Loe raamatut: «Tempted By Her Hot-Shot Doc»

CHAPTER ONE

THE RAIN WAS coming down harder than she’d ever felt it. Sharp, wet pricks to her bare arms sent mini-lightning bolts through Madeline’s flesh and deep into her bones as she hurried along the London cobblestones, holding her umbrella over her as best she could.

The bolts, of course, were mostly due to the man her agent had arranged for her to meet—America’s wealthiest and most inspiring flying doctor and a man most women would surely kill to meet—Ryan Tobias.

His name, now rolling around in her brain, sent further spikes of adrenaline through her body, along with the goosebumps now settling in with the cold. She’d left in such a hurry she’d forgotten her jacket.

‘Don’t be late,’ Samantha had told her. ‘He doesn’t like it when people are late.’

But Madeline had been so caught up in her internet research that she’d gone and made herself late anyway. She’d been determined to have as much background information on him as possible before their meeting, and it had been near impossible to tear her eyes away once she’d started.

The internet seemed to have its own busy corner of photos, articles, videos and GIFs made from Medical Extremes footage—the show Ryan Tobias starred in along with his team of GPs and surgeons. She’d watched a clip of him walking across the glacier in Alaska to reach a stranded explorer at least five times, pausing on the moment when the camera had gone in for a close-up of his bearded, rugged face in front of the whirring helicopter blades.

She had no idea at all about what Samantha had in mind for her to do with this man, but she couldn’t deny it was exciting. And terrifying.

Madeline’s phone beeped, making her jump. She almost tripped over the cobblestones. Damn, she had to pull herself together.

‘I’m nearly there,’ she blurted hurriedly into it, just as she rounded the corner into Trinity Buoy Wharf.

Samantha was standing there in the doorway, waiting. She was in high heels, too, Madeline noticed. Were they both dressed to impress a man they knew almost never looked impressed?

‘He’s already here,’ Samantha said in a low voice, taking the umbrella and ushering Madeline’s wet body through huge green doors into the sandy-coloured building.

A flurry of filming activity assaulted her eyes as she swiped at the raindrops on her skin. Men were everywhere: lifting crates, unscrewing lighting equipment, packing things into cases. It was a studio, as she’d expected, but the hectic feel of the place, plus the knowledge that a good few pairs of eyes were now on her, threw a spanner into her already frazzled works.

‘Over here first,’ Samantha said, putting a firm hand to Madeline’s soaked white shirt and starting off across the room.

She was a little too quick for her to keep up, however, and before she could stop herself her heel was catching on a cable stretched out across the floor. She almost went flying.

‘Are you trying to kill yourself?’

The deep voice sounded out in front of her, just as she put her hand to the wall to steady herself.

‘I’m so sorry. I’m...’ Madeline trailed off, realising it wasn’t actually a wall she was touching.

It was hard, undoubtedly, but it was breathing.

‘Dr Ryan,’ she blurted, straightening up instantly.

She removed her flattened palms from his broad chest, scanned his face up close and felt her cheeks flare from pink to beetroot as her heart started pounding in her ribcage. For a strange moment she felt just as if she’d fallen asleep at her kitchen table and woken up on the YouTube channel.

Ryan Tobias wasn’t in his trademark Medical Extremes white shirt and jacket. He was wearing a black waterproof coat and jeans. His hair, just as it always was on television, was wild and windswept—as though the breeze over London’s River Thames had as little respect for him as the wind in a Patagonian hurricane.

She’d watched those clips twice or more. Somehow they’d airlifted a pregnant, sick lady to safety, even though Ryan and the brave pilot had been the only ones willing to risk a flight in the storm.

He was taller than she’d expected, somehow, towering over her with a look of amusement mixed with something she couldn’t quite read in his familiar grey eyes.

Madeline realised with horror that he must be taking in her rain-drenched hair and the small but noticeable coffee stain on her shirt. A woman had splashed her latte on her on the tube. What must he be thinking?

She glanced around her. Samantha had been ushered off to another corner and was now apparently deep in what looked like an angst-ridden conversation with a guy waving a flowerpot.

Ryan was still appraising her, she realised.

He coughed and crossed his arms. ‘I’m afraid I don’t know your name.’

‘Madeline,’ she said, flustered.

‘Where did you come from, Madeline?’

‘From a much less embarrassing situation,’ she replied without thinking.

Surprise flickered in his eyes before he uncrossed his arms and laughed. A proper laugh that revealed his teeth, as white as snow-capped mountains—a laugh she was pretty sure she’d heard only two or three times on the television.

‘Well, they do insist on blocking the walkways like this,’ he said, motioning to their feet. ‘Good thing you didn’t twist your ankle in those shoes. I don’t know which box my emergency supplies are in.’

‘Guess I got lucky.’

He threw her a surreptitious half-smile. ‘I prefer to live life on the edge of danger, too.’

‘I’ve never seen you in high heels.’

She adjusted her handbag on her shoulder as he laughed again. A part of her couldn’t quite believe she was making Dr Ryan Tobias laugh.

‘Anyway, my agent Samantha, over there, kind of surprised me with all this, so...’

‘Your agent?’ Ryan’s expression shifted before her. ‘What do you mean?’

Shards of ice were stuck in his eyes now, and it was as if Madeline was alone with him on the peak of a snowy mountain, or maybe trekking over that glacier to reach another lost adventurer who’d been injured and needed his help. Either way, she was suddenly much colder.

‘Agent for what?’ His arms were crossed again.

‘My writing career.’

His forehead creased into a frown.

‘Sorry—sorry.’ Samantha bustled up behind her, breaking their locked gazes apart. ‘I see you’ve met Madeline Savoia,’ she said, putting a hand to Madeline’s shoulder. ‘She’s almost set to be your new ghost-writer, joining you in the Amazon. What did you think of her portfolio?’

Madeline spun her head around to face Samantha. Ghost-writer? Amazon? It was the first she’d heard of it.

Samantha had called her to the TV set at the last minute, saying she had the perfect opportunity for her with none other than the selfless, compassionate and dazzlingly good-looking Ryan Tobias, but she’d assumed she’d be assisting in an interview with him—maybe sending some tweets for the travel and entertainment website Samantha sometimes had her freelance for.

Ryan was unreadable now, standing solid as a rock.

‘I see. How much experience do you have with malaria and spider bites, Miss Madeline?’

He didn’t sound as friendly as before.

Samantha squeezed her shoulder. ‘Madeline is a phenomenal writer, Ryan. You might have read her geopolitical romantic thriller—the one set in Madagascar?’

‘Can’t say I have,’ he said. ‘I don’t get a lot of time to read.’

He was reading her. Madeline knew it. Scrutinising her like a beetle under a microscope. She felt the urge to cover herself, but realised it was pointless.

‘She’s a keen traveller and explorer, like you, and she’s a medical professional,’ Samantha carried on as Madeline’s cheeks flamed. ‘I thought she’d be the perfect fit.’

‘What kind of medical professional?’

‘I used to be a nurse, but I’m not any more...’ Madeline let her words taper off. She didn’t particularly feel like explaining why she’d quit nursing. The thought of it still shamed her, but she doubted the time she’d spent on the wards of St David’s Hospital would help anyone who’d been mauled by a jaguar or hugged by an anaconda in the Amazon.

‘Is this necessary, Samantha?’ Ryan said, after a moment.

His tone was irritated. His arms were still crossed, tighter than ever.

Something in his icy tone made Madeline recall with a flash the other articles she’d uncovered on the internet. Ryan had lost one of his team members five years ago on a sponsored expedition. He’d been twenty-seven at the time. She remembered thinking that she and Ryan were the same age—both thirty-two now.

No one knew the finer details of how or why the young physician Josephine McCarthy had died suddenly out in the jungle. Ryan had clammed up—never shared it with the media. And the medical team with him at the time had also never divulged what had happened—if they even knew.

The rumour mill had been spinning ever since.

Most of what had been printed was hearsay, of course, but Ryan had spent a lot more time in the wild since then, setting up an HIV awareness programme in Africa, arranging vaccinations at schools in Nepal.

Apparently he hadn’t particularly wanted the camera crew to follow him when the concept of Medical Extremes had first been discussed, but the money they paid him helped thousands of villages get the medication they needed. And besides, the world needed to see the importance of doctors operating without borders.

That was what had been announced in the press release, at least.

‘I’m sorry, Ryan,’ Samantha said, interrupting Madeline’s thoughts. ‘A contract is a contract.’

‘I know... I know.’

His jaw twitched in annoyance as Madeline stood awkwardly between them.

‘If you don’t take Madeline with you we’ll only have to send someone else you haven’t even met, and we’re running out of time.’

‘Time has a habit of running out,’ he replied, somewhat mysteriously.

He’s incredibly moody—that was what she’d read. Those rumours must be true at least. Ryan Tobias spent his life touching the lives of many in the world’s most remote locations, but he himself was untouchable. And now Samantha was somehow asking her to accompany him on his next televised medical mission to the jungle?

She wondered whether her telling Samantha that she was now single had anything to do with this. She suddenly regretted telling her agent how Jason had decided to pursue his burgeoning relationship with a young zoologist called Adeline.

‘How can he want an Adeline when he has a perfectly good Madeline?’ she’d said at the time, enraged.

‘Ryan!’

Someone was calling him back towards a camera. He didn’t move. Instead he shot Madeline a narrow look that rattled every nerve-ending in her body. She fixed her eyes on his, determined not to let him know she had a lump in her throat the size of a cricket ball. He didn’t break his gaze—not that she was about to break hers either. She was damned if she’d let another moody man walk all over her, even if he was rich and famous.

‘Well, as you say, a contract is a contract,’ he muttered after a moment, sucking in a breath and letting it out so heavily that Madeline felt her damp hair ruffle.

‘It’ll be great for your profile,’ Samantha told him matter-of-factly, and Madeline caught him rolling his eyes.

‘We’ll see about that. Good to meet you, Madeline.’ He thrust his hand out at her suddenly. ‘We can always do with another nurse around, I suppose.’

‘Oh, like I said, I’m not a—’

‘Ryan! We need you over here, please.’ That voice again.

His face was expressionless as he engulfed Madeline’s hand with his own, and for some reason another episode of Medical Extremes was flashing in her mind. Cambodia. The one where he’d eaten a fried tarantula. It had been a gift from the family of a man he’d helped to save.

Ryan Tobias was fearless—that was what everyone said. Well. She was damned if she’d let him scare her.

‘I’m looking forward to working with you,’ she said calmly.

‘Ryan!’

‘I’m coming, damn it!’

He dropped her hand, turned and strolled across the studio, and Samantha took Madeline’s elbow, leading her to a sofa and coffee table in the corner of the chaos. Both were covered in sheets of paper.

‘You did good. I’m so sorry to spring this on you.’ She poured them both a cup of coffee. ‘But this opportunity wouldn’t have waited. I suggested you the moment I heard what happened to the last ghost-writer...’

‘What happened?’ Madeline realised just how dry her throat was.

‘Fell down some stairs—cracked three ribs, broke one arm. Ironic isn’t the word. Would you like a biscuit?’

She shook her head, glancing to her right. Ryan was walking towards a guy packing a camera into a very large black box on wheels, talking about some supplies he needed but hadn’t seen yet. His voice still sent chills...or was it thrills?...straight through her.

Was she really going to the Amazon?

‘He seems...nice,’ she ventured, sipping her coffee.

‘He’s very nice, when everything goes to plan. So, Madeline, the long and short of it is that Ryan’s contract states that he needs to deliver a memoir and his publishers want it released for Christmas. Only as yet he’s been too busy to write it.’

‘OK...’

Madeline gripped more tightly onto her cup and bit into her cheek. Ghost-writing wasn’t exactly something she was thrilled about doing. Her last book—written under her own name—hadn’t gone too well, though, due to her publisher having no marketing budget, mostly. Her sales had suffered horribly while she’d been out writing the next one in the middle of nowhere in Zimbabwe.

Apparently bad things happened to books if you couldn’t spend twenty-four hours a day on Twitter, telling everyone about them.

Bad things happened to relationships, too, if you stupidly left your boyfriend alone for two months...

Madeline pushed thoughts of Adeline from her head.

Samantha sipped her coffee, then put the cup down on the messy table.

‘Ryan is about to go and shoot the third season of Medical Extremes, as you know, and what with all his appointments he hasn’t got time for the memoir, too. We need someone to help him write the book at the same time as he’s filming—gather quotes, insights, interviews, you know? Am I right in thinking you’re still free to take a week or two, probably three, out of London at the moment?’

Madeline nodded blankly. Ryan was so tall and so commanding without even trying. Everyone seemed to be in awe of him. And although she was a little loath to admit it, after the way he’d just acted towards her, it wasn’t hard to see why.

As well as being the sexiest doctor since George Clooney, Ryan was a millionaire who gave selflessly to charities all over the world. He didn’t have a lot else to spend his riches on, apparently. His father was a heart surgeon, famed for working with those less fortunate in the US. Ryan had taken things one step further by setting up his own non-profit organisation and flying all over the world with his team, crossing borders to reach people who’d never get help otherwise.

Samantha lowered her voice. ‘Ryan doesn’t write. Obviously his skills lie in other areas. But with you on board, plus his celebrity status, this book could be a bestseller. Easy. The publishers have a very impressive budget.’

‘And Twitter?’ Madeline said. ‘How many followers?’

‘Over four hundred thousand. He never tweets a damn thing, of course, but we have Amy from Middlesex University who’s his biggest fan. She won the competition to be his Twitter manager. He just got done with a news team covering the story... BBC, I think. How are you at being on camera? You’ve got great cheekbones—I bet it loves you. And you speak several languages, I recall? Always useful.’

Madeline’s stomach lurched. This was turning out to be a lot more than she’d bargained for. But it wasn’t as if she had anything else on the cards.

She mused over the offer as Samantha kept on talking. She vaguely registered her agent mentioning Rio, a remote tribe—‘none of those weird neck rings or anything’—parasites, anaemia... But after a minute she was only half listening, because she could feel Ryan looking at her again from across the room.

She straightened her back again, so that he could see he wasn’t intimidating her in any way, and tried to look enthusiastic and excited. She had to play her cards right. This chance was too good to pass up and maybe Samantha was right. It could be a bestseller by Christmas.

We can both get something out of this, she thought, sending the thought across the void and straight into Ryan’s cool, iceberg eyes.