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Bonny jerked her head up—looked at him again—and the pain that was inside her today was there on his face; the agony she felt was mirrored in his eyes.
And it wasn’t wanton, or bold, or even particularly brave—because, looking at him, Bonita knew her kiss wasn’t about to be rejected.
Kisses—strange, delicious things, her mind thought as their lips mingled.
Just this delicious sharing, this sweet acknowledgement that was better expressed without words. A kiss that wasn’t about escaping, more about sustenance. A little pause in a vile day—a kiss that wouldn’t go further because for now it was absolutely enough.
‘You and I,’ Hugh said, as their kiss inevitably ended, ‘are going to have to do some serious talking.’
‘I know.’
Carol Marinelli recently filled in a form where she was asked for her job title, and was thrilled, after all these years, to be able to put down her answer as ‘writer’. Then it asked what Carol did for relaxation, and after chewing her pen for a moment Carol put down the truth—‘writing’. The third question asked—‘What are your hobbies?’ Well, not wanting to look obsessed or, worse still, boring, she crossed the fingers on her free hand and answered ‘swimming and tennis’. But—given that the chlorine in the pool does terrible things to her highlights, and the closest she’s got to a tennis racket in the last couple of years is watching the Australian Open—I’m sure you can guess the real answer!
Recent titles by the same author:
Medical™ Romance ONE MAGICAL CHRISTMAS A DOCTOR, A NURSE: A LITTLE MIRACLE BILLIONAIRE PRINCE, ORDINARY NURSE*
Modern™ Romance HIRED: THE ITALIAN’S CONVENIENT MISTRESS ITALIAN BOSS, RUTHLESS REVENGE EXPECTING HIS LOVE-CHILD*
*The House of Kolovsky
By
CAROL MARINELLI
CHAPTER ONE
‘SORRY if this is awkward for you!’ Hugh Armstrong flashed a tight smile at his reluctant patient.
‘It’s not awkward for me.’ Bonita managed through pale lips, shaking her head as Deb, the charge nurse, offered her more gas to inhale. Bonita held her arm slightly away from her body, terrified to move it and even more terrified at the thought of anyone touching it. The journey to the hospital had been short but hellish, the makeshift sling her friend had applied had done little to help and certainly hadn’t provided a buffer to the pain—she’d felt every jolt. Every movement, anticipated or real, had also been agony as Deb had helped get her out of the car and onto the trolley. ‘I’m just in a lot of pain.’
‘Good!’ Hugh said, as Bonita shivered on the trolley. ‘Not good that you’re in pain, of course!’ He gave her a patronising smile. ‘I mean, it’s good that it’s not awkward for you. Accidents happen after all or we wouldn’t have a job!’
He thought he was funny!
Bonita wished she could make light of the fact that she was sitting bolt upright on a trolley in the accident and emergency department she worked in, dressed in her netball gear, her long brown curls all damp and frizzy, her shoulder hanging out of its socket and her arch-enemy Hugh Bloody Armstrong the only senior doctor available!
Just her luck. But, then again, the whole day had been a series of errors. She wasn’t even supposed to have been playing netball today, had actually given it up last year after she’d knocked herself out and then a fortnight later had hurt her knee. But an early morning phone call telling her that the team was short and begging her to fill in had caught her off guard. She should have said no—centre forward wasn’t even her position!
And as for Hugh Armstrong treating her—well, he wasn’t even supposed to be on duty, Bonita thought, holding onto her arm so carefully that her neck was starting to hurt with the tension of trying to stay still. Andrew Browne was the consultant on duty today, only he was stuck in Resus and Hugh had just happened to call in to drop off the emergency pager, midway between the wedding and reception he was attending today. Dressed in a grey morning suit, knowing damn well that he looked fantastic, reeking of cologne, with Amber, his stunning girlfriend, trotting faithfully behind, he’d seen Bonita being wheeled through the department. Of course, given she was a staff member, and there was no one else available, it was only right that he deal with her, only right that she wasn’t left waiting.
She was staff.
And, because today she was also a patient, for once he’d be nice to her and, in turn, she’d suffer his patronising attempts at humour, if it meant that her shoulder would get sorted quickly.
It was entirely irrelevant that they loathed each other.
‘Take a couple of breaths of this, and then hopefully you can give me your arm.’
She was making a scene; Bonita knew that, but bravery was something she was having great difficulty summoning.
Sobbing, crying and red in the face, she’d turned more than a few heads since her arrival.
Hugh had almost got an IV in when she’d first arrived, which had been a feat in itself, given she had useless thready veins, yet he’d somehow managed to find one on her good arm.
And then she’d suddenly moved.
Which had caused more pain, made her yelp and Hugh had let out a hiss of frustration as the tiny plastic tube had kinked beneath his fingers and her vein had collapsed.
‘Come on, honey!’ Deb soothed. ‘You’re an Azetti—you should be used to this!’
Not this Azetti!
Having a girl after three strapping sons, her mother, it seemed to Bonita, should have wrapped her in cotton wool, dressed her in pink and enrolled her for ballet. Instead, until puberty had hit loudly, she had been raised as one of the boys, brought up in her brothers’ cast-offs and forced to play with their toys. She had proved a constant source of irritation to her mother because she hadn’t liked roughing it and, horror of horrors, had no affinity for horses. Sure, her mother and three brothers might pop out a shoulder or dislocate the odd patella when they took a tumble from a horse, and handle themselves with pained dignity, but it just wasn’t Bonita.
Like her Sicilian father, Luigi, emotion was Bonita’s forte, and Hugh knew that. He smiled just a touch as Bonita rolled her eyes at Deb’s comment and said nothing. Neither correcting nor commenting on the fact that he knew different.
‘Can’t you just do something for the pain?’
Impatient to get her to X-Ray, Hugh was trying to do just that, Bonita knew. He was holding up a mask and trying to be patient, but the rubbery smell, along with the anticipation of pain, was just upsetting her more.
‘Come on, now.’ He tried again to be nice. ‘I know you’re upset, I know you’re in pain, but if you just take a couple of big breaths of this and give me your arm, we can get an IV in and give you something more substantial for your pain.’ Which was the only thing Bonita wanted to hear. Oh, she’d dealt with plenty of dislocated shoulders in the year she’d worked here, knew that it hurt, only she hadn’t realised just how much.
‘I really think I’ve done more than just dislocate it…’ Bonita shivered. ‘It’s way worse than a straight dislocation—I think I might have fractured it or maybe done something to the nerves.’
‘Let’s just get something into you for pain, we’ll get some X-rays and then I’ll make my diagnosis!’
‘Oh, sorry, I forgot I was a mere nurse.’ Bonita smarted. ‘Forgive me for having an opinion!’
‘That’s quite all right, Nurse!’ He winked. Somehow Hugh had always put her in her place. Growing up, he’d made it clear she was an annoyance, had sat bored through her teenage tantrums and had roared with laughter when she’d announced she was going to be a nurse.
Why couldn’t he have stayed in England, where he belonged?
At eighteen he had come to Australia on a gap year. He’d intended to head back to England to study medicine, only Hugh had fallen in love with the country and after a year travelling, he’d transferred his course to Australia. At med school he’d met her brother Paul and become something of a regular fixture in the Azetti household during those years of study. Bonita’s parents had a sprawling home on the Mornington Peninsular where they ran a winery, growing their own grapes and producing a boutique wine. Along with her mother’s riding school, the winery had expanded successfully over the years. Apart from his blond hair, Hugh had slotted right in with her family. He’d come for regular dinners, stayed over sometimes, picked fruit during semester breaks, worked in the cellar door shop, exercised the horses—not that he’d needed to work, the Azettis had later found out. His family background meant he could have spent the six years it had taken to get through medical school concentrating solely on his studies and partying. Hugh, though, had managed to accommodate all three—work, study and partying, in fact he was a master of them all!
He was almost an honorary son in the Azetti household. One of the only times Bonita had actually seen her mother cry had been when Hugh’s father had fallen ill and Hugh had headed quickly back to the UK, not for a holiday, but to live.
Oh, he’d kept in touch, witty postcards and letters regularly appeared in their mailbox, and her mother Carmel had happily read them out. Paul often forwarded Hugh’s emails, regaling his latest tales of success, promotions, girlfriends, family deaths, engagements and breakups, but there had been no direct contact between Hugh and Bonita. His had just been a name that had cropped up in conversation, or in an email to read second hand that displayed his stunning dry wit. Bonita had watched Hugh grow from young man to mature adult on a third-party basis, only privy to his life by default.
Until six months ago.
Until she’d arrived home to find him at the family’s dinner table—a surprise guest, with surprising news.
He was back.
And not just back—he had taken up the position of registrar in the accident and emergency department of her small town. Which, of course, had delighted everyone. Andrew Browne thrilled that such an eminent London doctor was taking up residence, her family delighted that the prodigal son had returned, all the female nurses and ancillary staff finding an excellent reason to apply a second coat of mascara in the morning. Her mother had long since wound down the riding school, so that just a few of the mounts remained, and Hugh had promptly bought one—Ramone, a devil of a horse—which meant to her parents’ delight that he was a regular visitor, paying agistment fees and stopping in for coffee after he’d ridden!
Yes, Hugh’s return had delighted everyone, except herself…
Woozy with the gas, she stared at his silky blond hair, flopping over his high smooth forehead, the full, sulky mouth that delivered such effortless mocking wit, dark green eyes that crinkled at the edges when he smiled—and never had she hated him more.
‘I need your good arm!’ Hugh said, his voice kind now, gently leaning her forward, but every movement was agony. ‘Just take a couple of breaths on the gas.’
‘It’s not helping!’ Her words were muffled by the mask Deb had clamped over her face.
‘It won’t if you keep talking instead of breathing. Come on, Bonny!’ She hated it that he called her that. That was what her family called her, and it was OK for them to do it, but here at work she was Bonita. She pulled her face away to tell him but he wasn’t listening. ‘Let the sling take the weight,’ Hugh said, trying to prise her good arm away, but she was terrified to let go, terrified of even the tiniest movement, tears stinging in her brown eyes, determined not to let him see her cry again. But it was so hard to be brave.
‘I don’t like gas.’
‘OK!’ He gave a tight smile as he gave in, then spoke in his commanding snobby voice and patronised her just a little bit more. ‘Let’s just take a moment to relax, shall we? I’ll be back shortly.’ She saw him roll his eyes to Deb, a sort of apology, Bonita decided, that his patient wasn’t meekly behaving, before he, no doubt, went to apologise to his girlfriend, Amber, that the five minutes he had promised her she’d have to wait was turning into fifteen.
‘Sorry to be such an inconvenience,’ Bonita called to his departing back. She was very close to tears, but managed a dash of sarcasm before he walked out, hating how much it hurt, hating she was being such a baby, hating making a fool of herself, and especially in front of him!
‘Don’t be daft,’ Deb said. ‘Nobody thinks you’re an inconvenience, do we, Hugh?’
‘Not at all…’ Hugh attempted, but didn’t elaborate. Instead, he stalked out, clearly less than impressed.
‘I saw him roll his eyes.’
‘He’s worried about you!’ Deb soothed. ‘I told him to go off to the wedding reception, that Andrew would get to you very soon, but he insisted on getting you some pain control.’
Which meant nothing! He was a doctor after all, and would stay and help a colleague just as he would a dog in the street—it didn’t mean a thing!
‘OK, then!’ Hugh breezed back in with a little medicine pot. ‘I’ve got some oral Valium, which will relax you. And we can have another go when it kicks in.’
‘Just do it,’ Bonita said, refusing the tablet and gritting her teeth, determined it would work this time.
‘As you wish.’ Hugh put down the medicine cup and picked up his tourniquet. ‘Now, it doesn’t matter if it’s making you feel sick or dizzy, Bonny, I want you to take some deep breaths of the gas and let the sling take the weight…’ As Deb clamped the mask over her face, Bonita caught Hugh’s dark green eyes. ‘Like it or not, you’re going to have to trust me!’
Never.
Oh, she didn’t say it out loud, couldn’t say it really because Deb was holding the mask over her mouth, but her brown eyes said it all as, for the first time in six years, they actually met and held his. Even though they’d worked together these past months, even though she’d seen him at her parents’ and had made idle chitchat, for the first time in years she looked into his eyes and remembered the last time she had.
The last time his face had been close.
The last time that full, sensual mouth had captured hers, and somehow she’d believed in him.
But not now.
Older, wiser, and a good dash more bitter, she wouldn’t trust Hugh Armstrong as far as she could see him, let alone throw him. She had witnessed first hand his treatment of women…his treatment of her.
‘Give me your hand, Bonny.’ He was prising it away now, and whether it was the gas, or that the sling was taking the weight, or just that his slow movement didn’t jolt her, when finally she let him, it didn’t hurt that much at all.
OK—so she trusted him as a doctor, Bonita conceded, as she shook off the mask. In the months she’d worked alongside him he had been nothing other than brilliant with the patients and their care—it was the man she had issues with!
‘Good girl,’ Hugh said, wrapping a tourniquet around her arm.
‘Ten years ago, that might have been appropriate,’ Bonita snapped.
‘Just stay still,’ Hugh warned, and then grinned slightly. ‘Actually, it wouldn’t have been appropriate ten years ago.’ He winked, slipping the needle into her flesh. ‘You were always getting into trouble!’
He was right. Ten years ago she’d been fourteen—and despite her mother’s best attempts to keep her as some androgynous being, hormones, along with a rather spectacular pair of breasts, had emerged, which had meant frequent blistering rows with her mother about make-up, clothes, magazines and boys. Hugh, who had known her since she was a gangly eleven-year-old, had witnessed plenty of those rows and had seen his share of her tears too.
She didn’t want to think about it, found that it was easier to focus on the needle than her thoughts, or him, and the little prick he was making in her arm certainly hurt less than examining her past. Needles didn’t bother her. Bonita watched as he slipped it into her arm, and Hugh quickly taped it in place. Only, as much as needles and blood didn’t bother her, she’d never actually witnessed one going into her own arm, or the little trickle of her own blood that slipped out as he capped the IV.
It was horribly hot, she could feel sweat trickling between her breasts, the air stifling as she tried to drag it in, saliva pouring into her mouth. Bonita’s urgent eyes met Deb’s as realisation hit, then she retched suddenly—the violent movement causing such a spasm of pain that she didn’t even retch again, just sobbed as 500 ml of bright blue sports drink, erupted into a hastily found kidney dish Deb thrust in front of her. Oh, it was an extremely common event in Emergency but it just added to the utter indignity of it all, especially when Hugh, wearing a rather appalled expression at her Technicolor display, stepped back smartly.
‘We’ll add an anti-emetic to the painkiller, please, Deb,’ he drawled, and, oh, how strained his smile was as he dampened a paper wipe and brushed two tiny—in fact, Bonita was sure imaginary—spots off his smart morning suit.
‘I’m sorry.’ Beyond embarrassed, she just sat there as Deb wiped her face, her nose, her mouth, while Hugh delivered the blessed pain relief. ‘I’m so sorry. Your lovely suit…’
‘Forget it,’ Hugh clipped.
But it was such a lovely suit, Bonita thought, the horror receding slightly as the medication took over. Dark grey, with a long jacket, rather like a riding coat. And with legs up to his neck, Hugh wore it well. There was a pale grey waistcoat underneath that accentuated his flat stomach, and it was set off with a pale pink tie. A lock of blond hair flopped over his eyebrows as he checked her radial pulse, making sure the circulation in her arm was OK, and she caught a glimpse of manicured nails and a flash of a very expensive watch. ‘I’ll pay to have it cleaned.’
‘Don’t give it another thought,’ Hugh said magnanimously. ‘It’s my fault for not putting on a gown when I dealt with you… How’s your pain?’
‘Terrible…’ Bonita started, but on second thoughts it wasn’t that bad. In fact, she could lie back just a fraction on the pillow. Oh, she couldn’t move it or anything but if she kept very still, it actually felt OK.
‘That bad, huh?’ Hugh grinned as she promptly closed her eyes. ‘OK, let’s have a proper look at this shoulder now, please.’
But not even IV painkiller could fully take away the sting of Deb cutting off her netball top to reveal a rather grey sports bra, and the agony of trying to remember, as Hugh so gently probed whether or not she’d shaved her armpits in the shower that morning.
‘Sorry, pet, but we need this off for the X-ray,’ Deb said as she snipped away at Bonita’s bra and carefully peeled it off, keeping the breasts covered with the sling and a towel as best she could. ‘Hugh, could you just hold the towel while I feed the drip through the gown?’
‘I’ll do the drip!’ Hugh responded, leaving Deb to hold the towel and hopefully maintain what appeared to be the very last shred of Bonita’s dignity.
It was the only saving grace in the entire afternoon.
‘At least Bill’s not on duty,’ Deb said, trying to cheer her up as she covered her friend as best she could with a threadbare gown, and failed miserably. ‘No woman wants her ex-boyfriend seeing her like this… Bastard!’ she added—just as everyone who worked in Emergency did these days after they said Bill’s name.
Only Bill wasn’t a bastard—anything but. A charge nurse in Emergency, he was an adorable guy, perceptive too, Bonita thought with a brain that was starting to refuse to think. Bill was the only person out of everyone who would understand just how appalling this afternoon was for her.
Bill was the only one who knew about Hugh.
‘Well, it looks straightforward enough!’ Hugh scribbled out his request on a pad. ‘Let’s get her round to X-Ray.’
* * *
‘Anterior dislocation.’ Hugh snapped the X-rays onto the viewfinder as soon as Bonita returned. ‘Just as I thought. And no fracture. Let’s get you into Theatre and we can pop it back and soon have you feeling more comfortable.’
It wasn’t the word ‘theatre’ that had her looking aghast. There was a minor theatre in Emergency, which was used mainly for suturing, but procedures such as this one were often performed there. No, it wasn’t that that had her reeling—it was that Hugh was going to do it.
‘You’re supposed to be at a wedding!’
‘That’s not your problem.’
‘No.’ Bonita shook her head, the painkillers making her bravely honest. ‘I don’t want you to be the one putting it back.’
‘I’m sure Andrew would prefer it if he could do it,’ Hugh said, studying the X-ray as she spoke, ‘but he’s in with some relatives and he’s going to be stuck for some time. You know that the sooner we get it back, the less swollen it will be and the less chance of nerve damage.’
‘I know all that! It’s just—’
‘Look!’ As direct as ever, he left off studying the X-rays and came over. ‘I can understand that you’d prefer if it was Andrew who did the procedure. I know you and I don’t particularly get on, and to be honest, yes, there are many other places I’d prefer to be right now, but, all that aside, you know I’m a bloody good doctor…’ Which was so pompous, so backhanded and so utterly Hugh that it really came as no surprise to hear him say it. ‘And I know that shoulder needs to be put back just as soon as possible. So…’ He forced his haughty face into an attempt at a reassuring smile, giving her a glimpse of very white even teeth and green eyes that were utterly bored and less than impressed. ‘If you’ll let me do it, you’ll be on your way home very soon and I might just make it back to the reception in time for the speeches.’
It would have been childish and stupid in the extreme to refuse, and, Bonita thought glumly as with her good hand and a hefty dose of painkillers she attempted a signature on the consent form, her mother would never forgive her.
It was quiet in the little theatre, away from the hubbub of the department. Even though Bonita knew what was going to happen, there was something quite peaceful about just lying down and listening as Deb and Hugh set up for the procedure. A sort of comfort almost as she heard the little blip of the oxygen saturation machine as it was clipped to her finger and Debbie attached some nasal prongs.
‘We’ll give you a sedative,’ Hugh explained, ‘which will send you off into a nice little twilight sleep.
‘Deb, let’s just check her ID.’
It seemed the most pointless, ridiculous thing to be doing. Everyone in the room knew that this was Bonita Azetti and that she was 24 years old, only maybe it wasn’t so pointless because, as it turned out, they didn’t know that she was allergic to penicillin, and though it was highly unlikely she might need it, Deb still scuttled off to get a red armband, just in case. Hugh took off his jacket and waistcoat and hung them up. His immaculate shirt had lifted out of his trousers a touch and she was treated to a woozy glimpse of tanned flesh as he tucked himself in. She was too out of it to even bother looking away.
‘OK?’ Hugh asked when he turned around.
‘Fantastic!’
‘You will be soon.’
‘Aren’t you going to take off your shoes?’ Bonita almost managed a joke. For one particularly difficult dislocation she’d assisted him with she’d seen him place the ball of his foot in the patient’s armpit to provide traction as he pulled on the arm, though admittedly that had been on some vast, muscle-bound farmhand.