Charlotte watched him stride away and looked at her with awe. ‘Would someone mind telling me what’s going on here? You answered him back and he just laughed,’ she muttered, reaching for the notes so that she could make the arrangements for the CT scan. ‘And I can’t believe he let you deal with those drunks. I’ve never known him to act like that before. Normally he’s very protective of the female staff, to the point of chauvinism. I mean, we all ought to deal with the same patients but the truth is when you’re built like Jago you stand more chance with a violent drunk than someone who is built like you. I don’t know what he was playing at.’

Katy gave a weak smile. She knew exactly what he’d been playing at. He’d been waiting for her to fail.

He’d wanted her to fail since the day she’d started.

What she didn’t understand was why.

A pleasant warmth spread through her veins. His reasons didn’t really matter. She hadn’t failed. She’d managed fine, she knew she had. She’d made all the right clinical decisions and she hadn’t needed his help.

She straightened her slim shoulders and gave a small smile, suddenly feeling more confident.

He’d tested her and she’d passed with flying colours.

So now what would happen?

* * *

Jago closed the door of his office and ran long fingers through his cropped hair.

What the hell was the matter with him?

He’d sent a woman to deal with a bunch of drunks.

And not just any woman, he’d sent Katy. Katy, who was about as robust as a spring flower.

What had he been thinking of?

But he knew the answer to that, of course.

He’d been trying to prove that she couldn’t cope with the rigours of practising medicine in the A and E department. He’d been trying to scare her away.

Because he didn’t want her here, on his territory, looking at him with those wide violet-blue eyes.

Just thinking of her exceptionally beautiful, heart-shaped face made him harden in an instinctive and powerful male reaction, and he gave an exclamation of disgust.

Hadn’t he learned anything? Was he really that basic that he could forget everything just to satisfy the most primitive of male urges?

What was it about Katy Westerling? True, she was astonishingly beautiful but he met beautiful women all the time and they didn’t make him abandon his usual caution towards members of the opposite sex.

He had to keep reminding himself that she wasn’t what she seemed.

That the innocent aura that aroused a man’s most fiercely protective instincts was actually just an act.

His hands tightened into fists and his hard jaw clenched as he remembered the photographs her father had shown him.

She might have been a virgin when he’d first slept with her, but less than four weeks later she’d slept with another man.

I love you, Jago.

Remembering the incredibly intimate pictures he’d seen, he growled low in his throat and strolled across to the window of his office which looked out on the ambulance bay.