Forbidden to the Playboy Surgeon Read online

  The stories about Alistair North that circulated around the hospital held fable qualities. If she hadn’t been working closely with him as his speciality registrar, she’d have laughed on being told the tales. She’d have said, ‘They’ve got to be the invention of an overactive imagination.’ But she did work with him. Sadly, she’d seen enough evidence to know at least two of the stories she’d heard were true so she had no reason not to believe the others. As hard as she tried to focus solely on Alistair North’s immense skill as a neurosurgeon and block out the excited noise that seemed to permanently spin and jangle around him, it was impossible.

  Everywhere she turned, people talked about his exploits in and out of the operating theatre. Gossip about who he was currently dating or dumping and who he’d been seen with driving into work that morning ran rife along the hospital corridors. It was as if speculation about the man was the hospital’s secondary power supply. What she hated most of all was the legendary status the young male house officers gave him, while she was the one left trailing behind, picking up the pieces.

  No, the sensation she got every time she was in the same space as Mr Alistair North was antagonism. The man may be brilliant and talented in the operating theatre but outside of it he was utterly unprofessional. He was stuck permanently in adolescence, and at thirty-nine that was not only ridiculous, it was sad. Most of his contemporaries were married with children but she supposed it would take a brave—or more likely deluded—woman to risk all on him. The only thing Claire would risk on Alistair North was her brain. Despite what she thought of the man, she couldn’t deny the doctor was the best neurosurgeon in the country.

  The little girl on Alistair North’s back was now waving enthusiastically at her. Claire blinked behind her glasses, suddenly realising it was Lacey—the little girl they were operating on in an hour’s time. Why wasn’t she tucked up in her bed quiet and calm?

  ‘Wave back, Kanga,’ Alistair North said, his clear and precise Oxford accent teasing her. ‘It won’t break your arm.’

  Claire’s blood heated to boiling point. Did the man know that kangaroos boxed? The thought of bopping him on his fake nose was far too tempting. She felt the expectant gaze of the ward staff fixed firmly on her and suddenly she was thrown back in time. She was in Gundiwindi, standing in front of the class, with fifteen sets of eyes boring into her. She could see the red dust motes dancing in the starkly bright and uncompromising summer sunshine and the strained smile of her teacher slipping as his mouth turned down into a resigned and grumpy line. She could hear the shuffling and coughing of her peers—the sound that always preceded the one or two brutal comments that managed to escape from their mouths before Mr Phillips regained control.

  Moron. Idiot.

  Stop it. She hauled her mind back to the present, reminding herself sternly that she wasn’t either of those things. She’d spent two decades proving it. She was a woman in a difficult and male dominated speciality and she was eleven months away from sitting her final neurosurgery exams. She’d fought prejudice and sexism to get this far and she’d fought herself. She refused to allow anyone to make her feel diminished and she sure as hell wasn’t going to accept an order to wave from a man who needed to grow up. She would, however, do what she always did—she’d restore order.

  In heels, Claire came close to matching Alistair North’s height, and although her preference had always been to wear ballet flats, she’d taken herself shoe shopping at the end of her first week of working with him. The added inches said, Don’t mess with me. She took a few steps forward until she was standing side on to him but facing Lacey. Ignoring Alistair North completely, and most definitely ignoring his scent of freshly laundered cotton with a piquant of sunshine that made her unexpectedly homesick, she opened her arms out wide towards the waving child.

  ‘Do you want to come for a hop with Kanga?’

  ‘Yes, please.’

  Lacey, a ward of the state, transferred almost too easily into her arms, snuggling in against her chest and chanting, ‘Boing, boing, boing.’

  Claire pulled her white coat over her charge, creating a makeshift pouch, and then she turned her back on Alistair North. She strode quickly down the ward carrying an overexcited Lacey back to her bed. As she lowered her down and tried to tuck her under the blankets, the little girl bounced on the mattress.

  Thanks for nothing, Alistair, Claire muttered to herself. It was going to take twice as long as normal to do all the routine preoperative checks. Yet another day would run late before it had even started.

  CHAPTER TWO

  ALASTAIR NORTH MOVED his lower jaw sideways and then back again behind his surgical mask, mulling over the conundrum that was his incredibly perfectionist and frustratingly annoying speciality registrar. She’d more than competently created a skin pouch to hold the vagus nerve stimulator she was inserting into Lacey Clarke. Now she was delicately wrapping the wire around the left vagus nerve and hopefully its presence would effectively minimise Lacey’s seizures in a way medication had so far failed to achieve.

  A bit of electricity, he mused, could kill or save a life. He knew all about that. Too much or too little of the stuff left a man dead for a very long time. What he didn’t know was why Claire Mitchell was permanently strung so tight a tune could be plucked on her tendons.

  Based on her skills and glowing references from the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital in Sydney and the Flinders Medical Centre in Adelaide, she’d outranked twenty-five other talented applicants from the Commonwealth. With her small steady hands and deft strokes, she had the best clinical skills of all the trainees who’d applied to work with him. She’d beaten twenty-four men to win the scholarship and that alone should tell her she was the best. Surely she knew that?

  Does she though?

  In his speciality, he was used to fielding egos the size of Scotland. It wasn’t that Claire didn’t have an ego; she did. She knew her stuff and he’d seen her run through medical students and her junior house officer with a complete lack of sympathy for any whose insufficient preparedness caused them to give incorrect answers to her questions. But he was used to trainees of her calibre thinking of themselves as ‘cock of the walk’ and carrying themselves with an accompanying swagger.

  Claire Mitchell didn’t swagger, despite the fact she had the best set of legs he’d seen on a woman in a very long time. And her shoes. Good God! Her acerbic personality was at odds with those shoes. Did she have any idea how her body moved in those heels? Her breasts tilted up, her hips swung and her calves said coquettishly, Caress me. I promise you there’s even better ahead.

  Hell’s bells. He had a love-hate relationship with those shoes and her legs. Did they hint at a deeply buried wild side? Would those legs party the way he loved to party? Would he even want to party with them? No way. Gorgeous legs weren’t enough to overcome a major personality flaw. Claire had a gritty aura of steely determination and no sense of humour whatsoever.

  Given what she’d achieved so far and the fact she had a ninety-nine per cent chance of passing her exams on the first attempt—an uncommon feat in neurosurgery—she should be enjoying her hard-earned position. He doubted she was enjoying anything. The bloody woman never looked happy and it drove him crazy.

  As her boss, his duty of care extended only so far as making sure she was coping with the workload and her study for her fellowship exams. However, he’d spent two years living in Australia himself, and despite both countries speaking English, pretty much everything else was different. It had taken him a few months to find his feet at the Children’s Hospital and get established in a social set so he was very aware that Claire Mitchell might flounder at first. Ten days after she’d started working with him, he’d found her looking extremely downcast with what he’d assumed was a dose of homesickness. The woman looked like she needed to get out of the hospital for a bit and catch her breath.

  On the
spur of the moment, he’d asked, ‘Would you like to grab a pint at the Frog and Peach?’

  Her response had been unexpected. Her eyes—a fascinating combination of both light and dark brown that reminded him of his favourite caramel swirl chocolate bar—had widened momentarily before suddenly narrowing into critical slits. In her distinctive diphthong-riddled accent—one he really didn’t want to admit to enjoying—she’d said briskly and succinctly, ‘I have reports.’

  ‘There’s always going to be reports to write,’ he’d said with a smile that invariably softened the sternest of wills.

  ‘Especially when you don’t appear to write many.’

  He wasn’t sure who’d been more taken aback—him, because registrars knew better then to ever speak to their consultant like that, or her, because she’d actually spoken her thoughts out loud.

  ‘I’m sorry. That was out of order,’ she’d said quickly, although not in a particularly ingratiating tone. ‘Please accept my apology.’

  ‘Jet lag still bothering you?’ he’d offered by way of an olive branch. After all, they had to work together and life was easier if he got along with his trainee. So far, her standoffish manner wasn’t a good sign.

  At his question, a momentary look of confusion had crossed her face before disappearing under her hairline. ‘Jet lag’s a bastard.’

  It was, but they both knew right then and there she wasn’t suffering from it. She’d spent that Friday night writing reports and he’d gone to the pub determined to forget about shoes that teased and long, strong and sexy legs. Legs that should come with a warning: Toxic If Touched. Happily, he’d met a pretty midwife with a delectable Irish lilt. The music had been so loud she’d had to lean in and speak directly into his ear. Heaven help him but he was a sucker for a woman with an accent.

  Claire Mitchell now snipped the last stitch and said, ‘Thanks, everyone,’ before stepping back from the operating table.

  Alistair thought drily that after working with her over the last few weeks, he no longer had to work very hard at resisting her outback drawl. In the weeks since she’d rejected his invitation, he hadn’t issued another. As long as she did her job, he overrode his concerns that she might be lonely. Of more concern to him was why he’d been working so jolly hard at trying to get her to lighten up. Hell, right now he’d take it for the win if she looked even slightly happier than if her dog had just died.

  After a brief conversation with his scrub nurse, checking how her son had fared in his school athletics competition, he left Lacey in the excellent care of the paediatric anaesthetist, Rupert Emmerson. He found Claire at the computer in the staff lounge.

  ‘That went well,’ he said, pressing a coffee pod into the machine.

  She pushed her tortoiseshell glasses up her nose. ‘It did.’

  ‘You sound surprised.’

  She pursed her lips and her bottom lip protruded slightly—soft, plump and enticing. His gaze stalled momentarily and he wondered how it was that he’d never noticed her very kissable mouth before.

  ‘I’m not used to children being so hyped up before surgery,’ she said crisply.

  And there it was—her critical tone. That was why he’d never noticed her lips. Her mouth was usually speaking spikey, jagged words that could never be associated with luscious, soft pink lips. He wasn’t used to being questioned by staff, let alone by a trainee who was here to learn from him. If he chose, he could make her life incredibly difficult and impact on her career, but he’d learned very abruptly that life was too short to hold grudges. As far as he was concerned, in the grand scheme of things, six months was a blip on the radar.

  What baffled him though was that she obviously hadn’t clashed with her previous supervising neurosurgeons or she wouldn’t have got this far. He struggled to align the woman at the castle with the glowing reports that had preceded her. David Wu, a surgeon of very few words, had positively gushed about the woman, calling her intuitive, skilful and courageous. It had been his recommendation that had swayed the board to offer Claire Mitchell the scholarship.

  Alistair couldn’t fault her surgery but he was struggling with her personality. Take this morning, for instance. Everyone on the ward had been having fun except for Mitchell, who’d looked like a disapproving schoolmistress complete with her sun-kissed blonde hair coiled into a tight knot. Like so many of his nonmedical decisions, it had been a spur of the moment thing to call out to her to wave. The moment the words had left his mouth he knew he’d done the wrong thing. It had put her on the spot and focused attention on her. He was learning that she wasn’t the type of person who welcomed the spotlight.

  In his defence, he’d only asked her to join in the fun because he’d found their little patient in bed, scared and trembling. He’d scooped her into his arms hoping to reassure her, and then to take her mind off things, they’d room hopped, visiting the other kids. The parade had just happened—a combination of kids being kids, some hero worship, a packet of squeakers and a little girl needing some TLC. Now Claire Mitchell had the audacity to judge it. Judge him.

  ‘Hyped up?’ he repeated, feeling the edges of his calm fraying like linen. ‘Actually, I’d call it being the opposite of terrified. Lacey’s spent a week being prodded and poked. She’s had an MRI and a CT scan. Hell, she was attached to the EEG for two days while we recorded epileptic events so we knew which surgery to perform.’

  Despite being known around the castle for his calm and relaxed approach, his voice had developed a plummy and patronising edge. ‘And after enduring all of that, you’d deny Lacey a bit of fun?’

  Claire’s eyes flashed golden brown. ‘Of course not. I’d just plan a more appropriate time for the fun.’

  Her tone vibrated with her absolute conviction that her way was the right way. The only way. He remembered how once he’d been a man of absolutes and certainties and how he’d never countenanced anything ever getting in the way of what he wanted. And hadn’t fate laughed itself silly over that naïve belief? Hell, it was still chuckling.

  With more force than necessary, he pulled his now full coffee mug out from under the machine. Pale brown liquid spilled down the steep white sides leaving a muddy residue. ‘There’s a lot to be said for spontaneity, Claire.’

  Her eyes dilated as if he’d just shocked her by using her first name. ‘We’ll have to agree to disagree on that, Mr—’ She quickly corrected herself. ‘Alistair.’

  Good God. Frustration brought his hands up, tearing through his hair. He’d been telling her from day one to call him ‘Alistair.’ She’d never called him ‘sir’—probably the anti-establishment Australian in her prevented her from doing that—but she’d stuck with ‘Mr North.’ Every time she called him by his title he responded by calling her by her surname to drive home the point. He knew it was childish and very public school, but even so, she still didn’t seem to be getting the message.

  He really didn’t understand her at all. Hell, he couldn’t even get a read on her. Every other Australian he’d ever met or worked with tended to be laid-back, easy-going and with a well-developed sense of the ridiculous. When he was a kid, he’d grown up listening to his great-grandfather recounting the antics of the ANZACs during the Second World War—brave men who didn’t hesitate to break the rules if they thought any rule was stupid. What in heaven’s name had he done in a previous life to be lumbered with the only dour and highly strung Aussie in existence?

  ‘Would you like to insert the ventricular peritoneal shunt in Bodhi Singh?’ he asked, returning his thoughts to work, which was a lot more straightforward than the enigma that was Claire Mitchell.

  ‘Really?’ she asked, scrutinising him closely as if she didn’t quite believe his offer.

  That rankled. How was it that the woman who normally couldn’t detect a joke now misread a genuine offer? ‘Absolutely.’

  Her mouth suddenly curved upwards as
wonder and anticipation carved a dimple into her left cheek.

  So that’s what it takes to make her smile. For weeks, he’d been trying all the wrong things.

  ‘Thanks,’ she said enthusiastically. ‘I’d love the opportunity.’

  The tightness that was so much a part of her faded away under the brilliance of a smile so wide it encompassed her entire face. Along with her tension, all her sharp angles disappeared too, softened by the movement of her cheeks and the dazzling sparkle in her eyes. It was like looking at a completely different person—someone whose enthusiasm was so infectious that everyone vied to be on her team.

  Pick me! Pick me!

  What the hell? This was worse than a momentary thought about her gorgeous legs. Utterly discombobulated, he dragged his gaze away from her pink-cheeked face that danced with excitement, and far, far away from that come-hither dimple that had his blood pumping faster than necessary. He’d spent weeks trying to make her smile, and now that he had, he knew he must make it stop. It was one thing to wish that for the good of the patients and workplace harmony his speciality registrar be a little more relaxed. It was another thing entirely to find himself attracted to her as a woman. Hell, he didn’t even like her. Not. At. All.

  He’d never been attracted to someone he didn’t like before, but that conundrum aside, there were many reasons why any sort of attraction was utterly out of the question. First and foremost, nothing could happen between them because he was her boss and she was his trainee. Fortunately, he knew exactly how to quash any remaining eddies of unwanted desire and kill off all temptation without any pain or suffering to himself.