Page 13 of Doc Defence

Shaking her head, she opened her mouth to answer, but Sadie jumped in before she could.

“Yeah, how does it feel to be a hero?” Sadie asked sweetly, grinning at her friend.

Hel rolled her eyes at the sarcasm. Over the years, they had both been involved in more resuscitations than they cared to recall. Sometimes, they got the patients back, and sometimes, they didn’t. But the reality was it wasn’t anything to do with heroics and everything to do with years and years of training to make sure they could function in a situation a lot of people wouldn’t be able to.

“What my very sarcastic friend here means to say is, I did my job, and today I got lucky, and Aiden got lucky, and we got the outcome we wanted. It wasn’t me being a ‘hero’.” Hel emphasised the word.

“Nope. Take the compliment,” Abbey said. “Are you a doctor too?” She asked Sadie.

“Yeah, I’m an anaesthetist,” Sadie supplied.

“That’s awesome. I’m in my third year of a medical science degree. I’m hoping to apply to dentistry.” Abbey beamed at the women.

“What have we said about that?” Rocky chided her.

Hel stiffened, waiting for the big man to be misogynistic and tell his girlfriend she was crazy to apply or she should do something more womanly.

“Don’t say hoping. Iamapplying to be a dentist, and Iwillget in.“ Rocky patted Abbey’s knee. “We’ve spoken about the mind game. You have to want it and believe you deserve it.”

Hel sagged with relief that she wouldn’t need to make a scene telling Rocky off. Her eyes wandered to Frost, and Sadie must have noticed as she leaned in, gave her a nudge, and wiggled her eyebrows.

Hel winced when Sadie managed to shove the spot Frost’s elbow had collided with when he ripped open Aiden’s shirt.

She murmured to Sadie, “Stop.”

The man had a girlfriend. It was pretty embarrassing that Sadie was carrying on, but even so, her eyes strayed over to Frost, and he was staring right back at her.

CHAPTER 5

FROST

Froststaredacrossthetable at Hel. He needed to stop. Star was right beside him. But he couldn’t drag his eyes away from her. He couldn’t stop himself from remembering the squeak of surprise when he swept her off her feet and how she felt in his arms.

When she looked over at him, he knew he should look away, he shouldn’t be staring into her eyes. But he didn’t drop his gaze, he held hers. Her hazel eyes were warm, pulling him in. He should go and talk to her.

He moved fractionally in his chair, about to stand up, when Star spoke.

“Babe. You have such a good eye. Look.” She thrust her phone in front of his face to show him one of the three million photos he had taken of her.

Glancing down, he automatically said, “It’s impossible to take a bad photo of you.” It was a variant of what he said whenever she fished for a compliment.

Things like.‘No, it’s your beauty that makes the photos so easy to take.’Or,‘Your eyes look like that in every light.’Then he would secretly add to himself, and it’s nothing to do with the filter you use.‘Of course, you’re a natural beauty.’When he had watched her shovel makeup on with a trowel.

He tried telling her she was beautiful and didn’t need that much makeup, but Star always insisted it was part of her brand image. Whenever she went out in public, she needed to be perfectly made up in case any Star-lifers saw her.

Frost’s eyes strayed again to Hel. He was sure she probably was wearing makeup, but unlike his girlfriend, who had flawless skin, he could see freckles scattered across Hel’s nose. Her lashes held a hint of mascara, and he struggled not to stare at her eyes again.

He willed her to look over, but she didn’t; she just carried on chatting animatedly with Rocky and Abbey.

“Now my duty is done. I’m all yours,” Star declared to him.

“Huh?” Frost hadn’t been paying much attention to his girlfriend.

Her hand was on the front of his shirt, and she pulled him towards her.

“What are you doing?” Frost questioned.

Star giggled, the annoying little ‘cute’ giggle she always did. The same one he found so charming at first but was now like nails on a chalkboard.

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