Sydney Harbor Hospital: Marco's Temptation

by Fiona McArthur

  * * *

  Marco breathed in. Was unexpectedly aware of the late afternoon light, as if he should remember this moment. The slosh of waves and chug of boats on the harbour a few houses away. The tang of salt and seaweed.

  The drift of voices from homes close to Emily’s. People who saw this woman every day. Probably had for years. How could she still be alone? How had some man not scooped her up and carried her and her daughter off?

  When would she answer this door? He checked the number again just as the door opened.

  His breath was expelled in a sigh. A woman with such style. ‘Bellisima.’ Every time he saw her she captured more of his attention. Appeared more exquisite.

  ‘Thank you. Come through.’ She gestured to the quaint sitting area with the carved wooden archway between the rooms.

  Emily smoothed her coral skirt, willing the heat in her cheeks to subside as she invited him in. He looked pretty hot himself in immaculate black trousers and a silk shirt that screamed Italian tailor.

  If he only knew. She didn’t spend money on clothes. Only the occasional piece of underwear she still felt guilty about and hid from her daughter. Gran’s skirt and antique lace blouse, even her lovely silver dancing shoes were sixty years old but fitted perfectly. She’d always been Gran’s size since she’d had Annie.

  Sixteen years the same size. Except for the last few months when the one loving person in her life had faded away to a wisp of her former self.

  ‘The boat leaves at six. Forgive me if I rush you but it is to catch the sunset on the water.’

  Not the time for sad memories.

  Tonight she would embrace life and a handsome man.

  She’d forgotten how good it felt to dress up and see her escort light up when he saw her. See his eyes smoulder, sweep over her, want her. Not that she was thinking that. But sixteen years was too long between attempted seductions so it would be nice to see if she still had feminine wiles.

  He was waiting. ‘I’ll just get my purse.’ She leant past him to the hall table and picked up her filmy wrap as well as her tiny clutch. ‘A night on the harbour is worth the rush.’

  He stepped forward and took the wrap from her hands. ‘Allow me,’he said, and spread the floating silk over her shoulders. She tried not to shiver with the sensation. ‘My car is downstairs.’ She focussed on transport—much safer.

  ‘Is it worth having a car when you work such long hours?’ She was still gabbling as she pulled the door shut after him.

  ‘Si.’ He waited for her to precede him down the steps and she could feel his presence solid behind her. It felt strange, to say the least. She felt strange. Like a teen. She really did need to get out more.

  ‘I have rented an apartment across the bay near the clown’s face and I am often called in.’

  ‘Of course.’ Not tonight, she hoped.

  ‘Not tonight, though.’

  She smiled as he answered her thought and glanced towards the harbour. Imagining the bright mouth of the amusement-park entrance. ‘So you’re near Luna Park. Do you look down on it? Can you hear the children screaming on the rides?’

  Gran used to take her and Annie. For a few years it had been sadly neglected but she’d heard it had been renovated and new life breathed into the attractions.

  ‘A little. It makes me smile. But my windows face mainly across the harbour and the bridge. The view is as good as anywhere I have travelled.’

  ‘You could have caught the ferry from Milson’s Point to me here. Just get off at Balmain East.’

  ‘Si. Perhaps another day. But tonight I prefer the privacy of my own vehicle.’

  He unlocked the car and waited for her to sit with her skirt straightened before he closed the door. Within seconds he was slipping in beside her and suddenly the car shrank to a tiny womb of warm air imbued with a faint tang of his aftershave.

  She was really here. In a car with a gorgeous Italian man intent on sharing the evening with her. He’d said he only wanted her company. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been out with a man and felt like this.

  Gran and her knitting buddies had nudged her into a movie or two with men she’d met but each time they’d withdrawn when they’d realised how much time she needed to spend with Annie.

  He gestured to the houses and trees around her home. ‘You must love living here.’

  ‘Yep. I walk around the bay to catch a ferry to the city on my days off. Or just walk around the harbour.’

  He leaned forward and started the engine. ‘Your harbour is incredible but I probably see more of it from the hospital windows.’ He shrugged those lovely shoulders of his and she tried not to stare. ‘Except at night before sleep.’

  She didn’t want to think of Marco sleeping, or maybe she did, because the picture came anyway. Black boxers? Or those hipster undies the male models wore that clung. Also in black. No shirt. Silk sheets. Stretched out across the mattress. Whoa.

  What on earth had they been talking about before her mind had gone AWOL? View watching? ‘Perhaps you should do less work hours.’

  He grinned at her. All white teeth and vibrant male who scorned the thought of taking things easy. ‘For what reason? I like to give my job everything.’

  ‘Um. Life just might speed by.’

  He glanced at her as they waited to turn onto a busy road. ‘Has life sped by for you, Emily?’

  ‘I’m thinking the last sixteen years have.’ She loved the way he drawled her name. Emerrrleee.

  The way it rolled from his lips with that sexy undertone. She’d never really felt she’d arrived in the sexy department but, hey, there was a first for everything, and Gran’s blouse was firm across her breasts. Must be why she was so conscious of her curves tonight.

  Conversation remained desultory until they arrived. She’d expected a shiny white mini cruise ship like she saw most times ablaze with lights and four decks high with tuxedoed waiters. Five star, sit behind glass, no nasty breeze to muck up your hair. She didn’t get that.

  What she got was a hundred-year-old tall ship, three masted and dark polished wood. He ushered her up the wooden gangway on the side of the ship and they were met by a very official-looking captain with a feathered hat.

  His staff was dressed in period costume, sailors and maidservants from a bygone era, the few tables grouped in secluded areas of the deck set with lace and crystal and the dull glint of genuine silverware.

  Marco watched her. Enjoyed her reaction. Her eyes widened with wonder and she turned to look up at him. ‘Wow...’ The word was soft but his heart warmed at the genuine delight he could see in her face.

  ‘How did you find out about this? I thought they were only privately hired.’

  ‘Your Dr Finn. He’s been very helpful.’

  Finn helpful? He must have read her face because he smiled and said, ‘He is a man’s man, perhaps.’

  She thought of Evie. Or a strong woman’s man. Grumpy Finn even knowing about something like this was hard to take in but she didn’t care.

  She much preferred a man who had gentleness and a way that made her feel at ease. Though a little sexual attraction wasn’t going astray. Like Marco? What was wrong with her tonight? She needed to remember where fact lay and fantastic fiction fell. She rested her hand on his arm. ‘This is great. I love it. Thank you.’

  His hand came up to cover hers. ‘And I am glad.’ The captain gestured to their table and helped her sit.

  The best seats. They were seated at the stern and she could glance behind her to the water slapping gently against the hull. The masts soared into the sky in front of her.

  They hadn’t made it with much time to spare. The rattle of the wooden gangplank echoed across the water as it was pulled in. The scurry of sailors as mooring ropes were untied and the boat drifted quietly away from the wharf. She glanced up with amazement as figures overhead leant on cross spars to pull ropes and loosen the smaller topsails.

  ‘This is incredible.’ Suddenly she was aware she had
n’t eaten since her nibble at the scones that morning.

  ‘Yes,’ he said, but he was watching her face. A tiny smile on his lips as her gaze darted about, each new sight making her eyes widen and her mouth open.

  Champagne appeared on a tray and he took two glasses and offered her one. Absently she smiled and sipped and he could barely contain his amusement to see her so involved in the business of preparing the ship.

  ‘You really love this.’

  Her eyes were shining. ‘Yes.’

  He’d thought he had his walls up, solid, impenetrable walls around his heart, around his desire to even acknowledge his heart. He was doing all right on his own, had been on his own since he’d left home not long after his mother had died, but watching Emily, savouring her pleasure, this was different. Different from anything he’d felt before. And it was not possible. Non e’possibile.

  ‘Aren’t you?’

  He’d lost the train of conversation. ‘Scusi?’

  ‘Aren’t you enjoying this too?’ She tilted her head and her cap of golden hair swung across her cheek. His fingers itched to reach out and brush it back from her face. It looked like silk. It would feel like silk. Such a caring face for one so beautiful.

  This was outside his experience. Usually the more beautiful the woman the more shallow the water. Emily was not such a person. She waited for his answer with anticipation clear in her eyes.

  ‘Si, the night is very special. You are very special.’

  She blushed again and glanced out over the water. ‘I wasn’t fishing.’

  ‘Of course not.’ This he did not understand. ‘You have no rod.’ He glanced around. ‘You wish to fish?’

  She laughed. A throaty, infectious giggle she tried to hide behind her hand. Now, why would she try to hide such a thing of joy?

  The waiter came. ‘Evenin’, all.’ Dressed like an English officer, he took their orders and refilled their glasses. Emily grinned at him and the waiter grinned back. Marco frowned.

  She looked back at him. ‘I mean I wasn’t looking for a compliment. I don’t want to catch a fish.’ She laughed again and he had to smile back at her.

  Her face glowed. Like the first time he’d seen her. ‘I see. A colloquialism. You Australians have many of them. Like the English.’

  ‘My gran married an Englishman. She told me he always said “give me a butcher’s hook” instead of “give me a look”. It was funny when she said it.’ She smiled at the memory. He’d never seen a woman smile so much. It warmed his cold soul.

  ‘Tell me about your family. Your parents. Your gran.’

  She put her glass down and rested her chin in her hands. ‘My parents? They’re both dead. But they were very strict, traditional, not at all suited to having an unwed pregnant teenager for a daughter.’

  He nodded. ‘I see.’ She could tell he did.

  ‘My gran? She loved me unconditionally. Like I love my daughter. One day I hope to find a relationship like that.’

  From a man who could lay down roots and be there for her. One who didn’t immerse himself in his work for a limited time and then pack bags and leave without looking back. Not like him. ‘But not the father of your Annie?’

  She shrugged. ‘His family were wealthy. Too good for me. Once the scandal broke he was packed off. We never saw him again.’

  He could not comprehend this. ‘Never?’ Then no doubt she was too good for him. Bastardo. ‘He has never seen his daughter?’

  ‘Never.’ She broke her bread roll, picked up her knife and stabbed the butter. He flinched. She looked up and grinned at his expression.

  ‘I got over his lack of interest years ago. Though for Annie’s sake I’d have liked him to have made some contact. His parents send money every year on her birthday and I put it in trust. When she’s twenty-one she can do what she likes with it.’

  She spread her butter and took a bite with her tiny white teeth just as the entrée arrived. He thought with amusement it was good she’d put the knife down or the sailor could have been frightened.

  ‘Ooh. Calamari. I love calamari. What’s the Italian word for calamari?’ She made short work of her few pieces and he held back his smile. He liked a woman who didn’t play with her food.

  ‘I’m sorry.’ He grinned. ‘The same. Calamari.’ He glanced down at his tiny fillets of fish on the bed of lettuce. ‘But the word for fish is pesce.’

  ‘Pesce,’ she repeated. ‘It almost sounds like fishee.’ She grinned and watched him put the last one in his mouth and he was very conscious of the direction of her eyes. ‘Your English is very good. Much better than my Italian.’

  He swallowed the delicious fillet in his mouth without tasting it, his appetite elsewhere. ‘I have spent a lot of time out of Italy.’ He changed the subject back to her. ‘So you went into nursing after your Annie was born?’

  She patted her coral lips with her napkin and his attention, again, was caught. It took him a moment to catch up when she spoke. ‘Annie was in Neonatal Intensive Care. She was four weeks early. A prem that took a long time to feed.’

  She glanced up at him. ‘I never missed a feed in the three weeks she was there and I fell in love with the midwives. With the special-care nursery. With tiny babies. I’d found what I wanted to do. And Gran, not my parents, supported me.’

  He could see her. A vigilant young teen mum with her tiny baby. Turning up, night and day, to be there for her daughter. Incredible. The more he found out, the more she intrigued him.

  ‘Enough about me.’ So Emily didn’t want to think of the early years. Perhaps what she’d missed out on in her younger days.

  She glanced around the ship. ‘They must have engines as well because I don’t think they have enough sail on to make it move this fast. Can we walk around? Check out the other side of the ship?’ She glanced towards the thick mast. ‘Touch things?’

  She could touch him. ‘You wish to touch something?’ She picked up on his double meaning and flicked him a warning glance. He was glad the knife was on her plate. She amused him.

  ‘Si. Of course.’ He stood and helped pull out her chair. Then he crooked his arm and to his delight she slid her hand through and he savoured the feel of her fingers against his skin.

  They strolled the deck and the magic of the night fell over them like the soft wrap she wore around her shoulders.

  The lights of the harbour twinkled and shone across the water, ferries and

  paddle-wheel dinner cruisers floated past, and occasionally the sound of a band floated across from a party barge filled with revellers.

  This was so much better, to have Emily quietly beside him. Few couples were walking, and the awareness between them grew with the unexpected privacy a bulkhead or a thick mast could provide.

  Always the Sydney Harbour Bridge dominated the skyline, they passed under it, the soaring iron structure a thing of great beauty lit like a golden arch, and it receded and became even more magical with distance.

  He wished he could hold onto this moment so that he could pack it away in his suitcase when he left here. Perhaps to remove and examine one lonely night in a hotel room on the other side of the world. Stupido.

  This would all be over too quickly.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  TWO hours later Emily held his hand as they stepped off the gangplank of the tall ship and sighed as she stepped back onto terra firma. ‘A wonderful dinner. Thank you.’

  ‘The night does not have to be over yet.’ He squeezed her fingers.

  They watched a ferry come in and there was something vibrant about the noisy reverse of the engines that churned up the water and the delayed slap of heavier waves on the pier as the deckhand jumped off and secured the vessel to a wharfside cleat.

  ‘That’s my ferry,’ Emily pointed. ‘It docks two minutes from my door and goes on to Luna Park jetty. You could have taken the ferry and walked up the hill to your apartment.’

  He glanced across the water as other ferries did their business. ‘Would you like to t
ake it now? I can return for my car tomorrow. It is safe. We could have more time on the water. Perhaps stroll around your Luna Park, eat an ice cream?’

  ‘Or fairy floss?’

  He squeezed her hand. ‘Fairy floss?’

  ‘Pink balls of spun sugar. A dreadfully evil sweet.’

  A wicked look. ‘Dreadfully evil is good.’

  It would be silly to leave his car in the car park. Mad to jump on a ferry just because of a whim and walk around an amusement park at nine at night. She so wanted to do that.

  She gave in to the child within. ‘Let’s.’

  So they did. She explained how the vending machines spat out the ferry tickets, dragged him up to the front of the boat so they could get blown to pieces on the deserted bow, and they lifted their faces to the spray. ‘This is much faster than our sailing boat.’

  She looked back at their beautiful three-masted vessel. ‘Not quite as romantic.’

  His arm slipped around her shoulders and he turned her to face him. ‘We could change that?’

  She stood on tiptoe as he bent. Met his smiling mouth with hers with a light-hearted press of lips that never intended to be anything else—except for that second farewell light press that deepened just a touch and invited a third quick kiss, which deepened just a little more...

  What magic was this? What spell had she cast? Lust slammed into him like their ferry had hit a solid wave and it was Marco who stepped back. If he didn’t stop he’d have crushed Emily into him and who knew what might have happened?

  Always he had control, was the master of his own desires, but this Emily’s sweet innocence gripped him with more power than the most experienced woman and forced him to pull back while he still could.

  He wrapped her in his arms and stared over her head at the lights on the edge of the harbour. What was he doing?

  He would leave in three weeks. Began to realise she might not know the rules by which he played and did not need the complication he offered. A darker voice within disagreed. Perhaps she did?

  Emily snuggled into the warmth of solid muscle. Lo-o-ovely kisses. Mmmmmm. Shame he’d stopped but that was good. She needed to be sensible. She could remember her mother’s cold voice very clearly even after all these years. ‘Your father and I don’t deserve this shame. You’re a tramp!’ Though how one fumbled night and a broken condom made her a tramp she didn’t know. And Gran had shooshed her and said it wasn’t true.