* * *
‘What’s going on, Evie?’
It took everything in Max to push her away from him when all he wanted to do was pull her into his arms and remind himself of her taste, her touch, her scent.
‘I don’t know what you mean.’
She was lying.
He’d spent the last year unable to get this singularly gentle, funny, sinfully sexy woman out of his head. So much for telling himself, before giving into temptation with her that night, that it would be a one-time fling. He’d always been a firm believer in avoiding dating workplace colleagues, something he’d had no problem adhering to before Evangeline Parker had come along. He wasn’t exactly short of willing dates with women who had nothing to do with the hospital, or even the medical profession at all, yet no one had ever got under his skin as Evie had.
She was the first person to ever make him think about anything other than his career as a surgeon. To ever make him wonder if there was more out there for him than just reaching the very pinnacle of his speciality. It had only been that phone call from his parents, on the last evening of his time with Evie, that had unwittingly brought him back to earth.
They were skilled surgeons but cold, selfish parents, and his childhood had been bleak and lonely, a time he rarely cared to look back on. Talking to them that night had reminded him why he would not put any wife, any family, through the only home life he had known. It was a choice. Be a pioneering surgeon, or be a good family man. Never both.
And he could imagine that a family was what Evie would want. What she would deserve.
So he’d thrown himself into his eight-month tour in Gaza, appreciating the challenging working conditions, the difference he was making—and the fact that it was providing a welcome distraction from memories of that one wanton, wild, yet exquisitely feminine woman. However many amazing, lifesaving surgeries he’d performed, he’d always gone back to his tent at night wishing he could share the day’s events with Evie. Wishing he were sliding into his emperor-sized bed with her rather than dropping onto his tiny cot, alone.
Yet now she was standing here in front of him, and he wanted her as much as he ever had, telling himself that the only reason he hadn’t walked away from her was because she clearly needed someone to talk to. A flimsy excuse, since she clearly wasn’t jumping at the chance of opening up to him. Just as they’d revelled in the sex but both been so careful to avoid much personal conversation those five hot-as-hell nights together.
‘I think you do know,’ he contradicted quietly. ‘This is about more than just your sister-in-law and her kidney transplant, isn’t it?’
Evie bit her lip, refusing to meet his eye.
‘What do you mean?’
She didn’t want to talk. But she probably needed to.
‘You’re concerned for her, frightened for her? That’s understandable. But I’m guessing this is more about you feeling as though you need to be the strong one because you’re the doctor, and people are looking to you for the answers.’
She chanced a glance at him but didn’t answer, so he pushed on.
‘It’s very different being on the other side of the fence when you’re used to being the one making the decisions, but I’m guessing you can’t talk to Annie, or your brother, about your fears. So I’m offering for you to talk to me instead.’
‘Why would you do that?’
She sounded bewildered. Was he really that unapproachable?
‘Because I once told you I respect you as one professional to another.’
‘I see.’
Was that a flash of disappointment? She shook her head, the moment gone.
‘I can’t.’
If he simply walked away then he’d feel like a cad. But if he pushed her then he risked misleading her into thinking that he was open to something more between them.
‘Can’t, or won’t?’
She opened her mouth, closed it, and then opened it again.
‘Can’t. I want to, Max, more than you know. But I can’t.’
There was no reason for his chest to constrict at her words. Yet it did. He gritted his teeth. As long as he could persuade her that there was nothing more between them—that he wasn’t remembering how incredible it had been to undress her, lay her on the bed and kiss her until she came undone at his every touch—then she might talk to him. And she definitely needed to talk to somebody.
‘Fine, let’s discuss the elephant in the room.’