A Passionate Love Affair with a Total Stranger (3 page)

She'd approve of the man standing in front of me, though. Oh, Granny Helen would approve of this one, all right. I would finish with Dr Nathan Gillies without delay.
This
, this cheeky and more-than-tall-enough god standing in front of me, was what I wanted.

‘I'm not here to make eyes at some man,' I'd roared, only fifteen minutes ago.

‘Poor little Lambert,' John said quietly, moving a few inches further up my yellow polyester blanket.

I stiffened suspiciously. Dirty flirting I was used to from John MacAllister; compassion and kindness I was not. Was he here to sack me? He looked down at me with a complicated expression on his face.

‘Why are you here?' I asked timidly.
Because you are all small and poorly with a broken leg and I want to sweep you up in my arms, drive you off in my Jaguar and take you to my architecturally significant house by a loch
, I willed him to say.
We will sit drinking single malt as the sun goes down and I will gently cut out a section of your plaster so we can make love.

John smiled again, only this time with a plastic veneer
that did not make my plaster-bound crotch tingle. It made my plaster-bound crotch contract with fear.

‘John? Is my leg really bad?' I asked, trying to sound calm. ‘Are you going to make me resign?'

Something odd flashed across his face. Then he shook his head. ‘Lambert,' he said quietly, looking me straight in the eye. ‘Trust me when I tell you that absolutely
nothing
would persuade me to lose you from my team.' He stroked my palm gently with his thumb.

Damn him. Damn his deep, soft, silky voice. Damn those
eyes
. And that lovely warm caressing thumb.

For the millionth, billionth time in the last seven years, a little lamp of hope ignited in my chest. Men in happy relationships didn't speak to women like this unless they … They didn't come and visit their director of comms in hospital unless they … And holding hands! That was flirting! His affair with Married Woman must be over.
He wanted me.

‘Well, John MacAllister,' I demurred. Providing John flirted with me I was at ease: I knew exactly how to handle him. ‘I'd say I'm in pretty good shape, give or take the odd broken limb. I'm sure it won't be long before I'm hobbling around the office.' John grinned. ‘Or at least hobbling over to Old Town for dinner. Providing the offer still stands.'

‘Excellent news, Lambert. Your doctor believes you'll be hobbling soon, then?'

I tried to shrug but was too weak, so instead ended up making a retarded sort of a face. ‘Don't know. You're the first person I've seen since I woke up.'

John's eyes twinkled. ‘That's not true. You had surgery and then came round eight hours ago,' he said. ‘Your twin
sister was here. Vanessa, is it? She told me your parents are on their way from India and your younger sister's coming up from London.'

‘Yes, Katy lives in London …' Then I stared at him. ‘Hang on. I came round from an anaesthetic and then slept for
eight hours
? Seriously?'

‘Yes, seriously. Apparently you stared at Vanessa, then fell asleep hugging her elbow. Very sweet, Lambert. The nurses said they'd never seen anyone so desperate for a good kip.'

He stroked my palm with his thumb again. I felt suddenly grateful for my broken leg. It had brought John MacAllister to me, finally.

‘How did you know I was here?' I asked.

‘Fraser Cassidy called me. He said you were recovering from major surgery. I was close to the hospital so thought I should swing by. Employee relations and all that.'

‘If Fraser Cassidy told you I was here, he's a very bad doctor,' I said. ‘Since when did he have the right to share confidential patient information with the head of the local pharmaceutical company?'

John's X-ray eyes stared straight through me to the Lamp of Hope in my chest. ‘Given that he's one of our most valued medical consultants, and you're one of our most valued staffers, I think it's quite reasonable. And he knows we have a special relationship.'

Damn him. The Lamp of Hope had now taken on the form of a furnace. ‘We do not have a special relationship,' I told him. ‘Unless you took advantage of me while I was under anaesthetic.'

John chortled. ‘Oh, Lambert,' he murmured, staring at
me. ‘What are we to do with you? Eight hours out of theatre and you're already fantasizing about molestation.'

I fiddled with my horrible yellow blanket and said nothing. I was far too confused to speak. I had not received this level of attention from John since our ill-fated snog that I'd spent three years trying unsuccessfully to forget. It had taken place on 26 June 2009, almost exactly four years since I'd met John. Things were going well for me at Salutech: I'd made it to brand communications manager and now had my sights on director of comms. It was five thirty-seven a.m. on the night of our end-of-financial-year jolly and John and I were in a cleaning cupboard at one of the most expensive country clubs in Scotland.

I had spent those four years longing for him to hold my hand and now, finally, he was holding my hand. Furthermore, he had been holding my hand for three whole minutes, having led me from the lounge down to the empty basement where he had found a cupboard full of mops. He had seated me on a bench among them and was now looking me full in the face – at point-blank range – in a way that left me speechless and rubbery.

‘I've been trying every day for four years not to do this,' he was saying. ‘Charley bloody Lambert, you
witch
, with that waist and those legs and that
confidence
and that … Oh, God, Lambert, I can't take any more.'

His eyes – hungry and slightly mad – told me everything I needed to know. Sex with him was going to be the most outrageous and dirty act I would ever commit.

And with that I lunged. There was no other option. It was that or die of an exploding vagina.

He was hot, dry and delicious. I was mad, crazed and damp. He immediately flipped me round and pushed me back against the wall by my throat. ‘Fuck,' he muttered. ‘Fuck.'

‘Yes,' I replied breathlessly. ‘Now. Your room?' He moved his head down and started kissing my neck, hard and urgently. Explosions and alarms fired off all the way through my body. A strange moan filled the cleaning cupboard and I realized it was me. I sounded like an animal.

John pulled back for a second and looked at me. ‘Yes. My room. Oh, Christ, Lambert, I won't last. I won't.' He, too, made a sort of animalistic groan.

I did the only sensible thing; I started to unbuckle his jeans.

But then it came. The Greatest Rejection of My Life. The End of the Universe. ‘Lambert, no, I can't do this,' he gasped suddenly. ‘I can't. I promised myself … I …' A gurgling noise came out of his throat as if he were in the process of hanging himself, rather than in the process of having his manhood liberated from his jeans.

‘Don't be fucking ridiculous,' I hissed. ‘We'll both die if we don't. I order you, John MacAllister, to TAKE ME
NOW
.'

John stared at me with a sort of crazed desperation. ‘I can't, Charley. If it went wrong and I lost you from Salutech I'd be totally buggered. I can't take that risk.'

‘I'll RESIGN,' I yelled. ‘IT DOESN'T MATTER. DON'T DO THIS. I BEG YOU, DON'T DO THIS!'

John was panting. ‘The thing is …' he said vaguely, eyes crossing, ‘The thing is, we're making you director of comms. Across everything. Brands, corporate, internal.
You got the job, Lambert –
Oh, Christ, I want to be inside you
. You've got a while to get it all running smoothly and then you'll be starting the biggest drug launch we've ever staged. I cannot start sleeping with you now, of all times.' In desperation he took a handful of my hair and scrunched it. ‘Aaargh,' he added.

‘What do you MEAN I got the job?' I croaked. ‘You can't just announce that! You need to offer me a financial package and then I'll get back to you and then – Oh, God, what am I saying, who
cares
? That's tomorrow. This is now. Please. I beg you. Stop doing this to me. To both of us.'

John looked at me for a few more anguished seconds, then pulled me back, ramming me down on his lap and kissing me hard, stopping only to pull my dress off over my head. I wriggled, gasping, feeling an outlandishly strong, hard MacAllister between my legs, and moved in so he could take off my bra. He reached round to undo it, burying his head between my breasts. He definitely bit one of my nipples but it didn't hurt. At all. I began to lose myself. It was finally happening. My privates had gone completely barmy and volcanic, full of pulsating molten lava. Soon they would not be private. Soon they would be filled with John. Jesus, Mary and Joseph! At last!

‘Jesus, Mary and Joseph!' It was a scream. A high-pitched scream. ‘And all the saints!'

Was it me? No. I had not just said that. Was it John? No. John was frozen, his head still between my breasts, hand on the back of my bra strap.

Slowly, I looked round. The door was open. A woman of around Granny Helen's age was standing at the door wearing a black dress with a white apron. She had a little
white hat thing on her head and was carrying a bucket. She looked like she might drop dead of a heart-attack.

I looked back down at John, who had become the CEO of Salutech Pharmaceutical once more. He couldn't meet my eye.

It was over.

As, I realized, with great irritation, it was now. John had his hand in mine and was looking at me in the exact same way he'd looked at me that night. But I was swaddled in nylon, my Temple of Lady buried behind a wall of plaster and bandage, a coterie of fierce nurses, the sick and injured metres away. There would be no sex. No passion. Just the agony of John's hand in mine and the possibility of absolutely nothing further until a later date.

As I tried to douse the Furnace of Hope in my chest – not to mention the one in my gynaecological parts – it began to dawn on me that physically I was feeling terrible. I had no sensation in my left leg, my throat was still on fire and I was freezing cold. John swam before me for a few seconds.

‘Charley? Are you OK?'

His face was a lot closer to mine. I could smell toothpaste and a very light, delicate man perfume. (Toothpaste? Scent? Surely significant?) ‘Yes,' I said weakly. ‘I just suddenly felt tired. I … I think I need to sleep.'
Offer to hop in and spoon me
, my eyes implored.

John put his hand on the side of my face. ‘I'm going to bugger off,' he said. ‘Promise you'll get some rest. Work can wait, OK?'

‘I can work from here till I'm on crutches –' I began,
but he put a finger over my mouth. Had I not been feeling so nauseous I might have bitten it. ‘OK,' I said meekly. ‘I'll rest.'

We both knew that I would do no such thing.

Then something even more incredible happened. John leaned down and kissed me gently on the mouth, lingering for just a second before straightening up, smiling at me. My brain went funny and fizzy. I had just received a Tender Kiss. From John MacAllister! The man who, I was quite happy to admit, was the only reason I'd been single since I'd split up with Dr Nathan Gillies six years ago. Too busy for love, my arse. I just wanted John.

John MacAllister, John MacAllister! my head sang, to the tune of ‘Bread of Heaven'. Kiss me till I want no more! (Want no more …)

‘John MacAllister!' said a voice that was not in my head. My jubilation dispersed rapidly into the stale hospital air. It was a voice that was rather pleased with itself; a voice that I did not under any circumstances want to hear.
Please, let it not be Dr Nathan Gillies
, I prayed, as the curtain was swished grandly to one side and in strode Dr Nathan Gillies.

Of all the wards in Edinburgh, I'd had to end up on his? Seriously? He smiled briefly and picked up the chart at the end of my bed. ‘Hi, Charley,' he said briskly. ‘John.' They shook hands.

I closed my eyes. The last time I had seen Dr Nathan Gillies, in 2006, he had told me that I was ‘dysfunctional and remote' and a ‘messed-up workaholic', who was entertaining ‘a pathetic obsession with a boss who will
never
get together with you'. Too stunned to say a word, I had sat
on my bed and watched him round up the belongings he had kept at my flat during our time together – a solo toothbrush – and march out of my life.

After twenty-four hours spent sobbing on the sofa with Ness patting my hand, Hailey telling me to get a grip and Sam, my flatmate, staring awkwardly at me from the furthest corner of the room, I had come to the conclusion that Dr Nathan Gillies was a cunt. Once this had been established, I had got over him almost immediately but, deep down, my pride had remained bruised. I had formulated several revenge plans, the best of which ran along the lines of

1. John and I got married (reported in the nationals).
   
2. We ran Salutech together (ditto).
   
3. We oversaw the discovery of a complete cure for cancer (reported in the internationals).
   
4. We therefore saved the world (same).
   
5. Dr Nathan Gillies read about us and choked slowly and painfully on his own bile. (Reported nowhere because no one really cared.)
   

So the fact that he was currently standing in my cubicle, my fate in his hands, chatting pompously away to John (who had indeed declined to get together with me – thus far) was pretty devastating.

‘Congratulations!' Dr Nathan Gillies said to John, doing that pointless elbow-clasping thing that men do. He must have read the medical-profession-only introduction to our new breakthrough drug, Simitol, which I had
recently started circulating. It was easily the biggest story the pharmaceutical industry had seen in the last twenty years.

‘Thanks, Nathan,' John said, looking uncomfortable.

‘We've been awaiting this news a long time,' Dr Nathan Gillies barked. There was something ratty in his eyes that I didn't like. Clearly, John felt the same for, without further ado, he nodded curtly to us both, swished back the curtain and strode off. I closed my eyes and listened to the clip of his leather loafers striding off down the corridor.
Things were happening in this cubicle
, I screamed silently at Dr Nathan Gillies.
He just kissed me! And didn't you see the way he was looking at me? He was about to Say Something! You rotten bastard, just marching in here!