A Passionate Love Affair with a Total Stranger Read Online Free PDF

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
John and I got married (reported in the nationals).
We ran Salutech together (ditto).
We oversaw the discovery of a complete cure for cancer (reported in the internationals).
We therefore saved the world (same).
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!
    When I opened my eyes again, Dr Nathan Gillies was looking at me over the clipboard with an