for the trip home tomorrow?’
Her time in paradise was over—Hamish would be back tonight and she and Finn would return to Sydney tomorrow. A flutter wormed its way through her belly at the thought of going back. Part of her wanted to stay—hole up here and forget the world. With the pound of the ocean below, it was incredibly tempting. But she was a fighter, not a hider. And real life beckoned.
The thought of being in a car with Finn for five hours, of having him back in Sydney, of telling him what she knew she must, made her pulse trip.
But it had to be done.
‘Nothing to pack—I still have my apartment with everything I’ll need,’ he said. ‘And I’ll be coming straight back here after Khalid’s discharge.’
Evie blinked. ‘You’re coming back?’
Finn gave a curt nod. ‘Yes. I’m done with surgery.’ He hadn’t been sure when she’d first arrived but two weeks back in her company had crystallised his decision.
Evie stared at him blankly for a moment then allowed the bubble of laughter rising in her throat an escape. He seriously thought he could just waltz in and do a one-off and not be sucked back into a world he’d thrived in?
Even she knew being a surgeon was like oxygen to him.
‘You know as well as I do that you’ll change your mind the minute you step foot in your old operating theatre.’
Finn hated how her laughter trivialised something he’d grappled with for a long time.
And that that she knew him so well.
It had been hell having her around the last two weeks. Hearing her voice and catching glimpses of her everywhere. Reminding him of them. Of his old life. Watching the guys flirt with her and then talk about her—Evie this and Evie that. The calm that he’d found here over the last months had well and truly evaporated and he desperately wanted it back.
The sooner he fulfilled his end of the bargain, the sooner he could find it again.
But he was scared. Scared that her prediction would come to pass. That he’d pick up a scalpel and find the salvation he’d always found there. The concentration, the focus, the intensity.
That he’d never want to leave.
Scared that he’d say yes. To surgery. To her.
And Finn didn’t like feeling scared. It reminded him too much of the perpetual fear he’d lived with during his fractured childhood—for him, for Isaac. Trying to keep him safe, to keep them together.
Fear that he’d conquered a long time ago.
And frankly it pissed him off.
‘Don’t think you know me,’ he snarled, ‘because you don’t. You think because we rutted like animals …’ he saw her flinch at his deliberate crudity but his adrenaline was flowing and he couldn’t stop ‘… a few times that you know me? Read my lips.’ He shoved his face close to hers and watched her hazel eyes widen. ‘I don’t want to be a surgeon,’ he hissed. ‘I don’t want to work at your father’s precious hospital. I don’t want to be anywhere you are.’
Evie felt like he’d taken a bloody great sword and cleaved it right through her middle, leaving her mortally wounded. A surge of white-hot bile rose in her chest as a blinding need to strike back took hold.
‘You’re a liar, Finn Kennedy,’ she snarled. ‘And a coward to boot. And to think you once called yourself a soldier!’
Finn took a step back at the disdain and contempt in her voice. No one had ever called him a coward before. No one. And he was damned if he was going to legitimise her accusation with a response.
Evie drew in a ragged breath as Finn stormed away, her insides shaking at their exchange. At her terrible insult. At the venom in his voice. Anger she’d expected—God knew, he pretty much existed in a perpetually angry state—but vitriol? That had been cutting. A block of tangled emotions rose to mingle with the acid in her chest and her legs started to shake. The urge to crumple into a heap undulated through her muscles but she refused to succumb to it.
Not here on the veranda, at least.
On autopilot she slung her hold-all over her shoulder, found the stairs, pounded down them. Hurried down the track, his angry words chasing her, nipping at her heels. And it didn’t matter that she’d given as good as she’d got, that her words had been just as harsh, it was his voice that ran through her head.
Rutted like animals.
Your father’s precious hospital.
I don’t want