Limits Read online

  Limits

  Susie Tate

  Copyright 2017 © Susie Tate

  All rights reserve

  Edited By Martin Ouvry

  Cover Design by Steve Molloy

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1 Limits

  Chapter 2 Him

  Chapter 3 Twarted ambition

  Chapter 4 Safe space

  Chapter 5 Ruin everything

  Chapter 6 That chick is weird

  Chapter 7 Absolute terror

  Chapter 8 Strong enough

  Chapter 9 Millie wuvs books, don’t cha?

  Chapter 10 I think I love you uptight lady

  Chapter 11 We’ll see, baby

  Chapter 12 I know pain when I see it

  Chapter 13 Lamb to the slaughter

  Chapter 14 Professor X

  Chapter 15 Fuck all the men

  Chapter 16 Pathetic

  Chapter 17 This is me

  Chapter 18 Unique

  Chapter 19 At least try to be normal

  Chapter 20 When … when can we do that again?

  Chapter 21 You just wait till next year, right?

  Chapter 22 What did she have to lose?

  Chapter 23 Nothing you can’t do

  Chapter 24 The stupidity of the Y chromosome

  Chapter 25 Yes, I trust you

  Chapter 26 You’re not trying hard enough

  Chapter 27 Huge asset

  Chapter 28 You’d be surprised what people will believe

  Chapter 29 Endorphins

  Chapter 30 Nothing to do with us

  Chapter 31 Boundaries, scmoundaries

  Chapter 32 Every word, dear

  Chapter 33 All she ever wanted

  Epilogue Loved unconditionally

  Excerpt Broken Heart Syndrome

  Acknowledgements

  A Word on Anxiety

  About the Author

  Chapter 1

  Limits

  Millie stood at the very back of the club, her eyes fixed on the stage. If she wasn’t so terrified she would be smiling. But with her level of anxiety at being around this many people, that would be an impossibility. When Jamie had asked her to come tonight she’d been surprised. But then he had literally asked everyone who knew his girlfriend Libby to come.

  Still, it was a surprise.

  Millie was never invited anywhere. Nobody wanted the Nuclear Winter (she’d overheard that nickname more than once) around socially, she knew that. Even if somebody had decided to extend an invite, she would never usually have gone.

  Millie knew her limits.

  She knew what she could cope with, and this was way, way beyond them. Eleanor had been ecstatic that Millie needed something more casual to wear. They’d spent over an hour picking the perfect outfit. She’d even made a move to give Millie a hug after they’d finished, which Millie had deftly avoided. El was nice, but then El was paid to be nice. Millie imagined that most people would be nice if they were a personal shopper who took a commission from someone who didn’t care about cost of clothes.

  Money meant nothing to Millie, but wearing the right outfits did, and she did not trust her own judgement. Years ago, at the start of their interactions, Eleanor had tried to extract an opinion from Millie about the clothes she got her to try on, but she didn’t bother anymore. Millie simply gave El the situation the clothes would be worn in, El had her try a few outfits, and then she chose everything for her – right down to her underwear. Millie knew that she herself had no taste. She knew that if she chose her clothes it would not be perfect, and appearing perfect was very important to Millie.

  ‘Hey, Dr M.’

  Her head whipped round to see Him grinning down at her, his eyes twinkling with mischief. This man’s eyes were always twinkling with mischief.

  Pavlos Martakis was definitely beyond her limits.

  As Millie was a radiologist and Mr Martakis a consultant surgeon, she managed to avoid him to a certain extent, but she couldn’t avoid him completely and he’d always unsettled her an unreasonable amount. In a way he was her complete opposite: physically intimidating, likable, naturally attractive, extremely confident, sexually promiscuous (and very talented in that area, if hospital gossip was to be believed). Yes, he unsettled her, but more than that she got the impression that to him she was just one big joke. That he took an interest in her purely for his own amusement – like poking a turtle with a stick.

  ‘Hello, Mr Martakis,’ she said in a tight voice, taking a small step back. She fixed her attention back on the stage and heard him sigh.

  ‘Why don’t you call me Pavlos?’ he asked. When she didn’t reply she heard another more drawn out sigh. Why was he wasting his time talking to her?

  ‘You okay? You seem a bit tense.’

  Millie blinked. She wasn’t really used to concern. It threw her for a moment.

  ‘Fine,’ she managed to get out eventually. He was still studying her and she got the impression he didn’t miss much. After a long pause, Mr Martakis finally broke the silence.

  ‘Here.’ A drink was held out in front of her. She looked down at it but made no move to release the death grip she had on her handbag.

  ‘I don’t drink alcohol,’ she told him.

  Mr Martakis burst out laughing, but when she kept on staring straight ahead it slowly died. ‘Bloody hell, you’re serious. Why on earth not?’

  ‘Well the latest evidence suggests that the interaction of alcohol with primary and secondary targets within the brain causes alterations in gene expression and synaptic plasticity, that leads to long-lasting alteration in neuronal network activity.’ Out of the corner of her eye Millie could see the pint that had been making its way to Mr Martakis’ mouth being slowly lowered.

  ‘Jesus,’ he muttered. Millie’s hands clenched her handbag even harder, and her eyes dropped to her white knuckles. This is what she did: take a perfectly happy, socially confident person and make them feel uncomfortable. It was her special gift. She closed her eyes in a long blink and counted in her head, just like Anwar had told her to, trying to slow her breathing. Mr Martakis cleared his throat. She thought he would move away but he just put his pint down on one of the high tables next to them.

  ‘Okay, so, no alcohol. Can I get you something else?’ he pushed, and Millie started sidling towards the exit she could see from the corner of her eye. To her annoyance he simply moved with her.

  ‘No,’ she told him. ‘I’m fine.’

  A low sound came from deep in Mr Martakis’ throat, almost like a growl. Millie took another step to the side.

  ‘Do you know any words other than “fine” and “no”?’ he gritted out.

  Millie jerked in surprise and risked a brief moment of eye contact. He was watching her closely, his arms crossed over his broad chest. She suddenly felt very small and very intimidated. In general Millie kept most of her interactions with people superficial and free of emotion. As a consequence, she might not be liked but she encountered very few openly rude comments. The only experience she had to draw on was her hostile, critical parents, and she’d never been great with dealing with them either.

  ‘Er …’ She took a step back. The music had changed to another song now, and most people had already moved to the stage to dance. Millie had seen what she came to see: Jamie had proposed to Millie’s one and only friend in front of the whole club (at least Millie considered Libby a friend – Libby probably only thought of Millie as convenient childcare). She had never danced in her life. It was time for her to leave.

  ‘Bugger, that came out wrong,’ Mr Martakis said, moving with her and putting his hand on her forearm to stop her retreat. Her eyes flew open wide and she jerked her arm away violently, shooting him another nervous glance and taking another step back.

  ‘Hey, hey, hey,’
Mr Martakis said, lifting both his hands in the air, palm up, in a gesture of surrender. Millie glanced around and breathed a sigh of relief when she saw that the nearest exit was now only feet away. This time when she moved, he didn’t touch her, but he did spring forward and block her path. Millie took a step to the side and he moved with her. She focused on the exit sign and bit her lip.

  ‘I’m sorry, that was rude,’ he said.

  ‘It’s fine,’ Millie told him before she could stop herself, and then watched his lips twitch.

  ‘I really just wanted to ask you about speaking at the Grand Round.’

  ‘Oh,’ Millie said, breathing a sigh of relief. She was always much better if she knew the context of the interaction with another person. Now she understood. Mr Martakis wanted her to speak at the Grand Round. That was why he was talking to her. Whilst she felt relief to have his approach explained, there was a tiny part of her, buried deep, that was disappointed. ‘I can’t do that.’

  ‘Of course you can,’ he said. ‘It’ll be a great warm-up for speaking at conferences.’

  ‘Conferences?’ The word came out strangled and Millie cleared her throat. ‘I won’t be talking at any conferences.’

  ‘But you’ve made a big breakthrough, Dr Morrison. People will want to hear what you have to say.’

  ‘I’ve published my findings,’ she said, her voice still high and tight. ‘I … look, I just can’t …’

  ‘You can.’ Mr Martakis’ face was set with determination. ‘I’ve set it all up for the week after next.’

  ‘No.’

  Mr Martakis blinked. ‘You can’t just say an outright no, that’s not –’

  Millie could feel a ringing in her ears; she knew she was breathing too fast.

  ‘My answer is no,’ she said through gritted teeth. The very idea of public speaking was making her come out in a cold sweat. She swallowed, glanced behind her to see another exit a bit further away, and she ran. On the way through she collided with a huge man covered in tattoos, who steadied her to stop her going down.

  ‘Hey, what’s up?’ the giant asked, taking in her pale face and wide, fearful eyes. He looked over her shoulder. Millie could hear Mr Martakis calling after her. The huge man’s jaw clenched tight and his eyes narrowed. ‘Don’t you worry, miss,’ he told her. ‘I’ll deal with this joker.’ Millie didn’t wait to see what ‘dealing with this joker’ might entail. As soon as the giant released her she was off.

  She didn’t stop shaking until she was in the back of a taxi five minutes later. This had been a mistake. She knew her limits. It was just that, recently, living within those limits had felt so very lonely. As the taxi took her all the way back to her boring house and her narrow life she felt a dull ache in her chest, but she didn’t cry.

  Millie never cried.

  Chapter 2

  Him

  ‘Ki-Ki! Please!’ groaned Libby, chucking a bread roll at Kira’s head. ‘Can we not talk about my sex life. God.’

  Kira rolled her eyes. ‘Libby, it’s not like I’ve been going through the dong-meets-foo-foo logistics or anything. I just think you guys should have a dirty weekend away. Maybe then you’d be a bit less vomit-worthy around us more sexually frustrated mortals. And you could do with a break. You know you could.’ Libby had only just recovered from a bout of pneumonia. There was real concern behind Kira’s teasing.

  ‘We are not vomit-worthy,’ Libby hissed in outrage.

  ‘Uh, Lib,’ Pav cut in. ‘That would hold a lot more water if Jamie hadn’t had his hand on your leg under the table for the last ten minutes, and if you hadn’t sent him a dirty text just now.’

  Libby’s face flamed bright red as Jamie jerked both his hands onto the table-top and swept his phone up into his pocket. ‘I did not send him a dirty text,’ she hissed, and Pav rolled his eyes. ‘I didn’t, I just –’

  ‘Okay, maybe not dirty dirty but I bet there were a few emojis involved.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Kira said, sitting forward in her chair. ‘You probably sent a couple of aubergines and a crazy ghost. Am I right?’

  ‘Wh … what are you –’

  ‘Don’t act all innocent you frisky little minx. You know exactly what I’m talking about.’

  Pav started laughing whilst Jamie’s eyes were dancing and his mouth was pressed into a firm line. The filthy look Libby shot Jamie as his shoulders started to shake only served to increase the volume of Pav’s merriment. He shook his head in his amusement and something caught his attention out of the corner of his eye. She was standing completely still across the canteen, and her perfectly made-up face was staring straight at him. It was her expression that surprised him.

  Just for that moment she didn’t have her standard uptight, aloof mask in place. Instead the corners of her mouth were tilted up ever so slightly and her eyes were warm. For some bizarre reason her expression seemed almost … longing. However it didn’t take long for her to notice his stare. Her face shut down again and her eyes slid away as she practically ran over to the new coffee stand.

  ‘Don’t you think, Pav? Pav?’

  ‘Er … what?’ Pav replied, keeping his gaze fixed on Dr Morrison’s rigid back. Kira huffed out a sigh.

  ‘Don’t you think they should be letting us babysit more? Hello? Earth to Pav?’ she said as she waved a hand in front of his face.

  ‘I’ll … um, just be a minute,’ Pav mumbled as he pushed away from the table to stand up. ‘Anybody want a coffee?’

  There was a long pause. ‘Pav you’ve just had a coffee. One that I bought for you seeing as you don’t have the patience for it.’

  ‘Right, well, I’ve got a long list this afternoon, so a bit of a caffeine boost is in order. Ladies?’ Libby and Kira looked down at their barely touched cups and then back at Pav with identical frowns.

  ‘Wh –’ Libby started, but Pav didn’t catch the rest as he was already striding away.

  ‘An Americano, please.’ For some reason Dr Morrison’s soft voice ordering coffee gave Pav a weird buzz of excitement as he came up behind her.

  ‘A what, dear?’ Doreen was a lovely lady in her eighties who had served the teas and coffees for the last twenty years in aid of The League of Friends, a money-raising charity for the hospital. She and her cronies used to have a little hole in the wall with only tea bags and some milk. In a real pinch they would make you an instant coffee, but it would provoke a rather stern look. But a couple of months ago, since Costa had moved into the gym across the road, the management had decided to get The League of Friends up to speed with a state-of-the-art coffee machine that ground its own beans, frothed milk and made a massive assortment of coffees, all of which were listed above Doreen’s head and none of which she actually knew how to make. Apparently Doreen and co. had undergone ‘intensive training’, but this was certainly not evident in their customer service. After Pav had climbed over the counter, kissed a flustered Doreen on the cheek and made his own bloody latte last month, Jamie had banned him from any further coffee ordering.

  ‘She means black coffee, Doreen,’ Pav put in as he moved to stand inches from Dr Morrison with his hand nearly touching hers on the counter. He had just a brief moment to inhale the scent of her shampoo and some sort of expensive, subtle perfume before she took a startled step to the side away from him.

  *****

  Damn it, Millie thought as she studied the jar of cookies in front of her and smoothed a non-existent wrinkle in her skirt. She knew she should have stuck to the Nescafé in the radiology department, but the lure of the new machine and the smell of everyone else’s freshly ground coffees in the morning meeting had been too much for her. Generally she avoided the rest of the hospital as much as possible. She liked to stay on familiar ground. When she’d walked into the canteen and seen Him laughing with his friends, she’d actually been glad to have broken her normal routine. Whilst direct interaction with Him was stressful, being able to observe him from afar was one of her favourite things.

  Of course he was always
handsome; but with his head thrown back and his deep, rich laugh filling the air around him, he was so beautiful it was almost painful to look at. Mr Martakis fascinated Millie. He was the most uninhibited, charming, outgoing and free person she had ever encountered in her life. The way he expressed himself with his hands, his extravagance of movement, his familiarity with everyone (except her, obviously; Millie wasn’t familiar with anyone apart from Donald, and he didn’t really count): it was almost … wild, and it thrilled and terrified her in equal measure. So when he’d caught her staring, those dark eyes focusing intently on hers and the laughter dying on his lips, she’d skipped thrilled and gone straight to terrified.

  What she should have done was leave immediately, but that would have shown weakness. Millie might actually be weak, but that didn’t mean she had to show it. So, in spite of her heart beating practically out of her chest she’d made it to the coffee stand. Unfortunately Millie had not factored Doreen into the equation, but by the eighth time of giving her order she had seen the error of her ways.

  And now He was right there. That was twice in one month she had been this close to him. Millie had only felt his body heat and seen his large hand next to hers before she heard his voice, but for some reason she’d known it was Him. Having put sufficient distance between them to keep control of her hammering heart, but not so much as to betray fear or weakness (she hoped), Millie resolved to try and ignore Him whilst Doreen bashed away at the coffee machine in slightly alarming fashion.

  ‘I’ll have a latte whilst you’re at it, Doreen,’ he said, smiling across at the flustered, white-haired lady.

  ‘You’ll get what your given, young man,’ she told him. ‘And stay on that side of the counter.’

  Mr Martakis chuckled and the sound skittered over Millie’s skin, making her shiver.

  ‘You cold?’ he asked.

  She could see him turn fully towards her out of the corner of her eye, and sucked in a startled breath.

  ‘No,’ she managed to squeeze out past her tight throat. It sounded rude and curt – exactly what he, and most other people, would expect from her. But for some reason this man was not put off. In fact he chuckled. Chuckled, in the face of her Nuclear Winter. Nobody chuckled at Nuclear Winter; they ignored her, they left her alone – she did not make them chuckle.