The Italian Doctor's Mistress

“Which clearly matters more to you than your father. Why else would you wait so long to come to his bedside?”

She sat up poker-straight in the chair, and returned his glance unflinchingly. “It just so happens, Dr. Rossi, that I was on a cruise to Antarctica when this tragedy struck my father.”

“Cruise ships do not have telephones, these days? No electronic means of keeping in touch with the rest of the world?”

“Of course they do, but in this instance your sarcasm is misplaced, Doctor,” she said sharply. “Had your hospital left a message with my office staff, they would have been in touch immediately, and I’d have been here as soon as it was humanly possible. But the message was left on my home answering machine, and since I live alone…” She lifted her shoulders in a shrug.

“We had no other recourse,” he replied. “That was the only telephone number listed on your father’s passport, in the event the next of kin needed to be contacted.”

He steepled his fingers and observed her silently for a second or two. Eventually, he said, “Signorina, I regret that we have—”

Before he could continue, the door burst open and a young girl, a beautiful child with long dark braids hanging down her back, came flying into the room. “Papà!” she cried. Then, seeing he was not alone, she skidded to a stop and clapped a hand to her mouth. “Mi scusi! La disturbo, Papà?”

“Yes,” he said severely in English. “And you know better than to come in here without knocking first.”

“Ma Beatrice non e—”

“Remember your manners, Anita. My visitor does not speak Italian.” He spared Danielle a brief glance. “I am right, yes? You do not?”

“A very little only, but don’t worry about that.” Danielle collected her purse and stood up. “We’re pretty much finished anyway, aren’t we?”

“No, signora, we are not quite done,” he said evenly. “Please allow me a moment to attend to the reason for this interruption, then you and I will resume our discussion.”

Obediently she sat down again, and he turned to the child. “So, Anita, explain yourself.”

His words might have been forbidding, but the smile that accompanied them took away their sting, and the girl knew it. Big brown eyes dancing with excitement, she said, “I did not knock, Papà, because Beatrice has gone home already, so I thought you also had finished working for today. I wanted to tell you that Bianca has had her babies. She has four, Papà! I found them when I came home from school.”

“That is certainly earth-shaking news.” Laughing, he pulled the child into the curve of his arm and turned to Danielle. “In case you’re wondering, Bianca is our cat, and as I’m sure you’ve gathered, this is my daughter, Anita.”

Despite her annoyance with the father, Danielle smiled warmly at his lovely daughter. “Hello, Anita.”

Tucking her hands against the navy pleated skirt of her school uniform, the girl dipped her head and replied, “How do you do? I am pleased to meet you.”

“Very good,” her father said. “At this rate, your English will soon be better than mine.”

“Si?” She gazed at him adoringly and wound her arms around his neck. “How much better?”

He touched the tip of her nose with his forefinger. “Not so much that I let you forget the rules. I hope you didn’t come here by yourself today?”

“No, Papà.” She shook her head so exuberantly that her braids swung back and forth like long, shining ropes. “Calandria walked with me. She is waiting downstairs. We are going to the market to buy fish for Bianca. Calandria says we must take extra care of her now that she is a mother.”

“Calandria is quite right.” He gave her little bottom a pat. “Don’t keep her waiting. Say goodbye to Signorina Blake, and be off.”

She peeped at Danielle from beneath her lashes and offered a shy, dimpled smile. “Arrivederci, signorina. Goodbye.” Then turning back to her father, she threw her arms around his neck again and gave him a smacking kiss on both cheeks. “Ciao, Papà!”

The entire scene left Danielle frozen with envy. She had never flung herself at her father like that. He’d have been horrified. He wasn’t a demonstrative man. She couldn’t recall his ever pulling her into his arms or onto his lap. Never teasing or complimenting her. He was much better at finding fault.

Carlo Rossi’s voice broke into the unwelcome memories of a childhood she’d been glad to leave behind. “I apologize for the interruption, signorina.”

“No need. I didn’t mind. In fact, I don’t know why you insisted I stay. I can’t see that there’s anything left to say.”

“Not so, signorina. You were explaining the reason for your delay in coming here and—”

“I don’t know why I bothered,” she said stiffly. “You’ve already judged me and found me wanting.”

“If I’ve jumped to hasty conclusions, I apologize. You were in Antarctica, you say? Not exactly a pleasant homecoming, then.”

“No, but I’ll cope. You explained my father’s condition very succinctly. I’m quite prepared for what might happen.”

“I beg to differ. You are in shock, signorina, and not quite as in control as you might like to think.”

“If you’re afraid I’m going to collapse in a soggy heap at your feet, please don’t be.”

“It would be healthier if you did. Fear, anger, sorrow, tears—they would be a more normal response. Anything but this cool, unnatural calm.”

“That might be the way things are done in Italy, Doctor, but I wasn’t brought up to give in to outpourings of emotion.”

“But you are human underneath that composed facade, yes? And I have seen this same reaction many times in people trying to come to terms with devastating news. At first, they turn away from the truth, but sooner or later, the dam bursts and reality hits them. When that happens, they need the comfort and support of family and friends. You, however, are in a foreign land, and very far away from those with whom you are close.”

Oh, yes! Much farther than he could begin to guess! In one cruel stroke of fate, she’d lost her fiancé and her best friend.

“But you’re not alone,” Carlo Rossi said. “When the pain becomes too much, I am here. You can turn to me.”

He was smashing away her protective outer shell with his kindness, and exposing that secret inner self still too bruised and tender to bear the harsh light of day. Determined not to let him see her vulnerability, she said bluntly, “You’re my father’s doctor, not mine.”

“Nevertheless, my offer remains.”

“As you wish.” She shrugged and stood up again, set on leaving this time, with or without his permission. “Thank you for your time, and goodbye.”

He inclined his head, his gaze watchful. “Arrivederci, signorina. Until the next time.”

There’d be no next time, she resolved. She found him too unsettling. Too attractive. And if that wasn’t downright immoral, given the circumstances, then it was surely utter folly. Because any fool knew it took at least a year to recover from being dumped practically at the altar, and that to allow oneself to be drawn to another man in the interim was courting nothing but trouble.

No. The less she saw of Dr. Carlo Rossi, the better.

CHAPTER TWO

HE HELD open the door to the outer office and watched as she walked past him and away down the hall. His first impression had been that she was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen; his second, that she was also the coldest. Antarctica was a fitting destination for such an ice queen.

She’d listened impassively as he described her father’s condition, and might have rehearsed her questions, so succinctly did she deliver them. She’d accepted without argument answers which other people would have refused to countenance.

He’d conveyed bad news before, more often than he cared to remember. And the responses he received fell into pretty much the same broad categories.

Please, Doctor, there must be something more you can do!

Money’s no object—we can pay any amount.

We’re praying for a miracle. We won’t give up hope!

But Danielle Blake? You should have let him die! He’d be better off!

And spoken with such vehemence that even he was shocked. Who could conjure up sympathy for such a woman?

The only other time her composure had slipped had been when Anita had greeted her. Then, for one brief and brilliant moment, she had smiled. Her chilly beauty had become suffused with radiant warmth, and he’d thought to himself, I was mistaken. There is a heart under that porcelain skin, after all.

Too soon, though, the mask came down again, and no amount of subtle probing on his part had succeeded in moving it. Immersed in her own needs, her own self-involved world, she had resisted his every effort.

Trained to observe the most minute detail, he’d picked up on the revealing way she’d clenched her clasped hands when he’d asked if she had a lover waiting at home. So that was it, he’d deduced. She was too caught up with some other man to spare any emotion for the one who’d given her life.

Usually he vented his rare anger at himself; at his inability to right all wrongs, to cure all ills. At that moment, though, it had been directed entirely at her. He’d wanted to shake her. Violently enough to shatter her brittle detachment and leave it lying in pieces at her feet.

Of course, he’d done no such thing. And noting now the rigid set of her spine, the proud tilt of her chin, the almost glassy determination in her eyes, he wondered if he’d misjudged her, after all. Was it just that she was exhausted? So stressed out that what he’d perceived to be indifference was really a fiercely self-protective barrier, erected to keep herself in check and everyone else at a distance?

Whatever the reason, she was so tense that it would take little for her control to snap. Like a marionette whose strings were being jerked unevenly, she walked away from him so rapidly that, at times, she almost broke into a run. Intrigued, he locked the outer office door and followed her, curious to discover why she was so anxious to escape. He was surprised when, instead of leaving the hospital as he’d expected, she turned into the ICU wing and made for Alan Blake’s room.

She didn’t hear him step in behind her. All her attention was focused on her father. She perched on the edge of the chair, and clutched the raised metal guardrails of the bed as if they were all that prevented her from losing her grip on sanity.

Not wishing to startle her, Carlo cleared his throat softly, but the way her entire body shuddered from the impact, he might as well have fired a cannon down the hall. She was too thin, too frail, and again he thought, I have judged her unfairly. She is close to collapse.

He came and stood next to her. “I understand you spent all last night here at your father’s bedside, signorina.”

“Yes,” she said bleakly, her gaze never wavering from her father’s face. “Did I break some unwritten law by doing so?”

“Not at all. However, I think it would be unwise for you to do the same thing again tonight.”

“Why is that?”

“You need rest—proper rest, in a bed,” he added firmly, anticipating the objection she was about to voice.

She allowed herself the merest shake of her head. “No point. I wouldn’t be able to sleep.”

“I will prescribe something to ensure that you do. Which hotel are you staying at?”

“Hotel?” Blankly she repeated the word as if he’d spoken it in foreign tongues far beyond her understanding. “I came straight here from the airport.”

“I suspected as much.” He closed his hand over her shoulder. She felt fragile as spun glass under the fine wool of her jacket. “We must do something about that.”

“We?” She spared him a brief, indignant look. “Since when have you been part of the equation?”

“Since I came to see you’re utterly worn out and running on emotional overload. It’s to my shame that I didn’t realize it sooner but now that I have, I consider it my responsibility to remedy the situation. After all, signorina, it would serve no useful purpose for you to be hospitalized, along with your father.”

Wearily, she leaned back in the chair and closed her eyes. “I feel as if I’ve been here for days, yet it’s been barely twenty-four hours.”

“Time drags when one is waiting for a miracle.” He took her hand and drew her out of the chair. “Come. I’ll show you a quiet guest house not too far away from the hospital, and little known to the tourists. You’ll be able to rest comfortably there.”

She swayed on her feet and he reached for her, afraid she might fall. She sagged against him and for a second or two he held her, intoxicated by the fragrance of her hair, and unaccountably moved by her frailty. “I don’t need a guest house,” she muttered. “I prefer to remain here.”

Reminding himself that his interest in her was purely professional, he said, “I’m not giving you a choice. Is that all that you brought with you?”

She glanced at the small suitcase and carry-on bag heaped in the corner with her purse, and nodded dully. “Yes.”

He steadied her with an arm around her waist, and slung the bag over the raised towing handle of the suitcase. “You travel light, for a woman,” he remarked, steering her down the hall to the side entrance that gave onto the staff parking area. “Most women I know require twice as much luggage when they make a journey.”

“I left home in a hurry. There wasn’t time to pack anything more than a few essentials.”

“No, of course not.”

The sun lay warm on his car, leaving the interior cosy as a nest. She sank into the passenger seat, let out a sigh, and was asleep before he’d driven a hundred meters. In repose, her face was tranquil, her mouth softly vulnerable. Her lashes were long and fine, her brows delicately arched.

She looked nothing like her father. Even though he was comatose, Alan Blake’s face betrayed a tough strength not found in his daughter’s, and once again Carlo found himself wondering what really lay beneath that cool facade she presented to the world.

Situated in its own well-kept gardens, L’Albergo di Camellia stood at the end of a quiet road bordered on one side by the lake, and on the other by one of the town’s many parks. The proprietors, Luigi and Stella Colombo, knew him well. Several years before, he’d successfully operated on Stella’s mother for a brain aneurysm, thereby saving her life and earning their lasting gratitude.

“We have just the room,” Stella said, when he explained the situation. “Upstairs, at the back of the house, with a view to the mountains and the water. Very peaceful, Dr. Rossi. Just what your lady needs at such a time. Don’t worry. We’ll take good care of her.”

It was what he wanted to hear. His patients were his primary concern, and for them he needed a clear head, a steady hand. Becoming overly involved with their relatives at any level was a luxury he couldn’t afford.

Returning to the car, he opened the passenger door and shook Danielle Blake gently. “We have arrived, signorina.”

Her head lolled to one side, exposing the creamy skin of her neck. She wet her lips with the tip of her tongue, murmured something indistinguishable, and lapsed into sleep again. He wondered how she would taste, were he to touch his tongue to her mouth, and recoiled in disgust at the impropriety of such a notion.

“Wake up, Danielle!” he said sharply, shaking her more forcefully this time.

Her lashes fluttered and he found himself gazing into the depths of eyes so green and limpid, he could have drowned in them. Another outlandish and irrelevant observation, he decided—not to mention entirely inappropriate.

Her mouth curved in the beginning of a smile. “Hi,” she whispered, exhaling the greeting on a sigh.

The way she looked at him, the way she spoke, just so might a woman greet her lover, the morning after a long night of passion. With soft, dreamy pleasure. Understandable enough, he supposed, since she was clearly disoriented.

But his response—the tightening in his groin, the sudden heat licking low in his belly? That he found both inexplicable and intolerable. “Get out of the car,” he said brusquely. “You have a bed waiting, if you need more sleep.”

She blinked, and he knew from the way her cool, impenetrable mask slipped faultlessly into place, that she was all at once fully aware of where she was, and why, and with whom. She shot up straight in the seat, stuck her elegant little nose in the air, and fought to unbuckle her safety belt.

Impatient with her fumbling, he pushed her hand aside, unsnapped the belt himself, and all but hauled her out of the seat. He wanted rid of her. Now. He’d wasted enough time on a woman who’d yet to shed a tear for her dying father. “I don’t have all day, signorina. I suggest that, in future, you pay closer attention to the task at hand, instead of staring imperiously into space.”

“If this is any example of your bedside manner, it’s small wonder my father prefers to remain comatose,” she returned smartly. “Let me remind you it was your idea that I should stay in a hotel, your idea to decide which one, and your idea to drive me here. If I’ve inconvenienced you, stick the blame where it belongs. On you.”

It took considerable willpower for him to ignore the silken rustle of hidden underthings, and even greater self-command to drag his fascinated gaze away from the flash of sleek thigh as she swung her legs out of the car. But nothing could prevent the crackling awareness when, her feet having found the ground, she slithered past him, close enough for her body heat to reach out and touch him.

The resulting charge bolted the length of him, sharp and so intense that his scalp tingled. Static electricity, he told himself, but knew it was no such thing. Not once in the five years since Karina died had he experienced so volatile a reaction to a woman. That it should happen now, with one so much the antithesis of all she’d been, was an insult to the memory of the wife he’d adored.

Forcing himself to return in full measure the indifference emanating from Danielle Blake, he lifted her luggage from the trunk and carried it into the small lobby of the hotel, where the Colombos waited to greet their guest.

“Signorina, these are your hosts, Stella and Luigi Colombo,” he told her. “I will leave you in their very capable hands.”

All cool, unflappable reserve, she said, “Thank you. I’m sure I’ll do very well with them.”

She didn’t need to add, Unlike with you! Her body language said it for her, and he forcibly suppressed another urge to grab her by her slender shoulders and shake her. What was it about her, he wondered, that brought about such unreasonableness in him? How, on such short, unfavorable acquaintance, had she managed to get so thoroughly under his skin?

Furious with her and even more so with himself, he climbed into his car and drove away. Initially, he’d planned to go straight home, but a restlessness coursed through him, so instead of turning left at the main shoreline road, he took a right and headed toward the Alps. The Lamborghini responded to his mood, taking the hairpin bends with contemptuous ease. Half an hour later when he pulled over and stepped out of the vehicle at a lookout point, snow curled around his ankles and the crisp mountain air stung his eyes.

Far below, the lake lay shadowed with dusk. In town, street lamps sprang alive along the promenade. Lights shone at the windows of the houses as people gathered for the evening meal.

At his own villa, his daughter waited for him to come home, eager to show him the new kittens, to share other news of her day. Calandria would be putting the finishing touches to dinner.

What was he thinking of, to squander precious family time in such a fashion, and all because Danielle Blake, a complete stranger, happened to come briefly into his life? Why was he allowing her to invade his thoughts, to tempt him beyond all reason? It wasn’t as if he was short of female companionship. He didn’t live like a priest. His sexual needs were very well taken care of.

Despising his weakness, he filled his lungs with a blast of pure, bracing air, and held it a punishing length of time. When, finally, he released it, he let go of the turmoil, too. The aberration, or whatever it was that had possessed him, had passed. He was himself again.

Or so he liked to believe.

Burrowed under a cloud-soft duvet, Danielle slept for fifteen hours straight. But not dreamlessly. His voice flowed through the warm, comforting blackness, imprinting itself so thoroughly that its deep, exotic lilt still echoed in her mind when she awoke the next morning. And nothing—not the brilliant sun streaming in the window, nor the bright colors of the flowers in the garden below, nor the sharp, clear outline of the snowcapped Alps—could erase his dark, beautiful face from the picture screen of her memory. He had remained with her all night long, and was with her still.

He did not like her, and she knew she should not care, yet she yearned for his approval. Yesterday, when she’d opened her eyes in his car and seen him looming over her, she’d thought he was going to kiss her. If he’d tried, she’d have let him. He made her aware that she was a woman, with all the needs and wants that implied, even though she’d sworn off men, lost faith in love, and decided sex was an overrated waste of time.

Now, how delusional was all that?

Amused by such contrariness, she threw back the covers, marched into the adjoining bathroom, and stepped under the hot shower where she proceeded to scrub away the last remnants of sleep, and the nonsense that went with it. She was in Italy for one reason only: to act as advocate for her father until such time as he was able to act for himself. Her falling victim to a pointless infatuation with his doctor simply wasn’t an option.

She’d just finished drying her hair when Stella arrived at her door with a loaded tray. “Buon giorno, signorina! I heard you were awake and thought you might enjoy some coffee and a little fruit. The sun is warm on the balcony outside your French doors, if you’d like to sit there, and I will be pleased to serve you an early lunch a little later, if you wish.”

“Grazie, Stella,” Danielle said, standing back to let her enter the room. “I certainly do appreciate the coffee, but I’ll probably eat lunch in town. I packed in a hurry and have a little shopping to do.”

Stella pushed open the French doors with her free hand. “You must allow us to spoil you a little, signorina. We promised Dr. Rossi that we’d take good care of you, and it is our pleasure to accommodate him.”

Danielle knew she’d be better off not pursuing the all-too-fascinating subject of Carlo Rossi, but following through on the idea was another matter entirely. “Dr. Rossi seems to wield a great deal of influence over people,” she said lightly. “Do they always do as he tells them?”

Stella laughed. “If it appears to be that way, perhaps it’s because he’s the best neurosurgeon for many miles around. The best in all of Italy, according to many. We are honored to have such a man living in our community.”

“Do you consider him a friend?”

“We move in different circles, of course, but Galanio is a small town. Among the permanent residents, everyone knows everyone else, and the clinic sits always at the very center of things. Before he came here, the nearest hospital of any consequence was in Milano.” She set the tray on a small wrought-iron table and shook out a linen napkin. “Shall I pour your coffee now, signorina?”

“Please.” Danielle drew up a chair. “I find it interesting that Dr. Rossi chooses to practice in a town as small as this.”

“Why would he not? It is a beautiful place to live.”

“Well, yes, I agree, it is quite lovely. But for a man with his level of skill…” She let her shrug speak for itself.

“Ah, but his life is here, signorina. His daughter attends school close by. He is dedicated to his work in the clinic which he ordered built with his own money. His beloved wife lies in the church graveyard.” Stella spread her hands and raised her shoulders expressively. “How can the prestige of a bigger city, a more famous hospital, compete with all that?”