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Nat watched him withdraw, startled by a twist of empathy deep inside.
Oh, no. No. No. No.
Alessandro Lombardi was a big boy. He didn’t need her empathy. It was bad enough that she was sexually attracted to him. He didn’t need her to comfort him and fix things too. His wife was dead—she couldn’t fix that. Only time could fix that.
‘I’m sorry. There I go again. None of my business.’
No. It wasn’t. But he was damned if he wasn’t opening his mouth to tell her anyway. ‘Nine months.’
Nat was surprised. Both that he had responded and by the nine months. She’d known it was recent but it was still confronting. No wonder they were both so raw. ‘I’m so very sorry,’ she murmured.
Alessandro watched as her gaze filled with pity, the blue of her irises turning soft and glassy in the gentle light. He couldn’t bear to see it. A sudden black fury streaked through him fast and hot like a lightning bolt from the deep well of self-hatred that bubbled never far from the surface. He didn’t deserve her pity. He wasn’t worthy of it. All he deserved was her contempt.
This was why he’d left England. To get far away from other people’s pity. Their well-meaning words and greeting-card platitudes. Knowing that he had driven her to her death, that he alone was responsible…the hypocrisy had eaten him up inside.
Looking into Julian’s face every day was more than he could stand. It was much easier not to.
He dropped his gaze. It took all of his willpower to drag himself back from the storm of broiling emotions squeezing his gut. ‘Nat,’ he said to the floor, before raising his face to meet hers, ‘is that short for something?’
There had been a moment, before he’d looked down, when she’d glimpsed a heart-breaking well of despair. But it was shuttered now, safely masked behind a gaze that could have been hewn from arctic tundra.
He was obviously still deeply in love with his wife. It was also obvious he wasn’t going to talk about it with her.
‘Natalie,’ she said, taking the not-so-subtle hint. ‘I was supposed to be a boy.’
‘Ah.’
‘Nathaniel. Nat for short.’
She told the story she knew off by heart, careful not to betray how inadequate it made her feel. How she’d never felt like she quite measured up because her father had wanted a boy. ‘My parents had kind of got used to thinking of me as Nat so they decided on Natalie.’
‘Nathalie.’ Alessandro rolled the Italian version round his tongue. ‘It’s pretty. Much prettier than Nat.’
It certainly was when he said it. His accent made a th pronunciation shading it with an exotic sound plain old Nat never had. Coming from his lips it sounded all grown up. No girl-next-door connotation. No one-size-fits-all, unisex, if-only-you’d-been-a-boy name.
In one breath he’d feminised it.
And right then, sitting on the floor in the gloom of a broken-down lift, she could see how women fell in love at first sight. Not that she was quite that stupid. Not any more. After Rob she knew better than to get involved with a man who was in love with another woman. Even a dead one.
But raw heat coated her insides and she squirmed against the floor to quell the sticky tentacles of desire.
‘I prefer Nat,’ she dismissed lightly, brushing at imaginary fluff on her skirt.
Alessandro dropped his eyes, watching the nervous gesture. It was preferable to the vulnerability he’d seen in her unmasked gaze.
‘Ah, yes, Nat. Nat, Nat, Nat. I hear that name so often at home these days I’m beginning to think you must have magical powers. I think you could give Harry Potter a run for his money.’
Nat, pleased to be off more personal subjects, laughed out loud. Right. If she had magical powers she sure as hell would have used them shamelessly to her advantage long before now. Made her father love her more. Made Rob love her more. Made them stay.
‘Julian talks about me?’
Despite not wanting to, Alessandro noticed the way her uniform pulled across her chest. The way the slide nestled in her cleavage. It had been such a long time since he’d noticed anything much about a woman at all but it was becoming a habit with this bossy, talkative Australian nurse.
He sent her a tight smile. ‘Nonstop.’
Nat grinned. ‘Sorry.’ But she really wasn’t. It made her happy to think she was making a difference to the serious little boy who came to the crèche. She knew she looked out for him on her days there and her heart melted faster than an ice-cube in this damn heat wave, when his sad little face lit up like a New Year’s Eve firework display the moment he spotted her.
Alessandro shrugged. ‘I’m pleased he…has someone.’ Even if hearing her name incessantly meant she was never far from his thoughts. Even if that transferred into the rare moments of sleep he managed to snatch during nights that seemed to last an eternity. Those few precious hours were suddenly full of her. Bizarre erotic snapshots the likes of which he hadn’t experienced since puberty.
Just another reason to despise himself a little bit more. Camilla hadn’t even been dead a year and he was fantasising about some…look-alike-but-not Australian bossy-boots, like a horny teenager.
‘He’s a great kid, Alessandro.’
Her voice had softened and he could tell she held genuine affection for Julian. He wished his own relationship with his son was as uncomplicated. When he looked at Julian he saw Camilla and his guilt ratcheted up another notch. ‘I know.’
And he did know. But he didn’t know how to reach a child who was a stranger to him. He didn’t know how to look at his son, love his son and pretend that he wasn’t the reason Julian’s world had been torn apart.
Perhaps if they’d been closer…
They looked at each other for a long moment, the air thick between them with things neither of them were game enough to say aloud. A phone ringing broke the compelling eye contact and it took a few seconds for Nat to realise it wasn’t the lift emergency phone but her mobile.
She pulled it out of her pocket. ‘Huh, look at that,’ she mused. ‘Good reception. Go figure.’ She looked at the number on the screen and gave an inward groan. Great timing.
It was difficult for Alessandro not to eavesdrop. It was impossible to even pretend he wasn’t. There was him and her in a tiny metal box, not much light and nothing else to do. He did try to feign disinterest, pulling his pager out and deleting the build-up of stored messages, but it was obvious she was having problems with her lease.
When Nat pushed the ‘end’ button on her phone with a grimace he said, ‘Problemo?’
Nat sighed and stuffed the phone back in her pocket. ‘You could say that.’
‘Sounds like you’re having trouble with your landlord.’
Nat gave a derisive snort. ‘That’s an understatement. I’ve been given two weeks to move out.’
Alessandro dropped both of his legs, stretching them out in front as he crossed his arms across his chest. ‘Let me guess. You have lots of loud parties and are behind on your rent?’
Nat, aware that his legs were a good deal closer now, flicked him a funny ha-ha look. The fact that he was even attempting humour wasn’t enough to lift her out of the doldrums.
Where the hell was she going to go? ‘The owners want to move back in.’
‘Can they do that?’
Nat shrugged. ‘The lease is up.’
‘Ah.’
She sighed. ‘Yes. Ah.’
‘Have you thought of buying? It’s a buyers’ market at the moment with the world economic situation and interest rates being at an all-time low. I bought my place in Paddington for a very good price.’
‘I have bought a place. A unit not far from St Auburn’s. I bought it off the plan. It was supposed to be finished two months ago but with all that winter rain we had it’s behind schedule.’
‘Ah.’
Nat’s legs were starting to cramp in her cross-legged position so she also stretched her legs out, her modest uniform riding up a little and revealing two very welldefined kneecaps and a hint of thigh. ‘I only took a sixmonth lease because the project manager assured me the project would be on time. Damn man is as slippery as an oily snake.’
Alessandro’s gaze dropped to the narrow strip of thigh visible between her knees and hemline before he realised what he was doing. He dragged his attention back to her frowning face. ‘Do you not have a man, a husband or boyfriend, who can deal with these things for you?’
If she hadn’t already been annoyed at the world—heat wave, broken lift, difficult landlord—Nat might have laughed at his typical Italian male assumptions. But unfortunately for Alessandro, she was.
‘I don’t need a man to deal with stuff for me,’ she said sharply.
Frankly she was sick of men. It was because of a bloody man she was in this pickle to start with. Eternal spinsterhood was looking like a damn fine alternative these days. Although the presence of a six-foot-nine Neanderthal next time she visited her half-complete unit did hold some appeal.
Alessandro held up his hands in surrender, not wanting to get into a debate about gender roles with her already looking like she was spoiling for a fight. Things were different these days, which was a good thing. And this wasn’t Italy. Besides, they might well need to preserve oxygen.
‘Have you not got family here you can stay with?’
She shook her head. ‘All my family live in Perth. In WesternAustralia. I’ve only been in Brisbane for six months.’
‘You are a long way from home, Nathalie.’
His voice was low and it slithered across the floor of the lift like a serpent, inching up her leg, under her skirt, gliding across her belly and undulating up her spine, stroking every hot spot in between. She was one giant goose-bump in three seconds flat.
The ease with which he accomplished it was shocking but she was damned if she was going to let her body do the talking. She raised an eyebrow, going for sardonic. ‘I’m a long way from home?’
He chuckled. Well deflected. ‘Touché.’ There were a few moments of silence as they both contemplated the floor. Alessandro had the feeling there was more to the Nat Davies story. He checked his watch. Ten minutes. How much longer?
It seemed stupid to sit in silence.
‘So why did you leave Perth? Was there a reason or did you have a crashing desire to see Queensland?’
Nat gave a nonchalant shrug. ‘I had a fancy to see the sun rise over the ocean.’
Alessandro smiled at her flippant reply. He was pretty sure it ran deeper than that. It took one damaged soul to recognise another. ‘I get the feeling there may have been a man involved?’
Nat contemplated another snappy quip but she’d never been able to pull flippant off for very long. ‘There was.’
‘What happened?’
Nat repeated her earlier eyebrow rise. ‘I think this is where I tell you it’s none of your business, isn’t it?’
Alessandro nodded his head, a small smile playing on his lips. ‘I do believe so, yes.’ He shrugged. ‘Just trying to pass the time.’
Nat regarded him for a few moments. Why did she feel so compelled to talk to him? One look at him and she lost her mind. She didn’t bother to point out they could pass it just as easily by talking about his stuff because frankly she was tired of listening to men talk about women who used to share their lives.
‘It became…untenable.’ She waited for the barb in her chest to twist again, like it always did when she thought about Rob and their crazy crowded relationship. Her, him and his ex-wife.
Curiously it didn’t.
Alessandro nodded. So they were both running away…
‘So I left. I didn’t plan to leave Perth but then I hadn’t planned on it being so hard to still move in the same circles.’
She glanced at him, wondering what he was thinking, wondering if he empathised. Was that why he’d moved to the other side of the world? To escape the memories that were there, waiting around every corner? ‘When the property settlement came through I just…left. Took my half and relocated.’
Alessandro nodded. ‘That took courage.’ He knew how hard it was to up sticks.
‘Yeah, well, it doesn’t seem so brave now, does it?’
Alessandro crossed one outstretched leg over the other at the ankles. ‘Do you have a plan B?’
‘The rental market in Brisbane is tight. I only need a couple of months but no one’s going to be keen to rent to me for such a short time.’
Alessandro nodded. He’d tried to get a short-term lease so he didn’t have to rush into buying but there’d been nothing available and he’d taken the plunge and bought instead.
‘I don’t really know anyone well enough to crash with them for long periods of time, apart from Paige who I went to school with in Perth. She works in Audiology and part time in the operating theatres at St Auburn’s. I stayed with her for a couple of weeks when I first arrived but her husband walked out over two years ago and she has a three-year-old with high needs. I can’t impose on them again.’ She shrugged. ‘The short answer is, I don’t know. But something will show up. It’ll work out, it always does.’
As soon as the words were out the lights flickered on in the lift and the air-conditioning whirred to life. Nat laughed. ‘See?’
Alessandro smiled, picking up his pager and stethoscope off the floor as the lift shuddered and began its descent. He vaulted to his feet and held out a hand to her. She hesitated for a fraction and then took it. He pulled her up, the lift settling on the ground floor as she rose to her feet, causing her to stumble a little.
Nat put her hand against his chest to steady herself, aware that his other arm had come around to help. She copped a lungful of something spicy and for a brief dizzying second she considered pushing her nose into the patch of neck his skew tie had revealed to see if she could discern the exact origin. His lips were close and his gaze seemed to be suddenly fixed on her mouth and all she could think about was kissing him.
His heart thudded directly below her palm and the vibrations travelled down her arm, rippling through every nerve ending in her body, energising every cell.
The lift dinged and saved her from totally losing her mind. ‘Oops, sorry,’ she said, pushing away from him, uncharacteristic colour creeping into her cheeks.
The doors opened and a small crowd of maintenance people as well as department staff were there to greet them, clapping and cheering.
Nat risked a quick glance at him, dismayed at the heat she saw in his eyes again. Her blush intensified. She hightailed it out of the lift without a backward glance.
Alessandro had not long been home with Julian early that evening when the doorbell rang. He opened it to a middleaged woman and ushered her in. Debbie Woodruff was the tenth applicant for live-in nanny he’d interviewed.
He had no intention of the crèche being a long-term solution for Julian. Yes, it was open 24 hours a day and Julian seemed to like it there, at least when Nat was on anyway, but he’d already been dragged halfway round the world. His son deserved stability. And that was one thing he could give him.
Debbie seemed very nice and was plainly well qualified. Julian was polite, as always, saying please and thank you as Camilla had taught him, eating carefully, playing quietly. But he wasn’t enthused. And Alessandro had to admit he wasn’t either.
He wasn’t sure what he wanted. Someone to love Julian, he guessed. Not for it just to be another job. A pay cheque. What his son needed was a mother.
His mother.
Guilt seized him as he saw Debbie out. The one thing Julian needed the most, and he couldn’t give it to him. It was his job. He was the father. He was supposed to provide for his son.
Alessandro entered the lounge room. Julian looked at him but didn’t smile or acknowledge him. He sat next to his son and wished he knew how to bridge the gap. Wished his father had been around to be a role model for him, instead of the distant provider. Wished he hadn’t let Camilla distance him from his own son.
He looked down at Julian, who was watching television. ‘Did you like her?’ he asked.
Julian turned and looked at his father. ‘She was okay.’
Hardly a glowing endorsement. ‘Have you liked any of them?’
Julian shrugged, looking at him with big, solemn eyes.
‘Who do you like?’ he asked in frustration.
‘Nat,’ Julian said, and turned back to the TV.
Of course.
Great. Nat, who couldn’t mind her own business. Nat, who spoke her mind. Nat of the lift. Nat of the zipper. Nat, who he’d dreamt about every night since they’d met.
Anyone but her.
Alessandro looked down at his son and sighed. Julian wanted Nat. And that was all that mattered.
Nat it was. That he could do.
Chapter Three
ALESSANDRO spotted Nat at the dining room checkout the next day and hurried towards her. He was just in time to hear the waitress say, ‘Eight dollars and twenty cents, please.’
He fished out his wallet and handed over a twenty before Nat had even zipped open her purse. ‘Take it out of this,’ he said.
Nat felt every nerve ending leap at his unexpected appearance. She glanced back at him, her heart doing a funny shimmy in her chest at his sheer masculinity. She frowned, both at her unwanted response and his motivation to pay for her lunch. ‘Thanks. I pay my own way,’ she said, presenting her own twenty.
The waitress looked from her to Alessandro and Nat couldn’t help but notice that when he wanted to, Alessandro Lombardi could indeed pull a hundred-watt smile. His face went from darkly handsome, deeply tortured widower to blatantly sexy, Roman sex god. His curved lips utterly desirable.
After another stifling night with only a fan that seemed to do nothing other than push the hot air around and little sleep, it was especially irksome.
He pushed his money closer. ‘Keep the change,’ he murmured.
Nat rolled her eyes as the waitress practically swooned as she reached for his crisp orange note. She stuffed hers back into her purse, picked up her tray in disgust and left him to it. Within seconds she could sense him shadowing her.
‘Italian women may think it’s charming to be taken care of but I don’t,’ she said, steaming ahead to a table that overlooked the rose gardens St Auburn’s was famous for. ‘So don’t pull your macho rubbish with me.’
Last time she’d let a man pay for her, she’d been sucked in to wasting five years of her life on him.
Alessandro pulled out her chair for her as she angled herself into it and ignored her glare. ‘I wanted to talk to you about Julian. I thought the least I could do was buy you lunch while you listened.’
Nat eyed him across the table. She folded her arms. She was damned if the man didn’t already know her Achilles heel. She’d spent the morning with Julian and he hadn’t seemed any worse than normal. Not that that was much reassurance. ‘Is he okay?’
Alessandro’s gaze was drawn to the way her crossed arms emphasised the shape of her breasts. She was in crèche clothes today—shorts and T-shirt—and he noticed how her shirt displayed their full, round shape to perfection. He wondered for the hundredth time how they’d feel in his hands. In his mouth.
Damn it!
That wasn’t why he was here. He was here for Julian. Not for himself. But it was fair warning that gave him pause. Nat would be very distracting should she be crazy enough to agree to his plan.
‘Of course,’ he dismissed, annoyed at himself. Seeing her confusion, he hastily added, ‘I just wanted to ask you something.’
Nat opened up her packaged egg and lettuce sandwiches and took a bite, intrigued despite herself. ‘Ask away.’
If anything, he looked more tired than she’d ever seen him. His hair look more tousled, like he’d been continually running his hands through it, and the furrows in his forehead were more prominent.
‘How come you work at both the crèche and the hospital?’
She quirked an eyebrow. Not quite what she’d been expecting. ‘You have to ask me that after Ernie?’
He regarded her for a moment. ‘So it’s a self-preservation strategy?’
‘I prefer to call it a happy medium. Too many hospital shifts and I get burnt out. But I miss it if I’m away too long.’
‘The best of both worlds?’
She shrugged. ‘I like to temper the Ernie days with the Julian days. Both workplaces let me have permanent shifts. No weekends, no night duty. Two days at St Auburn’s gives me my hospital hit, keeps my hand in, let’s me know I’m alive. Three days at the crèche restores my sanity. It keeps me Zen.’
Alessandro considered her statement. How many years had it been since he’d felt Zen? Definitely not for the last five years at least. Definitely not with her keeping him constantly off balance. ‘Do you have child-care qualifications too?’
She narrowed her eyes. Why did this suddenly feel like a job interview? ‘I’ve done my certificate and have a child health qualification.’ She cracked open the lid on her can of soft drink and eyed him over the top as she brought it to her mouth and took a swallow. ‘Why?’
Alessandro noticed the sheen to her lips and the way her tongue slid between them, lapping at the lingering moisture. He wondered what guava-and-mango-flavoured Nat tasted like.
Inferno! Concentrate, damn it!
He cleared his throat. ‘I think I have a solution to your eviction situation.’
Nat felt his gaze on her mouth as if he had actually pressed his lips to hers. Her eyes dropped of their own volition to inspect his. They were generous, soft. Lips made for kissing, made for whispering.
‘Oh, yes?’ she said cautiously, dragging her attention back to his eyes. Eyes that told her he knew exactly where hers had been.
‘You can stay with me.’ He watched her pupils dilate and her glance encompass his mouth once again. ‘And Julian.’
The canteen noises around them faded as his suggestion stunned her. Live under his roof? A man who, fully clothed, grim faced and utterly inaccessible, made her heart flutter like an epileptic butterfly? What the hell could he do to her in his own place, where the pretence of professionalism didn’t exist? Where he’d be all relaxed and homey and…wearing less. What did he wear to bed? She had the feeling he’d be a nothing kind of guy.
‘Just until you’re unit is built, of course.’
Nat blinked as her mind shied away from images of Alessandro in bed. Naked. ‘But…why? I barely know you.’
Alessandro shrugged. ‘I have the room, you need a place. And you’d be doing me a favour, helping with Julian. I haven’t been able to find a suitable live-in nanny and Julian adores you.’
She frowned. ‘You want me to be a…nanny? I already have a job. Two, actually. Which, by the way, I love.’
Alessandro shook his head. ‘No. I don’t expect you to give up your jobs. Julian can still go to the crèche but he could go and come home with you, which means he wouldn’t have such long days there. And he wouldn’t have to go on weekends and when I’m called in at night.’
Nat listened to his plan, which sounded very reasonable. So why did it seem so…illicit?
‘I’d pay you, of course. And it would be rent free.’
Of course. Nat reeled, her brain scrambling to take in his offer. She looked at him all big and dark and handsome and completely macho Italian with the added grimness that made him heart-breakingly attractive. She didn’t know much right at this second but she did know saying yes to Alessandro Lombardi was a very stupid idea.
‘No.’
Alessandro’s brows drew together. ‘You’ve had another offer?’
Nat contemplated lying. But it really wasn’t her way. Already her cheeks were growing warm just formulating a falsehood. ‘No.’
He shrugged. ‘Then it’s settled.’
Nat looked at the haughty set to his jaw and bristled at his arrogant assumptions. ‘No.’