Reunited...in Paris! Page 13

  ‘Ben wondered if Dean has something else going on that would make him unwell. What do you think?’ Tori asked.

  ‘Everything points to how he was before surgery but I’ll add some more tests to be done at the lab. Can’t be too careful.’

  Tori knew Conrad could do this, would know what had to be done, and had others to call on. But she found it hard not being there, even when knowing she was entitled to time off and that she’d left everything in good hands. There were other specialists from a major private practice using the same private hospital facilities she used who were there for Conrad and the other staff.

  Stifling her anxiety, she said to him, ‘Let me know those results when you get them and keep me up-to-date on any changes in Dean’s condition. You might be looking at having to repeat the procedure. If Dean’s parents have any issues, set them up to talk to me tonight.’

  ‘Will do.’

  The screen went blank.

  ‘Your young man might be in for a heart transplant if the procedure is working properly,’ Ben warned her.

  She shuddered. ‘I hate the thought. But the alternative is worse.’ Heart transplants were one of medicine’s miracles, but she still had a hard time removing a badly diseased, barely functioning one to replace it with a healthy donated one. It was that time lapse between the patient not having his or her own heart and relying on a machine to stay alive until the replacement one was beating that twisted her stomach into more knots than found on a macramé rug. Once the new heart was working correctly and the patient was coming round, she always finally relaxed enough to breathe properly and let the tension out of her muscles. Her body paid for the strain for days afterwards. And she was only the doctor. It was so much worse for the recipient and the families.

  ‘Let’s not think too long on that path and focus on easier alternatives until you know differently.’ Ben folded his arms across his chest. Thank goodness the buttons were done up now. ‘No looking too far ahead, remember?’

  Was he talking about Dean or them? As far as their relationship went, she couldn’t stop wondering if they could make it work second time round. Her hormones were behaving erratically, reminding her all the time how they’d like nothing more than to play with Ben’s. See? She missed his body the moment he’d stepped away. It would be so easy to lean in against that hard, muscular physique and let him brush aside her worries. Like he used to. Not going to happen. But she’d come very close to slipping into his room and curling up against, and around, him during the night.

  What would he think if he knew? He’d returned her kiss ardently last night, and had seemed to regret it when they’d stopped. Regret it? Come on, the guy had had an erection that had been impossible to miss.

  Snatching up her handbag, she dug deep amongst the clutter for a lipstick. She’d put that on and then get out of here. Ben would still be with her but they’d be amongst other doctors and the conversation would be generic. Not laced with longing and double entendres.

  They were sitting in a taxi, bound for the teaching wing of one of the city’s major hospitals, when Ben tipped her world sideways. Again. ‘Would you ever consider leaving the clinic and coming over this way to live?’

  It took minutes before she could breathe evenly and find some words for him. Even then they were hardly startling. ‘No. Why?’

  ‘Just reminding myself of the impossibility of our situation.’

  ‘Are you playing games with me?’ she snapped. Guess she knew where she stood, then.

  ‘Not intentionally.’ Ben leaned back into the corner and stared out the window. ‘I’m not going to lie, Tori. I was angry when you told me about the baby. You, the most forthright woman I know, hadn’t bothered to tell me at the time.’

  Her hands gripped the handle of her bag like a lifeline as she fought to remain calm and reasoned in her reply—if she could get one out around her dry tongue stuck in her dry mouth. ‘Your point being?’ she eventually managed.

  He continued. ‘It’s ironic, really. If I hadn’t felt so bad for hiding the truth from you I might not have left and we might still be married.’ Ben was still staring beyond the taxi.

  She found her voice. ‘Then I’d have told you I was pregnant the moment I found out—which was the night I lost her.’ Tori dug deep for calm, swallowing the guilt his comments had raised. Guess that would take a long time to go away completely. ‘What happened to living these days in Paris in the here and now?’

  ‘I never was good at sticking to the rules.’ He didn’t even smile, let alone look at her.

  A memory sprang into her mind. Staff are not to use storerooms for anything other than storage. Finding a nurse or doctor who hadn’t had a liaison in a storeroom at some time would be as easy as finding a five-legged cat. She and Ben had liked the linen room behind the cardiology ward sluice room. The chances of being interrupted had been small and no one could approach without being heard on the floor kept particularly clean and squeaky for that reason. ‘Some rules are a waste of time even putting out there.’

  ‘But not this one. I get it.’ Odd that he gave her a smile then, giving her the sense that he was embarking on some adventure and she was the focus of all his intentions. Or had she got that wrong? Fingers crossed.

  Time to put a stop to this and get the day at the university going. ‘I want to make the most of my days here and not have to think all the time about what’s going on with you and me.’ If he believed that he didn’t have a clue to the state of her mind, and Ben was no slug. He’d know all right. ‘If that means avoiding each other, then that’s what we’ll do.’

  His finger touched the back of her hand on the seat between them. ‘We’ll stick to the plan.’

  Tori smiled softly. ‘The plan. Sounds a bit serious, doesn’t it?’ It was serious. As was the disappointment over Ben readily agreeing to it, even when that’s exactly what she needed. Talk about taking a ride in a spin-dryer. Round and round, up and down. Her emotions were all over the show. Talking of shows... ‘What time does the show at the Moulin Rouge start?’

  ‘Eleven. It’s the late show so I thought we could have dinner somewhere special first.’ His finger had gone, leaving a warm spot on her hand.

  ‘I am really looking forward to the evening. Monsieur Leclare is wonderful, getting us seats at such short notice.’

  ‘I understand he has someone on the inside who often helps him out.’ Ben glanced out the window. ‘Here we are. This should prove to be an interesting morning. If French medical students are as exhausted and overworked as the ones in New Zealand, we’ll have to be really interesting or they’ll all fall asleep during our talks.’

  Tori laughed and told him, ‘We could make up some ridiculous procedure to keep them interested.’

  ‘Like, this man needs a heart transplant, Doctor? Then you’re in luck. I know where there are some stray pigs.’

  See? They were in sync, some of the time anyway.

  Ben climbed out of the taxi and held his hand out to her. ‘Think you can direct us to the director’s office with your knowledge of French?’

  She ignored his hand. Childish, maybe, but safer. Inside the main doors she read the board giving the locations for all the departments. ‘We head left.’

  And then left, right, along, left, left and right.

  ‘I knew that board was written in Chinese,’ Ben grumped as they turned yet another corner.

  ‘Then I’m very proficient in that language because there’s the office we want.’ Reading the signs had been slightly easier than asking directions and having to listen to rapid-fire answers in French. But only slightly.

  ‘That’s my woman. Clever clogs.’

  My woman? He’d had a slip of concentration to be saying that. But Tori had that irrational urge to leap up and down on the spot again. This time she managed to restrain herself, which was just as
well because explaining her childlike antics to Luc, who was emerging from the office they were destined for, would have been more than embarrassing.

  But, honestly, her emotions were seesawing. She wanted to remain impervious to Ben, but loved it that he made her feel so warm and fuzzy and good.

  I’m falling in love with him all over again. She gasped. When Ben turned to stare at her she shook her head to rid it of that thought just in case his mind-reading skills were on full alert. How can I fall in love with him when I never really fell out of love with him?

  Not that it was going to get her anywhere. Ben had been at pains to prove he wasn’t interested. So why return her kiss? Why the reaction to it?

  * * *

  ‘Bonjour, Heart Lady and Ben. Welcome to our teaching hospital.’ Luc air-kissed her cheeks, then turned to Ben, his hand out in welcome. ‘How’s your friend John?’

  ‘He was very talkative when I called him this morning. A good sign. His doctors are suggesting he can move to London in a day or two.’ They were being overly cautious, probably because he was one of them. Thankfully John hadn’t put up any argument and seemed happy to go along with whatever he was told to do. ‘He’s had a big shock, and I think he’s still working his way around how lucky he is.’

  Luc nodded. ‘It takes time. Then he’ll be wanting to rush around doing so much in case he has another attack and misses out on life.’ Indicating they should follow him, he continued, ‘We’ll go across to the lecture hall where the students are awaiting your arrival.’

  He led them back to where they’d come from, taking a much shorter route.

  ‘Definitely Chinese,’ Ben muttered to Tori. ‘This guy’s got it sussed.’

  Her quick, controlled smile told him she’d got herself together again. What had caused that stunned-mullet look on her face minutes ago? Talk about a mixed page, impossible to read with any accuracy. Now, there was something different. He’d always known what Tori had been thinking, almost before she’d thought it, but, then, she hadn’t wanted to hide anything from him back then.

  They stepped out into the sunshine briefly before finding themselves in another massive building and being led into an amphitheatre full of people. The noise level was deafening and completely unintelligible to him.

  Ben felt Tori hesitate, saw her shoulders tighten and then she stepped into the fray.

  Luc introduced them to their interpreter. ‘These students are so excited about you coming to talk to them. You won’t hear a whisper once you start speaking.’

  Ben felt uncomfortable at the accolades Luc laid on about him. Yes, Tori was awesome and deserved every word, but not him. He’d never be entitled to such praise, not when a family still grieved for their mother, wife and sister because of his error. He thought of that woman a lot, but more so since he’d caught up with Tori again. No doubt because the woman had been part of what had been the final straw in their disintegrating marriage.

  ‘Students, put your hands together for Mr Ben Wells from London, and before that New Zealand. Which for some of you I need to explain is a very small country at the bottom of the globe.’ Luc waited for the clapping to stop, then added, ‘Unfortunately they’re very good at rugby.’

  The room erupted into good-natured laughter and, standing at the lectern, Ben joined in. When he could be heard he said, ‘Wait until you hear Madame Tori Wells talk, then you’ll really understand how fanatic we Kiwis are about the game.’

  ‘I think we already know,’ Luc muttered close to the microphone, and got another laugh from his students. This was a more relaxed director than the man who’d been overseeing the conference. Here he was not only in charge but had the knowledge and experience this roomful of people hoped to gain. This was his patch.

  Ben cleared his throat and began. ‘I’m going to digress from the original talk for a moment. In London we are just starting to use hearts that haven’t been kept pumping in brain-dead donors for transplant operations. This is a very new and innovative procedure with so much potential for saving lives it’s mind-blowing.

  ‘These hearts are retrieved from post-mortem patients and are reactivated in what is called the heart-in-a-box machine. The heart is kept warm, the heartbeat is restored and then a fluid is used to reduce damage to the muscle.’ He had the students entranced right from the get-go. No surprise there. It was exciting medicine. ‘Hearts that have stopped beating for up to twenty minutes have been used in this technique.’

  Winding up, Ben told his audience, ‘This is edge-of-the-seat medicine, exciting and glamorous—if it goes well. It is also not for the faint-hearted. The potential for things to go wrong is huge and terrifying, not only for the patient but for the surgeons. Once the operation is started there is no going back.’ One thing to come out of his error in Auckland was that he laboured the point with anyone who’d listen about keeping a clear head and the facts straight and constantly up-to-date. ‘This kind of surgery is very intense, as is all surgery. The rewards are beyond explanation, and are why I do what I do.’

  There. He’d laid his heart on the line in front hundreds of eager young people. But it was Tori he turned to. There were tears in the eyes she raised to his. Her smile was quivery and arrowed straight to his heart. She was clapping as hard as anyone in the room, and was the only applause he wanted.

  Luc was on his feet. ‘Thank you, Mr Wells. I know everyone here was as enthralled as I was to hear what’s happening in your field.’

  Ben acknowledged the audience with a wave before sitting down beside Tori. ‘Now for the star of the show,’ he said softly just beside her cute little ear. ‘Go get ’em, girl.’

  She rolled her eyes and curved her mouth into a gorgeous smile. ‘Fat chance when you’re talking about the exciting stuff.’

  ‘I was the entrée, you’re the main course.’ She’d blow their socks off.

  And she did. Tori had every person in that auditorium leaning forwards, ears straining, eyes wide, some mouths open, as they took in the Heart Lady’s words, her passion, her need for them to understand hers was grassroots cardiology and that it was as important as every other specialty out there.

  During the first video clip of the lad, Thomas, a pin drop would’ve been loud. He’d always expected the best from her, and she’d delivered, but not to him. She was going from strength to strength, never standing still. Pride swelled inside Ben, filling his lungs and making breathing an effort, warming him throughout and curling his toes. Tori was awesome. Beyond awesome. Her passion for her work poured out of her.

  She used to have that depth of passion for me. Or so I thought.

  Had Tori plugged into her work when they’d split up? Did this clinic of hers take up all her passion now? Was there any left over for anyone else? Him? The pride remained, but the warmth cooled as reality hit home. Whether she cared for him or not, Tori would never give up her work and, what’s more, he’d never ask her to. Tori had found her niche and it was too important to her to ask if she’d consider anything else. Like there were grounds for her doing so anyway. We haven’t returned to that state of bliss where our love conquers all. Yeah, like that worked last time.

  And now, knowing what he did, it sure as hell wouldn’t work at all. Ben glanced around, saw the wrap-up clip of Thomas coaching the school team and Tori’s audience rising to their feet, clapping hard. Concentrate.

  ‘One final thing.’ Tori held up her hand for silence. ‘Please, please, don’t forget the small things in medicine. They’re what grow into huge, and often detrimental, problems for our patients. Rheumatic fever is a prime example. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen.’

  Luc hugged her before turning to his students. ‘The Heart Lady reminds us all why we practise medicine. Never forget this lesson.’

  Ben doubted anyone here was ever likely to. Tori packed a mighty punch.

  As he knew all too well. What
was he going to do about that? They had three days left to explore Paris together. And three nights. Forget the nights. They were banned from being used the way he’d like to. His hand slapped his thigh. Why, when he felt used and deceived, did he still entertain ideas of making love with Tori? Why, when he couldn’t drop the whole pregnancy secret, did he want her so badly? What he wanted was to walk away from her at the end of their time in Paris with no lasting hankerings for her, no persistent niggles that he belonged with her, no matter what had gone down between them.

  He just had to put more effort into focusing on what was important. Like his father had always told him, ‘Whatever you choose to do, be the best at it. Never take second place.’ To get that partnership he needed he had to remain focused on the clinic and his work there, not on what might’ve been or could be with Tori if they hadn’t both stuffed it up. Yes, his father might be overbearing and demanding but he did have a valid point.

  ‘You coming?’ Tori nudged him none too gently.

  Ben glanced around, saw that the crowd of students had dissipated while he’d been miles away. ‘Lead on.’

  Luc gave them a guided tour of the cardiac unit in his hospital. An entourage followed them all the time, hovering over every word either of them spoke to patients, nurses, doctors, some asking for interpretations.

  As they stepped out of one room Tori leaned close to him and whispered, ‘This is embarrassing.’

  As he inhaled her scent he whispered back, ‘The price of fame,’ and got a wonky grin in reply.

  Luc approached a bed in which a girl lay staring out the window, a book open beside her. ‘Letitia, I’d like you to meet the Heart Lady.’ Turning to them both, he filled in some details. ‘Letitia had a heart attack two weeks ago, cause unknown.’

  Ben shut down a gasp. Gasping in front of a patient was a no-no. But a heart attack? She was a child. ‘Any history of disease that could’ve caused heart damage in her early childhood?’