The Registrar's Replacement

She knows how to run the clinic alone. Sharing it with him is another matter.

For sixteen years, Dr Priya Nair has kept Porthsennen's minor-injuries clinic running with precise hands, a dry answer for every patient, and very little room for anyone else. At forty-seven, she has a life that works. Then Marcus Ellery arrives, notices far too much, and starts making her coffee exactly right.

At fifty-two, Marcus wants work he can leave behind at the end of the day. The small Cornish clinic offers a place to begin again. Priya offers something he hadn't allowed for: the pleasure of being trusted, the shock of making her laugh, and a reason to linger after the last patient has gone.

Between shared shifts and hands that stay together a moment too long, professional familiarity becomes an increasingly poor excuse. Wanting each other is getting harder to hide. Letting each other see why they've kept their lives so carefully contained is harder still.

And as a young patient's repeated visits bring an unsettling pattern into focus, the things they leave unsaid begin to matter beyond the space between them.

For two people practised at stepping back, there is nothing simple about wanting to stay.

A slow-burning workplace romance with sensual, fade-to-black intimacy and a serious child-safeguarding storyline.

Book 2 in the Porthsennen series; Priya and Marcus's complete romance can be read independently.