Georgie stopped pacing, her face draining of colour when she suddenly remembered she was supposed to have been waiting in Ben’s office for him. ‘Oh, no!’
‘What’s wrong?’
‘I was supposed to meet Ben in his office and I completely forgot when one of the senior surgeons came on to me.’ She gave a little shudder and added, ‘Ben warned me about him but I thought he had it completely wrong.’
‘Eeuw, gross!’ Rhiannon said with feeling. ‘Why don’t you report him for sexual harassment?’
‘I might just do that,’ Georgie said as she reached for her mobile and dialled Ben’s number, but it went straight to the message service. She put the phone back in her bag and let out a frustrated sigh. ‘I wish I could see him face to face to explain.’
‘Do you know which apartment block he lives in?’ Rhiannon asked.
‘No, but I’ll ask the hospital switchboard,’ Georgie answered, and reached for her phone again.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
BEN answered the door with a towel hitched around his hips, his hair still dripping from his shower.
‘Oh … sorry …’ Georgie bit her lip and tried to keep her eyes north of the border. ‘Um … I picked a bad time to drop in on you.’
‘Not at all,’ he said, stepping aside to let her in. ‘I just got back from the gym.’ He closed the door and added, ‘I thought I might have seen you there. You didn’t hang around at the hospital so I thought you’d gone straight there.’
‘I’m so sorry I didn’t keep our appointment,’ she said. ‘I got a bit distracted by … by something that happened just after I left you with Mr Tander.’
He frowned as he looked down at her. ‘Jonathan Tander didn’t have another go at you, did he? I left him with the hospital chaplain in the relatives’ lounge. Did he somehow track you down again?’
She shook her head and cupped her elbows with her crossed-over hands. ‘I had a bit of a run-in with Richard DeBurgh … well, not exactly a run-in, more of a misunderstanding … of sorts …’
‘What sort of misunderstanding?’
Georgie stared at the droplets of water trickling down his muscular chest, her stomach tilting with the desire to follow each one with the tip of her tongue. How would he taste? She wondered. Salty or tangy or. ‘Georgie?’ he prompted.
She dragged her eyes up to his. ‘He offered me an affair,’ she told him bluntly.
His frown deepened. ‘He what?’
‘He seemed to think I would be interested in giving my career a bit of a boost by sleeping with him,’ she said.
‘You should report him.’
‘I’m still thinking about it.’
‘You have enough to deal with right now without unwanted attention from men who should know better,’ he said, raking a hand through his damp hair, leaving deep finger grooves in the jet-black strands.
‘It’s all right, Ben. I can handle men like Richard. Heaven knows, I’ve met plenty of them before.’
His eyes caught and held hers. ‘I suppose you know the rumours are flying thick and fast about us at the hospital?’
She drew in a fluttering breath. ‘Yes … I had heard something along those lines.’
‘What do you think we should do about it?’
‘I don’t know …’ She captured her bottom lip once more. ‘What do you think we should do?’
‘We could deny it strenuously,’ he said, looking down at her mouth.
‘I guess that could work …’
‘Of course, it didn’t help that we were seen by your flatmate, who has no doubt told my intern.’