by Amy Andrews
Who in the hell was Benedetto Medici?
She was so positive she’d had him pegged. With MedSurg he had been every bit the playboy Italian count. Flirting and oozing sex appeal. Flashing his sexy smile and his diamond signet ring and managing to pull a packet of expensive chocolates or a tin of exclusive caviar out of thin air at the bleakest of times.
And yet this Ben was the opposite. He wasn’t flashy or showy. He hadn’t blown his own trumpet over the Lucia Trust and had cuddled Lupi to his chest like he had ten of his own children. She’d come to Italy to find out his suitability as a father. It was supposed to have been easy. But she was more confused than ever.
***
The theatre list got under way and right from the start Katya was aware of the differences between this and her MedSurg job. MedSurg dealt with major trauma. Big, ugly injuries. It was about saving lives, not delicate, intricate operations. It was fast, furious surgery. Patch ’em up and fly ’em out and start all over again. It was high-octane surgery.
This theatre was the exact opposite. There was no urgency, no sense of lives hanging in the balance, no adrenaline buzz. It was calm and ordered and relaxed, and Katya was surprised how nice that was for a change. She hadn’t realised how much of an adrenaline junkie she’d become or how soothing a slower pace could be.
Maria, the nurse in charge of the operating suites, had put her on two days of scout nurse duty to ease her into the routine and familiarise her with the layout. Watching the preparations, Katya was surprised at how much she’d missed working. She’d been away from it now for a couple of months and she was itching to gown up again.
Ben winked at her over the top of his mask and heat bloomed beneath her own mask, still embarrassed by her gaffe. So, now he felt superior to her, he was back to being flirty again? Well, at least she felt on firmer ground with this Ben. Flirty Ben she was used to.
Serious, humanitarian, Lupi-cuddling Ben she wasn’t.
‘Do you want to have a closer look, Katya?’
Ben’s words broke into her thoughts and she slowly met his gaze. That’s why I’m here, Ben — to get a closer look.
‘Katya?’
She blinked. ‘Sure,’ she said, ordering her legs to move.
In fact, this operation had really piqued her interest. Not just because the little girl in question must have suffered so much with her disfiguring condition but because she was so relieved it wasn’t someone voluntarily mutilating themselves, chasing some crazy beauty ideal.
She moved closer to the table opposite Ben, taking care to leave a little distance between her and the sterile drapes so she wouldn’t contaminate them with any body contact. She wouldn’t make herself popular if they had to redrape the patient.
‘As you can see, Lupi’s cleft is quite extensive,’ Ben said, making his initial incision. ‘She’s lucky that her palate’s not involved and that she only has a nasal deformity unilaterally on the left.’
‘What’s her story?’ Katya asked.
‘She comes from a remote village in her country that doesn’t have access to health care. When she was born her mother and father thought she would die. When she didn’t the village thought she was cursed. The villagers were too frightened to ostracise the family in case Lupi cursed them, too. But Lupi’s mother has kept her hidden away in their dwelling for six years. The other children are very cruel.’
‘Poor Lupi,’ Katya said, a touch of anguish in her voice. She thought about how much Sophia, her own sister, had been through with her disfiguring injuries and how heartbroken she’d been whenever a kid from school had teased her.
Katya’s heart went out to this poor little girl. No wonder she seemed to be thriving with the attention she was getting here.
Ben flicked his gaze up from what he was doing. He’d heard the genuine distress in her comment. The little girl’s plight had affected him, too. He couldn’t imagine how awful it had been for her to be rejected by everyone around her and isolated from the normal life of a child.
At Lupi’s age he and Mario had been inseparable, tearing around trying to outdo each other with more and more impressive deeds. He had been younger by a year but he’d never let that get between him and Mario and their hijinks. Poor Lupi had known none of that. She’d never been allowed to mix with other children.
‘Indeed,’ he said. ‘She can’t talk and has a very poor nutritional state because chewing and swallowing are so difficult with the bilateral cleft.’
Katya nodded. If Lupi had grown up somewhere with decent access to a good health-care system, she would probably have had several operations by now and had many specialties involved. Orthodontists, speech therapists, ENT surgeons, paediatricians, dieticians.
‘Are you going to repair the nasal deformity in this operation as well?’ Katya asked.
He nodded as he accepted his next instrument from the scrub nurse standing next to him. ‘There are differing opinions on whether this should be done as a staged repair but Lupi’s situation is very different,’ he said. ‘For a start, she’s a lot older. Most children having this repair would be under a year old. And follow-up could be a problem. So I’ll do both now. It may be that she’ll need another operation in a few years’ time as she grows and her facial structures mature but, as I say, follow-up could be a problem.’
Ben worked on the nasal defect, knowing he had to maintain symmetry and secure primary muscle union. He wanted to get the best outcome possible for Lupi, given everything she’d been through, but he was finding concentrating difficult with Katya standing a metre away.
He realised how much he’d missed being in the same theatre with her. It had only been a few months but he was looking forward to when she could scrub in with him in a few days. While she was close now, she could be closer and he wanted to be rubbing shoulders with her again.
Returning to Italy had put a very abrupt end to the thing that had been happening between them. Oh, sure, Katya would have denied it but there had been a tension between them right from the beginning. He half suspected that was why she’d been so prickly, so feisty. Because deep down she’d also known something had been happening and it had scared her to death.
‘Nearly done,’ Ben said, asking for a suture.
Katya watched Ben’s fingers as he operated, and allowed his deep husky tones to flow over her. He was concentrating, pulling the incised edges of the cleft together, preparing for closure. She studied his style and compared him to Gill Remy, the surgeon she had worked closely with at MedSurg.
Gill’s fingers had been deft, his style understated and methodical. Ben’s was different again. He was more flamboyant, his style entertaining. His movements were a little more exaggerated, his handiwork punctuated with an added flourish and touch of theatre.
It didn’t affect his competency, she realised. It was more a reflection of his personality. Gill was a born surgeon, his skill and expertise defining him. Ben was a born count playing at being a surgeon. A rich man mixing it with the peasants and enjoying the freedom both worlds gave him. His style was... expressive, a bit like a conductor of a symphony orchestra, and Katya enjoyed watching him work.
The operation took an hour and Katya was amazed, as she always was, that time could pass so quickly when you were totally engrossed. Ben’s handiwork was very impressive. The suture line dominating Lupi’s now complete lip was obviously very prominent but Katya knew it would eventually fade to a ghostly white and the little girl that had been formerly shunned as a cursed child could now live a normal life.
And Ben had given that to her. For nothing. And if that wasn’t true father material — then what the hell was?
CHAPTER THREE
ON FRIDAY morning, Katya finished breakfast a little earlier so she could stop by Lupi’s room on her way to work. It was Lupi’s last day and she wanted to pop in and say goodbye to the little girl who had won all of their hearts with her big brown eyes and beautiful new smile. Katya stopped abruptly at the door as she realised she’d been be
aten to it.
Ben was speaking to her in Italian, their heads almost touching as they bent over a colouring book. Katya couldn’t understand what was being said — hell, neither could Lupi — but the little girl giggled and beamed at Ben as he pulled funny faces while he coloured.
His rich deep voice traversed the distance between them and she almost sighed it sounded so good. Like the first coffee of the day, or a Sunday morning sleep-in or a crackling log fire in the middle of winter. She liked listening to him talk in his native tongue and she relaxed her head against the doorjamb.
Lupi laughed and looked up at Ben with such trust in her eyes that Katya’s heart skipped a beat. She knew in that moment that coming to Italy had been the right thing to do. That Ben was the perfect choice to raise their child. That if he could show this much compassion to a stranger, to a child he’d never even known until this week, his own child would be very lucky indeed.
It gave her a huge sense of relief, a sense of rightness, knowing that their child would look at him with the same measure of trust. Had she ever looked at her mother with such trust?
‘You’d make a great father.’
Ben turned and saw Katya standing in the doorway. He looked back at Lupi, so defenceless, so trusting. He hadn’t felt love for anyone or anything in a long time. Not a woman, not his country, not even his job.
Not since Bianca and Mario.
How could he give a child the love it deserved when he still felt so emotionally barren? ‘No. I wouldn’t.’
She frowned. ‘You...don’t want to be a father? Someday?’
Ben returned to the colouring-in. Did he? Once upon a time he’d thought he and Bianca would have a houseful of kids. But he was older now, wiser. And still a little old-fashioned where children were concerned.
It must be his mother’s influence. His traditional upbringing. He truly thought it was best that a man and a woman should be married before deciding to bring children into the world. That the parents should love each other and have made a binding commitment to be together for ever.
Or at least he had anyway, before Mario and Bianca’s actions had irreparably shaken his faith in love and marriage and family. He didn’t know what the hell he believed any more, he just knew he wasn’t ready for fatherhood.
‘I’m too selfish,’ he said dismissively.
Before coming to Italy, Katya would have agreed without hesitation. But looking at him now, sitting on a little girl’s bed dressed in his scrubs, passing the time with her in the last few minutes before he had to start work, told her different.
‘A selfish man would be enjoying an extra espresso or a few more minutes’ sleep,’ Katya said quietly.
He stopped colouring and fixed her with a serious look. ‘Don’t read too much into this.’
Katya swallowed. He had to want to be a father. He had to! ‘Sometimes we don’t know what we’re capable of until we try,’ she said quietly, ignoring how much of a hypocrite that made her.
He put down the crayon, turned back to Lupi and smiled. ‘I’ll be back later, little one,’ he said, in English this time. Lupi smiled and waved as Ben eased himself off the bed and headed towards Katya.
Stopping in the doorway, Ben placed his hand on the doorjamb above her head and leaned in. He was close enough to smell her cinnamon scent. She was in her scrubs and the desire to see her out of them stormed through him. But talk of children dampened his ardour.
Suddenly she’d made his life seem so bleak.
His mouth was close to her ear and, if he moved a fraction more, he could tease the lobe with his lips, with his teeth and, fleetingly, he was tempted. ‘Children aren’t something people should just try, cara. And my life is fine the way it is.’
He departed then, his arm brushing against hers lightly as he left and Katya’s breath rushed out, her heartbeat thundering in her ears.
Fine? Just fine? Not happy? Or content?
He didn’t look fine. She could see a bleakness in his steady brown gaze. Here was the Ben she kept seeing glimpses of, the Ben that the Contessa was worried about. She placed her hand protectively over her stomach as it looped the loop. So, he didn’t want a baby?
Well, neither did she.
But whether he liked it or not, he was this baby’s father. And he was a hell of a lot better equipped than she was to take care of it.
A sudden sharp pain flared in her chest and Katya ignored it as she smiled and waved at Lupi then headed towards Theatre One. Some things in life were difficult. It didn’t mean that they weren’t right. She couldn’t afford to think emotionally. She had to be practical. And luckily, thanks to her mother, Katya was a very practical person.
***
The morning cases got under way with Ben his usual jovial self again. She noticed he was always in high spirits while he operated and it was obvious that he thrived doing this kind of work. This morning they had a couple of children who had bad burns contractures of their arms which made straightening them excessively difficult and hence, limited their independence.
One was a nine-year-old girl whose fingers on her burnt hand were being dragged into a claw shape due to severe flexion scar contractures, and the other was a four-year-old boy whose right arm was permanently bent up due to a contracture over his elbow joint.
They were brother and sister who had been involved in a tragic fire in their family dwelling that had also killed their mother. Both had had delayed and inadequate treatment of their burns, as so often happened in remote and poor communities. No burns protocols, no immediate grafting, no physio or splinting or pressure garments.
The Lucia Trust had been alerted to their cases through a charitable organisation in their country and had flown them to Italy. It was Ben’s job to debride the thickened scar tissue that was causing their problems and then cover the defects with a skin graft.
Katya could see he was totally in the zone, relishing the challenge, eager to make a difference to these children’s lives. His excitement was palpable and the whole theatre was humming with anticipation.
She was excruciatingly aware of him today. It wasn’t just his elevated mood but the memory of their earlier conversation, the way her heart beat had accelerated and her stomach had turned over at his closeness. She really needed some distance from him but scrubbing in with a surgeon always necessitated close contact and today was no different.
They both needed to see what they were doing, he to operate, she to anticipate his needs, and as much as she tried to distance herself it made very little difference to their proximity. And despite her head telling her to keep it professional, focus on the job, her body had other ideas.
When their arms clad in thick long-sleeved cotton gowns brushed together, it was if he had stroked her bare skin. When their gloved fingers touched as they exchanged instruments, it felt as if he had trailed them up her arm. When his low voice rumbled in her ear it felt as if he had feathered kisses down her neck.
Not even the music was a distraction. Ben liked to listen to classical music as he operated. Being Russian, she was quite partial to classical music herself, but it seemed weirdly intimate and she found herself pining for the dulcet tones of Ella Fitzgerald who had serenaded them during her time with MedSurg, working with Gill Remy.
The CD playing today was Wagner. It was a poignant collection and she could feel her emotions see-saw with the rise and fall of the music. Wagner had been inspired by Ravello, Ben told her with pride, as he debrided scar tissue. The sexy timbre of his voice slid down her spine and ruined her concentration.
By the time Ben was satisfied with his work and the list came to an end she was eager to escape for a while. She needed to get as far away from him as was humanly possible. She’d come to her decision, there was no point buying into the attraction between them. All she had to do now was hang around until she’d had the baby and then get away — fast.
***
The list complete, Ben was just degowning when the wall phone rang. Being the closest,
he picked it up. ‘Lucia Clinic, Dr Medici speaking,’ he said in Italian.
A woman replied. She was speaking in very broken, heavily accented English. ‘I speak to Katya Petrova...please...I her ...mama.’
Katya’s mother? ‘Of course,’ he said switching to English. ‘She is here. One moment.’
He looked up to see Katya just disappearing through the door. ‘Katya,’ he called after her.
She stopped and turned around shooting him one of her cranky looks and Ben suppressed a smile. He held the phone out. ‘It’s for you. It’s your mother.’
Oh, God! Katya covered the distance between the two of them quickly and practically snatched the phone from him. Had something happened to one of her siblings or was it just more of the usual?
‘Mama?’
‘Da,’ her mother said.
‘What’s wrong?’ Katya asked, slipping into her native tongue, gripping the phone, preparing for the worst.
‘Katya,’ her mother said reprovingly, ‘can’t I just ring and talk to my daughter without something being wrong?’
Since when had Olgah ever rung just to shoot the breeze with her firstborn? ‘Everyone’s OK, then?’ Katya said. Her youngest sibling was now seventeen but that still didn’t stop Katya fretting over them like a mother hen.
‘Da, da,’ Olgah said dismissively.
Katya breathed a sigh of relief and loosened her grip on the phone. She was conscious in her peripheral vision of Ben’s blatant curiosity. He was sitting in the anesthetist’s chair, pretending interest in a chart.
If there wasn’t something wrong then Katya knew where this conversation was going to head, and she didn’t want Ben to be privy to it. She turned slightly so she couldn’t see him and leant heavily against the wall. She scuffed her feet against the floor, her head downcast, her free hand massaging her forehead.
‘What do you want, Mama?’ Katya asked, feeling herself tense.
‘Katya! How can you speak to your mother like that?’
Katya ignored the indignation. ‘How much, Mama?’