Shared Too by Lily Harlem

paused and lifted our joined hands above the surface, studied my short, neat fingernails. “I’ve seen it before, in New York. Women like Quinn, especially women who work with him. He gives off this aura of godliness. He saves lives, for heaven’s sake, all day, every day. I speak from personal experience and it’s easy to see why people think of him as superhuman. Those hands and that big brain of his. It’s amazing and he uses it to attain the ultimate result—he gives life.” He paused and traced the scar just back from the hairline on his forehead, the tip of his finger gliding from one ear right across to the other.
    “Go on,” I said.
    Liam dropped his hand and shrugged. “So Eve probably does like him. I’m guessing she admires him, wants to have a piece of his attention, but…” I hardly dared ask. A pinch of bile rose in my gullet. “But what?”
    “But he’s in love with you, Ariane. He loves his wife, his family. He loves his life too much to risk anything.” He pressed my knuckles to his lips. “You have no need to worry about Quinn cheating on you, or even thinking about it.”
    “She was touching him,” I squeaked. “His hand, his arm. She made him laugh.” I quieted and steadied my voice. “She had his undivided attention in a roomful of people. Quinn’s undivided attention is not easy to get.”
    “But the second you arrived at his side, he only focused on you, baby.” Liam reached for his wine with his free hand. He held it to the light as if studying the clarity.
    “Quinn loves you.”
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    “I know he does, I’m being silly.”
    “You’re not being silly, you can’t help your emotions.” He sipped his wine, set it back down then tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. “Talk to him about it over the weekend.”
    “Do you think?”
    “Yeah, it helps to talk through worries. That’s what we always tell the girls.”
    “I suppose.”
    Liam smiled gently. “He’ll put your mind at rest, you wait and see. There’s nothing between him and Eve.”
    I sighed and reached for a thick white washcloth. “Okay, I’ll talk to him over the weekend.” I rubbed a bar of soap over the flannel and created a rich foam. “Sit up,” I said. “I’ll wash your back.”
    Liam bent his knees and shifted forward in the water. I slipped in behind him, my legs on either side of his butt, and began to rub the washcloth over his wide shoulders.
    As the suds spread across his perfect tan skin I thought of what he’d just said. “There’s nothing between Quinn and Eve.” I believed that. I didn’t think there was anything sexual going on between them. What worried me was that the seeds were there, the potential existed. Eve didn’t look like a woman who took no for an answer. In fact, the way Quinn had battled against her in management meetings about the new surgery schedules proved that. She’d been unwavering in her decisions. She’d wanted new timetables, new rotations and she’d gotten them.
    I dipped the washcloth down to the water and smoothed it up over Liam’s back, in and out of the dip of his spine, over his thick lateral muscles that tapered down from his underarms.
    Quinn had been so incensed by Eve’s arrival, her sweeping changes. He’d fumed and banged around the farm, snapping at the dogs and pacing the yard on his mobile phone, shouting at other senior members of hospital management. But now, and I could 67
    Lily Harlem
    hardly believe it, he was laughing and chatting to her in a bar—familiar and comfortable. He’d come around to her ideas; he’d come around to “liking” her.
    And what was not to like? She was clearly as committed to improving the standard of patient care as Quinn. A quality I knew he would admire. She was slim and pretty, with a sparkle in her eye and blonde hair that flowed like a luxurious curtain of water down her back. Whatever I’d seen her chatting to Quinn about had captured his attention. She was obviously intelligent