Reunited with His Long-Lost Nurse

The operation was over.

And had been successful.

* * *

‘So how was your first right-anterior thoracotomy?’ he asked, almost twenty-four hours later as he was emerging from his hotel suite’s shower. ‘With a side of frozen-elephant-trunk technique?’

He’d spent most of the past day and night in his office at The Island Clinic, attending to other cases but mostly ensuring that little Lucy Wells didn’t suffer any post-surgery complications.

Something she knew he would have loved to have been able to do for every other patient he’d ever operated on.

But a few hours ago, he’d finally allowed himself some downtime. He was all hers...and Talia was definitely enjoying the view. Even the towel, slung low over his hips, offered her a mouth-watering sight as she reclined, naked and sated, in his bed.

‘Try saying that after a mouthful of those Dream Fusions.’ She laughed, propping herself up on her elbows. ‘The surgery was incredible, just don’t let it go to your head.’

‘I’m just relieved there weren’t any complications,’ he stated evenly. As humble as she remembered him.

‘I imagine Nate and Isak feel the same. I take it you’ve spoken to them?’

‘I briefed Nate, although I know he was hovering about the gallery, watching, a couple of times.’

‘You never let it show.’ She drew in a breath, knowing that her chief’s primary concerns would have been Lucy Wells, and Liam, but hoping that she had acquitted herself well, all the same.

‘Why would I?’ He didn’t exactly shrug, but his voice did it for him. ‘I’m bringing my A-game whether my chief is there or not. He isn’t going to change that.’

‘That’s such a Liam thing to say.’ She grinned, dropping a kiss onto his bare, muscled chest and loving the way he slid his hand instinctively around the back of her neck as he bowed his head to kiss her properly.

How was it so easy, so right between them?

She should have known it couldn’t last.

‘Nate also mentioned something else,’ he began, and she couldn’t have said why her stomach flip-flopped. ‘Isak has pretty much recovered now, and since Lucy Wells’s surgery is now complete...’

‘You’ll be leaving St Victoria.’ Her breath came out in a rush.

‘Nate’s secretary is looking into flights for me,’ he confirmed.

Talia froze, saying nothing though she wanted to ask him why he’d waited until this moment to tell her.

But if he wanted her to go—and something ached deep within her chest at the notion—then he was going to have to say it. She wasn’t just going to leave. Not this time. She’d spent three years dreaming of this moment—of being ba

ck with Liam—and it was pointless lying about that to herself any longer.

Or lying to him.

‘You’ve fitted in so well that I’m surprised he didn’t offer you a permanent role here.’ She plastered a bright smile on her face, although she wasn’t sure he bought it, especially when he didn’t answer, and she could feel the corners of her mouth tugging downwards. ‘He did, didn’t he?’

‘Not in as many words,’ Liam hazarded.

She should have taken that as the end of conversation, but something egged her on.

‘Which words, then? Precisely?’

For a moment she thought Liam wasn’t going to reply. But then he spoke.

‘He mentioned that I seemed a good fit and that the team could always use an extra surgeon like me.’

A job offer by any other standards.