Alexander’s gaze was fixed on Isobel’s softly swaying hips. He liked to see her in that racy red dress, her hair cascading around her shoulders. She looked like a film star from the old days, one of those quick and witty women. And he loved that she had allowed herself to be provoked into going to a nightclub. The struggle on her face had been fascinating to follow

The music was loud, and the floor was tightly packed with warm, dancing bodies. He hadn’t wanted to take her to Stureplan, the glittering playground of the wealthy and spoiled, where he was sure he would be recognized; he wanted Isobel all to himself, and when he heard the music, he’d known it was the perfect place for them. Still, he hadn’t expected a live band, and he felt the suggestive music course through his body. With a smile, he held out a hand to her. She took it and allowed herself to be led onto the dance floor.

He grabbed both of her hands and pulled her close to him. “Just follow me,” he shouted into her ear over the music.

She said something that sounded like “Oh, Jesus” and then did as he said, cautiously and focused at first, like she was studying some complicated procedure, but then with increasing self-confidence. Salsa was the world’s most intuitive dance, and Cuban salsa encouraged physical contact. Alexander knew he was a proficient dancer. The club was warm, and when Alexander took off his jacket, he saw her eyes move over his body. He noticed how her décolletage glistened. Isobel was smoking hot, but she was also an unexpectedly fun dance partner. Not self-conscious, once her initial uncertainty passed, but fearless, bold, and laughing.

The music grew in intensity. It was a quick salsa, hot, almost electrifying. The lights dimmed, hips rolled, hands clapped. Alexander held out his hand and she took it, warm and sweaty but steady. She allowed herself to be drawn in, spun to and from him. He pulled her close once more, pressed her warm body to his again and again. Occasionally she lost track of what she was doing, but he caught her each time, and the more songs they danced, the more often they ended up in perfect rhythm, drawing closer and closer, moving apart and then coming together again with the trumpets, guitars, drums. Over and over, quicker and quicker, until both were breathing heavily, chest to chest. Isobel’s hair was damp and heavy, and it snaked over her throat and her arms. One last burst of energy and the music fell silent. Applause broke out.

When the musicians announced they would take a break, Alexander pulled her over to the bar.

“Just water, please,” she said, as she wiped the sweat from her forehead and flashed him a brilliant smile. He wanted to lean forward and kiss her lips, lick the sweat from her neck, pull her sensational curves toward him …

He was interrupted by a hand on his arm. He turned and saw Gina.

“Well, hello there,” he said cheerfully, and gave her a quick hug. “What’re you doing here?”

“I’m just here with some friends. What are you doing here; is this really your kind of place?”

“Of course it is. This is Gina, my friend,” he said, turning to Isobel.

Gina grinned and practically forced her way past Alexander.

“I know who you are,” she said eagerly to Isobel. “I saw you dancing and had to come over to say hi. I’m studying to become a doctor—I was at your lecture on refugee medicine.”

Alexander wasn’t sure he had ever heard the usually taciturn Gina talk so much.

“I remember you,” Isobel said kindly, as she shook Gina’s hand. “You were at the front, and you came up to me afterward. How do you two know one another?” she asked, with a questioning look at Alexander.

“Gina’s part of the family,” Alexander quickly replied, not wanting to give Isobel the wrong impression. He turned to Gina. She was essentially ignoring him, gazing at Isobel with worship in her eyes.

A thought struck him. “Gina, you don’t work here too, do you?”

She gestured toward a table of young people. “We’re celebrating an exam. It’s, like, the first time I’ve been out in a couple of years. But it was a big exam.”

“Which one?” asked Isobel.

“The Healthy Human.”

“I remember it, lots of chemistry and biology. Tough stuff. Did it go well?”

Gina nodded, and Alexander thought it looked like she was blushing. Serious Gina Adan starstruck, it seemed almost inconceivable. “Really well. But I don’t want to bother you,” Gina said, giving Alexander a look that clearly communicated she’s-much-too-good-for-you before she disappeared.

When the music started back up again, Alexander glanced at Isobel.

“Enough for me,” she said. “My muscles are going to hurt tomorrow.”

“How are you getting home?” he asked once they were back out on the street. Fuck, he didn’t want to say good-bye. Not yet. But it was late and she was a working woman.

“I’ll take a cab.”

“Okay,” he said softly. He raised a hand and brushed a strand of hair from her face. She looked at him, and he leaned forward and kissed her on the cheek. He hadn’t planned on anything more than a peck, but somehow he couldn’t quite tear himself away from her smooth skin, and so when she didn’t move, they remained standing like that until she started to shiver.

“You’re cold.”

He started to take off his jacket, but she moved away from him.

“No, Alexander, I need to go home now.”

He knew that she didn’t just mean that it was late and she was tired. It was clear that the statement was an attempt to distance herself from him.

“Thanks for a great evening,” she continued. There was nothing but politeness in her voice now—no flirtation, no laughter, no invitation to more kissing or to more intimate dancing. She waved to a cab that was coming down the near-empty Sveavägen. Alexander opened the door to the backseat and she climbed in, said good night, and he closed it.

He watched her drive away, stood like that until the car was gone.

He buttoned up his jacket, shoved his hands into the pockets. Headed toward his hotel. Something had scared Isobel and she had run. She probably thought it was over between them, but Alexander knew better. He wasn’t done with Isobel. Not by a long shot.

When Alexander woke the next morning, he had come up with the next steps in his plan. He spent the whole of Saturday on the couch in his hotel room, watching TV, surfing the web, and reading simultaneously. He often found it hard to be still for long periods, had always been easily distracted, but he found it easier to concentrate when the TV was on. After a quick trip to a couple of bookstores, he lay on the sofa and read until long after midnight.

He spent Sunday with his real estate agent, who had broken off his golf plans (“No problem, Alexander, you can call me day or night”) to show him some of the apartments he had listed. In each of them, Alexander paused on the threshold of the biggest bedroom. He couldn’t help it. He peered into these rooms and fantasized about an extra-large bed, made up with the finest Egyptian cotton, and Isobel naked in it, dressed only in her red hair. Long legs, thousands of freckles, tantalizing curves. He didn’t want to take her to his hotel suite—she was worth more than that—but having said that, he wanted her in his bed. And soon.

“I’ll take it,” he told the real estate agent in the third apartment. The rooms were in a line, the ceilings high and the kitchen modern.

“I have more we can look at.”

“I want this one. And I want access immediately. Can you arrange it?”

On Monday morning, he signed the contract and was handed the keys, and by the afternoon he’d contacted the interior design company his sister’s best friend, Åsa Bjelke, had recommended. When he set his mind to it, he could make things happen pretty damn fast.

* * *

When Alexander stepped into the private health clinic on Valhallavägen on Tuesday morning, he was in an excellent mood. He’d been for a jog, had a shower, and had a clear goal; he felt practically invincible.

“I have an appointment with Doctor Sørensen,” he said with a wide smile and handed his ID card to the receptionist.

She blushed, entered him into the system, and said, “Thanks. Please have a seat.”

Alexander was too restless to sit, so he remained standing until Isobel appeared in the waiting lounge.

“Hello, doctor,” he said.

She eyed him suspiciously. There was no trace of the laughing, dancing woman of the weekend. She looked stern. “What are you doing here?”

“Why don’t you have a white coat? I like women in uniform. I have an appointment,” he added.

Isobel cast a questioning glance toward the receptionist, who confirmed what he claimed with a nod.

“Come on, then,” she said.

Alexander sat down in the visitor’s chair as Isobel took a seat at her desk, placed a hand on the surface, and gazed calmly at him.

“I need medical attention,” he said. “That’s why I’m here. Thanks for the other night, by the way.”

“Yes, thank you. What can I help you with?”

He wondered what Isobel had done over the weekend. Did this beautiful, serious doctor have a boyfriend? For some reason, he had assumed she was married to the job, but assumptions were one thing—knowing was something entirely different. Maybe she had a whole host of lovers?

“I’m waiting,” she reminded him.

“I bought a flat on Strandvägen yesterday,” he said.

“And you’re telling me this why?”

“I’m making conversation. Did you know that it isn’t actually Africa that needs the Western world’s help, but the other way around? We need Africa and its natural resources. By exploiting them for ourselves, we condemn African countries to poverty.”

“Yes.”

“But did you know that you can get malaria only at night?”

“Since it’s my job to know that, yes, I did. People usually get bitten at night or in the evening. Why do you know that?”

“I read a fascinating book over the weekend. A few, actually.”

“About Africa?”

“Yes. And humanitarian aid, and Doctors Without Borders. Among others. It ended up being a good number of books. And articles online. And podcasts.” He rested a foot on his knee. He had looked her up, found a CV. Impressive was an understatement. Specialist here, Harvard education in catastrophe medicine there. And she was still only thirty. Would be turning thirty-one in November. Granddaughter of Karin Jansson Pelletier, the painter and sculptor. “When you asked me what I did in New York, I lied a little.”

“I guessed as much.”

“Really? You’re even smarter than you look. Anyway, when I’m not partying, I’m studying. Psychology, sociology, ecology, anthropology. Pretty much anything that ends with an -ology, actually.”

She blinked. “Why?” she eventually asked, as though she had been trying to solve a complex chemical equation but failed.

“I can’t say—you’ll just think even less of me.”

“I could argue that wouldn’t be possible,” she said drily.

“Nothing is impossible.” He gave her an accusing look. “And I thought my stock had gone up.”

“From a purely theoretical viewpoint, plenty of things are impossible. And as far as your stock is concerned, it’s still pretty unstable. Why only things ending in -ology?”

“I study the subjects my father looks down on. His sons should read economics or law. So I do everything else.”

“Sounds childish,” she said.

Alexander stretched his legs out in front of him and gave her an amused look. Did Isobel really think he was so easily provoked? He had been called much, much worse things than childish over the years. And he hadn’t just read a load of books and articles over the weekend. He had also watched old TV clips. Among other things, he’d found an interview with Blanche Sørensen, Isobel’s beautiful ice-queen mother. Again and again, he had seen the way Blanche pursed her lips every time MSF was mentioned. Cowboys, hippies, and irresponsible were words that recurred whenever Blanche spoke about the organization her daughter had chosen to work for.

“So you’ve never done anything just to defy your mother, to rebel? Why did you choose to work for MSF again?”

“Touché,” she said with a smile.

He laughed and thought that what he wanted right now was to get up, pull her from her chair, and give her a kiss. Instead, he peered around her examining room. She had the obligatory posters of muscles and organs in cross-section on the walls, and a whiteboard. On a bookshelf, a plastic skull sat next to various medical reference books. A stethoscope and blood pressure meter rested on her desk. His eyes fell on a small photo, pinned to the whiteboard with a magnet advertising stomach ulcer medicine.

“Is that from Chad?” he asked as he took a closer look. Isobel was surrounded by laughing children, the stereotype of the white, colonial doctor among dark-skinned kids.

But her laugh was genuine, and the photographer had captured a vulnerability in her face. He wondered who had taken the photo.

Her eyes lingered on it.

“I’m going back there soon.”

“Soon? I thought you just came home.”

“We’re working out the details, but it’ll be before summer.”

Hmm. Suddenly, he had a deadline to work against. It shouldn’t be a problem. A wave of excitement rushed through him. He loved this, the chase; it was the best part. And she had just inadvertently raised the stakes. Isobel was without a doubt one of the most attractive women he had ever chased. Yup, this spring had every chance of being really entertaining. And if he was honest, he had liked all the reading over the weekend, making his brain work. The fact that he enjoyed studying was probably one of his best-kept secrets.

“So, Alexander De la Grip, age twenty-nine, here during emergency hours,” Isobel read aloud from her computer screen. She gave him a skeptical look. “There doesn’t seem to be anything urgently wrong with you.”

He held up a hand. “I’ve got a box-moving injury.”

She squinted without leaning forward. “A what?”

“Can’t you see it? A cut.”

“You got an appointment for that scratch? With me?”

“I can be very convincing.”

“Oh, I’m sure you can. But a nurse could put a Band-Aid on that. From what I can see, the receptionist could probably do it.”

“I’m a little disappointed, I have to say. I was imagining how you would tend to my wound, show me some care and sympathy. Aren’t you going to put your hand on my forehead at the very least? Are you sure you’re a real doctor?”

Isobel smiled. She slowly moved her fingers together until they formed an airy triangle, and her eyes glittered. “I can cut something open if you like. Or sew something up—I’m no surgeon, but I’m very good with a scalpel and a suture needle. Or maybe you want an exam involving rubber gloves and an index finger?”

He stifled a laugh as she looked meaningfully at a paper box of single-use gloves.

“As erotic as that sounds, I think I’ll pass.”

She laughed. When she crossed her legs, he couldn’t help but follow the movement with his eyes. The dancing on Friday had been so hot. Isobel in that red dress plastered to her curves, her hips rocking. The thought alone turned him on. She had on something like a shirt today, and looked cool and professional. The woman really was a study in opposites. Her hair was gathered at the nape of her neck, but loose strands gently framed her face.

“Plus, I don’t want to take up vital doctor’s time,” he continued. He had persuaded the receptionist to give him an appointment, but he suddenly realized that he might have taken it from someone with a genuine emergency. It had been an impulse to call the doctor’s office, a joke, but now he wondered whether it was really all that funny.

“My patients here are rarely in great need,” she said.

Of course. It was one of the country’s few truly expensive private clinics. What did it do to a person, to be thrown between the richest and the most vulnerable? Between Westerners who could get the best care in the world and children who died of simple infections? Why had he never thought about the injustice of his ability to buy Isobel’s time when people literally died because they couldn’t see a doctor? He shook off those thoughts. This was what happened when you got too involved. Things got complicated.

“I should probably go before I agree to something painful.”

“Afraid of pain?”

“Very. It’s only normal.”

Isobel flashed him a quick smile. Something elusive and private flickered across her face and disappeared before Alexander had time to interpret it. It was as though she had thought of a joke she didn’t care to share with him.

“But while I’m here, stealing crucial time from your dying patients, I wondered whether you would go to a concert with me on Friday?” He said it breezily but realized he was holding his breath as he waited for an answer.

She placed a hand on the table and gave him an apologetic look. “I’m sorry, Alexander, I can’t.”

Can’t or won’t?

“What about Saturday, then? Opera? Ballet? The Bolshoi Ballet is giving a guest performance.”

She shook her head. “I’ll be away, in Skåne. A weekend event. Leila and I are chasing financiers. I promised to go.”

The woman really didn’t do much other than work.

“That’s okay.” And it really was; he had put the pieces together in less than two seconds. “Some other time then,” he said noncommittally. He had the great joy of seeing a flicker of disappointment in her big, gray eyes. So, she wasn’t quite as cool as she made out.

But Isobel said nothing, she simply got to her feet and he did the same. She smiled, not her cool doctor’s smile but a real, warm smile, and she held out a hand to him. Alexander studied it for a moment. He sighed. The eternal hand shaking she insisted on. He laid a hand on her upper arm, saw her eyes widen, dipped his head, felt his cheek brush against loose strands of red hair, and gave her a kiss. Only another peck on the cheek, but lower down this time, close to the edge of her mouth. He allowed his lips to linger. She was completely still, as though he had surprised her, and his lips brushed her skin, cool and soft and velvet smooth, her scent fresh and with just a touch of disinfectant.

Isobel breathed in and placed a hand on his chest. Reluctantly, he let her pull away, and found himself lost in her beautiful, intelligent eyes; they looked as though they wanted to ask a thousand questions.

“See you later, Isobel,” he said quietly.

She blinked slowly.

And that was how he left her, wondering and a little dazed. He wasn’t the least bit confused. Fate had clearly decided to be on his side, and now it was game on.