For the entire drive home, my mind relives the events in HD. What if I weren't around? Would he have bled to death on the street? Do I care? Why the hell didn't he go to a hospital? The reasons I come up with make me feel uneasy and out of my depth, as though I've been involved in something unwholesome.

At some point between getting off the A23 and reaching Shere, I decide not to mention it to the other doctors in the morning. Whether it's the threat from the aggressive one or something else, I'm not sure, but since I don't know who they are or what happened, there isn't a whole lot to tell anyway. If anyone asks whether I happened to treat a bleeding man at my drop-in, then of course I won't lie, but I also won't be sending out a group email either.

As my mind flits back to the memory of the attractive one I sewed back together and how he looked at me, I start to feel warmer. I reach out and turn the blower down to the coldest end. Try to think about a glass of wine instead.

It's just before 10:00 p.m. when I get home, and Fred starts meowing hungrily at me as soon as I walk through the front door.

"I'm sorry I'm so late, baby. Are you the hungriest cat in the world? Aw, I bet you are. Mummy is sorry." I pick him up to kiss him on the nose as I stroke his tortoiseshell fur.

The moment I put him down, he bounds enthusiastically into the kitchen to purr against the cupboard that stores his food.

I feed Fred too much before going to the fridge to see what I can salvage for myself. There are a few slices of leftover chicken on a covered plate from yesterday, which I uncover and start to nibble on before pouring myself a cold glass of chardonnay. Then I stick the empty plate in the dishwasher before going upstairs to run a bubble bath. There's little chance of me sleeping tonight without the aid of wet heat and wine, and by the time I climb out of the bath an hour later, my eyes are heavy and my bones languid and soft.

Boiled, pink, and too hot, I crawl under the duvet as Fred jumps up, stretches out, and curls himself into a tight little furball at my feet. My eyes close almost instantly after I switch out the light, but before my consciousness fades, an image of a hard, tattooed body, green eyes, and full, kissable lips floats across my mind.

***

The rest of the week is truly remarkable in its banality. So banal it begins to feel as if I imagined the whole episode on Tuesday night. Maybe it never actually happened, and I invented it purely to add some excitement into my life. Which wouldn't be unreasonable since excitement is something my life distinctly lacks at the moment. No one mentions a local knife attack, and no policemen turn up at the surgery asking any questions about it either, which makes it far easier to stick to my decision not to mention it to anyone.

I say "easier" when, actually, I feel heavy from it, guilty even, as though I've committed some terrible crime and I'm going back to the scene of it over and over again.

Exactly a week after my run-in with my dangerously attractive patient, Sam asks me out. I get the sense it's something he's been working up to. It has the feel of something practiced about it. Sam's adorable—one of those genuinely nice guys. As well as being cute, smart, and a doctor, he also has a lot in common with me. We're a perfect fit. So I wonder why I'm not more excited by the prospect of going out with him. Maybe it's the fact we work together. It's never a good idea to mix the two, but how else do you meet prospective partners if not at work? Certainly not in nightclubs or bars, where everything is a line or a come-on for the sole purpose of getting you into bed.

At the end of another monotonous week, the weekend finally arrives, and with it, the first night out with the girls in a while. I'm mainly a hermit homebody these days, but this is a chance to catch up with Robyn's hen-night girls before her wedding. We've also managed to swag invites to the opening night of a new "nameless" club in town via my brother.

During the week, the invites came by special delivery to the surgery with no return address or sender details. But since they're addressed to Dr. Marlowe, with a VIP booth and access to a free bar, we are most certainly going.

Nick's job in PR comes with a wealth of freebies, which he often passes my way. Three months ago, it was movie premiere tickets where Rob and I sat next to the members of a boy band we'd never heard of. The film was based on a comic book and terrible, but the after-party was fun.

I still haven't decided whether to tell Robyn about what happened with the hot tattooed guy last week. I'm also not sure why I'm still thinking about him, or at what point he went from probable criminal to "dangerously attractive" to "hot tattooed guy" either. Probably around the time the whole incident began to seem like a dream and I started to fantasize about him.

Last night, I had the briefest, most fleeting sex dream about him. It was gone before it began, but I woke up thinking about him. Then I spent the rest of the day falling into daydreams about what might happen if I were to come out of the surgery and see him standing there one night. He'd tell me he hadn't been able to stop thinking about me and demand I go somewhere private with him. The blush that hits my cheeks as I imagine myself on top of him in the back seat of his car somewhere causes my stomach to clench almost painfully, a soft moan escaping my lips.

I'm sure Robyn would champion my daydreaming over a hot and dangerous stranger; she's desperate for me to get over Ben and move on. And since it's completely safe, as this is a man I'm never going to see again, I decide at some point tonight—after several glasses of champagne—I'll tell her all about it.

***

"You know, there are times when I think I might not mind your brother." Robyn sighs as she turns the black embossed invite over in her perfectly manicured hand.

Robyn is blonde and gorgeous, and for about six months six years ago, she and my brother were an item. It didn't end well for Rob when Nick brought another girl to her birthday party as his less-than-subtle way of breaking it off. Though, now, of course, I know had he not done the shittiest thing imaginable, it still wouldn't have worked out between them.

I say it didn't end well for Rob, but it did, because after my brother broke her heart she met Daniel, and as far as I can see, they're the most perfect couple on the planet. It's almost sickening how perfect they are. If I didn't love them so much, I'd hate them.

As she stands to fill our glasses with the freshly popped Veuve Clicquot, I stare longingly at her tanned, lithe legs. Where I'm pale and freckled in places, Robyn is the opposite. She goes golden-brown at the first hint of sunlight, while I need SPF 100 so I don't go lobster-red.

We've been friends since our second day at Holly Lodge Primary School in Surrey, when she picked me up after a boy whose name escapes me now knocked me over into a puddle in the middle of the playground. She knows me inside out and with such accuracy it should freak me out. It doesn't. I love her for it.

I give her a skeptical look. "Tell me when the moment passes."

Robyn laughs and takes a sip of her champagne while I study the invite.

"I'm surprised Nick gave these to me though. Sounds totally like his kind of thing," I muse as I sip the cool, fizzy goodness. Champagne is always my going-out drink because it makes me feel perky, sexy, and spoiled. I love the way it fizzes on my tongue and down the back of my throat in that almost ticklish way. It makes going out with the girls feel like a celebration—which I firmly believe it should be.

"Well, cheers to Nick the prick!" Robyn says, raising her glass to clink it with mine.

I bite back a smile.

"So, do you promise not to brush off every single man who looks at you tonight, or . . .?" Robyn asks. Robyn who, in her wisdom, thinks everyone's perfect soul mate is only a few awkward conversations away.

"You say that as though it's possible to even strike up a serious conversation in a nightclub. All that loud music and small talk. Nightmare."

"Um, I wasn't talking about serious conversation, Al . . ." Robyn widens her eyes. "You seriously need to get sha—"

"Don't bloody say it!" I laugh.

"You do though!"

"I'm fine, thank you very much. Anyway . . ." I say as I nudge the conversation in another direction. "The eligible Dr. Sam Wardley asked me out the other day, so you never know . . ." I giggle.

Robyn halts mid-sip. "What! So, he finally asked you out? Ugh! I said he wanted you when I saw him swoon over you at his birthday drinks you took me along to. But of course, you were still with 'the cunt' then. Never thought it would take him so bloody long!"

It goes on like this for another hour, with Rob convincing me Sam, with his floppy hair, boyish face, and glasses, is exactly what I need right now, that he's practically perfect for me, blah blah blah. All the things I've been telling myself all week. Except while she's speaking, all I can think is that perhaps what I actually need right now is a pair of green-blue eyes, a muscular, tattooed body, and a night of wild, no-strings-attached sex in the back seat of a probable criminal's car.