Dating The Millionaire Doctor

‘That’s what Barb said when she talked me into five-minute dating,’ she whispered. ‘I need to move on. It doesn’t work. How can it?’

‘Yeah, well, maybe the dating wasn’t a great idea for either of us,’ he said ruefully. ‘Let’s try it another way.’

‘Do you need to move on, too?’

‘No,’ he said blankly. ‘I meant you.’

She looked up at him then, and another glimmer of a smile crossed her face. ‘Really? It’s only me who’s got ghosts? Why do I get the feeling you’re as strained as I am?’

‘I’m not.’

‘Okay.’ She pulled her hands away and held them up in surrender. ‘You’re staying at the lodge as well?’

‘Until Monday.’

‘You think you can stand my company?’

‘Of course I can.’

‘There’s no “of course” about it,’ she said, still with a touch of humour. ‘One and a half minutes, as I remember.’

‘It was you who walked out.’

‘So it was,’ she said, and suddenly her smile became real. ‘And I can do it again if life gets tricky. But now… Does the lodge have baths?’

‘There’s a spa in every room.’

‘A spa,’ she said, awed.

‘And a heated swimming pool. And beds with so many down-filled pillows you can’t count them. One of Rob’s ditzy blondes did his decorating for him, and I have to say she can’t have been as ditzy as most.’

‘Ditzy?’

‘Rob thinks ditzy equals sexy.’

‘And you don’t?’

‘Um, no.’

‘Well, I’m not even going to go there,’ she said and her smile was still in place. ‘I can’t imagine what woman would have tied you to speed dating for more than five minutes. But look, I need to clear up here. If Rob agrees to having Rusty and me…’

‘Of course he’ll agree. I’m the owner.’

‘He’s the manager. I’ll phone and check,’ she said, with a touch of reproof. ‘And I’m paying. Let’s make this formal.’

‘You will not pay.’

‘I’ll pay or I won’t come,’ she said with asperity. ‘And don’t look at me like that. I’ve spent almost nothing in six months, and I’m tired of charity. I know that sounds ungrateful,’ she said, suddenly rueful, ‘but there it is. I’ll phone him, I’ll lock up and I’ll come down later this afternoon.’

He was being dismissed?

‘Can I help clean up?’

‘No,’ she said. ‘Thank you, Dr. Hunter.’

‘Jake,’ he growled. ‘And don’t be pig-headed. I will help you.’

‘Jake, she said, but still with a touch of formality. ‘And pig-headed or not, I’d like to clean up by myself.’

And suddenly he could see her hidden agenda. He could take offence at her knocking back his help-or he could understand.

This place was filled with six months’ memories. She needed to say goodbye on her own terms.

She might well cry again. The thought was bad but he suspected she needed to, and she certainly had the right.

How could he ever have thought her frumpy? How could he ever have thought she was uninteresting?

He gazed down into her troubled face and he thought suddenly, I’d like to hold her again. And then he thought… I’d really like to kiss her. It wasn’t sympathy now. She had so many levels. She was such a woman…

He couldn’t kiss her. Of course he couldn’t; she’d run a mile and the thought was totally illogical.

And besides, he thought, trying hard for logical, she was too dirty, too tear-stained, too not the sort of woman he kissed.

But as she turned away, as she knelt to start filling boxes, he looked down at her, in her tight, faded jeans clinging to her neat figure like a second skin, at her torn T-shirt, at the way a curl was wisping down the nape of her neck…and he was aware of a sharp stab of missed opportunity.

What would she be like to kiss?

He didn’t know, and he had no business thinking about finding out. He formed relationships with women who knew the rules-independent women who wanted nothing but a lighthearted relationship which went nowhere.

Would Tori understand those rules? He knew she wouldn’t, and there was no way he was risking giving pain.

So he wanted to kiss her but he couldn’t. She didn’t even want his help cleaning this house-and he had to respect her wishes.

‘I’ll see you down at the lodge,’ he said, more harshly than he intended. ‘Before dinner?’

‘See you then,’ she said without looking up. ‘Thank you, again, Jake.’

So that was that. He turned and left, leaving Tori shoving welfare clothes into welfare boxes. Packing up life as she knew it-and moving on.

While a little dog watched Jake’s car until it disappeared from view.

The place was a mess. She gazed around the house and thought she couldn’t just walk out. It wasn’t fair.

She should have let Jake help, and maybe if it hadn’t been Jake she would have. But then Jake wasn’t anyone else. The man had her thoroughly off balance. The equilibrium she’d striven so hard to reach had been tossed off course by the death of one little koala-and then by the way she’d reacted to Jake.

For this was more than grief.

Barb said she had to move on. Her head told her she couldn’t, but her body was telling her it was more than time.

So she’d thought he was lovely and she’d sobbed all over him. What a turn-on. She headed into the bathroom to fetch her toiletries. Despite what she’d told Jake there was a mirror there, and she saw what she looked like. A nightmare.

‘Just forget it,’ she said fiercely to a pile of second-hand clothes she had no use for. ‘Your body would react to anything in pants right now. You’re needy and weepy and pathetic. So get a grip and don’t even begin to think that Jake Hunter’s seeing you as anything more than a basket case.’

She sniffed.

‘And don’t go blubbering about that as well,’ she snapped to her reflection, and headed back to the bedroom and kicked the closest cardboard box, which promptly collapsed. She stared at it as if it’d personally betrayed her- and then the phone rang.

‘Doc Nicholls?’

‘Yes.’

‘It’s Combadeen Cleaners,’ a woman’s voice said. ‘We’ve been paid to clean the place you’re using up on the ridge. Cart away garbage. Give stuff to welfare. Scrub. Do whatever you want.’

‘You’ve been paid?’ she said cautiously.

‘This guy-Jake Hunter?-apparently he owns the lodge as well as your place? He said you’re moving out. If it’s okay with you, he said you do what you want, then leave the rest for us. When you’re finished, leave a key on the kitchen table. We’ll collect it tonight. We’ll clean and lock up after our-selves. But it’s only if you want us. He made that clear. We’ve been paid already but it’s up to you.’

It’s up to you. Jake understood. He was helping, but on her terms. The offer took her breath away.

For the past six months she’d been in charge. She’d been giving instructions. She’d organised.

Jake had listened to what she’d said, but he’d heard the underlying message and he’d organised around her.