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The Boss: A Cozy Romance 63
‘SO WHERE is the registrar this morning?’ Ben asked Irene Clark, the unit head nurse on duty.‘She called the unit a few minutes ago. She’s going to be a few minutes late,’ Irene said. ‘She said something about an accident.’Ben gave a grunt and turned to the four medical students and the intern hovering in the background. ‘Just for the record if you need to make up an excuse for being absent or late, make sure it’s an original each time,’ he said. ‘I will be keeping a mental record of how many grandmothers’ funerals, toothaches or minor traffic accidents occur.’There was a snigger from the group just as Georgie burst onto the ward. ‘Sorry I’m so late,’ she said a little breathlessly. ‘I was caught up in an accident and—’Ben hooked one brow upwards. ‘Another one, Dr Willoughby?’Georgie stopped in her tracks, her eyes taking in the interested stares from the medical students and Jules Littlemore the intern. She drew her shoulders back and met Ben’s dark satirical gaze with an e
The Boss: A Cozy Romance 64
Georgie disguised a little swallow as her gaze dipped to his mouth. She was so close to him she could see the pepper of dark stubble on hisface as if he had skipped shaving that morning. It gave him an arrantly masculine look that was devastatingly attractive. She tried to edge her fingers away from his but somehow one of his hands had come down over both of hers, trapping them beneath his.‘W-what consequences?’ she croaked as her eyes returned to his. Long seconds seemed to pass before he spoke.‘I’m not going to tolerate this sort of performance, Dr Willoughby. If there is any more slacking off, you’ll be out on your ear. Understood?’‘Perfectly,’ she said through tight lips.He released her hands as he straightened, his hands going to his trouser pockets, the deep thrust of them drawing her eyes like a magnet. He had such long, strong legs, toned by hours of hard exercise, his waist lean and his stomach flat and ridged with muscle that was clearly visible through the lightwei
The Boss: A Cozy Romance 65
‘HAS anyone seen Dr Willoughby about?’ Ben asked in the unit later that day. ‘I think she’s left for the day,’ the afternoon shift nurse Carla Yates informed him. ‘She was on call last night so I expect she was feeling a bit tired. It was a busy night. Do you want me to get her on the line for you?’ ‘No,’ he said, reaching for his phone. ‘I’ll call her myself. It’s not urgent.’ ‘She’s nothing like her father, is she?’ Carla asked after a little pause. Ben looked at her with as little animation as possible. ‘What?’ ‘Georgie Willoughby,’ she said. ‘She’s rather a sweetie, don’t you think?’ He gave the nurse a noncommittal shrug. ‘She’s OK, I guess.’ ‘Jennifer Patterson was telling me Georgie quite possibly saved a young baby’s life this morning,’ she carried on. Ben felt another wave of remorse begin to tighten his stomach. ‘Oh, really?’ ‘Yes, she was first on the scene at a minor accident but insisted on the baby being brought in for observation. It turns out the little girl ha
The Boss: A Cozy Romance 66
THE Italian restaurant he had chosen was small but full of the delicious aromas of garlic and basil and home-cooked pasta. It was run by an Italian couple in their late fifties, Gina and Roberto, who greeted Ben warmly as he came in with Georgie a step or two behind. ‘Buona sera, Dottore Blackwood. Is this your new lady friend? And about time, too. We have been waiting for this for months. Leila Ingham was not pretty enough for you. This one magnifico!’ ‘She’s my new registrar, actually,’ Ben said, clearly bursting the restaurateur’s bubble. ‘Georgie, this is Roberto and Gina Di Copella.’ ‘Piacare di conoscerla,’ Georgie said with a friendly smile. ‘Parlate Italiano!’ Georgie rocked her hand back and forth in a gesture of modesty. ‘A little.’ Ben waited until they were seated and drinks ordered before he said, ‘I didn’t realise you were a bit of a linguist. That must come in handy at times.’ ‘My parents paid for me to go on a siX-week holiday to Italy when I finished high schoo
The Boss: A Cozy Romance 67
GEORGIE buried her head in the menu, her fingers still tingling where Ben’s had touched hers. She was ashamed at her weakness. She had been so confident she would win the bet with Rhiannon but she could see that things were going to get tricky if she didn’t put a stop to this right now. She couldn’t remember a time when she had been so instantly attracted to a man. Sure, she’d had a few boyfriends, and Andrew McNally, the last one, had been relatively serious. She had even considered herself in love enough to contemplate marriage until she had found out his previous girlfriend hadn’t quite moved out of his life.Georgie realised that it had been her pride that had taken the beating, not her heart. But falling in love with Ben Blackwood was not just going to lose her a thousand dollars. He had a chip on his shoulder that was going to take quite some shifting and she wasn’t sure she was up to the task of doing it.Besides, she was supposed to be focusing on her career, not marriage an
The Boss: A Cozy Romance 68
‘GOSH, whatever happened to your brand new trousers?’ Rhiannon asked as soon as Georgie came in later that night.Georgie looked down at the brown stain on the front of her white cotton drawstring trousers, a funny sensation passing deep and low through her belly at the thought of how it had got there. ‘Um … I spilt my coffee.’Rhiannon’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. ‘Who’d you have coffee with?’Georgie avoided her friend’s piercing gaze by making a show of emptying her gym bag. ‘It wasn’t a date so stop looking at me like that,’ she said.‘So who was it? Someone from the gym?’ ‘It was my boss.’‘That’s all right, then,’ Rhiannon said, folding her arms. ‘He doesn’t count.’Georgie turned to look at her. ‘What do you mean, he doesn’t count?’ ‘He’s not your soul mate.’This time is was Georgie who narrowed her eyes. ‘Have you been talking to Madame Celestia about me again?’Rhiannon gave her a sheepish look. ‘I happened to run into her buying a book on anger management at Bondi
The Boss: A Cozy Romance 69
BEN was on the phone when Georgie knocked on his office door and he called out for her to come in before continuing his conversation with the person on the line. ‘I told you it’s fine, Mum,’ he said. ‘I haven’t got any commitments this weekend. I’m not on call and the weather’s going to be good so just relax and enjoy yourselves.’Georgie felt a little uncomfortable listening in on what was clearly a private family conversation. She stood shifting from one foot to the other, pretending an interest in the books on the shelves running alongside his desk.‘If it will make you feel a little better, I’ll rustle up some female company for Hannah in case she gets sick of her boring older brother,’ he said. ‘Shopping is not exactly my strong point but I’m sure I can find someone who will show her where all the best shops are.’Georgie felt the point between her shoulder blades begin to prickle as if his dark blue gaze had centred there. She reached for a heavy textbook on emergency neurosu
The Boss: A Cozy Romance 70
GEORGIE was totally exhausted by the time her list with Richard DeBurgh ended and she still had three more hours of on call before she could finally relax. Richard had been encouraging towards her but he was nothing like Ben in Theatre. Richard had a tendency to snap at the nursing staff if instruments weren’t handed to him quickly enough, and when a patient with a meningioma had a major venous bleed from the sagittal sinus he swore as his tension level rose, which made everyone feel on edge. At one point he bellowed at Georgie for bumping the microscope while he was suturing the sagittal sinus bleed, and although he had moved it himself, she knew there was no point in trying to defend herself.Linda Reynolds, the scrub nurse Georgie had met in Ben’s theatre on her first day, caught up with her in the female change rooms once the list was over.‘See what I mean about there being a waiting list to work on Ben’s lists?’ she said as she stripped off her theatre scrubs. ‘Richard is fine
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