by Andrews, Amy
They did not embrace. They did not cry.
Count Benedetto Medici chuckled and feigned a wounded look. Just like he remembered her. Blunt. To the point. Her accented English making the words even more clipped. Someone who didn’t know her might even describe her as unemotional.
But he knew intimately that under the surface Katya Petrova was an intensely passionate woman. ‘Cara,’ he cajoled.
‘Do not darling me,’ Katya said briskly, ignoring the way his voice stroked heat across her skin. That’s what had got her into this mess in the first place.
Memories of their last night together played like a film in her head. Unfortunately time, distance and weeks of throwing up had not immunised her against his charms or dulled her reaction to the sexy purring quality of his very deep, very male voice.
‘But I bought them for you...as a welcome-to-my-country gift.’
Katya sniffed as his beguiling smile did funny things to her equilibrium. ‘I am here to work, Ben. There is no need for gifts.’
‘They are too beautiful to throw away,’ he said softly, thrusting them towards her again.
Katya could smell the crimson blooms and she was, oh, so tempted. But there was a principle here. Flowers were for lovers and they weren’t. Once did not count. Ben was a rich, attractive man —aristocracy for heaven’s sake — used to getting his own way. But she wasn’t here to be a rich man’s darling.
That was her mother’s specialty.
She was here on a fact-finding mission. Just because she couldn’t look after this baby, it didn’t mean she was just going to let anybody do it. Ben may be the father but she knew so little about him. Yes, he could obviously provide for it. But could he give it the other things?
The intangibles.
His love. His time. His devotion. His stories. His commitment. Katya knew too well what it was like, growing up without any of those things. She also knew what it was like growing up without a father. Maybe things would have been different if she had. Maybe not. But she wanted the very best for this baby and next to a mother, surely that had to be the father?
And that was what she was there to find out.
She looked around her at the now thinning crowd and spotted a young man rocking on his feet, anxiously scanning the arrivals corridor. ‘Ask him who he’s waiting for,’ she said, turning back to Ben.
Ben chuckled again. But he did as she asked. There was a brief exchange between the two men. ‘His fiancée,’ Ben relayed.
Katya smiled. ‘Perfect. Give them to him. She’ll love them.’ Then then strode away, dragging her single suitcase behind her on its wheels, following the exit signs.
Ben threw Katya’s medium-sized bag, which looked like it had seen better days, into the boot of his Alfa. ‘This is all you brought?’ he asked.
‘Yes. Why?’
Ben shrugged. ‘Most women I know need a bag this size just for their make-up.’
Katya found herself strangely irritated by his apparent knowledge of women and their luggage. ‘I don’t wear much make-up.’
Ben shut the boot and gave the metal an affectionate tap. He glanced up to see her staring at the vehicle. ‘What?’ he asked warily.
She shrugged. ‘I thought you’d drive a Ferrari or a Lamborghini.’
He smiled. ‘Disappointed?’
‘No. Surprised.’
Of course. Katya was truly the only woman he’d ever known who had been completely unimpressed with his title or his status. In fact, it had been obvious right from the start that she had resented his wealth. Had judged him harshly on the playboy image he projected through her jaded working-class eyes.
And the truth was, he had owned his share of status symbols, including a very sleek red Ferrari, but that had been in another time. Back when an indulgent, lavish lifestyle had been all he had known. But a lot of water had flowed under the bridge since then. And it bothered him that she found him wanting because of his bank account.
‘Maybe you don’t know me as well as you think,’ he said, walking towards her and opening her door.
Katya raised an eyebrow. His entire time at MedSurg he’d been the epitome of a rich, spoiled playboy. The only time she had seen anything different had been the night they had made love. The night he’d received word of his brother’s death.
That night she had seen a vulnerability, a glimpse of the man beneath the façade. All his layers had been stripped away by the shocking news and he’d been raw, totally open. The playboy had gone and the man had emerged. And she’d given him her virginity without a second thought.
And that was the man she needed to be the father of her child.
‘Maybe I don’t,’ she conceded.
Ben was surprised by her concession. This was not the Katya he remembered. The sassy Katya. The Katya who gave him a hard time. The Katya who didn’t give him an inch. But he had seen this Katya once before. The night she had offered him comfort and solace.
They were close now and visions of that night swamped him. He could smell her familiar scent. Cinnamon, just as he remembered, and he had a sudden urge to see if she would taste as he remembered, too. Her open-necked shirt afforded him a view of pale skin and prominent collar-bone and he suddenly wanted to lean in and nuzzle along the hard ridge and the hollow above.
Katya looked into his slumberous brown eyes and could see the passion flaring to life in their smouldering depths. Read exactly what he was thinking. God knew, she was thinking it herself. She could feel herself sway, hear her breath roughen, hear his follow suit.
A horn blared behind them, echoing around the cold cement corners of the car park, and they both froze. Katya’s heart hammered as she pulled herself back from the brink. She was not here to pick up where they left off! She remembered how offhand he’d been the morning after, how confused she’d been by his casual job offer, like he’d just thrown money on her bedside table, and her determination to act like it hadn’t been a big deal.
She struggled to find that miraculous act again now. ‘How long will it take to get to Ravello?’ she asked as she slipped into the passenger seat on shaky legs.
‘We are staying in Positano tonight,’ he said when he joined her, ‘in my mother’s villa.’
He buckled up, noticing her body, which she’d been holding quite erect anyway, as if the luxury of the leather seats would taint her working-class skin, stiffen further.
‘This was not part of the plan,’ she said.
‘My mother wishes to welcome you to Italy. She is preparing a feast in your honour. Relax,’ he teased, and reached across to squeeze her denim-clad knee.
Katya glared at him and then at his hand, picked it up off her knee and put it back on the gear lever. ‘That is not necessary.’
‘My mother insists.’ He shrugged. ‘She will be very disappointed if we don’t stop. We will go to Ravello in the morning. It is only half an hour, depending on traffic.’
He saw the grim set to her mouth and knew from experience she was itching to say more. He’d seen that glitter in her eyes before and had been the recipient of the caustic dialogue that usually followed. But he could also tell that she didn’t want to offend his mother.
‘Your mother knows we are work colleagues only, da? I trust we will have separate rooms?’
Ben couldn’t help himself, he roared with laughter. His mother was an old-fashioned woman, had raised her children with traditional values. She thought premarital sex was a sin. ‘You have nothing to fear there, Katya.’
‘Good,’ said Katya, and turned to gaze out of her window.
Ben concentrated on his driving, navigating his way out of Rome easily. He had spent a lot of his years in the capital and knew it well. His family had residences in Rome and Florence and he had split his formative years between the two.
He took the autostrada exit to Naples and the Amalfi coast. His mother preferred the gentler climate of southern Italy, and the Positano villa had been her permanent home for five years now. For many years it had
been his favourite place in all of Italy but too much had happened there and when he had left a decade ago he had sworn to never return.
But the Lucia Clinic was there. His duty was there.
He glanced at Katya’s profile. She appeared to be engrossed in the scenery and he took the opportunity to study her. She was dressed casually in hipster jeans. They were snug-fitting rather than tight, emphasising her slender thighs. Her white, short-sleeved shirt looked cool, the top few buttons undone, revealing a hint of cleavage.
Funny...he’d seen her almost every day for a year and yet had rarely seen her in civvies. In his mind, when he pictured her, which he did a little too often for his own sanity, it was as she’d been that last night.
Gloriously naked, her body slick with sweat, her blue eyes wide and dazed with passion. He remembered the bite of her nails into his buttocks, the nip of her teeth into his shoulder, the gasps of pleasure from her mouth.
To say he’d been surprised to take her call a few weeks ago was an understatement. After the way they’d parted, the way he’d acted after such an amazing night, it had hardly been his brightest moment.
Is that job offer still open?
Ben had been so delighted to hear her accented English, so relieved that she was still talking to him after his morning-after bungle, that he had said, of course. In honesty, he’d missed her. Missed her frankness. Her cute accent. Her aloofness. She was the only woman he’d ever met who could turn him on through pure indifference.
In typical Katya fashion, she hadn’t gone into detail about her reasons on the phone. She hadn’t explained why she was now doing the very thing she’d told him she wouldn’t.
I’d rather drink bad vodka. That’s what she’d told him that last morning together when he’d suggested she come and work at the clinic.
So why had she changed her mind? He had to admit to being a little more than curious. Perhaps she needed the money for some reason? The Lucia Clinic certainly paid its staff well. MedSurg, on the other hand, the charitable organisation they had both been employed by, while incredible to work for, did not.
But, then, no one joined its ranks to get rich. MedSurg involved a higher ideal. And Katya had been committed to staying on with them — forever. Apparently.
So something had come up to change her mind.
Wanting a change in career direction was what she’d told him on the phone. But he knew that was a lie. What were the words she had used when she’d first realised his family owned the world-renowned Clinic?
A place where rich vain people desperately trying to hold onto their youth were pandered to.
Or words to that effect anyway. He smiled to himself then risked a glance at her only to be caught out.
‘Shouldn’t you be watching where you’re going?’ she demanded piercing him with a disapproving glare.
Ben just smiled and returned his attention to the road.
Not even as the dense housing of Rome fell away and Italian countryside surrounded them could Katya ignore the weight of his frequent stare. She’d been hyper-aware of him the minute she had spotted him, half-hidden behind the largest bouquet she had ever seen. She had hoped that their time apart would have put her attraction into perspective but, if anything, it seemed to be stronger.
It was the clothes, she decided. Although he filled out a pair of scrubs magnificently, it was nothing to how he looked dressed as Italian nobility. Everything about him screamed money. The cut of his trousers. The way the fabric of his shirt draped across the breadth of his shoulders and moulded to his chest, emphasising his six-foot-plus frame. The soft leather of his expensive shoes.
Who had said clothes maketh the man had been right. In scrubs she’d been able to make believe he was just Ben. Gorgeous, flirtatious, persistent, annoying Ben. Ben the surgeon.
That Ben had been relatively easy to ignore.
But in his civvies he looked...regal. Aristocratic. Like Count Benedetto Medici. Rich as sin. Hotshot plastic surgeon.
Katya knew she would find this Ben far from easy to dismiss.
Knew she couldn’t afford to. Knew she had to get to know him. Get behind the façade, behind the clothes. Find the man she’d made love to three months ago, if indeed he actually existed, or whether he’d just been a temporary aberration in an extraordinary set of circumstances.
A car cut in front of them and then surged forward, swaying all over the autostrada, the white lines completely ignored. Katya swore in Russian, clutching the dashboard, her heart racing. ‘Idiot,’ she yelled in English at the car disappearing fast into the distance.
Ben chuckled. ‘You will have a hoarse voice by the end of the day if you yell at everyone who does that. We Italians drive as we live. Passionately.’
‘Bloody dangerously,’ Katya muttered, trying not to think about the passionate Italian in Ben.
Unfortunately, he was right and the next two hours Katya clung to the edge of her seat as his powerful Alfa ate up the miles. ‘Do you need to go so fast?’ she asked him as she glanced at his speedometer and noticed he was going 140.
He smiled at her. ‘This is not fast,’ he said. As if to emphasise his point, three cars swerved around them and sprinted ahead, leaving the sporty car eating their fumes.
‘Mad,’ she said, shaking her head.
‘This is nothing.’ He winked. ‘Wait till we get to the coast road.’
Katya wouldn’t have believed that the experience could get any more terrifying, but she was wrong. The coast road was exactly as Ben had warned. A sheer white-knuckled adrenaline rush. The scenery was breathtaking on a sunny autumn afternoon — the craggy cliffs towering above them on one side and the sparkling blue Mediterranean on the other — but it was impossible to properly admire the majesty from behind her hands.
Speed was no longer an issue, too many cars made it impossible to get above forty. Now it was just sheer bloody-minded insanity. Cars and mopeds and trucks and tourist buses all vied for room on the narrow twisting roads that clung to the cliff face and even tunnelled through in places.
Cars were parked crazily on either side and sometimes both sides of the road, crammed into any remotely accessible space, narrowing the available room considerably. Katya covered her eyes as Ben manoeuvred his car through and around the general mayhem.
‘It’s a beautiful sunny Sunday. Italians always head for the beach,’ he told her as he skilfully worked the gear lever.
She marvelled at how unruffled he appeared when her pulse was hammering madly in her neck. Mopeds darted around him like schools of fish, vehicles overtook them on blind corners and horns blared constantly. Some drivers even decided to pull up in the middle of the road and chat with pedestrians they apparently knew.
She had never seen such chaos in all her life. They traversed the narrow streets of villages, stopping for wandering dogs and groups of chatting locals. They passed dozens and dozens of restaurants and hotels lining the route, all decorated with gorgeous splashes of vibrant bougainvillea.
They passed several roadside vendors selling fruit from small trucks and even passed one with a raised metal frame upon which dozens and dozens of red chillies had been strung up, hanging in colourful plump bunches.
‘Ben!’ she yelled, pointing at an oncoming bus directly in their path as she clutched his thigh and shut her eyes.
Ben laughed and took the necessary evasive action. ‘It’s OK now, you can open your eyes,’ he teased.
‘Oh, God, how much longer?’ she asked, still holding his leg, the bulk strangely reassuring. It had taken them an hour to travel a handful of kilometres.
‘Not long.’ He grinned down at her.
Katya found his smile contagious and the confidence in his brown eyes soothing. She had seen that look, the calm, quietly confident look, many times in his operating theatre. And she needed that right now because the terrifying ride had wider implications. There were three people in this car and the thought of having an accident — the baby getting hurt — was too much
to bear.
She smiled back at him, pleased that on a scenic cliff road on the Amalfi coast she was with someone who could handle the perils of the journey. She became aware of her hand resting on his thigh and felt heat creep into her face.
‘Sorry,’ she said, withdrawing her hand.
‘Don’t be.’ He returned his attention to the road. ‘It felt good.’
Katya swallowed, her hand still warm from the bulky muscle. Yes, it had. Precisely why she shouldn’t have done it.
‘Here it is,’ he said a few minutes later, and turned off the coast road onto the Via Pasitea, the main thoroughfare that meandered down through the maze of cliff-face villas of Positano.
Katya breathed easier now the crazy pace and chaos had settled. They were still being overtaken by the odd moped but she didn’t feel as if she was about to die. She even got to appreciate the scenery.
It was late afternoon by now and the fading sunlight reflected off the colourful façades of the buildings that lined the road and the cliff faces in every direction.
Yellow, pink, white, terracotta.
Flowering bougainvillea crept over walls and hung off trellises everywhere. Every home, restaurant and hotel was decorated with flower boxes ablaze with beautiful colourful blooms. The Mediterranean sparkled in the distance. Positano dazzled the eye and Katya was instantly charmed.
Ben waved at people as he passed. They called out to him and he smiled and greeted them by name. He seemed to know everyone.
‘A popular man,’ she mused.
‘My family has had a home here for many generations.’ He shrugged.
Katya turned back to the window, keeping her eyes firmly trained on the scenery. How would that be? To have grown up here? For the baby to grow up here? She thought back to her dreary upbringing in Moscow. State housing, sketchy services, going hungry on too many nights, going cold even more and a pervading climate of fear that even as a child she had been aware of.