Second Chance With Her Island Doc / Taking A Chance On The Single Dad

These weeks since she’d heard of this incredible inheritance hadn’t been wasted. She’d learned more of Tovahna than she’d believed possible. She knew the poverty that had kept the people in their places for a thousand years. But Martin and his colleagues had also checked the terms of her inheritance. They’d found it rigidly structured so the heir couldn’t make changes.

Money was to be spent for the maintenance of the castle or the welfare of the incumbent. For nothing else.

Incumbent. That was her.

In twenty years maybe she could hand the vast wealth over to some central agency, gift people their own land, do some good. But not before that. Martin had spelled it out.

‘The Trust’s in the hands of a firm of conservative lawyers in Milan. It’ll provide you with a sweet income but there’s nothing more to be done for years. Stay home and wait.’

‘How…?’ she said now, in a small voice because speaking of such a thing seemed so immense, so impossible that even saying it aloud was ludicrous. ‘How could I turn the castle into a hospital? How could I possibly fit that around the terms of the Trust?’

And it seemed Leo had an answer.

‘The same way Victoir’s proposing converting the place into apartments,’ he told her. ‘The way he’s proposing getting around the Trust is that you’d nominally have one set aside for your personal use, and the others would be deemed as being built for your guests. Your guests would pay a hefty price for the privilege but that wouldn’t matter. They’d be here for your pleasure. So a hospital…’

‘You’re saying I could use a hospital? Have the hospital for my own personal use? I’d need to bump my head once a day. More.’

He didn’t smile. The intent look didn’t fade.

‘That wouldn’t work. There’s no way that’d fit the terms of the Trust. What could work…’ Once again, a deep breath, as if what he was about to say was so huge he could scarcely believe he was saying it. And when he finally said it, she could understand why.

‘The only way it could work was if this hospital itself was your life,’ he said. ‘You’d need to live here—really live here—and the hospital would need to be as important to you as the over-the-top sports cars your cousin used to collect. They’re gathering dust in the massive garages he had built for them. He could hardly use them because the roads here are so bad. With a little gumption he could have had the roads repaired so he could use them—that would have helped the islanders and been within the terms of the Trust—but that would have taken sense he didn’t have. But, Anna, if your passion, your life was a medical centre, to serve not only you but this whole island, then the lawyers in Milan must surely agree. But you would need to live here. Make Tovahna your home. Be the first Castlavaran in generations to make a difference to your people.’

‘My people.’

‘They are your people.’

‘I’m not a Castlavaran.’ How many times did she have to say it?

‘Don’t quibble, Anna,’ he said roughly, and she thought she detected emotion underlying the tone. How? Because she knew this man. She knew him so well…

Yet she didn’t know him at all. He was a stranger, and he was suggesting the preposterous.

What was he asking? He wanted her to stay here, by herself, with the beastly Victoir. He wanted her to forget everything that had happened between the pair of them. He wanted…the impossible.

‘I want to go home.’ It was a childish thing to say but it was what came out when she opened her mouth. And Leo looked at her as if it was what he’d expected all along.

‘Of course you do. Run back to England with your inheritance and forget about us. Well, at least I’ve tried.’

‘You call that trying?’ The words were out before she could stop them as anger surged, a swift and unexpected response to his look of disgust.

‘What do you mean?’ His voice was cold and that made her angrier.

Her legs were dangling over the edge of the stupid over-the-top bed. Her feet were bare. Despite her pink and purple, she felt exposed. Vulnerable.

And still angry.

‘I mean I’ve just been hit on the head,’ she managed. ‘I’m still tired and headachy. I’m also coming to terms with an inheritance that’s made me feel like I’ve been hit by a sledgehammer. A golden sledgehammer, agreed, but a sledgehammer regardless. Add to that I’m confronted by an ex-fiancé who hurt me. I’m stuck in a thousand-year-old castle that feels like the set of a gothic movie. Plus I have a creepy administrator who comes in here with his indecipherable documents and who takes me underground without a hard hat and almost kills me, just to prove it’s dangerous so I’ll sign his documents fast. Yeah, I get that, I’m not stupid. And he doesn’t even knock when he comes into my bedroom. So now you say I should turn the castle into a hospital and I say I want to go home and you act like what else could be expected of a rich, indolent, money-grubbing Castlavaran? Well, I’m not even a Castlavaran and, Leo Aretino, you can take your castle and your hospital and you can stick it!’

And she picked up one of her massive down-filled pillows and hurled it at him.

It hit him on the chest and slid harmlessly to his knees.

He placed it aside as if it was nothing and she glared and wanted the floor to open and swallow her.

Or Leo.

He was in her bedroom. In her chair.

He was far, far too close.

‘Get out,’ she said.

‘I may just have put my case badly.’

‘I don’t care. Get out.’

The door opened.

Victoir.

‘Get out,’ she said again, only this time it was said in unison—with Leo—and it was the break they needed. Or she needed.

Nothing like a common enemy.

‘I just…’ Victoir started, and she decided it was about time she stopped being Victoir’s doormat. Wasn’t he her employee? Whatever, at least she could direct some of her pent-up frustration at him.

‘You didn’t knock. Basic rules, Victoir. Please leave.’

‘If the doctor’s finished…’

‘He hasn’t finished. He’s explaining something to me that I wish to have explained. He’ll see himself out when he’s done. Please close the door behind you, and if you walk into my bedroom again without knocking I’ll ask the lawyers in Milan to have you removed by yesterday.’

He stared at her and she faced him down.

He left. Fast.

‘Wow,’ Leo said, as Victoir disappeared and the heavy door was tugged closed. ‘Well done. Hey, you really are a Castlavaran.’

‘Don’t. You’ll get me started again.’

‘I’m sorry.’ He sighed. ‘But you’re right. You have far too much on your plate for me to be loading you with more.’

‘Is that all you’re sorry for?’

‘You must know it’s not,’ he said gently. ‘Anna, I’ve been sorry for a very long time.’

And that pretty much silenced her.

The silence stretched on. She was looking at him, seeing strain. She was waiting, but she didn’t know what she was waiting for. What she was hoping?

‘I’m sorry for not explaining,’ he said at last.

‘Explaining your hospital scheme? There’s still time.’

‘No,’ he said softly. ‘For not explaining ten years ago. For being nineteen and being hopelessly in love and then being dumbstruck by learning who your mother was. For not being able to explain it to you then. For being young and stupid and even cruel. For not being able to control my own hurt to ease yours. I still believe that I had no choice, but most of all, Anna, I’m deeply, deeply sorry that I had to walk away.’

The words left her winded.

After all these years…to have him finally say it.

She felt like a long-faded scar had suddenly split, to reveal there was still infection deep within.

Her psychologist had given her strategies for not looking back. Where was her psychologist now, when she was most needed? Strategies… She couldn’t think of a single one.

‘You didn’t want…’ she started, but he shook his head.

‘Anna, you have no idea how much I wanted.’

‘How can I know that? One minute we were planning marriage and then nothing.’

‘I should have asked before. About your mother.’

‘My mother was nothing to do with our relationship. She had very little to do with me. I told you she was a wild child. I told you there was man after man after man. What else was there to say?’

‘That she was a Castlavaran?’

‘As far as I was concerned, she was Katrina Raymond. She’d married my father, even if the marriage ended before I was born. I told you she’d been unhappy at home and her mother had died. I told you everything I knew.’

The only time she’d learned more had been the night she’d introduced Katrina to Leo.

She hadn’t seen her mother for almost a year. Katrina had been in the States, but had breezed back to London and decided to drop in on her daughter.

‘My head-in-her-books daughter has a man? Well, well, let’s meet him.’

She’d been reluctant. To say she and her mother were dysfunctional would have been an understatement.

Anna had always been cared for—sort of. Katrina had access to money. ‘It’s family money, sweetheart—money’s the only thing they’re good for.’ There’d been funds for an apartment with nannies, while Katrina had been off doing what she wanted. There’d been money to support Anna to study. There’d been no mother love.

Neither had there been any sense of history. Katrina wouldn’t talk of home. ‘There’s some sort of Trust set up so my father has to support me,’ she’d told her. ‘That’s all you need to know. He’s an appalling man, Anna. Don’t ask.’

So she hadn’t asked, and the only part of Tovahna she knew was the language, taught to her in the times Katrina returned to the apartment to get over her latest love affair or to escape from whatever disaster she was in.

Anna had tried to warn him. ‘She’s unstable, Leo. She’ll talk too fast. She’ll come across as sophisticated and brittle but underneath…’

Underneath there were scars that Anna could only guess at. And then that night at dinner, the scars were exposed for all to see.

Maybe it was Leo’s gentleness. His kindness. His perception? Even at nineteen he knew how to empathise, and Katrina was captivated.

He spoke to Katrina in Tovahnan and maybe that had been the undermining of Katrina’s defences.

‘So tell me about your father?’ he asked Katrina at last, when the pizza had been replaced by coffee. ‘My father died early, but my mother still lives on Strada Del Porto on the island’s east side. Is that anywhere near where your father lives?’

What followed was a loaded silence, and Anna looked at her mother in astonishment and thought, Is she about to crack? She’d hardly talked of her father, even to her. But then…

‘As far as I know, my father still lives in that great gothic castle he loves so much,’ she said, in a voice that was almost a whisper. ‘It’s the only thing he loves. He sits there and pretends to be a king and he’s cared for nothing and for no one. Not my mother, and not me. And my brother’s just like him. They can rot in their castle for all I care.’

And Leo stared at her in blank astonishment. ‘You’re a Castlavaran…’

‘Don’t say that name.’

‘But he’s your—’

‘Enough.’ Katrina pushed back her chair and walked out of the restaurant.

And that was that. One ring returned. One love affair over.

‘I was so immature,’ Leo said now, and it was so much what she thought that she blinked.

‘Well. Good of you to admit it.’

‘I should have explained.’

‘So should my mother. I’m putting her in the same category. Let’s keep Anna in ignorance and let her face the consequences without warning, without respect, without any acceptance of the fact that I had a right to know.’

‘Anna…’

‘My grandfather and my uncle and then my cousin were all self-serving creeps. I know that now. My mother was a brittle, damaged alcoholic. I know that, too. And you added that up and decided I must be more of the same and you’d cut me out of your life before I could contaminate you.’

‘It was much, much more than that.’

‘How would I know? Neither of you had the courtesy to explain.’

‘I thought your mother—’

‘I’d already said she’d told me nothing. She died four years ago, still having told me nothing.’

Unbidden, the hurt of so many years was spilling out, fury at her mother mixed with fury at Leo. But it was crazy, dumb, useless. It was adolescent anger, hurt from a time she should have put behind her.

She understood now, or she thought she did. After that night she’d done her own investigation into her mother’s family and she even understood why Leo had walked away. Sort of.

‘If I’d stayed with you I could never have come home again,’ he said. ‘I knew that.’

‘And coming home was everything.’

‘It was.’ He hesitated. ‘Hell, Anna, I should have spelled it out. I know that. But this country…you’re getting a sense now of how impoverished we are. To send me to London to do medicine…it was a huge deal for the islanders. My father was dead and my mother had no means of support. I should have gone fishing when I was twelve, but my teachers told the town how smart I was. To be honest, most smart kids leave the island as soon as they can but I couldn’t walk away from my mother for ever, and the islanders knew it. So when I said I wanted to be a doctor, somehow they managed it. I still don’t know how. Because of the draconian rule of your family, every cent had to be accounted for.’

‘But they never have been my family,’ she managed, and he held up his hands, the same way he’d held them up ten years ago. Warding her off.

‘Anna, I’ve said I’m sorry. I’m also sorry for being too immature to explain properly, for walking away so fast. But to be honest, maybe it was for the best, getting it over with fast.’ He hesitated. ‘I hope you did get over it fast. You have a partner now?’

What was there to say to that? A woman had some pride. ‘Don’t kid yourself that I’ve mourned you for ten years,’ she told him, attempting to glower. ‘I’ve had a very good time. I have a great job, a lovely home, dogs. I started dating Martin two years ago. He’s a lawyer and a friend, and he’d be here in a flash if I asked him. As would any number of my friends.’

‘But not now that you’re injured?’

‘I have a sore head, not a cerebral bleed. And you…’ Two could play at his game. ‘Wife? Kids? Goldfish?’

‘I’m too busy for relationships,’ he said brusquely. ‘Moving on. Anna, the idea of the hospital…you’re saying no.’

She hesitated. She was trying hard to be grown up, she told herself. She needed to shelve her adolescent self. She needed to get over a pain that surely should be well gone.

A hospital. Here.

Martin’s advice had been sound. ‘Do nothing. You can spend twenty years planning what to do when you finally inherit. Just go and look and then come home.’

Home sounded infinitely appealing.

But so did doing something. Something splendid?

‘I didn’t say no,’ she said, slowly now, thinking it through. If she could get over the past, if she could see how this could happen… If she could get over how this man made her feel…

‘Tell you what,’ she said, pushing herself to her feet again. And once again she wobbled and needed to let Leo take her arm to steady her. Regardless. ‘I’m rested,’ she said. ‘Yes, I’m still a bit shaky but I’m okay. Let’s put…let’s put everything behind us. You know this castle?’

‘I have been in it,’ he said. ‘I was your cousin’s treating doctor.’

‘So you’ve been in his bedroom and in the entrance. Anywhere else?’

‘I knew a lot of it as a boy,’ he admitted. ‘Your uncle ran on a skeleton staff so we could sneak around undetected. As kids…we did do our own exploring.’

‘Well, there you go,’ she said, determinedly cheerful. Determined to let bygones be bygones. Determined not to let the feel of his hand on her arm make her feel…what she needed to be long over feeling. ‘You know it, and you’ve obviously thought this through. So, Dr Aretino. Let’s forget the girlfriend-boyfriend thing. Let’s also forget the doctor-patient thing. We’re medical colleagues and you have a medical-based proposal. Let’s take a walk through this castle. My castle,’ she amended, because she was still getting her head around it and if she was going to face Victoir down then she needed the authority. And it wouldn’t hurt if this man held her at a distance either.

‘Victoir’s shown me Yanni’s over-the-top apartments and he’s shown me through sections that are obviously dangerous,’ she told him. ‘But I know he has his own agenda. Let’s turn what we can into more opulence and knock the rest down, is the gist of what he’s telling me. So, Dr Aretino, let’s go for a tour and you can tell me how any other option would be possible.’

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