This is, and has always been, her safe haven, and I’m about to interrupt that too.
With a sigh, I push open the door and limp inside, careful not to disturb my injury or make too much noise. My mother loved this room, though her true sanctuary was the butterfly atrium my father built for her in the gardens. A rural girl from south of Italy who was brought in to marry a New York City businessman. Antonia Rossi was only eighteen when her father pushed her into an arranged marriage, but my father never held her back from anything she wanted. She could have gone to college here—he would have supported it—but Mama preferred to educate herself in her own way. She devoured books like they were oxygen, and my father indulged her, filling these shelves with everything he could find. Philosophy, history, literature, medicine—she read it all.
He loved her.
Her death broke him.It broke all of us.
“Antonio?” Emilia's voice shakes me from my thoughts, and I follow it to find her pretty face peering at me from between a row of bookshelves. “What are you doing here?”
“I came to find a book to read,” I say, walking toward her.
“You don’t read. You can’t sit still long enough,” she points out, her face a mask, which is understandable. I have been blowing hot and cold since she came back to New York. I deserve it.
"Today is as good as any to start, don't you think?" I ask, picking a random book off the shelf, my brows furrowing when I realize it's a quilting guide, so I put it away. "So, do you mind showing a guy where to start?"
Her head tilts to the side as she studies me, and she must feel some pity for the invalid because she nods. “What do you want to read?”
Okay, so she hasn’t kicked me out yet. That’s a good sign. “What were you reading?”
"Techniques of Trauma TherapyFollowingCritical Care and Surgery."
“I see. And what is it about?”
Her brows wing up at my question. “It’s about the latest approaches to treating trauma in surgical care patients." Emilia places her hand on her waist, and her eyes narrow on mine. "What are you doing here, Antonio? I've never seen you come into this library before."
That’s because it holds too many memories of someone I loved and will never see again, but I don’t say that. “I was bored in the room all alone and needed a distraction. I would go out, but a strictdottoressabanned me from leaving.”
“I also remember telling you to stay in bed.”
“It barely hurts anymore.”
“Should we put that theory to the test?” The mask on her face falls a little, and I spy a smile as she steps closer. “Maybe I should trip you. Or grab your cane and run off, see how far you get without it.”
I gulp audibly, “That would be so mean,Dr. Conti,” I say, holding tightly to my cane in case she's not joking at all. Heaven knows I deserve to be tripped for how I’ve been acting around her. “If you tripped me, then you’d have to treat me, and that’s just more work for you.”
“Maybe then you’d learn to stay in bed,” she says, spinning around and walking to the large couch at the center of the room. She drops down on it with her book and flips through the pages. I don't miss the way her skirt hugs those porcelain thighs or the way my cock reacts to it.
Fuck.
“They never tell you what to do with bored patients, do they?” I ask, following her to the couch and settling down next to her. “Do you ever hire clowns at the hospital, something to keep the patients entertained?”
“Clowns?” she laughs, and fuck, it does something to me to see her smile, as radiant as the rest of her. “Who the hell would want clowns at a hospital where the patients are already scared and in pain. Only you would think clowns are funny.”
I lean closer because fuck, I just can’t resist. “So, what else do you do to keep the patients from going out of their minds?” Damn, she smells amazing. Like a fucking field of roses with sweet undertones.
“They didn’t teach us that in med school,” she whispers, clearly affected by our closeness. Suddenly, I'm painfully aware of how large this place is. Barely anyone ever comes in here unless it's to clean, which means we have it to ourselves for the next several hours.
There is plenty of privacy in here to do more than reading, but I should know better than to touch her. Not when there are so many unresolved things between us. Not after last night.
Still, I want her.
Desperately.
“So, what do they teach you in med school, other than the usual?”
She doesn’t turn to look at me, flipping through the pages anxiously. “You’re not really interested in any of that, are you?"
“No,” I rasp, my throat thick with need. “I’m hoping to keep you talking so I don’t do something crazy like touch you,dottoressa.”
