“Heath?” Verity asked, waving her hand in front of his face. “Have you had a stroke? We need to go. This is your deal. They’re not going to care ifwe’relate. You’re the one speaking.”
Heath shook his head as if to clear it, glanced at me again before visibly swallowing as his gaze swept from the top of my head to my shoes / instruments of Satan. Tonight was ‘his show’, as Verity put it. It was a gala dinner in aid of the children’s retreat that Heath and Verity were helping to build at the site of their parents’ former house. Heath would be speaking about the difference that the retreat would make to young people’s lives in order to drum up some on-the-night donations. Most of his colleagues from the hospital would be there, as would his local friends along with many of the twins’ insanely posh friends. I’d considered trying to get out of it (I craved Heath too much to have to suffer through seeing him in black tie – the few times I’d seen him wearing it before the oestrogen rush nearly killed me) but after he visited me at the harbour, pulled the friend card out again and implied I wasn’t capable of dressing posh, I couldn’t say no. From his expression just now, he clearly had not expected me to follow the dress code to the letter.
“Have fun now, kids!” Teddy called after us as we all made our way to the front door. Both the dogs blocked our way with Winnie darting in front of me so fast I almost went over on these stupid stilts. Just as I was pitching forward, a strong arm wrapped around my back, with another going to my hand to steady me. It had been over a month since he’d touched me and it was like lighting a fuse. Like my body had been asleep and was only now sparking back to life. I looked up into those clear blue eyes, and for a moment it was as if time stood still. Everything else faded away.
“Want to get your bloody hands off my sister, mate?” Max’s voice cut through my Heath-induced trance, and we both flinched away from each other as if we’d received an electric shock.
“She fell, Max,” Heath snapped, giving Winnie’s head a rub and then belly rub when she dropped to her back (it was safe to say that Winnie had warmed up to Heath in a big way over the last month) and then moving her out of the way.
“A likely story,” Max muttered as he fell back between me and Heath, putting his hand to my lower back and guiding me out of the door like I was still his ten-year-old little sister.
This new, attentive version of Max would regularly drop into my flat to check I was okay. He even came over to fix my washing machine after I’d mentioned it in passing to Mia. And he’d turned ultra-protective – hence the back-off vibes to Heath.
I sighed and followed Verity out of the door. She was looking back at her brother with a small smile on her face.
Chapter 26
I know how to handle myself
Heath
I pulled at my shirt collar and cleared my throat as I followed Yaz out of the door. What the fuck has my sister done now? I’m not sure what I’d expected Yaz to wear, but I certainly hadn’t thought she would allow Verity to dress her in a full-length, silvery blue, backless gown with matching four-inch heel stilettoes. Somehow V had not only managed to get Yaz into the outfit, but she’d even convinced her to wear make-up with smoky eyes and pale lips. Yaz’s unenhanced beauty was difficult to deal with and garnered a fair amount of attention – this Yaz was off the charts. And what had I done when she walked in? I’d stood there with my mouth open like a goldfish out of water and then stuttered a couple of nonsensical words. Complimenting women was my forte, for Christ’s sake! Where was all my hard-won charm when I needed it? Couldn’t I have managed to tell her she looked beautiful? The trouble was that beautiful didn’t even cover it. When she’d walked into that room, it was like all the oxygen was sucked out. She was all I could see, and my mind went blank. I stewed over it in the car, not concentrating on the conversation around me – Verity was sitting in between me and Yaz, with Mia and Max in the front. I gave myself a pep talk, chastised myself for dropping the ball with the one woman I really wanted to impress, and then decided to do something about it.
“You look beautiful,” I blurted out, rather louder than I had intended, into the car. There was silence for a beat.
“Er… thanks, man,” Max said. “But I was only asking about your grouting. Awkward.”
I sighed and scrubbed my hands down my face. I needed to get it together. This was ridiculous. V squeezed my hand. When I looked down at her, she was smiling a very smug smile – she’d done this to me deliberately.
Things only went downhill from there. When I’d guilt-tripped Yaz into coming tonight, I had not anticipated the consequences. I hadn’t realised just how much attention she would attract. I’d forgotten that day in the emergency department when she came in with Bryn.
“Who isthat, mate?” asked Tim, one of the ED nurses, staring across the room at Yaz, who had kicked off her shoes and dragged Mia onto the dance floor. Yaz’s dancing was, and always had been… unusual. It was slightly off the beat, she used a lot of sweeping arm movements, the occasional leap across the floor, lots of spinning – she’d even been known to put in the odd forward roll. It was like some sort of weird, inept modern ballet on steroids. And it was so… soYaz. She didn’t care what she looked like out there – she was totally free. Mia was looking rather more self-conscious until Yaz swept her up and started carefully twirling her around, pushing everyone else out of their way so that Mia would feel safe to dance, even if heavily pregnant. Mia’s face went from mortified at Yaz’s antics to bright red before she started giggling when Yaz grabbed Verity from the side of the dance floor and dipped her almost to the ground. My sister rarely danced and she certainly never let anyone dip her. Yaz had the element of surprise on her side though and before long Verity was giggling as well. More than anyone else I had ever met, Yaz knew how to have a good time, and how to sweep everyone else along with her
“Jesus Christ,” Ruben the orthopaedic consultant piped up. “Whoever she is, I would walk through hellfire to drink her bath water. Wait–” He squinted over at Yaz for a moment. “Isn’t she that bird from the other day? Came into the ED. She yours, Heath?”
“I don’t think it’s appropriate to objectify women,” I said in the most condescending tone I could muster. “I’m sure Liz and Penny don’t appreciate it.”
Liz snorted. “Don’t worry about us, Heath. I hear much worse on a daily basis working with these meatheads.”
“And she does look beautiful,” Penny put in, elbowing me in the ribs and nodding encouragingly towards Yaz. It was almost insulting how over me she was. “I think gay or straight, male or female, it would be impossible not to comment on how insanely attractive that woman is. I reckon I’d drink her bathwater too, and I usually like my lovers big, hairy and very, very male.”
“You didn’t answer the question, Heath,” Ruben said. “She yours or not?”
“NowthatI object to,” Liz said, frowning at Ruben. “You don’t own a person, you sexist pig. It’s not possible for her to be his, even if they’re together.”
“Itispossible,” I muttered, my eyes still fixed on Yaz. She was twirling Verity now. They both had a near miss with a server carrying a tray of champagne glasses. Yaz paused to apologise profusely to him. To be honest, he looked more likely to drop the tray in the face of Yaz’s expressive apology than he had when she’d nearly crashed into him. He shook his head, a star-struck look in his eyes, and I could see him saying “It’s fine”. After some more apologies, Yaz dazzled him with a bright smile before she spun away. It took a good few seconds for the poor man to recover from the encounter. He blinked down at his tray as if he’d forgotten it was even there before he moved away again into the crowd.
“Ugh,” Liz huffed out. “Don’t you start. I thought you were more evolved than that, Heath. What about the objectification of women?”
“I didn’t sayIownedher. If anything, it’s the other way around.”
I didn’t wait for a reply or bother to look at their shocked expressions. I just walked towards Yaz. But by the time I made it to the dance floor she was walking away to the bar arm-in-arm with Mia and Verity. A couple of my old schoolmates blocked my path, and it was too tricky to shake them off, especially given the amount they’d pledged in the auction earlier. When I finally managed to get away, it took me ages to track her down.
She was tucked in a corner with Josh, who appeared to be pouring his heart out to her and looked on the verge of tears. Yaz had her head tipped to the side, all her attention on him, as if she was able to look down into his soul. She’d met the guy twice and appeared to be getting further with him than I had in six months of being his educational supervisor. Then he hugged her, and I felt like my head was going to explode. On my way over to them I had to remind myself that Josh was scared of me, that I didn’t believe in physical violence as a way to solve my problems,andthat it would probably be poor form to rip off Josh’s arm from its socket just because it was wrapped around Yaz’s mostly bare back.
“Josh,” I gritted out as I drew level with them.
“Oh, hi, Dr Markham,” he said, thankfully releasing Yaz to look up at me.
