chapter EIGHT
EVIE woke at ten-thirty feeling as if the New Year’s Eve fireworks, for which Sydney was famous, had been let off in her head. All at once. She groaned out loud and stuffed the pillow over her head to quell the racket.
Not that it helped, given that the noise was coming from inside her skull, not from the outside.
The previous momentous day with Finn and then the bitter disappointment of the night came back in a rush and she groaned again. Damn the man to hell. It was his fault she felt this way.
She could only hope he’d been blessed with a hangover of equal proportion. But, of course, he wouldn’t have. Because the man could drink whisky like water. And because little Miss Suzy Happy Ending had been draped all over him when he’d left.
She didn’t even want to think about why that bugged her so much. The man could sleep with whomever he liked. And quite often did. In the years they’d co-existed at The Harbour, he’d slept with a string of women.
It was no skin off her nose.
Just because Stuart’s devastating betrayal had made her more selective with men, it didn’t mean the entire world had to follow suit. If Finn wanted to sleep with every floozy Suzy that came along, more power to him.
Evie pulled the pillow off her head—damn it, now he’d made her think of Stuart. She’d been such a fool for that man, believing that he’d loved her when he’d been using her all along for her family connections.
She’d been humiliated and heartbroken and had endured the rather cruel twist of fate that had seen the hospital rumour mill peg her as the bitch of the piece. Apparently Dr Evie Lockheart had considered herself too good for the lowly Stuart.
It had taken her a long time to win back people’s respect after that.
She was damned if she was going to lose that hard-won respect by making a fool of herself over another doctor. Especially one as arrogant and infuriating as Finn Kennedy.
The apartment was quiet when she entered the open-plan living area, pulling on a thick woolly dressing gown over the clothes she’d worn all day yesterday and apparently to bed too. She had a vague memory of Mia getting her home and helping her into bed but she must have drawn the line at undressing her.
She flicked on the jug and waited impatiently for it whistle. The aroma of coffee infused her senses as the boiling water hit the granules and Evie’s stomach grumbled. She opened the fridge to grab the milk, only to find there was none.
Her stomach revolted. The fireworks in her head popped louder.
Oh, hell—she couldn’t do black coffee. She just couldn’t.
Without giving any thought to her appearance, she shrugged out of her gown, grabbed a mug, pushed her feet into some discarded shoes by the door and was standing outside the lift in under thirty seconds.
Susie and John were bound to have milk.
Finally the lift arrived on her floor and for a second Evie almost wept. It was a short-lived emotion as the doors opened to reveal Suzy, also in the same clothes as last night, looking like she hadn’t slept a wink. And not in that horrible bed-hair, bleary-eyed way that Evie was sporting. Oh, no. In that loose, relaxed, I’ve-had-all-my-kinks-ironed-out way.
Suzy smiled a bright, peppy smile. ‘Hi, Dr Lockheart,’ she chirped.
Evie cracked a small smile and gave what she hoped was a gracious nod because the alternative—launching herself at young, peppy, cute Suzy—was just not physically possible with a headache the size of Sydney Harbour.
Finn stared at the ceiling, absently massaging his right thumb to relieve the painful tingling, and wished he felt better after a very pleasant night with a gorgeous athletic young woman. But he didn’t. And it had nothing to do with his physical injuries.
He kept seeing the look in Evie’s eyes at Pete’s last night. Those twin hazel pools had been like a damn open book as she’d telescoped her disapproval. The disgust and scorn he’d seen there he could live with. He saw them in the mirror every morning and he was pretty immune to them by now.
The hurt had been a lot harder to get past.
It reminded him a lot of Lydia and those horrible few years. Trying to make things better for her—easier—but only making them worse. His brother’s widow had turned to him in a dark moment of grief and it had begun a long-drawn-out, complicated affair that he’d needed yet resented all at the same time.
Lydia had needed something that he hadn’t been able to give—comfort. After a childhood in institutions and the horror of losing his brother, Finn just hadn’t been capable of it. He hadn’t known how to comfort himself let alone a grief-stricken widow.
It had been a relief when she’d finally moved on enough to end it. And yet, strangely, he’d also felt bereft. His one link to his little brother, the little brother he’d defended and protected from one care home to the next, the only constant in his childhood, had no longer been there.
The fact that he hadn’t loved Lydia, or she him, hadn’t mattered so much after she’d walked away.
So he knew exactly how a woman looked when she was hurt. And there’d been no doubt about it—Dr Evie Lockheart had been hurt last night. And he’d been responsible.
But, damn it all, could he help it if she’d read too much into a fleeting moment?
A temporary weakness?
Princess Evie could keep her goo-goo eyes to herself. He was fine. Just fine.
Mia was shocked to see Luca standing on her doorstep later that night. Between her morning-after regrets and Evie’s monster hangover the day had dragged more slowly and become more depressing than a wet week.
She had been in her pyjamas and ready for bed when the knock had sounded. The cold air from the hallway rushed around her and she pulled her hot-pink polar fleece dressing gown closer.
‘Luca?’
‘Who is it?’ Evie called from the couch, where she’d been watching old sitcom reruns all day.
‘It’s just Luca,’ Mia threw over her shoulder as casually as she could. Because it could never be just Luca. The man was dressed in a suit and looked like a matinee idol, even with his face set grimly.
She really, really shouldn’t want to drag him to her bedroom. But, heaven help her, she did.
Evie, her face fixed on the screen, laughed. ‘Does he want to borrow a cup of milk?’ And she laughed again.
Luca frowned. ‘Huh?’
Mia shook her head. ‘Long story.’ She noticed a suitcase standing nearby in the hall. She raised an eyebrow. ‘Going somewhere?’
He nodded. ‘I decided to follow your advice.’
‘You’re going back to Italy?’
‘Yes.’ He gave her a ghost of a smile. ‘To hell with them, right?’
Mia searched his face for a moment, pleased that he was doing the right thing but puzzled as to why he’d bothered to stop by and tell her.
The man was about to fly halfway around the world to go to his beloved grandmother’s funeral against the wishes of a family he wasn’t on good terms with and hadn’t seen in over two decades—he probably didn’t need her questions.
‘Right,’ she said awkwardly.
‘I’ll be back in five days,’ he said.
‘Five days? Hell, Luca, you’re going to be next to useless when you return.’ She saw something flit through his eyes and quickly added, ‘Professionally,’ in case he thought she’d meant it any other way.
She had no doubt that his other functions would be in fine working order.
Not that she cared or would be thinking about his other functions at all.
‘I’ve arranged cover at work for seven days and business class helps.’
Mia nodded. ‘I’ll bet.’
‘John said his housekeeper, Gladys someone …’
‘Henderson,’ Mia supplied. The spritely sixty-year-old cleaned their apartment too.
‘Yes, that’s her. She’s going to keep an eye on the apartment for me.’
‘Okay.’ Mia waited for him to say more. Or to pick up his bags and leave. He didn’t. She frowned. ‘Why are you here, Luca?’ she asked wearily.
Luca put his hand in his pocket. ‘To thank you.’ He looked at her intently, her fluffy pink dressing gown somehow just as sexy as the winter coat from last night. ‘You were right. I needed to do this.’
Mia shrugged. ‘No worries.’
He chose his next words carefully. Normally he didn’t have to give ‘the speech’ but Mia was different. Somehow she’d got past the barriers that he’d erected since Marissa and she deserved him to be straight with her.
He wanted her to know that it wasn’t her—it was him.
He just didn’t do emotional connections and he especially didn’t need that baggage now, heading off to face some pretty big demons.
He was surprised, though, at how hard the words were to say. At his reticence.
‘I know I wasn’t good company this morning and—’
‘It’s okay, Luca,’ Mia interrupted, knowing from his eyes what he was going to say and suddenly not wanting to hear the words come from his mouth. ‘I get it. You and I were always just a one-time thing that went on for longer than it should have. Neither of us do this sort of thing. I think we can just walk away and chalk it up to experience.’
Luca pursed his lips. It was an easy out for him but, still, her even easier acceptance rankled. It shouldn’t have. It should have been a relief.
But it wasn’t.
‘I think it’s best,’ he murmured.
It was. It had to be.
‘Of course,’ she assured him. So why didn’t it feel like it? Why did she feel worse than she had all day?
They stood in the doorway, looking at each other for a moment, not speaking. It was for the best. It was.
‘I’m sorry.’ Luca grimaced, checking his watch. ‘I have to go, I have a taxi waiting.’
Mia nodded, her heart hammering in her chest. ‘Sure. I’ll see you when you get back,’ she said. ‘At work.’
‘Yes,’ he agreed, fighting the urge to seize her in his arms and kiss her and the even more bizarre urge to ask her to go with him.
To complicate it much more than it already was.
‘At work,’ he repeated. Then he turned away, picked up his bag and strode down the corridor to the lift, not daring to look back.
Mia stared after him, watching until he disappeared.
It—whatever it was—was over. She should be over the moon.
She wasn’t.
‘That seemed pretty intense. What was it about?’ Evie asked.
Mia swivelled her head to find her friend walking towards her. At least she finally looked interested in something else other than overdosing on salt and vinegar chips and Boston pub life.
‘Nothing,’ Mia said, recovering sufficiently to withdraw into the warm apartment and shut the door.
‘Didn’t look like nothing to me,’ Evie mused.
‘It is now,’ Mia assured her.
For five days and nights, despite her every effort not to, Mia thought of Luca constantly. Her feelings fluctuated wildly from complete understanding and agreement with their decision to walk away from each other, to worry about how it was all panning out in Marsala, to an uncharacteristic yearning for something she couldn’t even put her finger on.
Add to that a healthy dose of sexual frustration from vivid dreams and Mia was a wreck.
The dreams were the worst.
Happily-ever-after fantasies—erotic one moment, white-wedding poignant the next. They woke her often, rendering her perpetually tired. And cranky. The staff avoided her. Her patients asked the nurses their questions. Even Evie stayed out of her way.
In fact, by day five her best friend was suggesting she burn off some of the bitch with a good old-fashioned bar pick-up somewhere.
Then, on the sixth night, Luca came striding into the department at almost midnight. His luscious wavy hair, speckled with raindrops from the stormy weather outside, looked like it had hadn’t seen a comb in a while and it was the first time she’d seen him unshaven.
He looked like hell.
And her body responded with a primal lurch.
If anything, with the heavy growth of blue-black stubble and the wicked way he filled out a pair of jeans, he looked more like the devil she’d first pegged him as than ever before.
But she knew him much better now.
Well … better than she had, anyway.
‘Luca?’ Her heart pounded in her chest. Damn it, this wasn’t how she’d planned on greeting him on his return. Where was her polite smile and cool nod? ‘You’re not due back until tomorrow!’
Luca ran a hand through his already unruly hair. She was a sight for sore eyes. It had been a harrowing time in Sicily and even though they weren’t together—had never really been together—he wanted to drag her to the on-call room and get lost in her for a little while.
Just one more time.
‘I couldn’t sleep and I heard the ambulances.’ He shrugged. ‘Thought I’d drop by and see if you guys needed a hand.’
Mia saw the flash of desire in his deep dark eyes, like a candle in a well, and felt it slug her right in the belly. She was grateful for the bustle of the department around them. If he’d come to her door, she’d have been lost in a look like that. Their parting conversation from six days ago smothered by a fierce surge of lust and a strong urge for privacy.
She blinked, taking a mental step backwards. ‘You look tired. Are you up to it?’
‘I’m fine.’
Mia raised an eyebrow. ‘You don’t look it.’
Luca waved a dismissive hand. ‘I’m exhausted and my body clock’s screwed up but I’m not sleepy. In fact, I’m buzzing. I’m good to work.’
Mia scrutinised him for a moment but that was just plain dangerous. Besides, she understood how jet-lag could mess with your body but have the opposite effect on your brain. And they were pretty slammed at the moment.
‘Okay, sure. There was an industrial fire with several burn victims, we’re down a couple of nurses and Evie’s attending an arrest on one of the wards. It’s bedlam.’
He nodded. ‘Okay.’
She waited for him to move on, brush past her, leap into action, but he didn’t. He just stood looking at her, weary and subdued. ‘How … how was it?’
Not that she cared. Not that she wanted to know.
Luca rubbed at his stubble. ‘Bad.’ A nurse bustled past them.
Mia heard the low accented rumble right down to her toes. ‘Do you want to talk about it?’
What the hell?
She didn’t want him to talk about it. She didn’t want to listen. She didn’t want to know. The only thing she was interested in was the magic he could wreak on her body.
And even that was now off limits.
His life was none of her damn business and she liked it that way!
Luca shook his head. He didn’t. He really, really didn’t. Three days of dealing with family history had been enough to bear, without rehashing it. What he wanted was to forget it. Lay her down and let their magic take him somewhere else.
A place where he wasn’t a hormone-driven, starry-eyed sixteen-year-old. Where he hadn’t got his brother’s girlfriend—now wife—pregnant. A place where there were no toxic family relationships, where he hadn’t let anyone down, where no one disapproved.
And Mia was the perfect woman for that. Gorgeous, sexually uninhibited and emotionally unavailable.
That’s what he needed. Talking—not so much.
‘I just need to work.’
Mia nodded. ‘Cubicle two.’ And held her breath as Luca brushed past her.
Two hours later the department had quietened down. The minor burn victims had been triaged, assessed and transferred to the burns unit. Of the two more serious burns, one had gone to Theatre, the other to ICU.
Mia was able to breathe again. To think of something other than ABCs and burns percentages and fluid requirements. She glanced at Luca, who was writing in a chart. He glanced up at the same time and the heat flaring between them could have lit the Sydney Harbour Bridge for all eternity.
Okay. Enough. They’d been lovers—briefly. That was all and now it was over. They’d agreed. This … sexual ESP stuff couldn’t go on.
It just couldn’t.
She stood. ‘Can I speak with you please, Dr di Angelo?’ she asked quietly, looking around her at the completely disinterested staff going about their own business.
Luca looked up at her, the quiet steel in her voice at odds with the heat in her eyes. ‘On-call room?’
Mia felt the kick in her pulse. The things they’d done in that on-call room … But the fact was that their privacy was absolute there—the perfect place to tell him this couldn’t go on.
‘Sure.’
Mia turned and led the way on very shaky legs, hyper-aware of his gaze glued to her back. When she finally reached her destination she headed straight for the kitchenette and grabbed two mugs, absently going about the business of fixing them coffee. She heard the door shut behind her. Then lock. She was conscious of Luca leaning against it, watching her.
Mia turned to face him, her butt resting against the sink. He looked dark and wild and every fibre of her being wanted to melt into his arms. ‘We agreed not to do this any more.’
Luca hung onto the doorknob. She was right. They had. But he’d thought of nothing else for the last few hours. Since returning home. Hell, since leaving. And he’d happily walk away. But he needed tonight.
He didn’t know why. He just knew he did.
‘I know.’
Mia shook her head emphatically. ‘I don’t do this, Luca. We,’ she wagged her finger back and forth between the two of them. ‘We don’t do this.’
Luca pushed away from the door and prowled over, halting in front of her. Close enough to see the frantic flicker of the pulse at the base of her throat, the flare of her nostrils, the dilation of her pupils.
‘I know.’
Mia felt the rumble of his voice curl her toes. Lust, full and throaty and undisguised, thickened his accent. He crowded her against the sink and her fingers automatically curled into the sleeves of his shirt. Their bodies touched from hip to shoulder and it felt so good she almost whimpered.
Mia swallowed and clawed desperately for some self-control. ‘We’re alike, you and I, Luca. We have scars … trust issues. We guard our hearts. We don’t get involved. It’s why we’re emergency doctors—patch ’em up and ship ’em out, right? No time to get involved. It’s who we are.’
Luca looked deep into her eyes. ‘Who are you trying to convince Mia—me or yourself?’
Mia glared at him. Damn it, she was trying to walk this thing back. Why wasn’t he meeting her halfway? Why was he trying to change the boundaries he’d set before he’d left? Damn it all, the boundaries he lived by.
They both lived by.
‘Am I wrong?’ she challenged.
Luca shook his head. ‘No.’ In fact, she was one hundred per cent accurate. But that didn’t stop the primal beat of a jungle drum thrumming through his blood. His gaze brushed her mouth. ‘But I need this. I wish I didn’t. But I do.’
He placed a hand on the cold stainless-steel of the sink either side of her and dropped his head, claiming her mouth on a muffled groan. She opened for him instantly, her tongue seeking his, and his barely leashed desire blazed to life with all the heat and intensity of a solar flare.
His hands skimmed up her body and buried themselves in her hair, pulling at the band tying it back, releasing it in a tumble of blonde, his fingers seeking the spot where nape met scalp. Her corresponding moan went straight to his groin.
Yes, yes, yes. This was what he needed. A place to feel good, to feel like a successful, virile man again instead of a home-wrecking boy. A place to forget.
He pulled away from the softness of her mouth to explore the delights of her neck. ‘I missed you,’ he murmured against the pulse fluttering in her throat.
Because he had. Thoughts of her had been his constant companion while he’d been away. Had often been his only relief from what had been a tense and stilted time.
His hands left her hair, travelled to her hips, gripping them hard as he lifted her onto the narrow edge of the sink, stepped between her legs, forcing them apart, grinding his monster erection against the place where he knew it fitted perfectly.
Mia gasped as her hips responded to the blatant invitation. She wanted him inside her so badly she could practically feel his hardness stretching her.
Here on the sink. In the on-call room. With the bustle of an entire emergency department just outside the door.
This was madness!
‘Luca, stop, no, please, stop.’
She pushed at his shoulders as his tongue laved a wet track from her ear to her collarbone. Her heart pounded in her ears and for an insane moment she thought it was someone pounding against the door. ‘We really need to stop this.’
Luca pulled away, his chest heaving. ‘If you want me to stop, I’ll stop.’ His breath sawed in and out of his chest as he stared into blue eyes that were hazy with lust. He pulled her in tight to his hips. ‘But I don’t think you really want me to.’
Mia’s head was spinning, her chest was bursting, her belly was clenched in a tight knot. Common sense warred with primal craving. He rotated his hips against hers and she bit down a moan.
To hell with it. She wanted it, needed it—needed him—too much to deny it.
‘This is it, Luca. After this, there is no more.’
The words were barely out before Luca was whispering, ‘Done,’ and reclaiming her mouth.
Mia welcomed the sweep of his tongue and the triumphant noise at the back of his throat when she opened to his long, deep, hot kiss. She especially welcomed his harsh intake of breath as her hands found his zipper and tugged it down.
‘Wrap your legs around me,’ he murmured, scooping her hips off the edge and grasping her buttocks firmly in his hands as he hauled her off the sink and headed for one of the rooms. Her ankles locked around his waist and he almost stumbled as her hands continued their quest to get behind his zip while her tongue flicked at the pulse thudding at the base of his throat.
He kicked the door shut behind them and tumbled them onto the couch her legs wide, her knees bent, his hips perfectly aligned with hers. His shirt was off in five seconds. Hers followed closely after.
And then a pager beeped.
Mia froze. Luca cursed in his mother tongue.
They both lay there for a few seconds, not moving, their frantic breath and the trilling of a pager the only sound in the room.
Mia pushed against Luca’s shoulders. ‘Let me up,’ she requested, hating how husky her voice sounded.
Luca pushed off her, sitting back on the couch, his chest naked, his fly gaping open. He raked a hand through his hair while Mia ripped the pager off her waistband and read the liquid crystal display. ‘Chopper retrieval,’ she relayed. ‘MVA near the Blue Mountains.’
She swung herself into a sitting position, her scrambled thoughts sluggish as she tried to switch into medical mode. Luca handed over her shirt and she looked at it absently for a moment before realising she was sitting there in her bra and a pair of jeans.
Too close to Luca for comfort, she stood and fixed her clothing. She straightened her shoulders, pulled her hair back, cleared her throat. She headed for the door and paused with her hand on the knob. ‘I’d better go.’
Luca watched her from the sofa. ‘This isn’t over, Mia.’
Mia knew they couldn’t keep doing this. Whatever the two of them were doing had overstepped both their boundaries and all this sexual gratification was doing was prolonging the inevitable. If they’d been meant to be together one last time, they wouldn’t have been interrupted.
The pager was a sign from the universe.
‘Yes, it is,’ she said without looking back, and then swept from the room.
Luca watched her disappear and knew in his bones that there would be no changing her mind. It shouldn’t have mattered. He’d done this dozens of times with dozens of women. Had had a good time for a while then walked away without looking back.
No harm, no foul.
Except it did matter. Somehow these past weeks with Mia had come to mean more than a sexual pressure valve.
Mia mattered.