Amy Ruttan – Perfect Rivals... (страница 1)
Thank you for picking up a copy of
I was absolutely thrilled when the Medical team approached me about joining this continuity series—a series that is full of my favourite authors. I was excited and nervous at the same time.
Dr Florence Chiu is a character I instantly connected with. Her character absolutely gutted me repeatedly over the course of writing her story. I haven’t had much experience in transplant surgery, but I know what an amazing gift donor organs can be, and for my heroine it means a second chance at life.
My hero is no stranger to Dr Chiu’s world. He’s lost someone very dear to him, and because of that he’s guarded his heart and devoted his life to medicine. Having a fake relationship is the riskiest thing he’s done in a long time.
I hope you enjoy Flo and Nate’s story.
I love hearing from readers, so please drop by my website, amyruttan.com, or give me a shout on Twitter@ruttanamy.
With warmest wishes,
Born and raised just outside Toronto, Canada, AMY RUTTAN fled the big city to settle down with the country boy of her dreams. After the birth of her second child, Amy was lucky enough to realise her lifelong dream of becoming a romance author. When she’s not furiously typing away at her computer, she’s mum to three wonderful children who use her as a personal taxi and chef.
Perfect Rivals…
Amy Ruttan
This book is dedicated to my agent, Scott, for telling me to take this chance and write this continuity story.
Thank you to Elisa, who patiently answered my questions while I was researching this book.
Thank you so much for all your help!
And a huge thank you to the Medical team for assigning me Flo and Nate’s story. They were an amazing hero and heroine and I loved every second in their world.
‘Amy Ruttan delivers an entertaining read that transports readers into a world of blissful romance set amidst the backdrop of the medical field. Sharp, witty and descriptive,
Contents
THIS TAKES ME BACK.
Dr. Flo Chiu remembered all the times she’d been raced to the hospital as a young girl. The familiar whir of a chopper coming in for a landing. Followed by the bump as the chopper landed, causing her to become nauseous. Even now, watching the helicopter, her stomach did a little flip. Everything reminded her of that moment. Something she hadn’t thought about in a long time. The gray haze tinting the sky, as if it was promising rain, but this was Los Angeles. The haze was just smog. In Seattle, it would mean rain, and the day she’d flown in her own helicopter to a hospital helipad it had been raining.
Hard.
And that was all she remembered of her emergent helicopter ride over Seattle. That, and her father screaming out orders in Mandarin to a helicopter pilot who only spoke English, but, then, when her dad was frightened he often put aside his second language of English for his native tongue. And when her dad was mad, the beautiful language she loved to listen to was quick and hard to follow. It had frightened her to hear him talk like that.
She took a deep breath and wrapped her arms around herself, trying to shake the thought away. Usually she wasn’t this nervous about another surgeon coming in to The Hollywood Hills Clinic, but this was not just any other surgeon. This surgeon was her competition. This surgeon had been brought in specially from New York at the request of her patient. And her patient happened to be the world-famous, award-winning actor Kyle Francis. An actor she’d always admired and had had a bit of a crush on when she’d been fourteen.
She’d watched a lot of movies when she’d been younger. Of course, there hadn’t been much else to do when you were confined to a hospital bed. And Kyle Francis had been the perfect twenty-something rising star and heartthrob of her youth.
On the outside Kyle had aged well. His heart and lungs, on the other hand, hadn’t. Which was why he was now a patient.
He’d collapsed at a press conference in Los Angeles and had been brought straight to The Hollywood Hills Clinic, where it had quickly been established that Kyle Francis was dying.
And that’s where Flo had stepped in.
She was, after all, a world-renowned transplant surgeon, and that’s just what Kyle Francis needed. Actually, what he specifically needed was a heart and lung transplant.
It was right up Flo’s alley. She’d done many, and on worse cases than Kyle, but if they let it go much longer, Kyle would be a worst-case scenario and it would make the job harder.
She had been wheeling Kyle into the operating room to help stabilize him until she had been stopped.
That was when Freya had dropped the bombshell on her that another surgeon was coming.
“Another surgeon? Why was another surgeon called, Freya? I’m a damn good surgeon. I can do this surgery on my own. You’ve seen me do one.”
“I know, but this is out of my hands, Flo. Mr. Francis’s management team has called in Dr. King from Manhattan. Dr. King’s the one who has been treating his failing heart and lungs for some time. There’s no negotiation. You’ll have to work with Dr. King.”
Flo couldn’t really argue with that.
So that’s why she was here, huddled in the elevator, waiting for the helicopter to land and deposit this Dr. King in her lap. He was probably some old-money type of surgeon, and she only hoped that he would be willing to work with her. Some of these big-city surgeons were a pain in the rump to deal with. They didn’t think someone who was only thirty had the skill to be an excellent or extraordinary surgeon and a transplant specialist to boot.
The chopper landed and Flo ducked down, holding back the wisps of black hair that were escaping from her long braid as she headed out onto the helipad to greet this new doctor.
Please, don’t be a jerk. Please, don’t be a jerk.
She could deal with almost anyone but a jerk. Other surgeons tended to look down on her because of her size and her gender. That, and she looked a lot younger than her age. Even though she hoped this surgeon wasn’t a jerk, she’d been warned about his arrogance so she braced herself for it.