CAROL MARINELLI - Hot Single Docs - Waiting For You - St Piran's - Prince on the Children's Ward

Clearly he liked his food hot.

Tasha thumped the pillow angrily and rolled onto her back. So he was tough. So what? That just proved the man had no nerve-endings and she already knew that. A man with the slightest sensitivity wouldn’t have treated her the way Alessandro had treated her.

Had she seen a flicker of remorse?

Had he apologised?

No. And she hadn’t exactly progressed in her plan to make him suffer. In fact, so far her plan had totally failed to get off the ground.

Wishing she hadn’t wasted her limited finances on sexy underwear, Tasha rolled onto her back and stared at the ceiling.

So far she’d failed spectacularly to make him feel remotely guilty for the way he’d treated her, but she couldn’t very well back out now without exposing herself to relentless questioning and teasing by her insensitive brother. Which meant she was stuck here.

She lay in the dark, unable to sleep, wondering how someone with a chest that bruised had somehow managed to get himself to and from the bathroom without help. It hadn’t just been the physical strength that had impressed her, it was the mental strength. Somehow he’d pushed through the pain.

He didn’t just look like a warrior, he had warrior mentality.

There was a hardness to him that hadn’t been there ten years before. He wasn’t the same person.

And neither was she.

Tasha was pondering on that when a loud crash echoed around the house.

She was out of bed in a flash, her mind already working through various scenarios. If he’d fallen out of bed, it could have seriously aggravated his injuries. They’d need an ambulance. Paramedics... ‘Alessandro?’ Sprinting into his bedroom, she saw a lamp lying on the floor where he’d knocked it off the bedside table. On the wall in front of him a football match was being played out on the wide-screen TV and he was watching avidly, his hand locked around the remote control.

‘Tash, you’re standing in front of the screen!’

‘You’re watching sport?’ Her heart was hammering and she felt weak at the knees. ‘You frighten the life out of me and then all you can say is “You’re standing in front of the screen”?’ Incredulous, she rescued the lamp and waited for her heartbeat to reach a normal level. ‘I thought you’d fallen out of bed. I thought you’d broken the rest of your ribs and your skull to go with it.’

‘I knocked the lamp off when I was reaching for the remote control.’

‘It’s two in the morning. What is it with men and the remote control?’

‘I wanted to watch sport. I couldn’t sleep.’

Him too?

Only she’d been lying there thinking about him while he’d been thinking about football. The knowledge scraped at her nerves and strengthened her resolve. ‘Is it the pain?’ Tasha straightened the lamp. ‘I thought you’d fallen.’ And she’d been terrified of what a fall could do to his broken ribs. Not that she cared, she told herself quickly, but she didn’t want to be stuck here nursing him any longer than she had to be.

‘It isn’t pain. Go back to bed, Tasha. I’m sorry I disturbed you.’ He didn’t shift his gaze from the screen, watching unblinking as the crowd roared its approval. He was a typical man, obsessed with sport, just like her three brothers. She could walk across the room naked and he wouldn’t look up because some feat of sporting prowess was being enacted on the giant plasma screen.

Why had she bothered buying expensive lingerie to drive him wild? she thought crossly. She may as well have worn her ancient Mickey Mouse T-shirt.

The glass doors were still open onto the terrace and a cool breeze wafted into the room. ‘Shall I close these now?’ She walked across the room. ‘You must be freezing.’

‘I like the cold air.’ Something in his tone made her look at him closely and it was only because she was trained to notice subtle clues that she realised he wasn’t actually watching the game. True, his eyes were fixed on the screen, but they were blank. Empty.

And suddenly she knew that the football was an excuse.

Tasha switched on the other lamp and for a fleeting second saw the expression on his face. The humour was gone and in its place was exhaustion and pain. She hesitated and then sat down on the chair, hating herself for not just being able to walk away. It wasn’t that she cared, she told herself quickly. It was because he was in pain. She’d never been any good at watching someone in pain. ‘You look rough.’

‘Go to bed, Tasha.’ It was a dismissal she chose to ignore.

She wondered whether he was thinking about his injury or the loss of his brother.

‘Things always seem worse at night,’ she said casually. ‘I see it on the ward with both the kids and the parents. There’s something about being in the dark. It makes you think too much.’ And she knew that sometimes it helped to talk to pass the time. She’d spent hours keeping frightened kids company at night, playing cards, chatting quietly while the rest of the ward slept. ‘What were you doing back in Cornwall anyway? I imagined you in some gilded palace, doing prince-like things.’

‘You imagined me?’ His head turned and she wanted to bite her tongue. Suddenly she was staring into those dark eyes and everything inside her melted, just as it had when she was a teenager.

‘Just a figure of speech. You’re the crown prince.’ Suddenly she felt awkward, and she wondered why she found it so much easier to talk to children than adults. ‘I was sorry to hear about your brother. That must have been very hard for all of you.’

‘It’s life.’ His voice was hard and she floundered, wondering how it was possible to want to comfort and run at the same time. ‘What are you doing here, Tasha? Why did you really volunteer to look after me?’

Her heart jumped in her chest. So he wasn’t just brave, he was as sharp as a blade.

It wouldn’t do to forget that.

‘I wanted to help.’

‘Really?’ The bleak, cold look in his eyes had been replaced by smouldering sexuality that made it impossible to breathe or think. Time was suspended. In the background the crowd roared its approval at some amazing feat of sportsmanship but neither of them looked towards the screen. They were looking at each other, the chemistry a magnetic force between them, drawing them together.

And then he turned his head and closed his eyes. ‘Go to bed, Tasha.’

Embarrassment drove her to her feet. Another minute and she would have kissed that mouth. She would have leaned forward and—

Oh, God.

‘Right. Yes. Good. Well—try not to knock over any more lamps.’ She fled to the door, wondering what it was about this man that affected her so badly.

She was a career-woman. She was dedicating her life to her little patients. The only thing she was interested in was getting another job as fast as possible.

This time when she walked into her bedroom she closed the door firmly behind her.

* * *

The dark rage inside him mingled with frustration. The inactivity was driving him crazy. Almost as crazy as living with Tasha. Even when she wasn’t there, she was there. He smelt her perfume, spied a pair of feminine shoes discarded next to a chair.

And now she was surfing. Alessandro watched from the terrace as she carved into the wave, graceful and perfectly balanced. It was like watching a dancer. Some bolder tourists had chosen to visit the beach to take lessons on the soft sand and then try the bigger surf created by the rocks. They huddled in groups, learning to stand on the board, learning to balance, practising the ‘pop-up’. Then they ventured into the water and spent the time falling off their boards in the shallows.

Tasha had none of those problems.

Watching her was sheer poetry. He turned away from the window, envying her the opportunity to push herself physically. Before the accident he would have been out there with her. Or maybe not with her, exactly. He frowned, not sure how he felt about having her there. She was the reason he was home, and those new painkillers had certainly taken the edge off the agony. But other parts of him weren’t faring so well. The inactivity was driving him mad.