Page 14 of Broken Heart Syndrome
No doubt the site of my bare flesh was offensive to him, but I decided I didn’t care and ignored his scowl, continuing to write that day’s entry in the notes.
He was in a bad mood for the rest of the morning, and before stalking off the ward I saw him pull the sister aside. The CCU ward sister was called Mary; she was in her fifties, tall, with short, dark hair peppered with grey, and attractive.
I loved her.
She was formidable, and terrified the majority of the juniors, but was for some reason wonderful to me. It helped that I wasn’t work-shy, and that I respected her and her knowledge wrought from years of working in cardiology. From the first time I had tentatively asked her a question, she had taken me under her wing. (The cakes I regularly bestowed on the ward might also have had something to do with it.)
Tom was talking in a low voice, his head bent to her. I saw confusion cross her face and she turned to me, bizarrely scanning me up and down and then looking even more bemused. She said something back to Tom, her face still puzzled. He made a dismissive gesture and looked a little cross as he replied shortly. She shrugged, and then nodded her agreement, albeit reluctantly, to whatever he was asking; then he strode out of the ward without even glancing in our direction.
‘Hi, Frankie,’ Mary said as she approached me with a warm smile. ‘Can I have a word a minute?’
‘Sure, what’s up?’ I turned to her, returning her smile.
‘Do you mind coming into my office?’ she asked, glancing at Ash and the med students. Uh-oh, I didn’t like the sound of this, but I nodded and followed her. Once we were seated in her office she looked at me apologetically.
‘Frankie, I need to talk to you about your clothes.’
‘My clothes?’ This was definitely not what I had been expecting.
‘Yes, it seems that some … um … some people are finding that what you wear is a little … well … inappropriate.’
‘What do you mean?’ This was so weird; I had never been pulled up on the way I dressed. Lou had been asked to tone it down a bit before, what with the skirts that barely covered her lady parts, but there was nothing ‘out there’ about my clothes at all.
Mary leaned into me and I could tell that she was supremely uncomfortable. ‘To be honest I have no idea what the problem is. I think you look fine.’
‘By “people” do you meanTomby any chance?’
She shifted her eyes away. ‘Maybe.’
I spent the rest of the day in furious contemplation of what was so offensive about the way I dressed. The only answer I could come up with was that I must be too scruffy. But I thought this was a bit rich coming from Tom, whose shirts were rarely ironed, his shoes more than a little scuffed, and who was more often than not in dire need of a good shave. But hey, maybe he thought women in medicine should power-dress a bit more.
After telling Lou that evening, she looked like she had won the lottery. She’d been waiting for years to overhaul my wardrobe, and I had just handed her the perfect excuse. Luckily it was a Friday, so she had all weekend to drag me round town so she could thoroughly ‘Gok’ me.
Chapter 6
Torture
Tom looked up from the monitor in CCU and froze.
Frankie was walking towards him.
As usual, at his first sighting of her, his chest squeezed and his heart rate sped up as he was hit by a wave of lust so strong he actually felt lightheaded. This was made even worse by her transformation.
He caught sight of that bloody Elderly Care registrar, Lou, who had obviously walked with Frankie on her way to her bed-blocker ward. She paused in the doorway to CCU and was smirking at him. When she saw that she had his attention she winked, gave him a one-finger salute, and flounced off down the corridor. Well, at least he knew who was responsible for his latest torture. Not that he thought this shit could get any worse.
Frankie stopped next to the desk and gave him one of her small smiles before she ducked her head to look at her list. This, as always, pissed him off. From the first time he’d seen her again, all he had received from her were small smiles, minimal short answers to his questions, and almost no direct eye contact. What annoyed him even more was that when he saw her with other people, people she liked, she didn’t give them small smiles – she fucking beamed at them. Her smile, when she really let it rip, could light up a room, transforming her face from gorgeous to almost otherworldly in its beauty.
He took a deep breath and stood up from the chair, pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes to try to erase the image of her that was burned into his brain.
He had royally screwed up. The sight of the bare skin of her back, directly after she had flicked her magnificent hair into his face (making him realize that it was even softer and more silky than it looked – and he had always thought it looked pretty bloody soft), bringing that intense blast of her fresh, clean yet flowery scent, had sent him a little insane.
All he could think was that he had to do something to end the pain … get her to cover up more, maybe. So he spoke to Mary, giving her the whole inappropriate clothing thing, and she had rightly looked at him like he had lost his mind.
He should have known that what he’d said would have been misinterpreted. He was sure that in Lou’s case it was a wilful and premeditated misinterpretation – and perhaps he should have anticipated that too.
In his defence, it would have been impossible to predict just how magnificent Frankie looked in the high-necked, belted, cream dress she was wearing. It wasn’t like it was even revealing, falling to her knees as it did with a slight flare of the skirt at the bottom. But the way the material hugged her body, throwing it into stark relief, almost made him lose his already strained control.
Her curves, whilst not generous, were perfectly proportioned on her small frame. Her long, shiny, freaking fantastic hair was down her back and framing her face, just the front part secured back with a clip. She wore minimal makeup, but he supposed she didn’t really need it with her olive skin and her thick, dark lashes framing her chocolate-brown eyes.
