Playing the Playboy's Sweetheart. Carol Marinelli

he could not find the word.

      The afternoon list flew by and Hugh was just about to head up to the wards to check on his postoperative patients when he found out about the hair beneath her theatre cap.

      Emily’s hair was long, thick, dark and curly. Without the shapeless theatre scrubs Hugh also noticed a curvy figure dressed in jeans, a heavy jacket and long boots.

      ‘See you,’ Hugh said.

      ‘Have a good night.’ There was that smile again and Hugh found the word he was looking for.

      Sparing.

      It was an incredibly cost-effective smile—it did its job but no more than that.

      Already he wanted more.

      No doubt Emily had been warned about him, Hugh reasoned, because he had felt the coolness of her brushoff. Or perhaps she was already involved with someone?

      Still, even with Emily’s best efforts to deny that he moved her, the sparks flew between them whenever they were in Theatre together. So much so that at a Christmas work party a few weeks later Emily was relieved when Gina, an anaesthetist, offered her a lift back to her flat from the party, though she warned Emily that she was leaving in fifteen minutes.

      With that deadline in mind, knowing she had a legitimate reason to leave soon, when Hugh offered to get Emily a drink she didn’t refuse.

      ‘Just a small one,’ Emily said, handing him her glass. ‘I’m going soon and I don’t want to miss my lift.’

      Hugh returned with her drink a short while later and an offer too. ‘I can give you a lift if you want to stay a bit longer.’

      Emily shook her head. ‘I have to be up early—I’m going up to Scotland tomorrow.’

      ‘Have you got family there?’

      ‘My mum.’ Emily nodded. ‘And quite a bit of extended family too.’

      ‘Do you have family here in London?’

      Emily nodded again. ‘When my parents broke up my dad moved to England …’ Emily hesitated; she didn’t want to remember that time, moving in with dad’s girlfriend Katrina and her daughter Jessica. It actually hurt to recall those events so she hurriedly glossed over them. ‘I used to come down a lot to visit.’

      ‘How much?’

      ‘Half the school holidays, but when I left school I moved permanently down here to do nursing.’

      ‘I see.’

      ‘You don’t!’ Emily rolled her eyes. ‘Honestly, we’d be here till next week if I tried to explain it.’

      ‘I’m fine with that.’

      There was a sudden plummet in Emily’s stomach as they moved deeper into conversation; she looked into very green eyes that, though smiling, for Emily spelt danger.

      ‘So,’ Hugh asked, ‘will you be in Scotland for Christmas?’

      ‘No.’ Emily shook her head. ‘I’m working, new girl and all that.’

      She chose not to tell him that she preferred to work at Christmas. It was always a painful time. Whether she spent it at her mother’s or father’s, Emily always felt like a bit of a spare wheel. Her mum and second husband doted on Abby, their daughter together. As for her dad, he was now married to his latest—Donna—and was a father to one-year-old twins.

      Yes, it was far too complicated to explain it all to Hugh.

      ‘So what are you doing for Christmas?’ Emily asked instead.

      ‘I’ll be at my parents’,’ Hugh said. ‘My sister has just had a baby, first grandchild …’ He gave a teeny eye-roll. ‘I’m to be on my best behaviour and not upset Kate.’

      ‘Your sister?’

      ‘Yep,’ Hugh said.

      ‘You don’t get on?’

      ‘We do get on,’ Hugh corrected, ‘usually.’

      He was the easiest person she had ever spoken to and for Hugh it was the same. He had tried to talk to Alex yesterday about his sister Kate and had asked how Jennifer was doing, given that their babies had been born around the same time. Hugh had been told that Jennifer was coping beautifully, despite Josie being her fourth and prem.

      Hugh had said nothing then about his concerns for his sister, though he voiced them easily now.

      ‘I think she’s got postnatal depression.’ Hugh said to Emily what he hadn’t to his boss. ‘But I have no idea apparently.’ Hugh sighed. ‘At least, according to my mother, my father, my brother-in-law, oh, and Kate too.’

      ‘It’s difficult,’ Emily said. ‘I remember when Donna had the twins …’ She faltered and Hugh noticed.

      ‘Donna?’

      ‘My dad’s second wife.’

      She had tried so hard not to go there but now that she had she told him a bit more. ‘When they were born I had to help out a lot. I was ever so worried.’ She thought for a moment about Hugh’s situation. ‘Can you try talking to her husband again?’

      ‘I might.’ Hugh nodded. ‘What did your dad do?’

      ‘Not much.’ Emily gave a tight smile. She could hardly tell Hugh she had been worried that if things didn’t improve, and quickly, that her dad would have been out of the door.

      ‘So, what did you do?’

      ‘I took her to see her GP,’ Emily said. ‘I rang them and explained my concerns and then made the appointment for her and took her. Things did pick up. It took a while, but they did.’

      Yes, things had picked up. Emily had done everything she could to not fall in love with her two half-brothers, but getting up at night, bathing them, feeding them, of course she had.

      ‘How is she now?’

      Emily chose not to answer.

      ‘I’d better go.’

      ‘Emily?’

      She didn’t want to answer, she didn’t want to say that, yes, while Donna was fine now, she wasn’t so sure that the marriage was.

      ‘Stay for a bit longer,’ Hugh pushed.

      She didn’t want to, though, because she opened up too easily to him.

      Fleeting.

      She recalled Annie’s words.

      Heartbreak.

      Neither of those did she need.

      She wanted her perfect man—one that meant she could hold onto her heart.

      Right now that heart was hammering in her chest and very possibly about to be set free if that lovely, sexy mouth moved just a few inches closer, which it was possibly about to do.

      ‘I really do have to go …’ Emily chose to play it safe.

      ‘Why?’

      ‘I told you—I don’t want to miss my lift.’

      ‘And I told you—I’m very happy to drive you home.’

      Hugh had more than noticed Emily and had hoped to get to know her some more tonight.

      In the weeks she had been at The Royal she had intrigued him—Emily was friendly yet distant at the same time, and not just with him. Yes, she chatted easily with her colleagues and there was no doubt she was an extremely efficient nurse yet, and Hugh couldn’t quite put his finger on it, she held back, really revealing nothing.

      Until tonight.

      That small sliver of information about her parents had Hugh wanting to know more about Emily.

      She