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

Aware that Josh was looking at her, Tasha breathed slowly and tried to slow her pulse rate. If she said no, her brother would ask questions. And the longer she waited, the more the anticipation would eat into her. And the advantage of doing it right away was that Alessandro wasn’t forewarned. He wasn’t expecting to see her.

Tasha strolled to the mirror in the corner of the office and stared at her reflection. Green eyes stared back at her. Green eyes that showed lack of sleep and stress. Doctor’s eyes.

Apart from the shadows and the obvious exhaustion, she didn’t look that bad, did she?

Mouth too big, she thought. Freckles. Dark hair that twisted and curled over her shoulders. All wrong. As a teenager, she’d been horribly conscious of her gypsy looks. She’d envied the girls with sleek blonde hair and china-blue eyes.

Insecurity crawled through her belly and she glared at her reflection, refusing to allow herself to think like that. At least she had a brain, which was more than could be said for most of Alessandro’s women.

But there was no doubt that there was work to be done before she faced her past. Alessandro Cavalieri spent his time with the most beautiful women in the world. Facing him with confidence required more than an emergency repair job, but it would have to do.

With a sense of purpose, Tasha pulled her make-up case out of her bag.

‘Poor Alessandro.’ She darkened her lashes and added blusher to her cheeks. Not much. Just enough to help the ‘natural’ look. ‘He must be going crazy, stuck in bed. You’re right. What he needs is personal attention.’

And she was going to give him personal attention.

By the time she’d finished with him, a shattered ankle was going to be the least of his worries.

She was going to make him writhe with guilt for crushing her dreams so brutally. It was time he realised that women had feelings.

Josh was watching her in bemusement. ‘Why are you putting on make-up?’

‘Because I care how I look and because I want to look professional.’ Staring into her bag, she selected a subtle gloss lipstick. ‘Last time we met, I was a teenager. That’s how he’s going to remember me. I need to look like an adult—like someone capable of taking care of him.’

‘You look very happy all of a sudden for someone who has just lost their job. A few moments ago I thought you were going to cry.’

‘Me? Cry? Don’t be ridiculous. Don’t worry, Josh. I’ll take good care of your friend.’ Tasha tugged at the clip and her hair tumbled long and loose around her shoulders. Smiling to herself, she gave her head a shake. ‘I’ll take extremely good care of him.’

Alessandro Cavalieri had taken her fragile teenage heart and ground it under his feet.

Payback time, she thought as she added the high-shine gloss to her lips.

It was going to be her pleasure to give him exactly what he deserved.

And maybe, just maybe, once he’d given her a big, fat grovelling apology, she’d be able to put the whole episode behind her.

CHAPTER TWO

‘YOUR Highness, you can’t use your phone in the hospital.’

Alessandro turned frustrated dark eyes onto the nervous nurse, his temper reaching combustion point. ‘Then get me out of hospital,’ he said silkily, and watched as she bit her lip nervously.

‘I’m really sorry but I don’t have the authority to do that. You have an infection, Your Highness, and—’

‘Stop calling me Your Highness.’ The snap of the words was accompanied by a rush of guilt. She was just a kid. It wasn’t her fault that he wanted the rank and title about as much as he wanted a badly smashed ankle and bruised ribs. ‘I apologise,’ he growled. ‘Being stuck in here hasn’t done much for my mood. I’m used to being active.’ And lying in bed gave him too much time to think about things he spent his life trying to forget.

The darkness licked at the edges of his mind threatening to engulf him. With a huge effort of will, he pushed it back.

Not now.

The nurse stood rigid, clearly overawed by her royal patient. ‘The Chief Executive of the hospital called while you were with the consultant and asked me to tell you that he’s increased security so that there’s no repeat of yesterday’s fiasco—he apologised profusely, Your Highness. We have no idea how that journalist managed to climb up the drainpipe to your room.’ She all but curtseyed but this time Alessandro kept his temper on a tight leash. It was obvious that she wasn’t going to be able to behave naturally with him, and he’d encountered that all too often in his life to be surprised. No one behaved naturally with him. Everyone had an agenda.

‘I’m used to journalists climbing drainpipes and crawling through the windows. It’s a fact of life.’ He reached for a glass of water, gritting his teeth against the agonising pain that shot through his body.

‘Let me help you, sir.’

‘I can manage.’ Alessandro growled the words just as his shaking hand deposited most of the water over his chest. He switched to Italian, his native tongue, and swore long and fluently while the flustered nurse quietly removed the glass from his white fingers, refilled it and handed it to him.

She stared at his T-shirt, now clinging to his chest. ‘Do you want me to—?’

‘No. I’m fine.’

Dragging her eyes away from his muscles, the girl swallowed. ‘Your senior adviser called, sir. He wanted you to call him urgently.’

Alessandro leaned his head back against the pillow and suppressed the urge to laugh out loud. That was the one good thing about this mess—his advisers were climbing the walls. The wicked side of him revelled in the chaos his accident had caused. ‘I can’t call him,’ he drawled. ‘You’ve just told me I’m not allowed to use my phone.’

‘There’s a phone by your bed, sir—Your Highness.’

For God’s sake— ‘You can call me Alessandro. And I think we’ve both just established that I can’t reach anything that’s by my bed.’

‘There were a few other calls, Your Highness.’ She gave him a nervous glance. ‘Five journalists and four—er—women. None of them left their names. And Her Highness Princess Eleanor called when you were in the bathroom. She said not to bother calling her back but she left you a message.’

‘Which was?’

‘She saw on the news that the hospital is besieged by journalists and she asked that you be discreet about what you say to them.’

Alessandro gave a humourless smile.

The dull ache inside him turned into a dark black hole that threatened to suck him down.

So his mother had finally called.

Not when his accident had been announced as a newsflash and no one had known his condition. Not out of concern when he’d been rushed into Theatre for emergency surgery. Not to ask how he was or send love. No, his mother had called because she was worried about his image. Or rather she was worried about her image.

You have to think about how you present yourself, Alessandro. It affects all of us.

Wiping the cold, disapproving tone from his head, Alessandro sought distraction. The nurse was pretty, he realised, and he hadn’t even noticed. Which said a great deal about his current state of mind. He had a wicked impulse to drag her to the window and kiss her senseless in front of the crowd of hopeful photographers.

But that wouldn’t be fair on the girl.

Or on Miranda.

Thinking of Miranda was enough to kill his mood.

He was going to have to make a decision. They couldn’t go on like this any longer. It wasn’t fair on either of them.

‘I don’t suppose I can bribe you to smuggle me out of here?’ He tried to look as non-threatening as possible. ‘I own a home up the coast. Incredible views from the master bedroom.’