Sheikh Surgeon, Surprise Bride

Lily hadn’t known the man long, but she had a feeling that Razak didn’t give praise easily, so it was with an unexpected feeling of anticipation that she waited to see what would happen. For the moment, her role was more of a passive observer, but that could change at any moment.

To the uninitiated, the external fixator kit that arrived just before Colin might have been confused with a rather sophisticated construction toy with its various shiny rods and connectors, but in the hands of someone who had obviously been taught by masters how to use it best, it was a revelation.

Using the X-rays as a guide, Colin swiftly tightened the special screws into position in the bones then fitted the rods between them, tightening them only when the pelvis had been restored to the correct shape.

‘How’s his blood pressure?’ Colin demanded, without even lifting his head from the last titanium rod, his movements swift and accurate, while Razak automatically braced the unstable pelvis for him.

‘No sign of hypovolaemia so far, but blood is being cross-matched and sent up to Theatre.’

They sounded so calm, but those few words were a measure of the potentially deadly nature of this particular injury. There were so many veins and arteries in this area and this sort of bony injury was often accompanied by massive soft-tissue injury and a more than fifty per cent chance of dying of massive blood loss.

So far, their patient had been lucky. His blood pressure was holding fairly steady, indicating that there was no great dip in his blood volume. He also seemed to have avoided any apparent injuries to his kidneys, bladder or urethra as there was no sign of blood in his urine or on the ultrasound scan that had largely replaced the need for peritoneal lavage.

Now, with Colin straightening up from his completed task and the pelvis stable enough for the patient to make the journey up to Theatre safely, it was just a case of opening him up on the table and performing an internal fixation of each of the fractures. Only then would the bones have a chance of healing normally so that the patient could walk again.

‘Do you want me to finish the job off?’ Colin offered. He tried to sound diffident but Lily had the feeling that this was the sort of case he thrived on. She’d known other surgeons who found the never-ending stream of joint replacements stultifying, only really enjoying the adrenaline rush of repairing life-threatening traumatic injuries.

‘Do you have enough theatre time left?’ Razak asked. ‘You’ve already been operating this afternoon.’

Lily knew what he was asking. Their standard sessions were three and a half hours and this wasn’t going to be an easy job or a quick one. If Colin had already operated on two patients that afternoon…

‘One of mine didn’t make it into Theatre this afternoon, unfortunately. She had a CVI on the ward just after she took her pre-med. She’s up in ICU now.’

‘In which case, be my guest,’ Razak said with a smile, standing aside as the trolley set off towards the bank of lifts. ‘Call me if you need another hand on the screwdriver.’

Lily felt a tremendous sense of anticlimax as everyone dispersed, leaving just the nurses to gather up the debris and get the room cleaned and restocked for the next emergency. She’d honestly believed that Razak would be operating on the patient and had been gearing herself up for the probability that she would be in the theatre with him.

‘Don’t be impatient!’ he teased, and she wondered with a jolt whether he was also a mind-reader. ‘I promise you’ll have your chance tomorrow morning. I’ll be putting you through your paces then.’

The anticipation was different this time, a mixture of excitement that she would be doing what she loved and dread lest he find her skills lacking.

But even as she followed him out of A and E and shared a lift with him up to the orthopaedic department to retrieve her purse and keys, there were questions circling inside her head.

It was nothing that anyone had said…more what they hadn’t said or, even worse, things that had been hinted at. If she was going to be able to give of her best when the two of them were working together tomorrow, she needed to clear the air, and the only way of doing that was to ask for an explanation.

Even then she hesitated and it wasn’t until he had his hand out towards the door of his office that she spoke.

‘I need to speak to you,’she blurted. ‘I…I need to ask you some questions.’

‘Now?’ he asked, turning back to her with a weary smile, and she remembered suddenly that he’d had a late night repairing the damage after a fight outside a pub last night. ‘Of course,’ he said politely, but as he turned to lead the way into his office his stomach growled and her feelings of guilt were doubled.

‘Have you eaten?’ he asked, then shook his head. ‘Stupid question! Of course you haven’t because you’ve spent the whole day in my shadow. So, will you join me for a meal?’

‘Oh, but…’ She was already shaking her head, unaccustomed to such invitations, especially at short notice. And to be invited by her boss… ‘We don’t need to…We…we can talk tomorrow,’she suggested hurriedly, cursing her pale complexion when she felt the searing heat of a blush.

To her surprise, he seemed completely oblivious to her discomfort.

‘We won’t have time to talk tomorrow,’ he said flatly, ‘certainly not without Colin and Reg and who knows who else listening in to every word. And if you have questions, we need to get them answered to clear your mind for the morning. You’ll need all your concentration in my theatre. Anyway,’ he added, not giving her time to come up with a solid objection as he pulled his door shut again and the keypad lock clicked shut, ‘we both need to eat, Dr Langley, and we could talk at the same time. Very efficient.’

What could she do but agree, in spite of her automatic reluctance to share a meal with him? Partly it had been the formal way he’d spoken to her as Dr Langley that had made her give in, but that didn’t explain the strange emotions churning inside her.

She was attracted to the man, that’s what it was, she realised as he ushered her into her seat in the little French restaurant in one of the side streets near the hospital. And it had taken her this long to recognise the feeling because it the first time it had happened to her like this.

But, then, Razak Khan was a rather exceptional man…charismatic, powerful, good-looking, courteous…there wasn’t much she couldn’t admire about him. But somehow she understood that this went deeper than a surface appreciation for a handsome successful man…This was…

Nothing, she told herself fiercely as she buried her nose in her menu. This was her boss and if she was ever going to make it up that final rung of the ladder, she was going to have to keep her concentration where it mattered—on the job.

‘So, explain this big scheme to me,’ she invited brightly, and had to hide a wince when she heard how air-headed she sounded.

‘How much do you know?’ he countered, then had to pause when the waiter arrived to take their order, clearly delighted when Razak switched into fluent French.

If she concentrated hard, Lily found she could actually follow what the two of them were saying, and it was evidence of yet another fascinating facet of the man that she’d love to explore. When had he learned French and why? Was it his native language or…

That is not why you’re sitting here, she reminded herself sternly. He asked you a question and now he’s waiting for a reply.

‘How much do I know?’she said. ‘Apart from the fact that Reg hates it, nothing at all.’

‘Wasn’t it explained at your interview?’ he demanded, clearly surprised by her reply.

‘No. Not that I can…’ She paused, suddenly remembering the moment when one of the bean-counters had started to ask her something, only to be talked down by Reg. Had that been the point when she should have found out what Razak was proposing to do? Had that been the moment when Reg had decided that appointing one of the women he so blatantly despised might be the straw that broke the camel’s back as far as Razak’s scheme went?

The more she thought about it, the more likely it seemed.

Without a strong, committed junior on his team…one with the stamina to keep up the pace for long hours at a stretch…the scheme would never get approval, never mind be a success.

A sudden sickening idea burst into her brain. Was that why she’d got the job in the first place? Not because she was the best candidate for the job but because Reg thought she would be a weak and feeble woman?

‘What?’ Razak demanded, breaking into her unpalatable thoughts.

‘What, what?’ she countered, wondering if he was waiting for an answer to another question. She honestly couldn’t remember.

‘I wanted to know if you’d reached a conclusion?’ he asked patiently.

‘A conclusion about what?’ she temporised, hoping he would tell her which part of their conversation she’d missed.

‘Well, you obviously had some sort of an internal debate going on just then, and from the expressions on your face I would guess that there was something said at your interview, but that someone—either Colin or Reg, but most likely Reg—prevented anyone telling you the whole story. So…’ He frowned in concentration, far too close to the truth for her comfort. He really did seem to be able to read her thoughts. ‘You were wondering why he didn’t want you to know. After all, it would strengthen his case to have good surgeons withdrawing their candidacy for the job because they didn’t like what they were being asked to do…No! That’s not it!’ he contradicted himself with a closer look at her face, as though the words were actually written there. ‘You were wondering whether the reason you were offered the job was because the appointment of a woman as my junior would make it less likely that the scheme would be given the go-ahead. You were wondering whether you got the job because you were the weakest candidate rather than the strongest. Am I right?’

‘Spot on,’she agreed through gritted teeth, steam practically coming out of her ears. ‘Just wait till I tell that pompous—’

‘Hey, don’t get mad, get even!’ he suggested, with a wicked grin that made his teeth seem even whiter in the darkened intimacy of their corner of the room.

‘How?’ she demanded, the thought definitely appealing.

‘Prove him wrong,’ he said simply. ‘Be everything you can be so that he has to eat his words not just about women as orthopaedic surgeons but also about the scheme I’m trying to get going.’

‘And about which I still have no idea,’ she pointed out, and it was like letting loose a tidal wave of enthusiasm.

‘It’s a whole new way of managing lists for orthopaedic surgery,’ he said with all the fervour of an evangelist, barely pausing to sample his meal when it arrived. ‘Not new in America, where some surgeons have been doing it for years, or in France, where they also use a similar system, but as far as Britain is concerned…’