Page 41 of Prognosis Irreconcilable Differences

‘You going to see if anything else is damaged?’ Jacqui asked, peering inside the abdomen.

Nathan looked down at her. ‘Let’s do a saline lavage, and we’ll see if any blood wells up from anywhere.’

It had been a long time since Jacqui had seen Nathan in a mask, and she’d forgotten the impact of his eyes. She’d always adored them, but the green of the mask emphasised the green of his irises, and there was a glint to them that gave them an almost supernatural glow. The result was dazzling.

She dragged her gaze away and concentrated on the open abdomen. After a minute, satisfied that no further bleeding appeared to be coming from anywhere, and with Jeremy’s systolic blood pressure improving all the time, Nathan closed the wound in layers. Forty-five minutes after they began, they were done.

Nathan de-gloved, pulled his hat off and his mask down, and swept Jacqui into a tight embrace. ‘Oh, my God, Jacq!’ He picked her up and swung her around, letting out a mighty whoop. ‘That was amazing!’

Jacqui laughed, feeling more relief than exhilaration.

Nathan pulled back. ‘We make a good team.’

Her heart contracted. She loved him more now than she ever had. ‘Thanks, but I think I’ll stick to animals.’

If only Nathan didn’t look as happy as a pig in mud.

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The chopper was finallyable to land on the beach an hour later, and Nathan accompanied Jeremy back to the Gold Coast, putting an end to any hope he had of continuing their conversation.

Jacqui returned the next day too, as promised, for the lead-up to the float. Thanks to a very grateful Ross Earnshaw word had leaked out, and by the time Jacqui set foot back in Nathan’s apartment it was plastered all over the news. And the press went crazy!

The story of Dr Nathan Trent, billionaire doctor, performing an emergency splenectomy on a dark and rainy night in his wife’s country veterinarian surgery had captured the imagination of the nation. Jimbo and Jeremy and the entire Serendipity community were bathed in the white-hot glare of publicity, and the story grew more grandiose every day.

Suddenly Nathan wasn’t just fabulously wealthy and extraordinarily sexy, but he was an honest-to-God Aussie hero to boot. And Jacqueline was catapulted into the limelight with him.

She’d been able to keep their ‘reconciliation’ reasonably contained within the business community until now, but suddenly it was impossible. In the days that followed they were photographed, stalked by media whenever they stepped out of Q1, and endlessly speculated over on radio talkback and current affairs shows.

Magazines and television stations wanted to interview her. She had requests for ‘happy couple’ pictorials from all the nation’s glossies.

It made her feel like a fraud.

But there was no time to think or talk as the crazy week hurtled past. No time for reflection. There was only time to keep her head above water, smile for the cameras until her face hurt, murmur appropriately vague answers to incessant questions, and pray she didn’t sink like a stone to the bottom of the very murky waters they were treading.

And all the while her heart ached.

Nathan was out till late every night at his office, tending to last minute business before the big float. And she’d moved back into the guest bedroom, so the opportunity to talk to him about his insane baby proposal or what had happened in her surgery before he’d been whisked away with Jeremy in the retrieval chopper never arose.

But she knew he’d felt it again that night. The pull inside him that tugged at his soul. That demanded to be heard. She’d seen it shining in his eyes. A vibrancy. He hadn’t looked as if something was missing as he had hugged her goodbye and run towards the chopper.

He’d looked alive.

She suspected he welcomed this frantic week so he could avoid the topic altogether. She’d bet her last cent that underneath all his efficient businessman bluster he was running scared. Ever since she’d known him he’d been on a direct path to the top – no way would he welcome feelings, no matter how vague, that rattled his gilded cage.

And then float day arrived, and Trent Fertility shares were the hottest debut stock the market had seen in decades. They were snapped up like hot cakes. The recent phenomenal media exposure Nathan had attracted was better than anything he could have bought. He’d endeared himself to both the business sector and the Australian public, winning both their affection and their confidence, and they all wanted a share of him.

The security of the company he’d built up and nurtured over the last decade was most definitely assured. In the end he hadn’t even needed the respectability Vince brought to the board — he’d earned the respect all by himself.

Jacqui and Nathan got home late to the apartment that night, after a celebratory dinner with the Trent Fertility executive board. It was the first moment they’d had alone since the previous weekend.

Nathan’s gaze fell on Jacqui’s bags, sitting just inside the door. ‘You’re leaving.’

Jacqui shut her eyes as the warmth from his body behind hers, so very, very close, almost touching but not quite, wrapped her in an embrace. He’d been in his element tonight. Larger than life, filthy rich and sexier than anyone had a right to be. He’d made every other man in the restaurant fade into the background.

‘Yes.’

Nathan hesitated. She was so close. If he inched forward they’d be touching. But she’d never felt further away. ‘I thought you were going to stay on for another week or so?’

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