Surgeon in a Tux

Leo headed for his office and tried to ignore what he was thinking because he had been hoping to see her again at the weekend. While, of course, Lizzie had to do what was right for her, it just left no time for them, unless …

‘Night, Leo.’ Lizzie smiled and walked past his office.

‘ Night, Lizzie.’

She wanted him to call her back.

He didn’t.

She got home and peeled off her coat and then ran a bath and ate a bowl of cereal for dinner. Exhausted, and seriously so, after the most incredible weekend of her life, it was blissful to slip into bed and finally catch up with her thoughts.

Leo.

She waited for guilt, for self-recrimination, for common sense to make her bolt upright with an anxiety attack. Instead she lay in bed actually smiling, laughing, just on the crest of a wave and riding it, wherever it might take her. Such was her sudden longing for him it came as no surprise when her phone rang and it was Leo.

His apartment was lit by the moon. On coming home Leo had scanned the apartment for a piece of Lizzie, but the cleaners were thorough and very used to tidying up after one of Leo’s weekends.

‘Loser,’ Leo muttered to himself as he found himself picking up her deodorant can and spraying it.

What was the problem again? Leo checked.

That’s right, her weekend was taken.

‘Hi, there …’ He was almost brusque when he called her.

‘Hi, Leo.’

“What are you doing?’

‘I’m in bed.’

‘It’s eight.’

‘I’m tired.’

‘About the weekend …’

‘I’ve got plans.’

‘I know that,’ Leo said. ‘What about Thursday?’

‘I’ve got drinks with friends,’ Lizzie said, which was true—it was her friend Brenda’s birthday. They’d shared a flat when Lizzie had first arrived in London and they got together now and then. Though not one of her friends would mind in the least if she stood them up for such a glorious cause.

‘What are you wearing?’ Leo asked. ‘And if it’s one of those awful all-in-one things you have my permission to lie.’

‘I’m not,’ Lizzie said.

‘Good.’

‘I’m not wearing anything.’ She waited, closed her eyes and almost willed his reply.

‘Well, I’d suggest you amend that,’ Leo said. ‘I don’t want you scaring my driver.’

It was the serious bonking time of a new romance, Lizzie told herself. That time when you just can’t bear to be apart.

And they used every minute.

It was dizzying, enlightening, freeing, and between steamy encounters as they waited for rancour to hit and for both of them to admit to it all being a terrible mistake, sometimes they actually managed to talk.

‘You were at the airport?’

Leo was watching her get ready for birthday drinks with Brenda. It had meant another trip to her flat to get more of her things and very soon she would have spent more nights at Leo’s than her own home. He had suggested they go to Paris for Valentine’s Day, which was looming, and Lizzie was explaining why she didn’t like to be too far away.

‘Yes,’ Lizzie said, pulling down her lower eyelid and applying black kohl on the inner rim. ‘We were going to travel for a year—see the world.’ They had spoken about exes and, as innocent as Lizzie was compared to Leo, it had come as a surprise to both that neither had lived with another person. Not that they were living together, both had hastily agreed, it had been just little while after all.

But it was heading into record time for Leo.

The lack of condoms was already a new record.

So too making plans that fell into next month.

He lay on the bed, half listening, half thinking, as Lizzie spoke on.

‘My neighbour called and said that Mum had fallen,’

‘What did Peter say?’

‘Not much,’ Lizzie admitted, putting down her eyeliner, remembering that awful time. She had been so excited about her trip but also so nervous to leave her parents—sure that something would go wrong. And it had. She hadn’t even made it onto the plane. ‘Mum had fractured her hip and was going to Theatre. Peter seemed to think I should ring and see how she was doing when we landed …’

‘Clearly, Peter didn’t know you very well.’ She turned and gave a pale smile at his comment because in the short time they had been seeing each other Leo seemed to understand her more than anyone else ever had.

‘He said that it was him or them. That if I didn’t get on the plane …’

‘Hadn’t he heard of rescheduling?’ Leo drawled. ‘Didn’t you have flight insurance?’

‘It was a bit more complicated than that,’ Lizzie said, but he did make her giggle about even the most serious thing.

‘So you chose your parents?’

‘Of course,’ Lizzie said. ‘I could never have gone away knowing my mum was about to have surgery. Now do you see why I don’t want to go to Paris?’

‘No.’ He came over and looked at her. She was all dressed up and ready to go out and her freshly painted lips really begged to be made naked by his mouth. ‘If anyone should have a hang-up about going to Paris then I win—my mother died in a helicopter crash, coming back from a party there.’ He took her cheeks in his hands as she gave a shocked gasp. ‘Does that mean I’m supposed to boycott France?’ Despite the dark subject matter, he still made her smile. ‘Only take the Euro Tunnel just so that history never repeats itself?’

‘I don’t know,’ Lizzie admitted. ‘I just remember the guilt, how awful I felt. I don’t expect anyone to understand but I’m all they’ve got. Even my moving to London was so massive to them …’ She was truly shocked at what he had just told her. ‘Do you miss them?’

‘I’ve never really had the time to miss them,’ Leo said. ‘I’ve been too busy cleaning up after their mistakes.’

Lizzie looked at him for a long moment. No wonder he dreaded the thought of commitment—he was still bearing the cost of his parents’ lack of commitment to anything other than themselves.

‘Not all relationships are like your parents’, Leo.’

‘Of course not,’ Leo quipped. ‘Take …’ He pretended to think for a moment then gave a very wry smile. ‘I can’t think of too many shining examples. Think about Paris …’

‘I already have.’ It was getting late, she had to go. ‘The answer’s no.’

It wasn’t a row, it wasn’t even close to one, but as Lizzie sat in the taxi on her way to visit her friends she felt as if the clock was ticking towards the end of them. They were both so completely different. Leo often said his only responsibility was to his patients and he intended to keep it that way. She had been born responsible.

‘Where have you been?’ Brenda scooped her into a hug. ‘Have you dropped off the planet or something?’

‘I’m here now.’ Lizzie grinned, handing over her present and ordering a drink.

‘You’re seeing someone.’ Haley was straight onto it. ‘Come on, Lizzie, who?’

And she almost told them but changed her mind, because that would make what she and Leo had more real—maybe in a few weeks she could tell them about her crazy time with Leo Hunter, maybe she could sob into her margarita with friends, but for now all Lizzie wanted to do was protect whatever she had with Leo, instead of handing it over to others for discussion.

It was the same with her parents.

Lizzie walked along Brighton beach at the weekend, trying to come up for breath after a dizzying time with Leo.

It was so cold that her teeth were chattering as she looked out to the grey churn of the sea. Lizzie had always loved this time of year in her home town—the summer tourists were long gone, the Christmas shoppers had left and it was just bare and beautiful and recovering, getting ready to start all over again.

She wanted to share it with Leo, she wanted to walk along the pier and go on rides that would be almost empty now. She wanted to take him to her favourite coffee shop and share this part of herself with him.

She missed him and it was just a weekend, Lizzie thought. Soon she’d have to miss him for the rest of her life.

How are they?

A text from Leo maybe meant he was missing her at this moment too but as she answered Lizzie kept the details sparse. Leo was out with some prominent people tonight and he was being interviewed on television tomorrow about the hazards of cosmetic surgery and people who went overseas for cheap procedures. She didn’t share that her mum had broken her watch again and kept forgetting it was being repaired and so was frantically searching for it, or that her father kept asking questions about the ball and Leo. Lizzie knew as she fired back a suitably upbeat reply that Leo didn’t need to hear it and she also knew something else—he’d been right about Paris.

Her world really was too small.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

‘WE COULD JUST keep it simple—red roses and chocolates.’ Leo only briefly looked up as Lizzie walked in. It had been a couple of weeks since she’d visited her parents and she was going again this weekend for her mother’s birthday. ‘Shan’t be a moment,’ he said to Lizzie, then resumed his conversation with Lexi.