‘I’M HOME,’ Emilia called later that night, closing the front door behind her, kicking off her shoes and bending to give a welcoming Luna an ear-rub.
After a day with back-to-back surgeries, her feet were killing her. But the throbbing helped to keep her mind off Felipe and that incredibly reckless but raunchy kiss in his office. What had she been thinking? Anyone could have walked in and caught them getting steamy against the door, and they’d promised to return to being just friends. But she hadn’t been able to help herself after their seriously sexy night together.
She’d spent the entire weekend with a dreamy smile on her face, reliving every steamy second. Their date had given her back her confidence. And today he’d been so thoughtful and considerate, checking that she’d had no regrets. She had no hope of resisting one more kiss. But it had taken all her strength to walk away. If they hadn’t been at work, if they hadn’t made it clear it was a one-off thing, she would have absolutely slept with him again. He was just so good in bed...
Fanning her face to cool down, she shrugged off her coat and tried to shove aside the memories. It was done. Time to move on. No more thinking about his sexy smile, or the way he touched her face, or that soft groan he made whenever he crushed her in his strong arms...
‘I’m making dinner,’ Eva called from the kitchen, sounding cheerfully upbeat.
Emilia joined Eva in the kitchen, pouring herself a glass of red wine, trying to appear like a fifty-two-year-old woman who hadn’t had mind-blowing sex at the weekend.
And almost again at work today...
‘Smells delicious,’ she said, stirring the pot to distract herself from thinking about Felipe’s skill as a lover. ‘Thank you for cooking. My last surgery ran overtime.’
Eva batted her mother’s hand away, so Emilia took a seat at the breakfast bar to sip her wine and watch dinner progressing.
‘So how was your second date on Friday night?’ Eva asked, hope shining in her big brown eyes. ‘I didn’t hear you come in and we’ve hardly seen each other since.’
Eva had played social volleyball on Saturday and spent most of Sunday at the law library, while Emilia had been on call, spending much of the weekend at the hospital.
Emilia took another sip of wine and prayed that she wouldn’t blush and give herself away. It should be Eva sneaking home in the early hours after a hot date, not the other way around.
‘It was nice,’ she said evasively, uncomfortable with why she hadn’t told Eva about the non-date date before now. But a part of her hadn’t wanted to answer questions about her and Felipe, and Eva had already considered him interested in Emilia.
‘Better than the first one, I hope,’ Eva pressed, shrewdly watching her mother for more details.
Emilia nodded. ‘Yes. Although it wasn’t a real date. Felipe, the guy you met that night at Casa Comiendo, invited me to one of his favourite restaurants. His family owns a vineyard in Mendoza so he’s really into wine. But the evening was a good confidence boost for me and the opposite of the dating app disaster.’
She was babbling, but she couldn’t admit to her daughter that she’d gone home with Felipe, and she didn’t want Eva to get the wrong idea about them. It wasn’t like she and Felipe were going to see each other again. They were just friends and colleagues.
Nothing to explain.
Colleagues who’d had passionate and steamy sex. Twice. Her stomach quivered at the memories.
Eva looked up from slicing tomatoes and capsicums with surprise. ‘So you’re not seeing him again?’ Her mouth turned down in a frown of disappointment.
‘No, apart from at work.’ Emilia shook her head and stole half a cherry tomato from the chopping board, popping it into her mouth, a twinge of regret pinching her stomach. ‘We’re just friends. He’s a committed bachelor who’s been casually dating for fifteen years since his divorce, so I desperately needed his advice on how to spot a bad date after my first disaster.’
Funny that they hadn’t talked much about dating tips though. They’d been too busy sharing stories of the places they’d travelled and the books they liked and the movies they wanted to see. And now that she’d taken that terrifying leap and overcome her fear of being intimate with another man, maybe the next time she wanted to be social she could embrace online dating once more.
She sighed. Meeting a random stranger still held little appeal.
‘Oh...’ Eva looked away. ‘Well at least you’re actually putting yourself out there, Mamá. I’m proud of you. I know it’s not easy. But surely the first few dates are the hardest. You’ll soon get into the swing of it.’
Emilia’s heart sank. Eva obviously still expected her to persevere with the wretched dating app. Emilia hadn’t expected that meeting new men would be easy. Except with Felipe, of course. It had been such a relief to go out with someone honest and mature and with no hidden agenda. Not to mention sexy as sin. And today had proved that their insanely passionate night wasn’t going to affect their working relationship in the slightest. She should feel relieved, and she did, but there was also a wistful edge to her thoughts, most likely due to how comfortable she felt around him.
Now she needed to keep her hands off him at the hospital.
‘So, what about you?’ Emilia asked, trying to change the subject so Eva wouldn’t worry about her sad, single mother. ‘Any social plans in the pipeline?’ Since starting UBA, Eva had only mentioned a couple of friends. Emilia knew it took time to settle in and find your tribe, but she couldn’t help but worry after the upheaval of moving to a new country and leaving behind all her old friends.
‘Actually, yes,’ Eva said, tossing her long hair over one shoulder. ‘I’m hanging out with Paloma at the weekend, a girl I met at volleyball.’
‘Oh, that’s great.’ Emilia’s heart swelled with pride. ‘I’m so glad that you’re making new friends.’
Eva shrugged. ‘Paloma lives on campus, and there’s a party for first years at the student’s association. We might swing by.’
‘Great,’ Emilia said, her stomach clenching painfully at the idea of Eva leaving home like her peers. She wanted the best for her daughter, of course. Eva needed to live her own life and not worry so much about her mother. But Emilia couldn’t help the secret stab of loneliness that crept up on her. Her little girl was a woman. She’d soon be flying the nest, and Emilia would have to get used to living all alone.
Her breath caught on a wave of grief. Ricardo should be there. They were supposed to grow old together after their daughter was all grown up. Just because Emilia had had sex again didn’t mean all of her problems were miraculously resolved.
‘If I’m out this weekend, perhaps you should organise another real date,’ Eva suggested, sliding the salad ingredients into a bowl from the chopping board. ‘That way you won’t be at home by yourself.’
Emilia smiled, forcing herself to practice her brave face for when the time came for Eva to leave home. ‘I don’t mind being alone, mija, but you’re right,’ she added, seeing the look of concern on Eva’s face. ‘Maybe I will.’
Maybe now that she’d dispensed with her nerves over the whole dating thing, now that Felipe had provided a frame of reference for comparison, she could move on to more dating successes. The trouble was that Felipe Castillo had certainly set the gold standard. Their non-date date would be a tough act to follow.
For the rest of the week following his date with Emilia, a busy routine developed. Felipe’s team were on call, which meant sleepless nights, several emergency surgeries and plenty of new surgical admissions. He and Emilia had spent hours together, operating and reviewing patients, building on their growing friendship.
However, every time they had five minutes alone in the surgical staff room, there was a palpable tension between them—knowing looks and the accidental and electrifying brush of a hand. It was driving him insane. There’d been no time for any more heated kisses though, and he should be okay with that sad state of affairs. Except Felipe couldn’t seem to scrub their night together from his mind, nor could he convince himself that it would be foolish to do it again.
It was torture.
That Friday, on their final surgery of the day, Felipe and Emilia worked on a patent ductus arteriosus—or PDA—case.
‘Do you have a good view?’ Felipe asked, retracting the thoracotomy incision in the left third intercostal space to expand the surgical field.
‘Thank you,’ she said.
He glanced at Emilia across the table. Only her eyes were visible between her mask and her theatre hat, but now that he knew her so much better he could read her emotions in her stare. Their mutual professional trust and respect were obvious.
Operating together they’d quickly learned each other’s preferred style. While Emilia was now performing simple routine surgeries unsupervised, they were still doing the more complex cases together. This routine heart surgery to close a PDA, an abnormal connection between the aorta and the pulmonary artery, would be relatively straightforward, but Emilia seemed a little tense.
‘Adjust the light, please,’ she asked the theatre technician, who angled the overhead light, directing the beam into the wound.
‘So we have the aorta and pulmonary artery trunk,’ she said, pointing out the major blood vessels to and from the heart. ‘The vagus nerve and recurrent laryngeal nerve.’
Taking a forceps and scissors, she carefully opened the pericardium, the sac around the heart, to expose the abnormal connection. The structure normally closed soon after birth, but in cases where it remained patent, the mixing of oxygenated blood form the aorta and deoxygenated blood from the pulmonary artery placed undue strain on the heart and lungs.
‘Haemostatic clip, please,’ Emilia asked, reaching for the forceps while Felipe watched, confident now in her abilities. She was a meticulous surgeon. Careful and thorough. He had no concerns about her competence.
She isolated the fistula and placed two metal clips across the ductus.
‘Looking good,’ Felipe said, letting her know that he used exactly the same technique.
She’d finished sewing the pericardium closed when the cardiac monitor sounded an alarm. All eyes swivelled to the heart monitor, which spewed out a paper rhythm strip.
‘Looks like sinus tachycardia,’ the anaesthetist said with a frown of concern.
‘Blood pressure?’ Emilia asked, checking the operative field for evidence of haemorrhage or other serious complications.
‘BP looks good,’ the anaesthetist confirmed, silencing the alarm.
‘I can’t see any bleeding or pneumothorax,’ she said, her worried stare meeting Felipe’s. ‘Am I missing something?’
It was natural to doubt yourself when those alarms sounded. They were designed to prompt action in an emergency. Only that sometimes there was no obvious explanation for an elevated heart rate.
‘I don’t think so.’ He shook his head, repeating the same checks that Emilia had made. Cardiac arrhythmias were relatively common in neonates, and this one didn’t appear to be associated with hypovolaemic shock, which would indicate blood loss.
‘Are you happy for us to close?’ Felipe asked the anaesthetist, quickly shaking off the false alarm. He tried to communicate reassurance to Emilia through his eyes, but she seemed intent on checking again. For some reason, despite her assuring him she had no regrets, Felipe sensed an extra tension between them today.
At the all-clear, Emilia resumed the surgery, closing the chest and siting a drain in the pleural space to prevent the build-up of any air or fluid around the lung.
‘Well done,’ Felipe said as they left Theatre. ‘I couldn’t have done that better myself. One more week of supervision and you’ll be all set to go it alone.’
He wanted to reassure her that he had no professional hesitations when it came to her surgical abilities, that the two of them succumbing to their mutual attraction would in no way affect his recommendation for her full registration with the Argentine Medical Council. Only he’d kind of assumed that it went without saying.
‘Thanks,’ she said, tossing her gown and hat into the laundry bin and heading for the sink. ‘Nothing like an alarm to keep you on your toes, keep your adrenal glands working.’
‘The perfect end to a long and busy week.’ He smiled as he flicked on the taps and began sluicing his hands and arms with water. ‘So, any plans for the weekend?’ he asked, keeping his tone light. He was fishing, yes, and he didn’t want her to feel as if she had to tell him about her personal life. Only a big part of him wanted to ask her out again. They could take the dogs to the park, stop for an ice cream, perhaps catch that new movie they both wanted to see.
Except they were together all the time at work, and neither of them had suggested a repeat of that night. Maybe for Emilia one night had been enough.
‘Um...well, Eva is going to a party on campus with a new uni friend,’ she said, focusing on washing her hands and not looking at him. She yanked a couple of paper towels from the dispenser and dried her hands. ‘And I’m...um...going on another date tomorrow, actually.’ She looked up at last and sheepishly met his stare. ‘I thought I’d give the app one more try.’
Felipe swallowed down his jealousy and disappointment, plastering a bland expression on his face. ‘Sounds good. But is everything okay? You seem a little tense.’
She sighed and shrugged, turning to lean back against the sinks with her arms crossed over her chest. ‘Well, I’m not really looking forward to meeting another stranger to be honest. And I guess I feel a little awkward discussing it with you, after...’ She tilted her head. ‘...you know.’ She glanced down the deserted corridor, ensuring they were alone.
Oh, he knew exactly what she meant. They’d agreed it was a one-off, but the part of him that still fancied her like crazy, that frequently relived every minute of their night together, couldn’t forget how good they’d been. He didn’t want to hear how she was dating another man.
But he also wanted her to be happy. She deserved to be happy after everything she’d been through. Who knew, perhaps her Mr Right was out there waiting for her.
‘No need to feel awkward,’ he said, tossing his balled-up paper towels in the bin with a little too much force. The idea of there being a Mr Right for Emilia shouldn’t bother him. He’d happily abandoned the idea of being that for anyone many years ago. Perhaps it was just Thiago’s looming wedding putting romance in the air.
‘I too have a date tonight, as it happens,’ he said, leaning beside her, his shoulder a few inches from hers. ‘I arranged it weeks ago.’ He held her stare. He had no idea why that last detail was important, especially as they weren’t seeing each other and she also had a date, but he wanted her to know that he’d organised his date before they’d slept together.
‘Oh...’ Her face coloured and she looked away. ‘That’s great. Are you going anywhere special?’
Did he imagine her flash of disappointment? Was she jealous, too? Maybe they should both admit that this wasn’t over and date each other again. Only that seemed...complicated.
One, she didn’t really want to date and was only doing it for Eva. Two, they were colleagues and needed to keep them a secret. And three, Felipe rarely dated the same person more than two or three times. Longer represented something serious, and he’d spent the past fifteen years shying away from that. It was just that he’d never met anyone he got along with as well as Emilia.
‘Just drinks,’ he said with a casual shrug. ‘Maybe dancing if it goes well.’ Although he’d much rather take Emilia dancing. But he owed it to tonight’s date to make an effort.
‘Well,’ she said, as they headed for the theatre changing rooms, ‘I took your advice about only meeting for drinks. Even so, I’m a little nervous about meeting another complete stranger. But that’s normal, right?’
‘Of course,’ he said, his voice full of reassurance as they paused outside the staff changing rooms. She was going out with another man, but he still wanted her to have a good time and feel confident, and she still clearly needed his dating coach advice. Only witnessing her uncertainty, he also wanted to take her in his arms, hold her, whisper words of encouragement until she smiled that beautiful smile of hers. But she was a grown woman. She didn’t need him to hold her hand no matter how badly he wanted to.
‘Just be yourself and have a good time,’ he said, forcing himself to inch towards the male changing room on the left. ‘I’ll see you Monday.’
‘You too,’ Emilia called, her smile looking a little forced as she ducked through the opposite door marked female.
Inside the changing room, Felipe yanked off his scrubs and slammed open his locker, frustration an itch under his skin. He had no right to feel jealous. He and Emilia weren’t exclusive, or even dating. He definitely wasn’t her Mr Right. He should be looking forward to his own date tonight. The woman was a successful accountant with a love of good wine and a divorcee, like him. They had heaps in common.
Except she wasn’t Emilia.