Hollywood Hills Collection. Lynne Marshall

don’t play coy. You’ve got all my lab results sitting on your desk, I haven’t been with anyone since I had blood pulled, and I sure as hell haven’t been in rehab. So I need to know the score.’

      ‘I had some blood work for fertility issues and they ran the tests as routine. I was in rehab for an eating disorder. Happy now?’

      ‘Well, happy isn’t the word I’d use to find out the condom split with someone having fertility treatment, but, yep, glad to know we’re both clean.’

      ‘Well, you don’t have to worry about the fertility issue. I haven’t started treatment and I shot my ovaries.’

      ‘Shot your ovaries?’ Zack frowned and then got it.

      Her eating disorder meant she couldn’t have kids and he understood better now what she’d told him about running and trying not to.

      ‘I’ll let James know that I can start straight away, then.’

      He gave her a nod and turned to go but Freya halted him. ‘Zack, you won’t—’

      ‘Freya.’ He turned around. ‘I’d never say anything and, as you’re about to find out, I’m a very different person at work.’

      ‘Sure.’

      ‘The only reason I am talking about last night in this office is because it’s pertinent to work. What happened is not to be brought up or discussed, do you understand that?’

      ‘Yes.’

      * * *

      It was the longest day.

      All she wanted to do was go home and curl up with her shame, yet, now that Zack was on board, her life had gotten busy.

      His résumé was impressive on a professional level. He’d worked all over the globe, in both lavish and sparsely equipped hospitals. She looked up his hometown and her eyes widened when she read about the tiny population and how widely it was scattered.

      Well, they could go with the country-boy angle, Freya thought, and then tried to picture herself suggesting that to Zack.

      Ah...perhaps not.

      What else could she find out?

      It would seem that five years ago he’d been in Canada at an ice hockey match when a player had gone into cardiac arrest and Zack had successfully resuscitated him.

      A couple of phone calls later and she was in touch with the player’s own PA. Nothing was said, just a little touching base query to see if the player might be open to being flown to LA.

      ‘He’s on vacation but I’ll get back to you at an appropriate time.’

      God, no wonder people were tense, Freya thought as she realised that most of the world considered today not really a day for such calls, but at The Hills, though there were no scheduled operations, it was a work day as usual.

      The staff up on the cardiac unit didn’t say, Oh, no, it’s a holiday, as they prepared the bed for Paulo to arrive.

      And neither did the pilot of the luxury helicopter question it when, after examining Paulo and going through his tests at the Bright Hope Clinic, Zack called James.

      ‘I’ve just spoken with Maria, his mother,’ Zack said. ‘I’ve told her that I’m still not sure if he’s a candidate for surgery but I would like to run some more tests at The Hills. Their equipment is terrible.’

      And so by three that afternoon a new little patient with black hair and eyes and a gappy smile was sitting in bed with his worried mother by his side.

      And by five all Freya wanted was home and was struggling to hold it together when James knocked at her door.

      ‘He’s not very sociable, is he?’ James rolled his eyes. ‘I tried to schedule a meeting and he wants it to be held in a meeting room, rather than my office. Neutral territory, he said.’

      Freya actually laughed.

      ‘Three months in a hotel...’ James shook his head. ‘The guy’s a well-dressed gypsy. I’ve asked him to come and get a security tag—can you please sort out his head shot?’

      ‘I shall,’ Freya said.

      She’d sort it tomorrow.

      All she wanted now was home.

       CHAPTER SIX

      SO DISTRACTED WAS Freya that she forgot she’d booked in for another night at the hotel until she was nearly home. Freya decided to check in on Cleo and then head back, grab her stuff and just come home and sleep away the shame.

      She really wanted to curl up and pull the covers over her head and hibernate till the end of March when Zack would be gone but knew that wasn’t going to happen.

      Freya parked and went up to her apartment, and as she opened the door she saw that her neighbour Red was just on his way out after feeding her little pug, Cleo.

      ‘Hi.’ Freya smiled.

      ‘How are you, Freya?’

      ‘I’m well! Thanks so much for this.’

      ‘No problem. Are you back for the night?’

      ‘I’m not sure,’ Freya said, deciding she might just crash at the hotel. ‘If I’m not here, can you let her out for me?’

      ‘Of course.’

      She had great neighbours and favours were freely given and returned. Red told her that he’d watched a movie last night with Cleo and had had a couple of beers.

      Freya thanked him again and kept her smile on and wide, and only when Red had gone did she sink down onto the sofa and let her smile fade. She rested her head in her hands and just sat with the panic that had been chasing her all day since she’d worked out who Zack was.

      ‘Oh, Cleo...’

      She picked up her little, fat friend and told her all of it, well, not in specific detail, but that she’d lost her head last night to the most gorgeous of men on the promise they would never again meet.

      ‘And now I have to work alongside him for three months. I don’t know what to do.’

      Cleo gave her no answers, just snuffled. The little pug was the absolute love of her life. James had bought her for Freya on her discharge from rehab and Freya had finally found a soul she could pour her heart out to.

      ‘How can I face him?’ she asked her fur baby.

      Freya cuddled her for a good hour and then she carried her down for her little walk. Cleo was getting so tired and so old and Freya knew she wouldn’t have her for much longer. James, because he was concerned how Freya would cope when her beloved companion died, had suggested, under the guise that it might give Cleo a new lease of life, that Freya get a puppy.

      ‘I don’t want another dog,’ Freya said to Cleo as she popped her onto the sofa.

      And not just because she could never love another dog as much as this one.

      Freya wanted a baby. She was so over attempts at relationships and had no qualms about being a single mom.

      She couldn’t do a worse job than her parents had, and they’d been together till Freya was thirteen.

      As she drove back to the hotel, Freya felt drained and exhausted. She’d had basically no sleep all night and the most awkward, uncomfortable of days and, joy, she had to face him again tomorrow.

      She stood in the elevator and tried not to think of what had taken place such a short while ago and then she wearily swiped open her hotel door.

      And there, just sitting there, drink poured, tie loose and wearing a triumphant grin, waving an envelope, was Zack. He just watched Freya groan as she remembered