Ultimate Heroes Collection

by Various Authors

  Rocco took her face in his hands. ‘It’s a good job he’s dead,’ he said thickly. ‘Because if he wasn’t then I think I might very possibly have killed him myself for what he did to you.’

  ‘It’s over now. But you can see why I didn’t want to go to the funeral. And when you met me at the airport that day and told me that my mother had disappeared, I thought for one awful moment that—’

  ‘That he’d killed her?’

  ‘I was being ridiculous. My father was an extremely unpleasant man, but he wasn’t a murderer.’

  ‘As you say, it’s over now. It’s the past, and you should think only of the future. And your future is here. With me.’ He stroked her hair away from her face. ‘Will you stay even though you don’t love me?’

  ‘I can’t really answer that question because I’ve no idea how I’d feel in those circumstances.’ Happiness bubbled up inside her as she reached up and slid her arms round his neck. ‘I do love you, Rocco. I’ve known that for a while. When I discovered I was pregnant I was so thrilled, and then they told me it was a girl and I was just terrified. I didn’t know you well enough to understand your thoughts, and I certainly didn’t imagine you loved me.’

  ‘But you asked me for a divorce. All those things you said last night—’ His fingers tightened in her hair. ‘About wanting your freedom, about wanting to do things—’

  ‘I was protecting our daughter. I was doing it for her. Because I thought leaving was the only option. I had no idea how you really felt until today.’

  The hard lines of his face softened and he dropped a gentle kiss on her mouth. ‘Already you are a lioness, and she isn’t even born yet. Our daughter is a lucky girl.’

  ‘No, I think I’m the lucky girl.’ Chessie murmured the words against his mouth. ‘Because you love me and that means everything. Love is all that matters.’

  He kissed her and then lifted his head, his eyes fierce. ‘I can’t believe you love me too. Knowing that, I’m never letting you go again. For me it’s for ever. No matter what happens. No matter what challenges we face. It’s for ever.’

  ‘I’m not a meek, compliant wife,’ she warned, and he gave her one of his sexiest smiles.

  ‘But you’re the only wife I want, tesoro.’

  They’re smouldering, sexy and ready to get your pulse racing!

  HOT-SHOT

  Heroes

  HOT-SHOT

  Heroes

  Carol MARINELLI

  Kate HARDY

  Olivia GATES

  BILLIONAIRE DOCTOR,

  ORDINARY NURSE

  Carol Marinelli

  About the Author

  CAROL MARINELLI recently filled in a form where she was asked for her job title and was thrilled, after all these years, to be able to put down her answer as “writer”. Then it asked what Carol did for relaxation and after chewing her pen for a moment Carol put down the truth—“writing”. The third question asked, “What are your hobbies?” Well, not wanting to look obsessed or, worse still, boring, she crossed the fingers on her free hand and answered “swimming and tennis”. But, given that the chlorine in the pool does terrible things to her highlights, and the closest she’s got to a tennis racket in the last couple of years is watching the Australian Open, I’m sure you can guess the real answer!

  Happy memories to Maytone.

  Thank you for your endless support.

  Carol xxx

  PROLOGUE

  ‘THIS is a nightmare!’ Sucking in her breath, Annie closed her eyes as Melanie tugged at the back of her dress. ‘But you get to wake up from nightmares.’

  ‘It will be fine.’ Melanie’s voice was determinedly calm but it didn’t fool Annie for a moment—especially when she dared to open her eyes again and stared at her reflection in the mirror. ‘It will be fine …’ Melanie said again, only with a dash less conviction—and with good reason: the fabulous mocha silk bridesmaid’s gown that should slide over her stomach, creating a svelte sophisticated look, instead had a rather unfortunate ruching effect and Annie’s usually rather insignificant bust was spilling out over the top of the empress line bodice.

  ‘I look awful,’ Annie wailed into the mirror. Her hair was everywhere, dark curls so wild they could have headed off on safari, blue eyes puffy from crying at the disaster of a dress that looked like it was going to burst open at the seams at any minute.

  ‘You’ll look great,’ Melanie soothed her. ‘Once your hair is done and everything and you’re in high heels … you just need to loose a little bit of weight.’

  ‘By Saturday!’

  ‘Perhaps you could try a corset,’ Melanie suggested. ‘What was it like at the fitting last week?’

  ‘Just a teeny bit tight—she was going to let it out a fraction over the bust and waist, but Jackie said there was no need, that if I hit the gym a bit harder it wouldn’t be a problem.’

  ‘And did you?’ Melanie suddenly barked—all pretence at looking at the bright side dropping. ‘Annie, I could hardly do it up. It’s going to tear and Jackie’s going to kill you when she finds out.’

  There was nothing worse in a crisis than the friend you’ve called on for support visibly crumbling. It was pathetic really, Annie tried to reason—the two of them both worked in the highly fraught, extremely busy emergency department of a large Melbourne hospital, dealt with life-and-death decisions each and every day and here they were, panicking, literally going to pieces, because she could barely get into her dress.

  Oh, but it wasn’t any dress—it was a bridesmaid’s dress.

  Worse—it was Jackie’s bridesmaid’s dress.

  Jackie—her boss and friend, who had gone, in a matter of months, from deeply dedicated, fastidious consultant of her beloved emergency department to a self-absorbed, controlling bride-to-be.

  And there were just six days to the wedding.

  ‘My period is due.’ Annie was really clinging at straws now. ‘Maybe that’s why it’s so tight.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Today, tomorrow …’

  ‘Great.’ Melanie was back in supportive mode now. ‘It’s probably a bit of fluid retention, and if you go on a crash diet and actually stick to it … well, you’ve seen those shows where they lose loads in the first week.’

  ‘I’m not going on a crash diet.’ Instantly Annie shook her head—a crash diet was the last thing someone with Annie’s past should do, not that Melanie would know that. As close as they were, that murky bit of baggage had been thoroughly checked and deposited where it belonged—in the past. ‘Anyway, they train for four hours a day…’ Annie argued as Melanie looked at her watch. ‘I’m supposed to be getting those nails put on this morning, so that I can be “used to them” by Saturday, then I’m on a late shift …’ Annie shook her head—it was impossible, she had practise hair and make-up tomorrow evening, another late shift on Wednesday, the final rehearsal on Thursday night—oh, and a spray-on tan to squeeze in on Friday. There was absolutely no way she could fit in a triathlete’s training schedule.

  ‘Ring Jackie, then,’ Melanie said. ‘Ring Jackie and tell her that your dress doesn’t fit.’

  CHAPTER ONE

  THE overhead lights in the observation ward were off as Annie Jameson swiped her ID card and raced in through the rear entrance of the accident and emergency department with a surprising ten minutes to spare before her late shift started.

  Eight empty beds lay waiting to be filled—which was good news. The theory was that the obs ward should be cleared by midday—patients either discharged or transferred to a ward. But in practice that rarely happened: when a doctor saw an empty bed and his patient had been stuck in A and E for several hours too long, the obs ward invariably ended up becoming a mini high dependency unit—which the emergency department had to staff. Annie was one of the more senior nurses, which often meant that, rather than actually nursing, her time was taken up directing the never-ending flow of traffic in the department, finding beds, gurneys, staff and often transport.

/>   ‘Hey, Annie,’ came a few calls. Walking into the staffroom was as familiar and welcoming as walking into her own living room.

  Midday was the busiest time—staff coming in for the late shift, doctors who were waiting for results and whoever had been allocated an early lunch—and seating was at premium. But, after placing her salad in the fridge and swigging on her water bottle, Annie saw that for once her favourite comfy chair was free and she collapsed with a loud groan and put her feet up on one of the coffee-tables.

  ‘I’m exhausted,’ she grumbled to her audience. ‘It took an hour to get my nails done, then I had two painful hours at the gym, and …’ Her voice sort of stopped, just for the teeniest, tiniest fraction of a second as she took in the unfamiliar face among her regular colleagues. ‘I’m ready to drop. Is Jackie on today?’

  ‘Is she ever?’ Louise, a fellow associate charge nurse, rolled her eyes. There were two consultants—Marshall, who was winding down for retirement, and Jackie, who was winding up for a nervous breakdown. And currently everyone wanted to be working with Marshall. ‘I’ll be glad when this wedding is over,’ Louise carried on. ‘Everything, and I mean everything, ends up being about the wedding. I was setting up to put in a catheter and moaning that we were low on packs and somehow …’

  Annie wasn’t really listening. She looked, no doubt, as if she was listening, nodding in all the right places and adding little ‘I know’s’ to the conversation. But instead her eyes were wandering, sort of casually drifting around the room, coming to rest on the clock so she could be sure she wouldn’t be late for handover but sneaking a quick glimpse of the stranger who had caused her to falter.

  Tall and dark, he was stretched out on a chair and he was stunning. Black hair, worn just a hint too long, framed a sculpted face, a full, very sulky mouth was moving to yawn and perhaps the reason she hadn’t noticed him at first was because he didn’t seem new.

  New members of staff, whether porter or consultant, had that sort of anxious-to-fit-in look—and were either nodding furiously at the conversation or had their heads buried in a paper, trying to pretend they weren’t there.

  This delicious specimen, though, was scratching a rather unshaven chin and listening with vague interest to what everyone had to say.

  And he’d caught her looking.

  Slate-grey, almost black, and rather reprobate eyes held hers for just a second, that tiny second where you looked and he looked and it was just a tiny bit too long to be called polite, just that tiny fraction long enough to know that you were definitely female and he was definitely male—and both of you have noticed.

  Her heart rate had only just recovered from her workout and now here it was edging over the 100 mark again.

  Most of the staff in the room stood, draping stethoscopes round necks, checking paperwork or begging for a pen, while the early lunches remained sitting at the main table along with… Who was he?

  ‘Hey, Iosef—you’ve got those blood gases to do.’ Beth, one of her colleagues, addressed him.

  ‘I’ll be there soon.’ There was just a smudge of an accent that Annie couldn’t identify as Beth carried on talking.

  ‘What time are you on until, then?’

  ‘Ten,’ came the surly reply.

  Iosef.

  Annie stayed with the pack as they all headed out to the floor and though two of Annie’s most pressing questions had already been answered—his name was Iosef and he was here till ten—it just led to another. What sort of a name was Iosef?

  ‘Gorgeous, isn’t he?’ Beth nudged Annie as they made their way to Section A, which was the main hub of activity in Emergency.

  ‘Who?’ Annie attempted, but Beth just grinned.

  ‘Don’t even pretend you don’t know who I’m talking about—the new senior registrar. Well, he’s made it clear that he doesn’t intend to stay a senior registrar for very long—he wants Marshall’s position when he retires.’

  ‘He’s only just started here.’

  ‘Oh, but he knows where he’s finishing. I hope he gets it,’ Beth added. ‘He’s just gorgeous—not that any of us mere mortals stand a chance. You know who he is, don’t you?’

  ‘You just said.’ Annie frowned as they arrived at the nurses’ station and waited for Cheryl, the charge nurse, to appear, ready to receive handover. ‘He’s the new senior registrar.’

  ‘He’s a Kolovsky!’ Beth whispered, and Annie’s jaw dropped. ‘And not just a cousin five times removed—he’s one of the sons.’

  The Kolovsky family were Melbourne icons. Russian immigrants, Ivan Kolovsky along with his wife Nina had set up a fashion house years ago and now the House of Kolovsky had a reputation the world over for their stunning fashion designs and gorgeous fabrics. But here in Melbourne, where there was no royal family for the press to snap and a dearth of super-models and Hollywood film stars to photograph, the Kolovsky family added a necessary dash of international sizzle to the gossip columns—their inordinate wealth and lavish, jetsetting ways had them regularly hitting the headlines, and never more so than recently. The eldest son, Levander, a rake by anyone’s standards, had recently fallen head over heels in love and got married, yet even though he and his wife had moved to the UK the press still followed them mercilessly—especially with the recent birth of their baby. And now Ivan Kolovsky, the founder and patriarch of the family, was rumoured to be on his deathbed—rumored because at every turn the Kolovskys’ spin doctors issued denials. Barely a week went by without a mention of them in the press and on the news. As a lavish devotee of the glossies, Annie raked through the trashy part of her memory bank and came up with the necessary goods. Beth was telling the truth—one of the sons was a doctor.

  ‘Wow.’ Annie blinked at the rather drab surroundings, at the 24/7 organised chaos of a busy emergency department that just didn’t somehow equate to the name Kolovsky. Despite the hour of the day a drunk was singing loudly in his cubicle and there was nothing glamorous about the pile of patients in the waiting room or the huddle of nurses awaiting handover—and she couldn’t help but watch as he wandered through, a bag of ice in his hand, presumably on his way to do his blood gases.

  ‘He’s thoroughly spoken for,’ Beth grumbled. ‘You should see his girlfriend, Candy—she’s absolutely stunning. Mind you, if he wants my opinion, she’s just a touch old for him.’

  ‘I’m sure he doesn’t.’

  ‘He might.’ Beth grinned.

  ‘You’ve seen her?’

  ‘You will have, too—she’s graced many a cover of Vogue in her day. She pops in now and then—all feverish and ravishing. Cow.’ Beth pouted then gave a cheeky grin. ‘Still, there’s no law against looking.’

  Handover took for ever—which it always did on Mondays. The department was heaving with the usual backlog of a heavy weekend, patients waiting in the corridors for the wards to empty out after the Monday morning ward round so they could be admitted.

  ‘We’ve emptied the obs ward,’ Cheryl said, ‘but Jackie wants it to remain closed till six p.m.’

  That was not an uncommon order on a Monday. The observation ward was supposed to be used only for emergency patients who would remain under the care of the emergency doctors—head injuries who needed twenty-four hours of regular observations before discharge or patients awaiting tendon repair—but all too often, when patients had already spent far too long on a hard gurney, it wound up filled with patients that belonged under other specialties, and this was the issue that they were trying to address.

  ‘Right.’ Cheryl peered down her list of nursing staff for the late shift. ‘Beth, can you cover Resus? Annie, give her a hand if needed, and I want you take cubicles one through to five.’

  ‘Sure.’ Annie smiled, though she’d far rather be in Resus.

  ‘Oh, I forgot to mention cubicle two’s absolutely refusing to get undressed and be examined properly. We managed to get an ECG but that’s it. Iosef said not to push it for now. He’s waiting for a doctor to suture him. I’ve told the intern.�
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  ‘Who’s the intern this afternoon?’

  ‘George.’ Cheryl rolled her eyes. ‘We might actually get some work out of him this shift, given that Melanie’s not on duty. Mind you, there’s no real hurry to get cubicle two sutured—I’m pretty sure he’s going to be admitted to Obs.’

  Cubicle two turned out to be one Mickey Baker—a rather inebriated gentleman who’d provided the background music during handover, and was now snoring contentedly. And though in the real world it might make perfect sense to let him sleep off his excess, Annie needed to do a thorough set of neurological observations to set her own baseline in case he deteriorated during her shift.

  ‘Afternoon, Mickey,’ Annie called to her patient, and then called again. ‘Mickey, can you open your eyes for me?’ She watched as he struggled to do just that then thought better of it. ‘Mickey, open your eyes, please, and tell me where you are.’

  ‘Bloody hospital,’ he growled, bloodshot eyes peeking open. ‘Now, would you let me get some rest?’

  ‘You know I can’t do that, Mickey.’ Annie smiled wryly, shining a torch in his eyes to check that his pupils were equal and responsive to light. ‘Now squeeze my hands for me. Come on, squeeze them hard,’ she insisted as Mickey reluctantly did as he was told. Clearly more than used to the drill, he lifted his legs in turn without being prompted as Annie checked off the boxes in her observation chart.

  ‘Now can I rest?’

  ‘For now,’ Annie answered. ‘Though I’ll be back shortly to set up for the doctor to come in and suture you.’

  ‘Any chance of something to eat, Annie?’ Mickey asked, his eyes still closed. Annie couldn’t help but smile. Mickey was one of their occasional regulars, coming in off the streets every few months. As well as getting his scalp sutured or his ulcers dressed or whatever it was that brought him in, he’d usually get a good feed and a much-needed bath and change of clothes before he went on his merry way. And though he hadn’t been in for a few months now, that he remembered her name from last time brought an unseen smile to Annie’s face.