But the man in the media bore little resemblance to the boy she’d once known. And it was the latter who had stolen her adolescent heart.

Besides, she’d been there when he’d really got that scar, climbing the forty-foot oak tree outside Shady Sadie’s house when he’d been fifteen. Or at least she’d been in the living room with her father when Robbie had raced back to say that a damaged limb had given way and Kaspar had fallen to the ground. He’d been carted off to the hospital with a few superficial cuts and bruises and that one deep gash. He’d worn it with all the pride of a battle scar, of course. Trust the media to come up with something far more dark and exotic to explain it.

But they couldn’t have made up everything, could they? The playboy lifestyle? The dangerous reputation? It had been fifteen years since she’d last seen him so of course he wasn’t going to be the same boy she’d known. As Katie gabbled on, Archie let her head drop back, the cool concrete of the pillar seeping into her brain, and tried to think a little more clearly. Maybe opening the Kaspar Athari can of worms really wasn’t the best idea she’d ever had.

As Katie’s hands grabbed her shoulders and hauled her off the pillar, Archie was tugged back to the present.

‘This is your chance, here comes your Surgeon Prince.’

Before she could stop it, she was being swung around and thrust out around the column. The breath whooshed from her body. She didn’t need to turn to know that Katie would have already gone.

‘And there I was thinking you were hiding from me, Archie.’

The rich, slow drawl was laced with a kind of lazy amusement as every inch of Archie’s skin prickled and got goosebumps. Not least the fact that he knew who she was after all. Her stomach spiralled like a helter-skelter in reverse.

Archie. He rolled her name on his tongue as though sampling it, tasting it. She imagined he was measuring it against the woman she was now, compared to the ‘Little Ant’ he’d always known her as.

She opened her mouth to speak just as Kaspar stepped closer to her. Everything in her head shut down as her body shifted into overdrive. Heady, and electrifying, and like nothing she’d ever known before.

He was dressed smart-casual, a vaguely lemony, leathery scent toying with her nostrils, and he practically oozed masculinity. Enough to eclipse every other male in the room most probably. Even every other male in the county. The world.

Even her childhood crush on him didn’t compare. It made her feel physically winded and adrenalin-pumped all at once.

The indolent crook of his mouth, so sinful and enticing, gave the distinct impression that he could read her thoughts. Feed into her darkest desires. It made her very blood seem to slow in her veins. A sluggish trickle, which her thundering heart seemed to be working harder and harder to process.

He was simply intoxicating. She cast around for something, anything, that wouldn’t betray how at sea she felt.

‘How is the patient? Rick, wasn’t it?’

Not exactly ideal, but it would have to do. Kaspar only hesitated for a moment.

‘He’s in pretty bad shape.’

‘But you can help him?’

‘Possibly.’

He didn’t want to talk shop, she could understand that, but it was buying her some much-needed time. She had to settle down. Katie was right, she was like a beachgoer on hot sand.

‘I think I read last year that you had a patient who’d had a firework go off in his face and you used some kind of layering technique?’

‘You’re in the medical profession?’ Kaspar’s stare intensified.

Archie swallowed. Hard.

‘No, actually I’m in the construction industry. I build the hospitals, you work in them.’

‘You build them?’

‘Well, I work out layout, ease of movement so it isn’t a rabbit warren; service routes such as for heating, lighting and medical gases especially for the operating rooms; whether to connect to the existing back-up generators, or build new ones; medical incinerators, that sort of thing.’

There was a lot more to it, and given how much she loved her job she could probably go on about it all night. Which would be a problem. It was hardly the most seductive of conversations.

‘Are you part of the team building the new women’s and children’s wing for our hospital?’

Pride outweighed her need to change the subject.

‘Yes.’

‘I’m impressed. It’s looking really good and I believe you’re pretty much on time and on budget.’

She was powerless to prevent a grin so wide it might well crack her face in two.

‘Thanks. It isn’t going too badly. There are a few niggles but I built decent float into the programme so it shouldn’t be too much of an issue. Once we’ve finished on the new wing we’ll start on the new hospice facility across the site. We should be done within ten months, hopefully.’

‘Even more impressive.’

‘Dad always loved what I did,’ she added suddenly.

Waiting, hoping, for Kaspar to add something he also remembered about her father. Then fighting the sense of discouragement when he barely even reacted.

‘I can imagine.’

‘Anyway,’ she caught herself, ‘we were talking about your firework patient.’

She didn’t know why it felt so important that he should answer her. Perhaps because her dad had once told her and Robbie that getting Kaspar to open up about the things he loved was the key to knowing the boy. He kept everything that mattered to him so closely guarded, as though he feared the pleasure could be snatched from him at any time. The way his mother had often cruelly snatched away anything he’d shown an interest in as a kid, from toys, to hobbies, to his only decent stepfather.

According to her dad, Kaspar had never been a kid in the strictest sense of the word. His parents’ volatile relationship had caused him to grow up quickly, to distance himself from people, to distrust easily. But her own father had brought him round, treating him exactly as he’d treated Robbie, encouraging when he could, laying down the ground rules at other times. And she’d treated him like a brother while Robbie, of course, had just been Robbie, sweet, funny and easygoing.

Did Kaspar remember all that? If he did, did he care? Enough to answer her?

He hesitated and, for a moment, she thought he was going to sidestep it.

‘The boy’s jaw was shattered. He’d lost a chunk of it along with the teeth on the right side. He couldn’t eat, couldn’t even speak, so I needed to build a new jaw and simultaneously implant teeth. We layered pieces of titanium and then used a laser to harden the material. The lattice structure allowed us to really bend and form it so that it was the right size and shape for the kid, fitting perfectly and looking natural.’

Archie didn’t realise she’d been holding her breath until he stopped speaking. He was looking directly at her, his eyes were dark, intense, like a moment of understanding. Of connection.

She didn’t know whether it was a good or a bad thing that at that moment the music cranked up a notch and whatever else he was saying was lost, swallowed up by the thumping bass line.

‘Say that again?’ she shouted, but he shook his head.

The moment of opening up to her about his career was clearly over. She leaned in to speak into his ear, swaying slightly on her friend’s heels, her body lurching against his as he put his arm around her to steady her. Her lips grazed his skin and she smelled the tantalising citrus scent.

It hit her again, that wall of primal need, stealing her breath away as his touch seared every inch of her flesh. It was almost a relief when the music kicked down again and he released her.

‘You want to get out of here?’ she asked instead.

‘Together?’

‘Is that a problem?’

The words were out before she had even thought about them. Seductive, teasing, another flash of the old, adult Archie. Yet the way she could never have dreamed of being as a thirteen-year-old with a crush. It was exhilarating.