‘Is it true you’re seeing him?’ Linda asked after a moment’s hesitation.
Georgie turned and looked at the theatre nurse eye to eye. ‘No, it’s not true,’ she said. ‘I’m actually seeing someone else.’
Linda looked surprised. ‘Who?’
‘Jules Littlemore,’ she answered, mentally asking Rhiannon to forgive her, not to mention Jules, whose eye she had been trying to catch on the ward round that morning. He had looked at her quizzically once or twice but she hadn’t been able to take him to one side to discuss her situation with him. She only hoped she could track him down before the hospital grapevine did.
‘Oh …’ Linda looked a little bewildered. ‘I must have got my wires crossed or something. I was sure I heard you and Ben were having a relationship.’
‘It happens all the time in hospitals,’ Georgie said. ‘Stories get twisted.’ She felt guilty for lying, but she wasn’t really thinking straight. Her emotions were in tatters.
‘Yes …’ Linda said, frowning as she took off her paper overshoes. ‘That must have been what happened.’
‘Jules, quick,’ Georgie said, grabbing at the intern’s shirt front outside A and E a short time later. ‘You have to help me.’
‘What’s wrong, Georgie?’ Jules asked. He could see she’d been crying. ‘You’ve been acting weird all morning with all that eye-flickering stuff. What’s going on?’
She led him to a storage room off the corridor and quickly explained her dilemma. ‘So, you see, I need you to pretend we’re having a hot affair, just for a day or so, please?’
Jules looked doubtful. ‘I don’t know …’
‘I’ll pay you the thousand dollars Rhiannon’s not getting, and I’ll clear it with her first.’
His cheeks went a dull shade of red. ‘I guess she told you, huh?’
‘Yes. So will you help me out?’
‘A thousand bucks will come in really handy,’ he said. ‘I just bought Rhiannon an engagement ring and my credit card is maxed out.’ He took the ring out of his pocket and showed it to her. ‘Do you think she’ll like it?’
Georgie’s happiness for her friends was spoilt by her own misery, but she didn’t let it show. ‘It’s beautiful,’ she said. ‘Have you asked her yet?’
‘I was going to do it tonight,’ he said. Looking worried, he added, ‘Do you think she’ll say yes?’
She smiled and gave him a quick peck on the cheek. ‘Of course she will,’ she said. ‘She’s probably written it into the stars.’
‘Have you seen Georgie?’ Ben asked Linda outside his operating theatre close to lunchtime.
‘Yes, she was doing a list of minor cases with Sankil Vinay earlier,’ she answered. ‘I was just talking to her in the change rooms.’
‘I have to see her about Emma Stanley’s follow-up. Do you know where she is now?’
‘Probably canoodling in some corridor somewhere with Jules Littlemore,’ she said.
Ben’s brows snapped together. ‘What?’
Linda folded her arms. ‘She’s having a fling with your intern,’ she said. ‘She told me about fifteen minutes ago. And here everyone was thinking she was dating you. It just goes to show the danger of listening to idle gossip, doesn’t it?’
Ben felt his gut begin to tighten but he forced himself to relax. Surely Georgie had only said that to put Linda off. They’d agreed to keep their relationship quiet for a few weeks—that had to be the explanation. It had to be.
It wasn’t, he realised less than ten minutes later when he walked into the doctors’ room and found his intern and his registrar in an embrace next to the coffee-machine. Anger rose in him so swiftly he had trouble containing his reaction. He closed the door with a sharp click and asked in a cool tone, ‘Is there any coffee left for anyone else, or have you two taken the lot?’
Ben watched as Georgie stepped out of Jules’s arms, her chin at that imperious angle he found so irritating, her expression showing not even a hint of remorse.
‘Oops,’ she said with a coy smile. ‘It looks like our secret is out, Jules.’
‘Er … yes.’ Jules said, flushing slightly.
Ben ground his teeth behind his cold smile. ‘If you want to keep your relationship a secret, you should pretend to be involved with someone else. Believe me, it works like a charm.’