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She glared at him with hate in her eyes. 'Go to hell.'

'Been there,' he said roughly. 'And I wasn't offering to do any more shaking, Annie, because I doubt my sanity could take it. But what you're going to do is put a smile on your face and some lipstick on that argumentative mouth of yours. You're going to meet Clancy tonight and you're going to give him a chance while he's still willing and you've still got the body of a goddess to attract him. If another six years without sex does the same to you as the past six, he might just be your last chance.'

Annabel said something she'd never said before, something obscene and succinct and entirely to the point, but Luke's composure didn't falter for even a second. He merely stood aside from the door and opened it, allowing her to get out.

'Good to hear you're still capable of expressing a little honest emotion,' he remarked calmly. 'Keep it up. It's almost seven. You'll have to hurry to reach Clancy in time. Have fun.'

She sent him a savage look then stormed straight upstairs to her office. She slammed the door, locked it, dragged her spare white coat from the hook at the back of the door, threw it to the floor and stared unflinchingly into the small mirror the coat had been covering.

She was a dried-up old hag, she told herself faintly, wiping the hot tears which had formed after she'd fled Luke out of her eyes with the heels of her hands, forcing herself not to flinch away from her reflection. Essentially, that's what he'd said. She was a dried-up, frustrated, screwed-up hag, with hair like a soldier and matronly clothes.

But instead of seeing the grotesque, repugnant monster she was half expecting, she was a little startled to see that she looked—apart from her red, blotchy eyes and temper stains on her cheeks—the same as she always looked.

Her hair was short, yes, too short to be particularly flattering, but although it was a long time since she'd paid it any sort of specialised attention outside its two-monthly trim it was soft and shiny and still a vibrant, coppery red, with no signs yet of her colour fading. And the way it feathered around her forehead and ears wasn't at all armylike.

While her features might be unbalanced, her grey eyes too big and widely spaced in her small face for beauty, her skin was unlined and creamy and clear.

She shed her white doctor's coat and took a step back, peering with dry eyes now at the scarf tucked into the buttoned-top of her blouse and her padded-shouldered jacket. The scarf might be too much, she acknowledged, tugging at the silk until it slid free. And the jacket, while roomy and comfortable—the way she preferred them—added several unnecessarily puffy inches of bulk around her chest and shoulders.

She unbuttoned her jacket so that it hung loosely like a coat, rather than bunching around her, and that at least left the line of her figure unadorned and clean. It was only her clothes she'd changed these past years, she knew. Her figure and size hadn't altered especially. Her breasts, certainly, while still too big in her opinion, remained rounded and firm, from her skirt size she knew her waist hadn't shrunk or expanded particularly and for her height her legs were relatively long and well shaped.

Part of her rebelled against Luke's scathing criticism, but the other part, the fragile part, still wondered sickly if he could have been right. She turned sideways experimentally then came closer and peered at her face. What if he'd been right about her being ugly now and she was just so used to looking at herself she hadn't realised?

The doctor part of her might not care—in fact, hadn't cared for years—but was the woman inside her ready to resign herself to that yet? Until Luke had come back she had been, but now she'd realised that she was still capable of responding sexually to a man she wasn't sure how she felt any more. Was she really ready to face a future where she was destined to always remain alone and childless? She might never find a man she loved as much as Luke but perhaps, if she made more of herself, she might one day interest a man who could arouse milder yet still satisfying feelings in her.

She collected her discarded coat and scarf and, after draping them over the back of her chair, retrieved her handbag from her desk and marched back towards the door. She'd think about it when she was less upset, she decided. But the one thing she certainly wasn't going to do, she vowed silently, was to mope morosely about her office and stand up Geoffrey, giving Luke yet more reasons to ridicule her.

There wasn't time to go home first to change her clothes so she drove directly to the shopping centre, parked her little car, then dashed through and up the escalators to the area outside the cinemas where they'd arranged to meet. She saw Geoffrey a little while before she reached him. He was talking to a couple in the ticket queue. As she got closer she stopped, hesitating nervously, realising she knew the pair.

Geoffrey must have already collected his tickets because he was outside the barrier, but to her relief the queue suddenly moved quickly and the other two said their goodbyes, moved up to one of the counters, bought tickets, waved, then moved inside into the theatre complex.

Annabel walked slowly towards Geoffrey. She knew immediately from the stunned way he turned to look at her that they'd been talking about her. And Luke. 'Annabel—'

'I saw you,' she said faintly. 'And Abdul and Louise.' She hadn't seen either of the other doctors for several years but they'd once been medical registrars at the Free with Luke.

'We trained at Guy's together.' Geoffrey still looked incredulous. 'I used to play golf with Abdul. They know Luke. They'd heard he'd arrived at St Peter's and they were curious to know how you two were getting on.'

'I know what they must have told you.' Annabel winced. 'It's true. I'm sorry.'

'Married,
Annabel.' He shook his head slowly at her.
'Married!
I can't believe it. Harry mentioned something the other day about the two of you knowing each other, but...I didn't know you'd ever been seriously involved with anyone before. Why on earth didn't you say anything?'

'It was a long time ago,' she said lamely. 'I didn't feel up to facing any gossip when he came back. It was years ago, Geoffrey. It's not like—' She broke off. 'Luke and I hadn't seen each other in six years. It didn't seem important.'

'That first day in Outpatients when he walked in on us I thought there was something strange going on. Was he angry about catching you with me?'

'Angry?'
Annabel blinked. 'Oh.
Jealous,
you mean?' She almost laughed out loud at his hesitant nod. 'Oh, no, Geoffrey. Oh, no, you mustn't think that. Don't worry. Considering what he thinks of me now, if he was anything it would have been astounded.'

'Can we?... Look...' He waved the tickets at her. 'This all seems to have thrown me a bit. I'm not that interested in the movie. Would you mind if we gave up on it?'

She shook her head. She felt so guilty about him finding out about Luke this way she'd have gone along with whatever he'd wanted. She stood quietly by while he gave the tickets away to a young couple near the back of the queue.

He guided her to a small Greek restaurant in Bayswater a little way from the cinema. They sat at one end of a long table and Geoffrey, who'd obviously been there before, exchanged greetings with the friendly woman who came to take their order. After checking with Annabel to see she had no objections, he turned down the offer of menus and left the choice of food up to the chef.

'Everything here's delicious,' he told Annabel quietly. 'I've been coming here for years and I've never been disappointed. Annabel, I'm not sure what to say. Do you want to talk about it or would you rather I didn't ask?'

'There's nothing really to say,' Annabel said warily. 'I was quite young, we married, it lasted two years, he left and went to Boston and the next year we were divorced. According to Harry, he's never remarried.' She felt her mouth tighten. 'I don't imagine he lacks for sex and as he's never seemed to have wanted children I suppose he doesn't feel the need.'

'Do you have feelings for him?'

'Feelings?'
She grimaced. 'What a strange word that is. I'll always have some...feelings for Luke, Geoffrey, the divorce didn't change that. Those sorts of emotions don't just disappear when it's convenient. I don't know if you've ever been through this sort of thing yourself, but even after a gap of several years it's hard going straight into, a normal social relationship. I don't think Luke's finding it easy either but...well, we're working on it.'

She sat back for the delivery of a basket of bread and a selection of dips and little entrees, thanked their waitress, then met Geoffrey's brown regard levelly. 'It's been a confusing few months. Until Harry told me Luke was coming to St Peter's the whole thing about me ever having been married had been irrelevant, and afterwards I was too worried to want to talk about it to anyone.'

To her relief, his smile was gently understanding. 'It doesn't matter,' he said quietly. 'It's none of my business anyway. Would you like bread?'

She had no appetite but he seemed eager for her to try the food and for his sake she took some of the warm, flat bread and spread it with pale taramasalata and a garlic-flavoured yoghurt dip in turn. Both were delicious and she felt a little of her hunger reviving as she accepted a small rice-filled vine leaf and found it refreshing, redolent with fresh mint and very tasty.

For a little while they ate quietly, then Geoffrey said, 'You're not thinking about leaving St Peter's, are you?'

'The thought has crossed my mind,' Annabel admitted. She took a mouthful of the lemon-scented water they'd been brought, and put her glass down with a sigh. 'I don't want to leave. I love the hospital. But I did find myself looking through the job adds in
The Lancet
this week rather thoroughly.'

'Was your divorce that acrimonious?'

'The divorce was a breeze.' She bit at her lower lip. 'The acrimonious bit was the marriage.' The details weren't something she'd ever considered discussing before but she was still stinging from her earlier encounter with Luke. 'Men like Luke want doormat wives, not women with minds and opinions of their own.'

Geoffrey blinked. 'Luke doesn't strike me as the sort of person who wouldn't want an equal partner,' he said slowly.

'You only think that because you haven't tried disagreeing with him yet,' she told him silkily.

He looked taken aback by that and Annabel felt herself flushing. 'I didn't mean it to come out like that,' she admitted sheepishly. 'The truth is, there were faults on both sides. If I'd been less blinded by infatuation in the beginning I'd have realised how incompatible we were before we married.'

'From what Abdul and Louise were saying, you must have only been a house officer the first year you were married, and they mentioned Luke was still a registrar.' Geoffrey looked over the white beans he was dishing up for them both. 'With those sorts of working hours you can't have been able to spend much time together. That wouldn't have been a good start for any marriage.'

'Those two years were pretty hellish hours-wise for both of us,' she admitted. 'Luke was on a demanding rotation when he took a consultant job I went from two frantic house officer attachments to my first medical SHO year so I was just as busy. I was on one in three incredibly busy call all that time and on my nights off duty I'd often be so tired I'd fall asleep in my room at the hospital and not get home at all. But Luke was worse. He was devoted to his job. He made himself available to the hospital seven days a week, twenty-four hours a day. He'd go in weekends, nights, whenever he was needed, regardless of whether I'd made plans or if we hadn't seen each other in ages.

'The first six months we were married we still tried really hard to scrape time away for each other and we had quite a few weekend breaks abroad and even a week's holiday in Greece, but then Luke was offered a job in Boston and things started going wrong,' she confided tiredly. She contemplated the dish of tiny octopuses in front of her.

'He wanted to take the job, you see. He wanted me to come to America with him. He couldn't believe it when I refused. He just couldn't understand that I might not be prepared to leave my home and my job and my father and just race off overseas with him, all for the sake of him getting just that little bit further ahead on the career ladder. He'd been so sure I'd simply uproot myself and go happily wherever he wanted he'd even made enquiries about an internal medicine residency for me behind my back.

'We never really recovered from that. He resented me for holding up his career and I resented him for not loving me enough to think to put me first.'

'But obviously he did.' Geoffrey blinked at her. 'He stayed, didn't he?'

'Unwillingly,' she said quietly. 'Oh, he never said as much but it was obvious. He used to get letters from Harvard every six months so I knew he was keeping in touch and we always argued more around the time they came. And he certainly didn't waste any time flying straight over there after he left me. But the harm had been with that first job offer.

'After that I started feeling insecure about all sorts of things, including whether he really loved me or not and even about other women. I never realised how forceful my own sex could be until I saw how they came on to him all the time.' She lifted her head and smiled wryly. 'Even when I was with him they'd still smile and watch him and flirt. They used to make me feel invisible.'

She saw Geoffrey's wistful expression and grimaced. 'It wasn't fun, Geoffrey. At least not for me. I had to bite my hands to stop myself from screaming at them and it was like torture, imagining him with them, when I was stuck at work for days on end. I couldn't forget that I'd once been one of those women chasing him, and I'd got what I'd wanted so why wouldn't other women get the same thing?'

'Luke doesn't seem the type to take advantage of his looks,' Geoffrey contributed quietly.

'Well, that's the irony of it all,' Annabel admitted huskily. 'He's a very moral person. Integrity is important to him. I doubt he was ever physically unfaithful to me.' She sighed. 'Which is probably the reason he used to hate it so much when I didn't trust him.'