Bradley.

But really, deep down, Isla was beginning to finally admit a truth she suspected she’d known all along. She had never loved Bradley; she’d barely felt much for him at all, so how could he ever have hurt her?

Had the emotions she’d held up as evidence of her hurt really been more about humiliation? Because she’d felt more for Nikhil in the last few weeks than she ever had for her ex-fiancé. Which made her fear that her affair with Nikhil wasn’t quite so emotion-free as she’d imagined.

Certainly not as emotion-free as Nikhil.

But then, instead of shutting her out as she’d expected him to do, Nikhil suddenly picked up an exquisitely written note and passed it to her.

‘That was Roberto at the door,’ he told her woodenly, referring to the concierge. ‘He just delivered this.’

It was such an unexpected invitation into his personal life, yet Isla wasn’t about to back away now. Her fingers shaking, she read the message. It was short and to the point and as she came to the end it was impossible to name what skittered through her.

‘Your brother wants to meet again?’ she stated redundantly.

‘At any of the next ports of call.’ Nikhil didn’t even sound like himself. ‘If I name it, he claims he’ll be there.’

‘Maybe you should,’ she offered tentatively. ‘Maybe it’s time to find out what he wants.’

‘Maybe I don’t care what he wants,’ Nikhil threw back, but she knew he wasn’t angry at her.

‘Then think about what you want,’ she tried instead. ‘Or, more pertinently, what you need.’

‘I don’t need him,’ Nikhil bit out flatly, staring at her so hard that she felt his gaze was actually imprinting itself on her skin. ‘I might have, a few decades ago. But I don’t any more.’

‘What happened, Nikhil?’

He shook his head. ‘It’s long-buried history. I see no benefit in resurrecting it.’

‘And yet you chose to tell me about this, when you could have ignored it, as you did the last time he was in touch.’

Nikhil didn’t answer, yet she could feel his emotions circling the room. Snaking around them, ready to strike. She knew she ought to keep out of it, but she couldn’t. He needed her, whether he recognised it or not.

‘What’s your history with your brother, Nikhil?’

That pulse ticked harder, faster in his jaw, but he still didn’t answer. And then, just as she was about to give up, he opened his mouth.

‘He betrayed me, Isla. He was my big brother, and he left me at the very moment that I needed him most. That’s all you need to know.’

‘Really, Nikhil?’ The words spilled from her lips before she could stop them. ‘You think you’re the only one to have been betrayed by someone? People do that. It’s one of the uglier sides to human nature. But you want to know what one of our better qualities is?’

‘I’m sure you’re going to enlighten me.’

‘We pick ourselves up—’ she didn’t let his wry tone derail her ‘—dust ourselves off, and we start again.’

‘And who, might I ask, betrayed you? Your loving mother? Your idolising stepsister?’

And she didn’t know what made her say it; she only knew she wanted to make a point to Nikhil.

‘Try my lying ex-fiancé.’

* * *