Secrets of a Career Girl (2 page)

CHAPTER ONE

‘H
AVE
YOU
THOUGHT
about letting a few people at work know what’s going on?’

Penny closed her eyes at her sister’s suggestion and didn’t respond. The very last thing Penny wanted was the people at work to know that she was going through IVF.

Again.

It was bad enough for the intensely private Penny that her mum and sister knew but, given that Penny was seriously petrified of needles, she’d had no choice but to confide in Jasmine, who would be giving Penny her evening injections soon.

While she couldn’t get through it without Jasmine’s practical help, there were times when Penny wished that she had never let on that she was trying for a baby.

Yes, her family had been wonderfully supportive but sometimes Penny didn’t want to talk about it. She didn’t want to hear that they were keeping their fingers crossed for her, didn’t always want to give the required permanent updates and, more than anything, she had hated the sympathy when it hadn’t worked out the first time. Naturally they had tried to comfort her and understand what they could not—they had both had babies.

The two sisters were walking along the beach close to where they both lived. Penny lived in one of the smart townhouses that had gone up a couple of years ago and took in the glittering bay views. Jasmine lived a little further along the beach with her new husband Jed and her toddler son Simon, who was from Jasmine’s first marriage. The newlyweds were busily house hunting and trying to find somewhere suitable between the city, where Jed now worked, and the Peninsula Hospital.

Now, though, the sisters lived close by and, having waved their mother off from Melbourne airport for her long-awaited overseas trip, they walked along the beach with Simon, enjoying the last hour of sunlight.

‘It might be a good idea to let a couple of people in on what you’re going through,’ Jasmine pushed, because she wanted Penny to have the support Jasmine felt that she needed, especially as Penny was going through this all alone.

‘Even my own friends don’t really understand,’ Penny said. ‘Coral thinks I’m being selfish, and Bianca, though she says I should go for it if that’s what I want...’ Her voice trailed off. ‘If I can’t talk about it with my own friends, what’s it going to be like at work?’

‘Lisa especially would be really good.’

‘Lisa is a nurse unit manager,’ Penny broke in. ‘I’m not a nurse.’

‘She runs the place, though,’ Jasmine said. ‘She’d be able to look out for you a little bit.’

‘I don’t need looking out for.’

Jasmine wasn’t so sure. She could see that the treatment was taking its toll on her sister, not that Penny would appreciate her observations.

Jasmine wanted so badly to help her sister. They had never really been close but Penny had always looked out for her—several years older, Penny had shielded her from the worst of their parents’ rows and their mother’s upset when their father had finally left. It had been the same when their mother had been brought into Emergency—Penny had made sure Jasmine hadn’t found out about their mother in the same way that she had.

‘I know this is all a bit new to you, Jasmine,’ Penny said. ‘But I’ve been living with this for years. I’ve known for ages that I had fertility problems.’

‘How long did you and Vince try for?’

Penny heard the tentativeness in Jasmine’s question. They were both working on their relationship, but there were still areas between them that were rarely, if ever, discussed.

‘Two years,’ Penny finally answered.

One year of serious trying and then a year of endless tests and consultations and a relationship that hadn’t been able to take the strain. ‘We didn’t just break up over that, though,’ Penny admitted. ‘But it certainly didn’t help. I can tell you this much.’ She gave a tight smile. ‘We’d never have survived IVF. It doesn’t exactly bring out the best in you.’

‘How are you feeling this time?’ Jasmine asked.

‘Terrible,’ Penny admitted. ‘I’m getting hot flashes.’

‘Are you serious?’

‘I’m completely serious. I’d forgotten that part—you know, at the time you think that you will never forget, but you actually do.’

Jasmine opened her mouth to agree with her sister and then closed it again as Penny turned around.

Penny knew that Jasmine had been about to admit to the same thing, but for very different reasons—Jasmine’s breasts were noticeably larger and she’d had nothing to eat at the airport and had then screwed up her nose when Penny had suggested they get some takeaway for dinner, choosing instead a slow walk on the beach.

Jasmine was pregnant.

Penny just knew.

‘I don’t need the whole department watching me for signs of a baby bump,’ Penny said, though it was the opposite for Penny with her sister. She had been trying so hard to ignore the signs in Jasmine, but more and more it was becoming evident and Penny wished she would just come out and tell her now. ‘Or gossiping,’ Penny added.

‘It wouldn’t be like that.’

‘Of course it would,’ Penny snapped. ‘And, of course, they’ll all have an opinion on whether I should be doing this, given that I haven’t got a partner.’ She gave an exasperated sigh. It wasn’t a decision she was taking lightly, not in the least. At thirty-four there was no sign of Mr Right on the horizon and with her fertility issues, even if he did come along, it was going to be a struggle to get pregnant.

After many long conversations with the fertility consultant, more and more Penny felt as if time was running out. ‘If there’s good news at the end of this, I’ll tell people, but they don’t need to know that I’m trying.’

‘But the treatment is so intense. If people only knew...’

Penny didn’t let her finish. ‘You don’t walk into the staffroom and tell them that you’ve come off the pill and had sex with Jed last night.’ When Jasmine laughed, Penny carried on. ‘No, you feed the sharks when you’re good and ready.’ Penny paused, waiting for her sister to open up to her, because even if Penny snapped and snarled a bit she wasn’t a shark, but Jasmine changed the subject.

‘I can’t believe that Mum has finally made it to her cruise.’ Jasmine smiled. ‘Well, she’s made it to her flight.’

‘And she’ll make it to her cruise.’ Penny was firm.

‘What if something happens while she’s stuck in the middle of the ocean?’

‘There’s a medical team,’ Penny said, but of course that didn’t reassure her sister. ‘Jasmine, are you going to spend the next month worrying about things that might happen and every imagined scenario while Mum is no doubt having the absolute time of her life?’

‘I guess,’ Jasmine conceded. ‘Though I really did think we were going to lose her.’

‘We didn’t, though,’ Penny broke in.

While Louise Masters’s heart attack and emergency admission had been a most difficult time, from there good things had sprung—an urgent reminder for all concerned that you should live your life to the full.

Which was why their mother would soon be sailing around the Mediterranean, why Jasmine had followed her heart and opened up to Penny’s then fellow senior registrar Jed, and why Penny was, at this moment, walking along the beach with a face that was bright red and breaking out into a sweat as she experienced yet another wretched hot flash. Not that Jasmine noticed; her mind had moved on to other things.

‘What do you think of Ethan?’ Jasmine asked for Penny’s thoughts on the new consultant, but Penny didn’t answer; instead, she suggested a walk in the shallows, much to little Simon’s delight. Both holding his hands, they lifted him up between them, swung him over the water, and finally Penny felt herself calm, the heat fading from her face, her racing heart slowing, and then Jasmine asked her again what she thought of Ethan.

‘He thinks that he’s God’s gift.’

‘So do a few other people,’ Jasmine pointed out, because since Ethan had arrived, a couple of hearts had already been broken. ‘He is funny, though.’ Jasmine grinned.

‘I don’t think he’s funny at all,’ Penny said, but then again she didn’t sit in the little huddles at the nurses’ station, neither did she wait for the latest breaking news to be announced in the staffroom. Penny loathed gossip and refused to partake in it, though, given it was Jasmine, there was one thing she did divulge. ‘He seems to think that he got the job over me.’ Penny gave a little smirk. ‘He has no idea that I declined to take it.’

‘He doesn’t know?’

‘God, no!’ Penny said. ‘I would assume he knows that Jed turned it down to take the position at Melbourne Central, but it would be a bit much for him to know that he was actually the third choice.’

‘Wouldn’t Mr Dean have told him?’

‘Mr Dean wouldn’t discuss the other applicants with him—you know what he’s like.’ Penny rolled her eyes. Mr Dean had put her through the wringer over the years—he was incredibly chauvinistic and had been reluctant to promote Penny to senior registrar. Penny was quite sure it was because she was a woman—she’d heard Mr Dean comment a few times how you trained women up only for them to get pregnant. Still, Penny had long since proven herself and, though Ethan might think otherwise, the consultant’s position had been Penny’s. She had chosen not to take it, deciding it would be too much on top of going through IVF, and more and more she was glad she had made that decision.

‘Ethan’s gorgeous.’ Jasmine nudged her. ‘He’s so sexy.’

‘Jasmine!’

‘What? Just because I’m married I’m not supposed to notice just how stunning he is?’

Penny conceded with a shrug. Yes, Ethan Lewis was stunning. He had thick silky black hair that seemed always to be just a day away from needing a good cut and had unusual hazel eyes. He was very tall and broad shouldered and so naturally he stood out. He was also a bit chauvinistic, not that the women seemed to mind.

‘The trouble with Ethan,’ Penny said, ‘is that he knows how gorgeous he is and he uses it unwisely. Someone should stamp “not the settling-down type” on his forehead. It might have helped warn the nurse in CCU who keeps coming down to the department to try and speak to him, and also that physiotherapist.’

Penny frowned as she tried to think of the young woman’s name, but gave up. ‘And that’s just two that I’ve seen and heard about, and given that I’m the last person to know anything, I’m quite sure there must be a few more.’

‘Well, at least he doesn’t pretend he’s interested in anything more serious,’ Jasmine said. ‘I was talking to him the other day and I apologised for going on too much about Simon and he just laughed and said he enjoyed hearing it, as it’s the closest he’ll ever get to having one of his own. He’s lovely,’ Jasmine sighed. ‘You should have a fling with him.’

Jasmine would so love to see her very uptight sister unbend just a little. ‘She should, shouldn’t she, Simon?’ Jasmine said as she picked up her little boy, who was finally starting to tire.

‘Don’t bring Simon into this.’ Penny smiled fondly at her nephew. ‘And don’t you listen to your mother.’

Simon smiled back. He adored his aunt and he held out his hands for Penny to hold him, which she did. ‘You’re the cause of all this,’ Penny teased, because seeing her sister pregnant and later as a mum had stirred already jumbled feelings in Penny and she desperately wanted a baby of her own.

‘You tell Aunty Penny that she
should
listen to me and have some fun before she’s ankle deep in nappies and exhausted from lack of sleep.’ Jasmine smiled at her son and then turned to her sister. ‘Just one last wild fling before you get pregnant!’

‘I’ve never had a wild fling in my life and I’m certainly not about to start now. You’ve never had IVF, have you?’ Penny’s voice was wry. ‘Believe me, Ethan Lewis and sex and wild flings are the very last thing on my mind right now.’ Penny did suddenly laugh, though. ‘Could you imagine if I did and then twelve weeks later announced that I’m pregnant?’

‘Oh, I would just love to see that.’ Jasmine was laughing too at the thought of the confirmed bachelor Ethan Lewis thinking for a moment that he was about to become a father. ‘It would kill him!’

CHAPTER TWO

‘W
HERE
THE
HELL
is X-ray?’ Penny snapped at Jasmine the next afternoon, just as she would to anyone—they weren’t sisters here and no feelings were spared.

They were struggling to stabilise a patient in congestive heart failure who wasn’t responding to the usual treatment regimes. John Douglas had presented to the department struggling to breathe, his heart beating dangerously fast and his lungs overloaded with fluid. It was a common emergency that Penny was more than used to dealing with, but what was compounding the problem was that John was also a renal patient and undergoing regular dialysis at a major city hospital so Penny was trying to sort out the far higher drug doses that were needed in his case.

‘I’m just going to lean you forward, John,’ Penny said, and listened again to her patient’s chest. The oxygen saturation machine was bleeping its alarm. Vanessa, another nurse, returned with John’s blood-gas results and it was confirmed to Penny that things were really grim. She had already paged the medics to come down urgently and was now considering putting out a crash call, because even though he hadn’t gone into cardiac arrest he was very close.

‘Give him another forty milligrams,’ Penny called out to Jasmine, though she wasn’t cross when Jasmine hesitated. ‘He’s a renal patient,’ Penny explained, ‘so he’ll need massive doses of diuretics.’

Still, Penny was concerned about the amount of medication she was having to give and was carefully checking the drug guide, wishing the medics would hurry up and get there. She had just decided to put out a crash call when Ethan approached.

‘Problem?’ Ethan asked, and Penny quickly brought him up to speed.

‘He’s not responding,’ Penny said. ‘And neither are the medics to their fast page. I’m going to call the crash team.’

‘Hold off for just a moment.’ Ethan scanned the drug sheet to see what had been given. He had just come from working a rotation in the major renal unit in a city hospital, so he was familiar with the drug doses required in a case like this and he quickly examined the patient. ‘He needs a large bolus.’

Ethan saw Penny’s face go bright red as he took over the patient’s care. ‘Penny, where I worked before...’ He didn’t really have time to explain things and he wasn’t about to compromise patient care by pandering to Penny’s fragile ego—she was spitting with rage, Ethan could see it. In fact, he was tempted to lick his finger and put it onto her flaming cheek just so that he could hear the hiss.

‘Go ahead,’ came Penny’s curt response, and she thrust the patient notes into his hands and walked off quickly.

‘Have we ordered a portable chest X-ray?’ he asked Jasmine.

‘It’s supposed to be on its way,’ Jasmine answered.

‘You’re going to be okay, sir.’ Ethan listened to his chest and considered calling the crash team himself.

He could see Jasmine was blushing too at her sister’s little outburst and was sorely tempted to ask Jasmine just what the hell her sister’s problem was, though of course Ethan knew. Well, he wasn’t just going to stand back, and if Penny didn’t like it, she’d better start getting used to it. Penny Masters was an absolute... Ethan kept the word in his head as he saw the fluid start to gush into the catheter bag. The patient’s oxygen saturations started to rise slowly. He was just ordering some more morphine when the radiographer arrived for the chest X-ray, along with a much calmer-looking Penny.

‘Thanks for that,’ she said, completely unable to look him in the eye. She had fled to her office, which had a small sink in it, and splashed her face with cold water and run her wrists under the tap. Penny would never have left the patient had Ethan not been there, but she had never had a hot flash so severe. She knew that Ethan was less than impressed, especially when, without a further word, he stalked off.

‘Are you okay?’ Jasmine checked as they waited outside while the patient was being X-rayed, Vanessa staying in with him.

‘Of course I’m not.’ Rarely for Penny, she was close to tears. ‘He thought I was cross at him for making suggestions and that I just walked off in a temper.’

He’d thought exactly that, Jasmine knew. She had seen the roll of his tongue in his cheek and the less than impressed rise of Ethan’s brows. ‘Penny, if people just knew—’

‘What?’ Penny interrupted. ‘Do you really think that I’m going to explain to him that I just had a hot flash?’

Penny was mortified—absolutely and completely mortified. The down-regulation medication to stop her own cycle was in full effect, and she had a splitting headache as well, another of the side effects. The headache she could deal with, but for a woman who was usually so able to keep things in check, the rip of heat that had seared through her face and the rapid flutter of her heart in her chest had felt appalling. She had hardly been able to breathe in there but she had absolutely no intention of telling Ethan Lewis why. ‘Do you really think that Neanderthal would be understanding?’

‘Neanderthal?’ Jasmine grinned in delight at her sister’s choice of word.

‘Just leave it,’ Penny snapped.

Ethan didn’t leave it, though.

Before heading for home, he passed her office, where Penny sat busily writing up her notes. She was sitting very straight, like some schoolmarm, Ethan thought as he knocked a couple of times on her open door.

In fact, it was rather like walking into the headmistress’s office as those cold blue eyes lifted to his and gave him a very stern stare.

‘What time are you on till?’ Ethan asked.

‘Midnight,’ Penny answered—she knew that he hadn’t just popped in for a chat.

‘How is Mr Douglas doing now?’

‘He’s a lot better, but the medics are still stabilising him and then he’ll be transferred so he can have his dialysis.’ She wished he would just leave; she really didn’t want to discuss what had taken place. ‘Thank you for your help with him.’

‘It didn’t feel very welcome.’ Ethan waited a moment, but Penny said nothing, just turned her attention back to her notes and, no, he would not just leave it. ‘What the hell happened back there, Penny?’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘I think that you do,’ came Ethan’s swift retort. ‘If there is an issue then it’s time that we discussed it.’

‘There is no issue.’

Ethan begged to differ. She was the most difficult woman that he had ever met and he’d met a lot of women! Yes, she was a fantastic doctor. Ethan had no qualms there, and in fact he was quietly surprised, having seen her work, that she hadn’t been given the consultant’s position. He could well understand how angry she must be, but somehow they had to work together and if she was going to storm off every time he stepped in on a consultation, something had to be said. ‘We have to work together, Penny.’

‘I’m aware of that.’

‘Which means that at times we’ll disagree.’

‘I’m aware of that too.’ Her face was starting to burn again, but from embarrassment this time. ‘Look, thank you for stepping in with Mr Douglas, it was much appreciated. I’m not as familiar as I would like to be with renal patients so I’m very pleased that you were there. We do seem to have our wires crossed, though.’ She gave tight smile. ‘I wasn’t cross or upset.’ She saw his incredulous look.

‘You walked off.’

Penny said nothing, just stared at this huge, very masculine man. She didn’t know how to tell him and she didn’t really want to try, except her silence invited him to continue speaking.

‘I wasn’t trying to take over. You seem to have formed an opinion that I’m—’

‘Formed an opinion?’ Penny stopped him right there. ‘I’m actually a bit busy in my life right now. I haven’t had time to think, let alone form an opinion of you.’

His lips twitched almost into a smile at her not-too-subtle putdown. ‘Oh, but I think that you have,’ Ethan said, and there and then he took the gloves off. He’d tried niceness, he’d tried politeness, he’d accepted that the situation might be a little difficult for her, but at the end of the day Penny needed to get over it and accept that he had been given the job. ‘Do you know what, Penny? I’m starting to form an opinion of you, and your behaviour this afternoon is leading me to think it might be the right one.’

‘Whatever!’ Penny hadn’t got this far in her career on charm. To do her job you needed to be tough and she certainly wasn’t there to make friends. ‘You carry right on forming your opinion of me and, while you do, I’ll get back to my patients.’ Penny stood. ‘Or is there anything else you want to discuss?’

‘Nothing that won’t keep.’

She brushed past him and he was terribly tempted to catch her as she walked past, to turn her round and just have the row that was so clearly needed. Perhaps it was wiser to just let it go, Ethan thought, letting out a rare angry breath as he heard her heels clip down the corridor, but he turned at the sound of Lisa’s voice. ‘There he is.’

‘Kate?’ Ethan smiled when he saw that Lisa was with his sister, wondered, albeit briefly, what on earth she was doing at his workplace, and then properly read her face. ‘One of the kids...’

‘The kids are fine, Ethan.’ She took a breath and he knew what was coming. ‘It’s Phil—we need to get to the hospital.’ And still his brain tried to process things kindly. He waited for her to smile, to hold up crossed fingers and to say ‘this is it,’ that a heart had been found for their cousin, but she just looked at him. ‘Carl’s watching the kids. We need to hurry and get there.’

No, it would seem that Phil wasn’t going to get that heart.

Ethan was glad that Kate hadn’t told him by phone, realised that had he not stopped to talk to Penny he could have been sitting in his car, stuck on the packed Beach Road and finding out that Phil was about to die.

‘I’ll meet you there.’ He was already heading to his office to grab his car keys but Kate shook her head. She knew how close Ethan and Phil were.

‘I’ll drive.’

It was just as well that she did, because the rush-hour traffic didn’t care that there was somewhere they needed to be. Ethan could feel his temper building as they inched towards the hospital, could sense the mounting urgency, especially when his mother called to see how far away they were.

‘A couple of minutes,’ Ethan said.

‘Get here,’ came his mother’s response.

They were pulling into Melbourne Central and again Ethan was very glad that Kate had been driving. He was grateful that there was no competition in the grief stakes between him and his twin—she knew that he and Phil were like brothers. Kate dropped him off at the main entrance and then went to find a place to park the car as Ethan ran through the hospital building, desperate to get to his cousin in time, still holding a small flame of hope that something could yet be done.

It was extinguished even before he got to Phil’s room.

Because standing outside was Phil’s ex-wife, Gina, and unless he was dying she’d never be there otherwise. She’d be sitting outside in the canteen as she usually did when she brought Justin in to visit. It had been a wretched divorce and Phil’s parents hadn’t exactly been kind in their summing up of Gina—and not just behind her back. There had been some terrible arguments too.

‘Gina,’ he said, but she just flashed him a look that said he was a part of the Lewis family and could he please just stay back.

‘I’m here for Justin,’ Gina said, and Ethan nodded and went in the room. His eyes didn’t first go to Phil but to Justin. Ethan could see the bewilderment and fear on the little boy’s face as Vera and Jack, Phil’s parents, told him to be brave. Ethan felt his head tighten, wanted to tell them to stop, but then his eyes moved to the bed and to his cousin and there wasn’t even time to say to Phil all he wanted to.

It was all over by the time Kate arrived.