The Surgeon's Surprise Baby

He doesn’t believe in second chances...

Until one knocks on his door!

Paramedic dream team Maggie and Joe aren’t just When neurologist Luca Venezio’s romance with surgeon Elyse Tenner ended as passionately as it began, he returned to Italy little knowing he’d left part of himself behind... Until Elyse arrives from America with their baby daughter and upends his world! Luca’s rocked by the bond with his little girl and how much he’s missed Elyse. Can they overcome the distance between them that’s more than merely miles?

Three-times Golden Heart® finalist TINA BECKETT learned to pack her suitcases almost before she learned to read. Born to a military family, she has lived in the United States, Puerto Rico, Portugal and Brazil. In addition to travelling, Tina loves to cuddle with her pug, Alex, spend time with her family, and hit the trails on her horse. Learn more about Tina from her website, or ‘friend’ her on Facebook.

Also by Tina Beckett

Rafael’s One Night Bombshell

The Doctors’ Baby Miracle

Tempted by Dr Patera

The Billionaire’s Christmas Wish

One Night to Change Their Lives

Hot Brazilian Docs! miniseries

To Play with Fire

The Dangers of Dating Dr Carvalho

The Doctor’s Forbidden Temptation

From Passion to Pregnancy

Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk.

The Surgeon’s Surprise Baby

Tina Beckett

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-1-474-08998-2

THE SURGEON’S SURPRISE BABY

© 2019 Tina Beckett

Published in Great Britain 2019

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

By payment of the required fees, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right and licence to download and install this e-book on your personal computer, tablet computer, smart phone or other electronic reading device only (each a “Licensed Device”) and to access, display and read the text of this e-book on-screen on your Licensed Device. Except to the extent any of these acts shall be permitted pursuant to any mandatory provision of applicable law but no further, no part of this e-book or its text or images may be reproduced, transmitted, distributed, translated, converted or adapted for use on another file format, communicated to the public, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher.

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Version: 2020-03-02

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To my husband:

thank you for my chickens!

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

About the Author

Booklist

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

EPILOGUE

Extract

About the Publisher

PROLOGUE

“WELL, I’M NO longer your boss.”

Luca Venezio stared at her as if she’d lost her mind. No longer his boss? Was that all she had to say to him? The obvious relief in her voice told him that she’d been anxious to wield that particular ax. Only she’d just done it in a room full of his colleagues, who had suffered a similar fate. He’d stayed behind after the others had all filed out dejectedly.

She was perched on her desk, looking just as gorgeous as she had a year ago, when he’d first stepped into her neurology department. It had taken him a while, but he’d finally convinced her to look past her reservations about engaging in a workplace relationship and see what they could be like together.

And it had been good. So very good.

He took a step closer. “Is that all you have to say to me, Elyse?”

Her head tilted as if she truly couldn’t understand what the problem was. Was this an American thing that he hadn’t yet grasped? Just when he thought he was understanding this culture, the woman in front of him threw something into the mix that had him reeling.

Italy was suddenly beckoning him home. But he wasn’t leaving without a fight.

She slid from her desk and stood in front of him. “Don’t you see? This could be a good thing.”

No. He didn’t see it. No matter how he looked at it.

She drove him insane. With want. With need. And now was no different.

“Do you want me gone, is that it?”

She took his hands in hers, before her hands slid up his forearms. “Are we talking about from the hospital? Or from my life?”

It was one and the same to Luca. It felt like they’d been trapped in a game of tug-of-war ever since their first date. The harder he pulled her toward him, the more she seemed to resist letting him get close to her, and he didn’t understand why. They were in a relationship, only nothing was easy. Except the sex.

And that had been mind-blowing. Maybe part of that was the uncertainty of it all. Maybe it had lent an air of desperation to their lovemaking.

Her green eyes stared into his, and the crazy thing was, he could swear he saw a hint of lust in there, even though she’d just fired him. Had she gotten off on delivering that death blow to all those people?

No. That wasn’t the Elyse he’d known these past few months.

“What is it you want from me, Elyse?”

“Don’t you know?”

He didn’t. Not at all, but he was tired of playing guessing games with her. He cupped her face, trying to make sense of it all, but the swirling in his head gave him no time to think. No time to ask any questions. Instead, the refuge they’d sought after each fight opened its door and whispered in his ear, promising it would all be okay.

He no longer believed it. But his blood was stirring in his veins, sending waves of heat through him. Even as her lips tilted up, telling him what she wanted, he was already there, the kiss scorching hot, just as it always was. His tongue met hers, his hands going under her ass and sitting her back on her desk. The sound of her shoes hitting the floor one at a time and her hands going to his waist and tugging him forward between her legs answered his earlier question about what she wanted.

Hell. There was no question as to that. Grazie a Dio he’d locked the door behind him, thinking that what he’d had to say to her he wanted said in private. Right now, though, the last thing he wanted to do was talk.

And he was so hot. So ready. Just as he always was for her.

The desk was wide, the middle bare of anything.

Made for sex.

He grabbed hold of her wrists and tugged her hands away so that he could take a step back to unzip.

The sight of Elyse licking her lips was his undoing.

He came back to her, reaching under her skirt to yank her boy shorts down, tossing them away. Then he eased her down until her back was flat against her desk, her breasts jutting upward, the outline of her nipples plainly visible beneath the thin white blouse.

“Do you want me?” His hands palmed the smooth skin of her hips and tugged her to the very edge of the desk.

She bit her lip, her legs twining around his until he was pressed tight against her, his hard flesh finding a wet heat that destroyed any hopes of prolonging this. He drove home, her sharp cry ending on a moan, her hips moving as if to seat him even deeper.

“Dio, Elyse...” His eyes closed, trying to grasp at any shred of control and finding nothing there.

His thumb moved from her hip to her center, hoping to help things along, but the second he touched her, she exploded around him, her gasped “Yes,” sending him over the edge. Bracing his hands on the desk, he plunged home again and again, his body spasming so hard his vision went white for a brief instant. Still he thrust, unwilling for the moment to end.

Because that’s exactly what it would do. What it needed to do.

His movements slowed, reality slowly filtering back in.

Hell. As good as this was, it had solved nothing.

Nothing.

The job had been the thing that had held him there, made him keep trying, even as she burned hot and then cold.

But now she’d killed the job. And in doing that, the relationship. What they said about goodbye sex was evidently true.

He didn’t try to kiss her, just moved away, zipping himself back in, even as she sat up on the desk.

“What’s wrong?”

Was she really asking him that? Everything was wrong. But he was about to make it right.

“Did you put my name on that list of people to be fired?”

She frowned, coming off the desk, retrieving her undergarment, turning away from him as she slid them over her legs. She didn’t answer as, with her back still turned, she pushed her feet into her shoes, black high-heeled pumps that he had always found so sexy.

By the time she finally turned around, his last shred of patience had disappeared and he no longer needed a response. “You know what? It doesn’t matter. You’ve been pushing me away ever since I got here, so I’m finally giving you your wish. I’m leaving. Going back to Italy. You actually did me a favor in firing me, so thank you.”

He put a hand on the doorknob, half thinking she would call his name and tell him it was all a big mistake. Tell him that she didn’t want him to go. He tensed, knowing that even if she did he was no longer willing to go on as they had been. Maybe he’d revisit that decision in a week...in a month. But right now, he needed time to think things through.

Except there was no sound from behind him as he opened the door. As he stepped through it. As he closed it.

Maybe that was all the thinking he needed to do.

So he started walking. And kept on walking until he was away from the hospital and on his way out of her life.

CHAPTER ONE

“I’M FINALLY GIVING you your wish.”

Elyse Tenner hesitated, those words ringing in her ears just as fresh and sharp today as they’d done a little over a year ago.

Luca leaving hadn’t been what she’d wanted. But it had evidently been what he’d wanted.

The entry door to the upscale clinic—complete with ornate scrollwork carved into the stone around it—was right in front of her. But she couldn’t make herself open it.

Not yet.

It had been easier to find him than she’d thought. And yet it was the hardest thing she’d ever done in her life. Well, almost. A part of her whispered she should get back on that plane...he would never be any the wiser. And yet she couldn’t, not now. The weight of the baby on her hip reminded her exactly why she’d come here.

She needed him to know. Needed to see his face. Get this whole thing off her conscience. And then she’d be done.

“Scusi.”

The unfamiliar word reminded her that she was far from home.

“Sorry,” she murmured, stepping aside to let the man pass. Unfortunately, he then held the door for her, forcing her to make a quick decision. Leave? Or stay?

Then she was through the door, the black marble floor as cold and hard as the words she’d said to a group of people at work thirteen months ago.

The man didn’t rush off like she expected him to do, but said something else to her in Italian. She shook her head to indicate she didn’t understand, shifting Annalisa a bit higher on her hip.

“English?” he asked.

“Yes, do you speak it?”

“Yes, can I help you find something?” He glanced at the baby and then back at her. “Are you a patient?”

“No, I’m looking for...”

Her eyes skated to the wall across from her, where pictures of staff members were displayed along with their accreditation. And there he was: Hair as black as night. His eyes that were just as dark. But unlike the chilly floors beneath her feet, his had always been warm, flashing with humor. The eyes in the picture, however, were somber, the laugh lines that had once surrounded them barely noticeable.

Elyse swallowed. Had she done that to him?

Of course she had. But her back had been up against a wall. She’d had a choice to make. It had obviously been the wrong one.

She’d chosen the coward’s way out. Just as she’d done nine months earlier. But she was here to make amends, if she could. Not in their relationship. That was certainly gone. Destroyed by her pride, her stupidity, and her fear of history repeating itself. But she could at least set one thing right. What he did with that information was up to him.

“You’re looking for...?”

The man in front of her reminded her of her reason for coming.

What if he wasn’t here yet? It was still early.

Oh, he was here. He worked notoriously long hours. “I’m actually looking for an...old friend. He used to work at the same hospital that I did in the States.”

“Luca?”

Relief swamped her. “Yes. Do you know where I can find him?”

He glanced at her, a slight frown marring his handsome face. “Refresh my memoria. Which hospital?”

“Atlanta Central Medical Center.”

“Ah, I see.” Something about the way he said it made her wonder exactly what Luca had said about his exit from the hospital. It didn’t matter. Nothing he could have said would be worse than the truth. Although she hadn’t orchestrated the layoffs, perhaps she also hadn’t fought them as hard as she could have. At the time, a tiny part of her had wondered whether, if she and Luca weren’t working together, it might be a way to repair some of the rifts that had been growing between them. Rifts she knew she had caused. But scars from a previous relationship had made her extremely wary of workplace romances.

And Luca hadn’t been able to see how their dating could complicate their jobs, even after they’d erupted in a fierce argument during a meeting, disagreeing over the diagnosis of a patient and causing the whole room to stare at them. Kind of like this man was doing now.

“I’m sorry,” he said, as if realizing his gaffe. “Come. I’ll take you to Luca.”

“Thank you. I’m Elyse Tenner, by the way.” She shifted Anna yet again. She’d gotten her directions wrong, leaving the bus a few stops too early, and the heat was taking its toll on her. So much for going in looking cool and unruffled.

“Nice to meet you. I’m Lorenzo Giorgino. I work with Luca here at the clinic. I’m one of the neurosurgeons.” He held out his arms. “Why don’t you let me take her? You look tired.”

Yet another blow to her confidence. But he was right. She was exhausted, both physically and emotionally. Between jet lag and the long walk, she could use a place to sit down.

She hesitated for a moment, then he said, “I promise not to break her. I have two...nipoti. What’s your word for it? Nieces?”

Smiling, she held Anna out to him. She should have brought her baby sling, but she hadn’t been able to think straight since the plane had touched down. Nerves. Fear.

Hadn’t Luca told her he was in no hurry to have children? He had. More than once, in fact. She swallowed hard, even as this doctor’s hands cradled the baby like an old pro, speaking to her in Italian.

He glanced at Elyse, just a hint of speculation in his eyes. “Ready?”

Not at all, but she wasn’t going to make her confessions to anyone other than Luca himself. So she lied.

“I am. Lead the way.” In handing Anna over, the die had been cast and her decision made. She was going to walk into Luca’s office with her head held high and tell him that Anna was his daughter, and then hope that, in doing so, she’d made the right decision.

* * *

Luca stared at the EEG readings in front of him. Taken from a six-year-old boy, they showed the typical running waves of a Rolandic seizure. Benign. Filippo would more than likely outgrow them. Great news for his parents, who were worried out of their minds. It was always a relief to have a case where there was no threat to life. Just a temporary bump in the road.

Kind of like his time in the US had been. One big bump in the road, followed by a wave of smaller ones that still set him back on his ass at odd moments. But he thought it was getting better. His mind dwelt on her less. Or maybe it was just that he kept himself so busy that he didn’t have time to think about her.

Kind of like he was doing now?

“Porca miseria!”

A second or two after the words left his mouth, there was a knock on the door to his office. Great. He hadn’t mean to swear quite that loudly.

“Yes?”

Lorenzo appeared in the doorway, holding a baby.

Shock stilled his thoughts. “Everything okay?”

“Someone is here to see you.”

It was obviously not the baby, so he raised his brows in question.

“She said she worked with you in Atlanta.”

A section of his heart jolted before settling back into rhythm. He’d worked with a lot of people at Atlanta Central.

“Does this person have a name?”

“I’d probably better let her tell you herself.” Lorenzo switched to English.

This time the jolt was stronger. Lasted longer. Surely it wasn’t... But the look on his friend’s face told him all he needed to know.

He hadn’t dated since he’d returned to Italy and didn’t see himself doing so anytime in the near future. And those plans to revisit his decision to leave Atlanta permanently? Put off over and over until it was far too late to do anything about it.

He hadn’t been able to stomach going back to his hospital in Rome either. His parents and two sisters lived there, and he hadn’t felt like answering a million questions. Oh, there’d still been the worried texts and phone calls about why he’d suddenly returned to Italy, but since they hadn’t been able to see his face, he was pretty sure he’d put their fears to rest. As far as they knew, he’d simply decided to practice in his own country. A short tenable statement. One he’d stuck to no matter how hard it was to force those words past his lips.

He ignored the churning in his stomach. “Okay, where is she?”

Instead of answering, Lorenzo pushed the door farther open and came into the room, revealing the woman who’d driven him out of the States and back to Italy.

Hell!

Chaotic memories gathered around, all of them pointing at the figure in front of them. He swallowed hard in an effort to push them back.

“Elyse? What are you doing here?” There was a slight accusation in his tone that he couldn’t suppress. A defense mechanism, another way to hold back the wall of emotion.

Dio. He’d fallen for this woman, once upon a time, and then she’d gone and stabbed him in the back in the worst possible way. Better to let her know up front that he hadn’t forgotten.

But why was she in Italy?

When she didn’t answer, Lorenzo turned and handed her the baby. Shock flared up his spine. He looked from one to the other as a sudden horrible thought came to him. Did the two of them know each other? Was that why she’d made sure he was fired?

No. Of course not. Lorenzo had never been out of Italy as far as he knew. There was no way the two of them could have met.

“I’ll go so you can talk.” Lorenzo glanced at Elyse. “It was very nice meeting you.”

“Thank you. You as well.”

Then he backed out of the room and closed the door behind him with a quiet click.

Something in Luca’s brain had frozen in place, the gears all stuck for several long seconds. His ass was also still firmly in his chair, something his mother would have frowned about.

But the memories were still doing their work, each one stabbing his heart and sticking there, like darts on a dartboard.

She ventured closer to the desk. “Luca?”

Somehow he dislodged his tongue, making a careful sidestep around the biggest question in his head while he puzzled through it. “How’s your mother?”

He glanced at the baby. Elyse didn’t have any siblings, so that wasn’t a niece she was holding. Had she adopted a child after he’d left?

“She’s still hanging in there. The Parkinson’s progression has remained slower than average.”

They’d tried an experimental treatment a few years back that had helped tremendously, even if it hadn’t rolled back the clock.

“Good.” Of course she hadn’t traveled all this way just to report on her mother’s condition. That left one question: Why was Elyse Tenner standing in the middle of his office, holding a baby? He nodded toward the seat in front of the desk. “Would you like a coffee?”

She sank into one of the chairs with what looked like relief. “I would love one, thank you.”

“When did you arrive?” He got up and measured grounds into his coffee press and turned on the kettle to heat the water. The mindless task gave his fuzzy brain time to work through a few of the more obvious items: yes, she was really here, and he was pretty sure she wouldn’t be if he’d simply left his toothbrush at her place. So it had to be something important. Important enough to travel across the ocean to see him.

His eyes went to the baby again before rejecting the thought outright. She would have told him before now.

“My flight arrived this morning.”

“You have a hotel?”

And if she didn’t? There was always his place. His thoughts ventured into dangerous territory.

Not happening, Luca.

He carried the pot with its water and coffee to the desk and set it down before retrieving two cups off the sideboard.