He gave a low growl of frustration, muttered, ‘Later—and don’t forget,’ and stalked off down the ward, muttering something in Italian.
‘Oh, that man is so-o-o sexy!’ one of the midwives murmured as she walked past, and Isabelle closed her eyes.
He might be sexy—she could testify to that—but she wasn’t going to be influenced by it. She’d been stupid enough already and she wasn’t letting him any further into her life. She completed the labour report she was writing up for Julie Marchant, slapped the file onto the heap and reached for the next one.
She’d hear him out, over coffee, as she’d agreed, but that was all. She wasn’t going to let him get to her. No way.
CHAPTER THREE
‘WHAT ARE YOU doing?’
‘Taking you home.’
She turned up her coat collar against the February chill and sighed shortly. ‘I thought we were going for coffee? I don’t need to be taken home.’
‘I disagree. It’s dark, it’s late and you’ve worked fifteen hours without a proper break. You can’t go home alone and unaccompanied, especially not by the time we’ve had coffee, it’s not safe.’
She glared at him in exasperation. ‘Luca, I’m twenty-eight! I’ve lived in London all my life, and I’ve been doing this journey for weeks now. It’s perfectly safe!’
‘But it’s a long way to Herne Hill—that is where you said you live, isn’t it? Unless you’ve moved house, as well, during the refurb?’
She contemplated lying, but it went against the grain, and, anyway, he only had to check the HR files. Probably had already. ‘No—no, I haven’t moved house,’ she told him, amazed that he’d remembered where she lived from her fleeting mention of it weeks ago, ‘but the journey’s perfectly straightforward.’
‘Straightforward?’
She rolled her eyes. ‘I walk to the Tube, get the train to Victoria, get the bus to the end of the road next to mine and walk home.’
‘In the dark? That’s not safe.’
‘It’s perfectly safe. There are lots of streetlights.’ Although it wasn’t great. There were too many trees shading the lights, and there were several dark spots where she often felt a little nervous, but there was no way on God’s green earth she was telling Luca that.
‘And how long does this whole straightforward journey take you?’
She shrugged. ‘Forty-five minutes?’
He swore—in English, so she could understand this time, his accent heavier as he became frustrated with her—and went on, ‘I’m taking you home. Get used to it.’
‘Only if I tell you the address—which I have no intention of doing. It’s bad enough that you know where I work.’
‘Oh, for God’s sake, Isabelle! If I wanted to know your address, I’d ask Human Resources,’ he pointed out. ‘I’m sure I could come up with some plausible reason for needing it.’
She was sure he could.
She gave up, frustrated to bits but too tired to argue any longer.
‘All right,’ she snapped, ‘you can take me home, if your crazy Latin sense of honour demands it, but that’s it. You’re not coming in. I don’t want this, Luca.’
His shoulders dropped, and he stabbed a hand through his hair and gave a tired sigh that pulled at her reluctant heartstrings. ‘This? What this? I just want to talk to you, Isabelle. I need to talk to you.’
‘Why? There’s nothing to say.’
‘Because I’ve been looking for you for weeks,’ he said quietly, ‘and now I’ve found you, by a miracle, I would appreciate a chance to talk to you—even if it’s only so you can tell me to go to hell. You still owe me that coffee, since you managed to avoid taking a break all day.’
She hesitated, but he was right, she had promised, and she didn’t go back on her word. ‘OK,’ she said flatly. ‘You can take me home, if you absolutely have to, and you can have a coffee and get all this off your chest so you have closure, and then you can leave.’
‘I don’t want closure.’
‘Well, it’s all you’re going to get, so take your pick.’
His smile was cynical. ‘You’re all heart, you know that?’
‘Or maybe I’ll just go home on the Tube on my own.’
She turned and walked off, and after a second she heard his firm, solid footfall behind her. And for some crazy, stupid reason, her heart did a happy little jiggle. She squashed the smile and kept walking, then she felt his hand on her arm.
‘Isabelle, stop. I intend to take you home whether I drive you in my car or follow you on foot, so why don’t you just choose the car and make it easier for both of us?’
‘Some choice,’ she grumbled, but in truth she was exhausted, and the very thought of walking to the Tube, sitting in the smelly, busy carriage with all the revellers out for the night, then waiting for a bus and walking for another ten minutes at the other end was too depressing to contemplate.
‘Of course, if you come in my car, we have the heater, we won’t get wet in the rain and I don’t have to make the same ridiculous journey back. But it’s up to you.’
Stupidly—because it was his idea to take her home and nothing at all to do with what she wanted—she felt guilty at the thought of him having to make the return journey the hard way. After all, his day had been just as long as hers. And the car did sound awfully tempting. Then a dribble off the edge of the canopy ran down the back of her neck and made up her mind.
‘Have it your way, then,’ she said grudgingly, and immediately felt rude and ungrateful and mean. And she hated that, because she wasn’t naturally rude or mean, and if it hadn’t been for the strings attached to it, she’d be grateful. She was grateful. She just didn’t want to encourage him or make him feel that just because they’d spent one incredible night together they could have any more than that.
And she was still angry with him, still not entirely convinced that his turning up at her hospital was just coincidence, and still very, very vulnerable to his potent charm. Scarily so.
But she let him lead her to his car—not his Italian sports car, she noticed, but a sensible little Alfa Romeo—and she sank down into the soft leather seat and rested her head back, and in seconds she was asleep.
‘Wake up, sleepyhead,’ Luca said softly, reluctant to disturb her when she was clearly exhausted. ‘I need directions.’
‘Oh.’ She struggled up from the depths of her seat and looked around. ‘OK, you’re nearly there. Turn left just past that pub.’
‘Here?’
‘Yes—down here, and turn left there and pull up. This is it.’
He parked outside a pretty little terraced house in a treelined street tucked away off the main road, and cut the engine, relieved to see that it was in a very respectable neighbourhood.
‘So are you coming in for that coffee?’ she asked, but she sounded grudging and he realised that he still had a very long way to go.
‘Am I welcome?’
She sighed. ‘You’ve brought me home. Even I’m not that churlish. Anyway, you said you wanted to talk,’ she said, reaching for the doorhandle.
He hesitated. ‘When do you work again?’
‘Tomorrow, seven-thirty,’ she said.
‘That’s crazy. I can’t come in now, it’s far too late, we’ll talk tomorrow. You need to get to bed.’
Oh, why had he said that word? Something dark and dangerous unravelled inside him, and he wished she’d just get out of the car and go into the house and shut her front door before he carried her through it and onto the nearest flat surface. He gripped the wheel tightly.
‘Come on, Isabelle, get out. I’ll see you in the morning,’ he said, wishing she would open the door, but she hesitated and then turned to him.
‘Oh, this is ridiculous, you’re here now, and, anyway, I won’t sleep for ages after that nap.’
She reached for the handle and got out, and after a fractional hesitation he followed her, going through her front door and into a narrow but well-kept entrance hall, his hands rammed
firmly into his pockets. ‘I’ll make coffee,’ she said, heading for the kitchen.
‘Can you make that tea?’ he said, starting to follow her. ‘I’ve had so much coffee today to keep me awake that I won’t sleep. And is there any chance of some toast? I’m starving.’
‘Of course. Stay here.’
Stay here. An order, Isabelle setting the limits, taking control of a situation she was unhappy with, he thought, but he stayed, giving himself a little breathing space and taking the opportunity to learn a little about her and her home.
It was small, neat and full of homely touches, but a little tired round the edges. A typical rented house, like so many others, but at least she’d made an effort to make it home. But it was a ludicrous distance from her work, and he was sure she could have found something closer if this new post was going to last any length of time.
But it wasn’t his business, of course, and Isabelle would be the first to tell him that, and however frustrating he found it, he was beginning to realise that he couldn’t just order her about and take over her life and look after her, because she just wasn’t going to let him.
However much he wanted to.
He grunted with frustration. Given the choice—which was never going to happen!—he’d take her home to his house, literally round the corner from the hospital, and install her there with him—in the spare room if she insisted—for the duration of the refurb in her own hospital. And maybe by then he would have enough time to convince her that he wasn’t a bad person, and that what had happened when they’d met, that tidal wave of emotion and reaction, had been bigger than both of them.
And maybe, just maybe, they’d find they had a future.
But not yet. It was too soon. She had issues to deal with, and until he could talk her into giving them a chance, they weren’t going to move this thing forward at all. So he ignored his frustration and looked around.
There was a photograph on the mantelpiece of a younger Isabelle with a woman who looked as if she could be her mother. They had their arms around each other and they were laughing, and it made him smile. It could have been a photo from his own family, bossy and interfering, but loving and supportive, too.
There had been times when he’d needed that so much. He turned away from the photograph with a sigh, and lowered himself onto the sofa cautiously. He’d sat on plenty of rented sofas in the past, and they were almost without fail too hard, too soft or just plain wrong.
This one was all of them. Shifting to avoid a spring, he leaned back cautiously, rested his head against the cushion and closed his eyes.
It was a good job it was so uncomfortable, or he might just stay here forever…
‘Oh!’
She put the tray down and stared at him in frustration. He was asleep, for heaven’s sake! So much for a five-minute chat and booting him out of the door. She sat down opposite him in the chair and left him to it while she sipped her tea, telling herself it was out of kindness but secretly grateful for the chance to study him.
He looked tired. His eyes were shadowed, his lashes dark against his olive skin, and he was dead to the world. No wonder pagers were so horribly aggressive and hard to ignore. Nothing else would have got through to him, she was sure, and she wondered how she’d failed to notice just how tired he was.
Probably because she’d either been too busy avoiding him or so busy with a delivery that all her attention had been on her patient. Whatever, she hadn’t looked at him properly—had never had the chance to look at him really closely without him looking back, and she felt a little voyeuristic.
It didn’t stop her, though. Nothing short of him waking would have stopped her, and she let her eyes linger on his jaw, with its shadow of stubble that gave him a morning-after look reminding her so strongly of Florence. His nose was strong and straight, but there was a little bump in it where it had been broken at some time. A sporting accident? Or fighting over a girl? She could imagine him doing that, in his teens. And he would have won, of course.
His lips were slightly parted, full and soft and beautifully sculpted, like one of Michelangelo’s exquisite pieces; his eyes sat deep in their sockets, his brows a clean, strong arch over them, crafted by a master’s hand. She wanted to reach out and touch his face, run her fingers over the warm, silken skin, feel again the rough scrape of his stubble, the flesh and bone beneath. Feel that glossy hair, so dark it was almost black, and with a texture like raw silk.
She could remember the feel of it between her fingers, the soft, thick strands teasing her body as he moved over it, driving her mad with his wicked, clever mouth.
She swallowed and shut her eyes, letting her breath out on a whimpering sigh, and after a moment, when she opened them, he was watching her.
‘Are you all right, cara?’
‘I’m fine. You were asleep—I started without you,’ she said, indicating his mug and the pile of buttered toast on the table between them.
His smile was wry. ‘We didn’t all have the benefit of a catnap on the journey,’ he said easily, and sat forward to pick up his tea and a slice of toast.
She curled up, hitching her feet up under her bottom and wriggling back in the chair to give herself a little more personal space. Not that it helped. He was still far too close for comfort, and her thoughts were still recovering from the memory of his mouth trailing over her. She could move away from him physically, she realised, but she couldn’t escape so easily from her own head.
‘OK—you wanted to talk, so you’d better do it, starting with why you were looking for me,’ she said, not allowing either of them to get sidetracked now he was awake, and he leaned back with his tea and regarded her steadily over the top of it.
‘I wanted to see you again,’ he said simply. ‘One night left me with more questions than answers. I felt…’ he shrugged, ‘unresolved.’
Oh, she knew all about that. She’d tried so hard to resolve it in her mind, to put him out of it, even, but her mind wasn’t having any. Unresolved? Oh, yes.
‘So you thought you’d come and find me?’
He inclined his head a fraction. ‘I had to come to London anyway, to finish off my research. I had a starting point in that I knew the name of your hospital, so I thought I’d try there.’
‘So you just—what? Contacted them and asked for me?’
‘Yes—and I drew a blank. I didn’t know your last name, and so I couldn’t give them enough information to be convincing. And I don’t know any of the clinic staff there, so I couldn’t pull strings. So I asked around a few friends without success, and then I gave up. I told myself you had my number, you could call me again if you wanted to, and you hadn’t, so I assumed—but if I’d needed to, believe me, I would have found you,’ he said in a voice that left her in no doubt it was true.
‘How?’ she asked, half-joking. ‘By hiring an investigator?’
He shrugged, and she stared at him, seeing in his eyes that it had been a possibility, and shocked by the very idea, but suddenly it seemed to make a lot of sense. ‘Is that what you did?’ she asked slowly, a cold chill creeping over her as she realised she knew nothing about him, but he gave a grunt of laughter.
‘No. Why would I do that? You wouldn’t give me your phone number, you didn’t give me your address, and when you rang, you withheld your number. You obviously didn’t want me to find you. Even I can take a hint—so, no, I didn’t hire an investigator. It was purely coincidence. Richard and I have been friends for years, and he heard I was around and we met for a drink, and I told him I was taking time out and working on my research, so he offered me the job. I’d all but given up any hope of finding you, and I had no idea you worked there until I saw you.’
He sounded sincere, but she still wasn’t sure. ‘I thought you were working in Florence—in that job they offered you. I never expected you to turn up like that in London and shock the living daylights out of me.’
He frowned at the distrust in her eyes, and the fact that she could think those things
of him. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you and it really wasn’t planned. I just wanted a chance to see you again, to talk to you—maybe spend some time together. Take you out for dinner.’
Take you to bed.
He sighed and scrubbed his hand through his hair, trying not to think about that. ‘Look, I promise you, us meeting up again was just coincidence, although there aren’t that many maternity units in London so maybe it was inevitable that some point I might run into you, but I’ve never chased a woman in my life—I’ve never had to. And I wouldn’t contemplate chasing someone who wasn’t interested. It’s happened to me too damned often.’
She gave a choked splutter of laughter. ‘Modesty’s not one of your failings, is it?’ she retorted, and he just rolled his eyes.
‘It’s nothing to do with modesty. It’s just the truth. I’m a doctor, and I’m not exactly hideous, I’m realistic enough to know that, nor am I on the breadline. It’s a pretty potent combination, so I’m told. Frankly I could do without it. And if you really don’t want to see me again, I’ll accept that and I’ll tell Richard I can’t take the job. I don’t want you to feel you have to hide from me or lie to me or feel threatened, and I’m sorry if I’ve made you feel like that. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.’
She felt a pang of guilt. ‘I didn’t deliberately conceal anything from you,’ she said quietly. ‘And we’d agreed we wouldn’t see each other again, so I was really shocked when you turned up. I didn’t expect you to come looking for me.’
‘I didn’t expect to want to. I really wasn’t going to, but then I couldn’t seem to get you out of my head. But you didn’t tell me where you were going when your department was being closed down for refurbishment, and you must have known, so you weren’t being completely open with me.’
She shook her head. ‘I didn’t know where I was being moved to and, anyway, it didn’t seem relevant. I had other things on my mind.’ Things like him. Things like his smile, and the scent of his body close to hers, and the feel of his lips on hers.
The Valtieri Marriage Deal Page 5