‘And how old do you think I am?’
Nash met and held her gaze. ‘Twenty-six.’
Maggie burst out laughing. She had to give him his due, he hadn’t batted an eyelid. She knew that she was looking pretty good for a forty-year-old woman but no one would ever mistake her for twenty-six. ‘Does that line work with everyone?’
Nash laughed with her. ‘Never had to use it before. No one’s ever knocked me back.’
His eyes crinkled at the corners and it was very, very sexy. ‘Oh, dear. Do you think your ego can stand it?’
‘It’s pretty robust.’
Maggie grinned despite herself. She did not want to be charmed by him but his easy charisma and self-deprecation made an irresistible combination. ‘I’ll just bet it is.’
He sat and watched her as she returned her attention to her lunch. Her teeth bit into the pastry of her pie and flakes stuck to her lips before her tongue darted out to remove them. It shouldn’t be erotic — she was just eating, for crying out loud —but it was.
God knew, he wanted to lick them away himself.
For his own sanity he moved his gaze upwards. Her short brown hair with chunky blonde streaks looked salon perfect. Her layered fringe swept across her forehead from a side parting. The rest of it fell in fashionably shaggy layers and feathered down her nape into fine wisps.
She finished her pie and patted her mouth with her serviette. If she hadn’t seemed so totally oblivious to his reaction, he’d have suspected she was deliberately trying to provoke him. He certainly would have expected it from any other woman.
‘Well?’
Maggie had tried to ignore him as she’d eaten but his intense blue gaze had made it impossible. She sighed. ‘I’m forty, Nash.’
He shrugged. ‘So?’
‘So? So I’m a whole decade older than you.’
‘So?’
‘I was in high school when you were running around in nappies.’
‘So?’
‘I got married while you were still in primary school.’
Nash’s gaze flicked to her left hand. No ring. No telltale white mark. ‘So?’
‘I’ve been divorced longer than you’ve been a doctor.’
He smiled at her. ‘You’re available, then?’
She shot him an impatient look. ‘Nash don’t you think you should be playing with women your own age?’
He reached across the table and picked up her hand. ‘Maggie from ICU, you look better than any woman I’ve ever met.’
She could feel herself blushing beneath his intense scrutiny. She was drowning in the warmth of his tropical island gaze and her pulse hammered where his thumb drew slow circles at her wrist.
Damn it all — she would not be flattered by his easy words. She wasn’t going to get involved with a man ten years her junior. Especially one who dated for sport and made her breathless with just one look. That would just be plain dumb.
And she wasn’t that hard up for company.
Maggie removed her hand. ‘I’m going to do you a favour, Nash Reece. I’m going to turn you down. And you should be grateful. Men like you need a woman like me —’
‘That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you,’ he interrupted.
She smiled. ‘A woman who’ll say no. Too many yes-women make Nash a spoilt boy. You’ll thank me for it one day.’
He chuckled. ‘I doubt it.’
She crunched up her paper bag, screwed the lid back on her empty drink bottle then stood. ‘Yeah well, your wife will.’
Nash really laughed then. He had no intention of ever marrying. And women had tried. Man, had they tried. Country girls, yearning for an escape from the outback had tried, city girls wanting to snare a doctor had tried. But he had a career plan carefully mapped out that did not involve weddings, and nothing was more important to him than that.
‘Wife? Nope. Not me. Besides, I’m already married. To my career. I’m on a path.’
Maggie was surprised to see a suddenly serious side to the flirty man who’d charmed himself into the seat opposite. He was once again the serious doctor from this morning. She wondered how many women got to see beneath the playboy exterior to the goal-driven man. ‘And yet you have time to date?’
Nash grinned again. ‘I do allow myself some diversions. Come on, Maggie. You know you want to.’
She shook her head, even though he was right. She did want to. It was crazy — but she did. Still, she knew enough about Nash Reece in a handful of minutes to know that one date would never be enough. ‘Denial is good for the soul.’
‘Denial sucks.’
He reminded her again of a child seeking instant gratification and she laughed. Yes. It did. ‘Goodbye, Dr Reece.’
Nash watched her turn away, the creamy skin of her neck exposed as she twisted, pulling her shirt across her chest. ‘I’m gonna keep asking,’ he called after her.
She stopped and looked back at him as his silky promise stroked insidiously along her pelvic floor. ‘There’s a shock.’
Nash chuckled. ‘I’ll be seeing you around, Maggie from ICU.’
They were the same words he’d used that morning and they had a preternatural foreboding to them. ‘Don’t count on it.’
He worked in A and E. She worked two floors up in ICU. As far as hospitals went they were totally different worlds. And after today she had no intention of letting him into hers.
Ever.
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