by Annie O'Neil
‘Lizzy? Are you sure? We don’t have to do this.’
There were countless answers to the seemingly simple question. Yes. No. Rip my clothes off, already. But Lizzy didn’t bother answering, choosing to let her gut do the deciding. Actions spoke louder than words, so she took the newly unearthed key card out of his hand and held it against the electronic lock before she could change her mind.
It flashed green and the door clicked open.
His full lips curved into a smile. He’d never disguised his pleasure when she took the lead, and this was a blatant show of her desire.
Yes. She wanted him. Had done for the five years they’d been apart. Well, the four years, eleven months and eighteen days. No need to get hysterical.
The small of her back grew warm and tingly at his touch as he held open the door and guided her into the suite. The bright lights of Manhattan twinkled like stardust out beyond the twentieth-floor bedroom, giving the space an even more magical hue. As if they needed any external razzle-dazzle to increase the sparks that were flaring more and more with each passing moment.
Leon stood behind her as she feigned an interest in the view. She was actually staring at his reflection in the window. This was hello and goodbye to the ghost that had stayed with her for far too long.
She shivered as his fingers teased her shoulder-blade-length hair away from her neck, so that he could drop a few sensual butterfly kisses upon her skin. She felt his lips hover above her shoulder, where the thin strap of her dress held the lightest of purchase.
As if he’d rehearsed the move a thousand times, he slipped both straps off her shoulders so that the dress skimmed down over her goosebumps until it puddled onto the floor around her feet. Soon enough there was skin upon skin, heated breath matching heated breath, and kisses so deep and powerful the rest of the world faded away.
Yes. She’d made the right decision. For now the world was Leon. When morning came she’d get up, give his cheek a farewell kiss, and bid addio to this man who had held her heart captive for much longer than he deserved.
CHAPTER TWO
Three months later
‘DOTTORE CASSANETTI?’
Leon blinked at the foetal echocardiogram he’d been staring at for quite some time. Prompted yet again, he looked across at the nurse who, judging by her slightly impatient expression, had clearly been trying to get his attention for a while.
He gave the high-tech screen a tap. ‘Tough one, this, Constanza,’ he said, meaning it.
Foetal surgery was never easy. In utero surgery on one half of a twenty-six-week foetal heart ratcheted the difficulty up to a level only a few antenatal cardiologists in the world could handle.
He was one of them. The only other one he’d trust was half a world away.
As if on cue, his eyes played the same trick they had been playing on him ever since he’d left New York... A cloud of straw-blonde hair briefly appeared just beyond Constanza’s shoulder and along with it a soft hint of floral perfume. But every time he went to check if it was really her there was, of course, no one there.
He cleared his throat and forced himself to focus again. He’d earned his place among the elite in paediatric medicine the old-fashioned way: by pouring every fibre of his being into his work.
From a young age his mother had drilled the importance of self-reliance and the fallibility of love into his psyche. Relationships didn’t last. Professions did. She’d led by example, dedicating every fibre of her own being to her job at an art gallery when her relationship with his father had fallen apart.
Thus cautioned, and unwilling to endure the years of grief and bitterness that had become part of his mother’s cell structure, he’d planned his future with meticulous care. University in England. Medical School at Harvard. Surgical internship at Columbia in New York City, gaining as many contacts as possible before returning here to Rome, his beloved home city, to practise at St Nicolino’s—one of the most prestigious paediatric hospitals in the world.
Its historic stone edifice belied what it was inside: a high-tech epicentre of medical excellence that attracted some of the most complicated cases from across the globe. They were a fiercely passionate bunch here at St Nicolino’s, united by a shared love of pre, ante and postnatal healthcare.
The day he’d been made head of the antenatal unit had been one of the proudest in his life. What could be better than leading a massive team of medical specialists who gave mothers and yet to be born babies a proper shot at living a full and healthy life?
Having someone to share it with?
He shook the thought away. He wasn’t built for relationships.
His conscience knocked him on the head.
Okay. Fine. Perhaps that wasn’t entirely true. Seeing Lizzy again had thrown a thousand barbed questions at an ethos that had, up until now, always worked for him. Work hard. Play at your own risk.
Apart from during his internship in New York, when he’d come as close to having a proper relationship as he ever had, work had always been his lifeblood. It was the only way to avoid the type of pain his mother had endured when his father left them almost thirty years ago.
Leon had been unceremoniously sent to spend a summer with him once in Denmark, but his father had made it very clear that he wasn’t regarded as family. The blunt reality was that he hadn’t even acknowledged his presence. Not with one solitary smile.
He’d not returned to Denmark since, incising the pain of that visit with the same surgical precision he used on a daily basis. Neat. Clean. Permanent. As such, he had a reputation for going where other surgeons suggested caution. He performed procedures other specialists only read about. But since the New York trip he’d added a new and unwelcome string to his bow. He was now the only elite maternal and foetal specialist in the world who spent his spare time daydreaming about making love with a woman he’d likely never see again.
Lizzy Beckley.
Allowing her name precious headspace inadvertently gave it access to prowl through the rest of his body. Trying to push it back into the box he’d kept it in these past few years didn’t work any more. It was as if chaining it up and then unleashing it for that one perfect night had only magnified its power.
Her name sounded silently again, reverberating from his head to his heart, warming his chest and then spiralling further down, producing darts of heat that expertly arrowed below the drawstring waistband of his scrubs.
She’d been on fire that night. They both had. It had been as if everything that had ever transpired in the world had happened so that he and Lizzy could share those few rarefied hours of lovemaking. He’d never felt more connected to one person in his life.
When he’d awoken, she’d gone.
He’d felt the sting of her absence so sharply he’d struggled to draw a complete breath since.
Constanza’s fingers drummed impatiently on her hips. There was also a foot-tap.
He gave the echocardiogram a final thorough examination to flush his system of inappropriate thoughts. A child’s future was reliant on his unerring focus. He’d have to stop this. The daydreaming. It didn’t do him any good, and nor would it change the fact that Lizzy had made it very clear she had moved on. He had to respect that. Even if it was driving him insane.
‘If you could head down to the imaging lab...?’ Constanza persisted, not unkindly.
She was clearly used to doctors being lost in their thoughts. Perhaps not the precise strain of thoughts Leon was having right now, but suffice it to say the woman was made of patience.
Leon followed her down the corridor towards a part of the ward he knew perfectly well. He’d spent countless hours in the imaging lab, poring over X-rays, echocardiograms and ultrasounds, ensuring his plans were in as perfect condition as possible before he began the complicated surgeries he regularly performed.
Constanza had fulfilled her name’s meaning
—constancy—during one of the hospital’s most complicated times. In those Covid-19 days, when life and death had hung in a balance more precarious than any of them had ever experienced bar Constanza, who came from a war-torn African country. She said she’d looked a real enemy in the eye and lived. She wouldn’t let an invisible one take her down either.
Seeing families separated at the most painful and vulnerable times imaginable because of fear of the virus had made him grateful he didn’t have a family of his own to worry about...children’s futures to fear for. He saved lives on a daily basis in tandem with his incredible team here at St Nicolino’s, and when his work was done he went home to his clean, quiet sanctuary to recharge for another day of pushing the medical envelope.
He was, in short, a man who had fulfilled his mother’s dreams for him. She’d ensured that her son relied on no one, because she believed it was easier that way. If you relied on someone, you’d only be let down. If you needed to indulge in a bit of male-female relations you must cut it down when you knew you could still walk away.
Unsurprisingly, it had been his mother who’d been the most bemused by his choice of medical specialty. Paediatrics. Why would he want to spend his life around something he’d never wanted? she’d asked. Children? Families?
He’d always laughed it off, but since she’d passed away a few months back going home to his empty flat after a day with pregnant mothers, anxious fathers and the newly delivered babies that magically turned a couple into a family had pushed him into an occasional uncomfortable moment of self-examination. One that went beyond what he’d been forced to see when his mother had died without a lover or a spouse by her side.
He’d felt only a hollowness since her death—not missing her, because she’d never given him enough access to her for him to truly feel a loss. The hollowness was more of an ache. A black hole that had opened up inside him, aching to be filled with light.
He knew exactly whose light he’d like to fill it.
Lizzy’s.
How the hell he’d walked away from his most perfect relationship—his only relationship, really—was beyond him. Youth, he supposed. Naiveté. He hadn’t really trusted that Lizzy would hold up her end of their unspoken agreement to walk away at the end of their internships, without remorse or tears, and yet she’d done it. Wished him well, boarded her plane, got on with her life...
If anything, he was the one who’d stumbled. Not back then. He’d been too blinkered back then. But seeing her again had made him wonder...
Holding her. Touching her. Feeling his body rejuvenated by her warm floral scent...
He’d thought he’d be able to walk away from that solitary night refreshed and charged for another intense, head-down assault on his surgical skills, but for the first time ever one night hadn’t been enough. Not nearly enough. And he wasn’t entirely sure what to do with that.
‘Dr Lombardi is waiting,’ said the nurse, in a way that suggested she was repeating herself. Again.
Giovanni Lombardi was one of the most respected surgeons he’d ever had the privilege of working with and he was lucky to call him a colleague. Widowed four years ago, he had a gorgeous little girl—Sofia—whom the entire hospital seemed to dote upon, and none more so than Giovanni himself, whose world largely revolved around her and his work.
Saying that, the man was never short of female attention. Whether or not any of it stuck Leon had no clue. He intentionally kept himself clear of post-op banter as it always ended up circling back to him and his own very distinct lack of a social life. It was a frailty in some of his colleagues’ eyes. A strength in his own. Especially when the boss was waiting...
‘Si. Of course. Scusi, Constanza. I—’ He made a vague gesture with his hand for which he received an eye-roll.
He’d received a bounty of those over the past few weeks—as if a memo had been circulated around the hospital announcing that Dr Cassanetti was a few scalpels short of a surgical set so everyone should be on their guard. Which, of course, was unacceptable. He needed all his synapses firing. Particularly with this new case Giovanni Lombardi was waiting to share with him.
An hour later he was buzzing with adrenaline, his concentration crystal-clear. Giovanni had presented him with a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity: foetal surgery on conjoined twins. The list of complications was as long as his arm, but he’d have the freedom to build his own medical team to ensure things were done properly. More to the point, he was going to have the chance to help two little girls live normal, healthy and, with any luck, happy lives.
Giovanni ran through the case again, more quickly this time.
Conjoined identical twins with two near-perfect hearts. Early scans had suggested they were hugging. The twenty-week scans had shown otherwise. Now, at twenty-one weeks, having had much more detailed MRIs, advanced imagery had made it clear that the little girls shared one crucial aortic valve. Baby A, as she was presently called, also appeared to have hypoplastic left heart syndrome.
Long story short: if Baby A survived the pregnancy she’d endure a lifetime of hospital care unless there was a surgical intervention.
There were other complications. The girls shared a chest wall, the lining of the heart and a liver. These were largely surmountable problems for when the separation surgery happened—Giovanni’s responsibility—but the mother’s health, the babies’ delivery and Baby A’s left heart syndrome was Leon’s focus.
As a maternal foetal medicine specialist he was best placed to oversee the mother and the babies’ welfare until the children were born. He could, of course, do general foetal surgery if required, but he’d need a foetal cardiologist as part of his team. The mother and her babies would need monitoring throughout the duration of the pregnancy and, of course, during delivery, at which point Giovanni and his team would assume pole position in overseeing their health and, ultimately, the separation operation.
The mother, Gabrielle Bianchi, was twenty-eight years old and five months pregnant. Only married six months, this was her first pregnancy. She was scared, Giovanni cautioned, but having been referred by a trusted doctor in her native Switzerland, she and her husband were hopeful that their baby girls would live through their ordeal. Her husband would be staying in a nearby flat, owned by the hospital, whilst Gabrielle would stay here in St Nicolino’s for monitoring.
Leon pored over the complex medical notes again. When he glanced up, Giovanni was looking him square in the eye.
‘You sure you’re up for this?’
‘Never been more sure.’
‘Only a couple of hospitals in the world have even attempted this.’
Leon grinned. ‘What? And that’s meant to intimidate me?’
‘No.’ Giovanni gave the back of his neck a scrub. ‘I just—I’ll want your complete focus on this. You know as well as I do it’ll end up being much more complicated than those notes suggest.’
Leon nodded. ‘I get that, but...’ He tipped his head to the side, his eyes still on Giovanni. ‘You’ve never been worried about my concentration before.’
‘I’ve never had to be before.’
That got his attention.
Leon pushed his chair back from the table, acutely aware of his temperature rising as his defences rushed to the fore. He pushed the paperwork to the centre of the table as if it were a prize only one of them could win.
‘There’s not been a solitary mistake made in my operating theatre.’
‘I know, but you don’t seem—’ Giovanni stopped himself and sought a better word than the one he had clearly been about to use.
Whatever people said about Giovanni—that he was a charmer with the gift of the gab—he was a brilliant Chief of Surgery. He never played the ‘Me Boss, You Underling’ card. He fostered teamwork in a way that didn’t always happen naturally in high-pressured, big-ego-filled hospitals like their own, where half the medicine practised was the stuff of
science fiction novels.
This case would be no different. They’d pull in the 3D printers, the lasers, the robotics. Everything they had, they’d use. Not for show. But because the type of medicine they practised here at St Nicolino’s was ground-breaking. Not by force, as Leon always explained to people who didn’t know about their work. It was more organic. In the way a microscopic seed could grow into a beautiful plant or tree right in the middle of a city. The wildflowers that made a show every year at Rome’s ancient Colosseum were testament to that.
He squared himself up to his boss. ‘C’mon. Out with it.’
Giovanni wrote an invisible prescription on the table with his finger before answering. ‘It’s nothing you’ve done, per se, but ever since you’ve got back from New York I haven’t been able to tap into that Cassanetti drive that assures me you and your team will be able to go where no paediatric hospital has gone before. It’s not a slight. Your work has been flawless. But there’s been something...something I can’t put my finger on.’
Leon raised his eyebrows. ‘Oh?’
Giovanni gave him a look. One that indicated he knew damn straight that Leon could tell him here and now what the problem was if he wanted to.
He was right.
The problem was about sixty-five inches of feminine wiles, with hair as soft as silk, skin to match, and a brain that put most mortal’s to shame. Never mind off-the-charts surgical skills. But Leon wasn’t really in the mood for opening up a Lonely Hearts Club Forum.
Giovanni rose and pushed the paperwork back across the table towards Leon. ‘You know as well as I do that your work has been exemplary. I’m just saying if there’s something going on in your private life that is sapping your focus...kill it, fix it, or put a plaster on it until this is over. For the next three months your life is all about the Bianchi twins. If you want it to be.’
‘Oh, I want it to be.’ Leon didn’t need to think about that.