The Royal Doctor's Bride. Jessica Matthews

       

      The screen had gone dark, but she was still reeling from what she had seen and heard. “I thought you were exaggerating,” she admitted. “But you weren’t, were you?”

      He shook his head, then sat down. “No.”

      She faced him. “According to the reporter, no one in authority has a solution. What do you think I can do?”

      “The experts believe a more ‘personal’ solution between our families is required.” The corners of his mouth turned up slightly. “They’re hoping to tie the two royal houses together.”

      “How would you tie two royal houses…?” Her voice died as she realized exactly the sort of “personal” relationship he wanted. “You can’t possibly be thinking of—”

      He finished her sentence. “Marriage.”

      Marriage.

      The word echoed in her head.

      Marriage.

      To a man she’d only met earlier in the day.

      After years of working in the ER, she’d always considered herself unshockable, but the word definitely shifted the ground underneath her. “We’re supposed to get married?” she managed to croak.

      He leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees. “Yes.”

      Her heart pounded and an urge to escape swept over her. “This is a joke, right?”

      “Not at all.”

      Jessica Matthews’s interest in medicine began at a young age, and she nourished it with medical stories and hospital-based television programmes. After a stint as a teenage candy-striper, she pursued a career as a clinical laboratory scientist. When not writing or on duty she fills her day with countless family and school-related activities. Jessica lives in the central United States with her husband, daughter and son.

       Recent titles by the same author:

      HIS LONG-AWAITED BRIDE

      THE ROYAL DOCTOR’S BRIDE

      BY

      JESSICA MATTHEWS

      

www.millsandboon.co.uk

      To everyone who ever pretended to be a princess.

      I hope you all found your prince…

      CHAPTER ONE

      “DR SUTTON, we have a problem.”

      In the process of jotting down a script and mentally calculating a drug dosage for her patient, Gina Sutton answered absentmindedly, “I’ll be right there.”

      “This can’t wait too long,” Nurse Lucy Fields urged.

      A warning note in her tone pulled Gina’s attention away from her task. She glanced at the normally unflappable woman and saw the distress written all over her face. While the unusual was the norm in Belmont Memorial’s Emergency Department, something had upset their nursing supervisor.

      “Noted,” she said calmly, before turning back to her patient, forty-year-old Jim Pearce. “According to the X-rays, you’ve sprained, not broken, your wrist. You’ll need to keep it immobilized for several weeks to give the muscles time to recover. Here’s a prescription…”she tore off the sheet “…for an anti-inflammatory. Take as directed. And if your wrist isn’t better in a few weeks, either come back or visit your family doctor. Any questions?”

      Jim shook his head.

      “Just remember, no more hammering or heavy lifting in the meantime,” she cautioned. “Wearing a splint for support doesn’t mean you can do everything you did before. If you don’t give yourself time to heal, you’ll have worse problems.”

      His face colored slightly, as if she’d read his mind and knew his intent. “OK. A few weeks is all, right?”

      “At least three, maybe more.”

      “Doctor,” Lucy urged from the door.

      Telling her patient goodbye, Gina followed Lucy into the hallway. “What’s the big problem that couldn’t wait two more minutes?”

      “It’s Dr Nevins. He’s gone crazy!”

      “What’s he done now?” Gina asked tiredly, already wondering what mistake she’d have to correct this time. Bill Nevins may be the Director of Emergency Services, but an intern could do a better job. On the few occasions when he assisted with a trauma, he was usually more hindrance than help. If he didn’t have connections, she believed, he wouldn’t have been hired in the first place.

      “The man has completely lost his sanity,” Lucy declared. “He’s storming around his office and when I tried to go inside, he threw his glass paperweight at me!”

      “He’s always been high-strung,” Gina soothed. “What upset him today?”

      “I don’t know, but he was fine until he got a phone call. You have to talk to him, Gina. You’re the only one in the entire department he’ll listen to.”

      For some reason, during the two years she’d been in Belmont’s ER, she’d always been able to reason with the man, even when he was at his most unreasonable. When he’d wanted to fire a nurse for dropping a syringe during a code blue, she’d convinced him to give the poor girl a second chance. When he refused to spend the money to replace their defibrillator, she’d calmly reminded him of how costly a potential lawsuit would be, not to mention how his reputation would suffer.

      Now, apparently, her negotiation skills would be needed once again to deal with his latest temper tantrum.

      “All right,” Gina said resignedly, as she handed over Jim Pearson’s chart and tucked her pen into the breast pocket of her lab coat. “Let’s beard the lion in his den.”

      To her surprise, his door stood open and she cautiously walked in, noticing how the normally neat office now looked as if a tornado had whirled through. Papers and medical books covered the floor, boxes stood on top of Bill’s desk, and file drawers were yanked off their tracks. Even the philodendron she’d brought to soften the stark white walls lay on its side, dirt spilling out of the pot across the top of the filing cabinet.

      “What’s up?” she asked calmly as she righted the plant.

      Bill paused from riffling through the papers on his desk. “I’ve been fired, that’s what.”

      It’s about time, she thought. “Really?” she asked, trying to sound horrified but certain she failed miserably. “Whatever for?”

      He waved aside her question. “The reasons don’t matter. The point is, I’ve given my all to this place, and this is how they repay me.”

      Privately, Gina wondered how a man who worked three, maybe four hours a day could claim “he’d given his all”, but it wasn’t her place to argue. Her goal now was to bring calm to a potentially unstable situation.

      “What happens now?” she asked, more concerned about the repercussions to their department rather than to Bill’s professional life.

      He waved furiously at the wall clock. “Who knows? I have thirty minutes to pack up and get out. Thirty minutes,” he ranted. “After ten years of unfailing service, struggling to operate on the shoestring budget they gave me…well, it’s unthinkable and insulting!” He grabbed his coffee-mug, then hefted it in his hand. In the next breath, he heaved it at the metal filing cabinet.

      Gina didn’t have time to dodge before the ceramic cup shattered into a hundred pieces. A sharp sting bit into her cheek and she instinctively touched her face. No real damage as far as she could tell. Although she was somewhat disconcerted because Bill had never