As a nurse she knew how grief affected people. How it could shut you down, cut you off at the knees. He had obviously loved his wife very deeply and was probably doing the best he could just to function every day.
To put one foot in front of the other.
Maybe he was just emotionally frozen. Not capable of any feelings at the moment. Maybe grief had sucked them all away.
She sighed. It was a curse to be so empathetic even if it did make her very good at her job. And this broken little family was prodding at her soft spot. Despite his grim face and keep-out vibes, Nat had been overwhelmed by the urge to pull them both close and hug them.
Sonandfather.
They’d been through so much and were both so obviously still hurting and she couldn’t bear to see such sadness. But the thought of being pressed against Alessandro Lombardi’s body roused other feelings too. Ones she had no right to be thinking let alone feeling about this hard, bleak man in his ruthlessly professional pin-striped suit.
Ones that spoke to her on a much more physical level.
There was no denying it, Julian’s father was breathtakingly male. From the powerful contours of his quadriceps to the lean taper of his hips – both of which had been exaggerated from her position on the bean bag. From the stretch of bronzed skin over the hard planes and angles of his face to the untamed tumble of his dark hair lit with occasional streaks of silver. From the dark shadow of his jaw drawing her eye to the stubborn jut of his chin to that mouth – full, sensuous, brooding.
A mouth she was sure to dream about.
Even the fine lines around his eyes and the twin dark smudges beneath, hinting at a chronic lack of sleep, gave him the whole tragic-prince-from-a-Shakespearean-plot-to-whom-the-slings-and-arrows-had-not-been-kind look. His actual eyes, though, belied any such softness.
Dark as black ice, they had raked over her and lingered dispassionately.
Nat was used to the idle interest of men. She was no supermodel but she’d been blessed with clear skin, healthy hair and a curvy hourglass figure. There’d been nothing sexual about his interest, though. Rather, he’d looked at her like she was an annoyance and didn’t know her place.
She’d bet her life he was a surgeon! Arrogant and entitled. Something she’d do well to remember. Alessandro Lombardi didn’t look like the cuddle-up-in-bed-and-read-a-book-to-his-son type and Nat was not interested in any man who was emotionally crippled.
Really, she wasn’t.
2
The next day, in her other role as a registered nurse at St Auburn’s, Nat had finished her stint in Outpatients, where she’d been sent for a few hours to cover sick leave, and was heading back to her usual home – the accident and emergency department – to quickly check in before she went for a late lunch.
She didn’t mind being sent out of her usual work area and had covered Outpatients on quite a few occasions since starting at St Auburn’s six months ago, but it was a full-on morning which always ran over the scheduled 1p.m. finish time and rarely involved a tea break.
Which meant her stomach was protesting – loudly. Hell, she could almost taste the hot meat pie from the staff dining room she’d been thinking about for the last hour and a half. Add to that being awake half the night thinking very inappropriate thoughts about Julian’s father and his rather enticing mouth and she was hungryandirritable.
She’d known she was going to dream about that mouth.
‘Oh, good, you’re back.’ Imogen Reddy, the nurse in charge, practically leaped on her as she stepped back intothe department. ‘I need another experienced hand. It’s Looney Tunes here. Code One just arrived in Resus. Seventy-two-year-old male, suspectedMI. Can you get in and give the new registrar a hand? Delia’s there but she was due off half an hour ago and hasn’t even had time for a break. Can you take over and send her home?’
Nat looked around at the bedlam.Just another crazy day at St Auburn’s Accident and Emergency.And they wondered why she kept knocking back a full-time position. Nat’s stomach growled a warning at her but she knew there was no way she could let a seven-month pregnant colleague do overtime on an empty stomach.
She smiled at her boss. ‘Resus. Sure thing.’
Nat stopped just outside the resus cubicle and pulled a pair of medium gloves out of a dispenser attached to the wall. She snapped them on, took a deep breath, flicked back the curtain and entered the fray.
‘Okay, Delia. You’re off,’ she said, smiling at her colleague, who happened to be the first person she saw amidst the chaos. ‘Go home, put your feet up and feed the foetus.’
Delia’s shoulders sagged and she gave Nat a grateful smile. ‘Are you sure?’ She turned and addressed the doctor. ‘Are you okay if I go, Alessandro? You’re getting a much better deal. Nat here is Super-Nurse.’
Alessandro?
Nat swung around to find Alessandro Lombardi, all big and brooding, behind her. So…nota surgeon then…
The bustle, the sounds of the oxygen and the monitors around her faded out as she stared into those coalpit-black eyes. They were alert, radiating intelligence, but if anything, he looked more tired than he had yesterday. He stared back just as images from last night’s dreams rather unhelpfully bombarded her brain.
Well… fuck!Hewas the new registrar?
Working part-time generally kept Nat out of the loop with medical staff comings and goings, which was, she belatedly realised, a mistake. Had she known she was going to see the damn man at work every day she’d have been better prepared.
