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The darkness licked at the edges of his mind threatening to engulf him. With a huge effort of will, he pushed it back.
Not now.
The nurse stood rigid, clearly overawed by her royal patient. ‘The Chief Executive of the hospital called while you were with the consultant and asked me to tell you that he’s increased security so that there’s no repeat of yesterday’s fiasco—he apologised profusely, Your Highness. We have no idea how that journalist managed to climb up the drainpipe to your room.’ She all but curtseyed but this time Alessandro kept his temper on a tight leash. It was obvious that she wasn’t going to be able to behave naturally with him, and he’d encountered that all too often in his life to be surprised. No one behaved naturally with him. Everyone had an agenda.
‘I’m used to journalists climbing drainpipes and crawling through the windows. It’s a fact of life.’ He reached for a glass of water, gritting his teeth against the agonising pain that shot through his body.
‘Let me help you, sir.’
‘I can manage.’ Alessandro growled the words just as his shaking hand deposited most of the water over his chest. He switched to Italian, his native tongue, and swore long and fluently while the flustered nurse quietly removed the glass from his white fingers, refilled it and handed it to him.
She stared at his T-shirt, now clinging to his chest. ‘Do you want me to—?’
‘No. I’m fine.’
Dragging her eyes away from his muscles, the girl swallowed. ‘Your senior adviser called, sir. He wanted you to call him urgently.’
Alessandro leaned his head back against the pillow and suppressed the urge to laugh out loud. That was the one good thing about this mess—his advisers were climbing the walls. The wicked side of him revelled in the chaos his accident had caused. ‘I can’t call him,’ he drawled. ‘You’ve just told me I’m not allowed to use my phone.’
‘There’s a phone by your bed, sir—Your Highness.’
For God’s sake— ‘You can call me Alessandro. And I think we’ve both just established that I can’t reach anything that’s by my bed.’
‘There were a few other calls, Your Highness.’ She gave him a nervous glance. ‘Five journalists and four—er—women. None of them left their names. And Her Highness Princess Eleanor called when you were in the bathroom. She said not to bother calling her back but she left you a message.’
‘Which was?’
‘She saw on the news that the hospital is besieged by journalists and she asked that you be discreet about what you say to them.’
Alessandro gave a humourless smile.
The dull ache inside him turned into a dark black hole that threatened to suck him down.
So his mother had finally called.
Not when his accident had been announced as a newsflash and no one had known his condition. Not out of concern when he’d been rushed into Theatre for emergency surgery. Not to ask how he was or send love. No, his mother had called because she was worried about his image. Or rather she was worried about her image.
You have to think about how you present yourself, Alessandro. It affects all of us.
Wiping the cold, disapproving tone from his head, Alessandro sought distraction. The nurse was pretty, he realised, and he hadn’t even noticed. Which said a great deal about his current state of mind. He had a wicked impulse to drag her to the window and kiss her senseless in front of the crowd of hopeful photographers.
But that wouldn’t be fair on the girl.
Or on Miranda.
Thinking of Miranda was enough to kill his mood.
He was going to have to make a decision. They couldn’t go on like this any longer. It wasn’t fair on either of them.
‘I don’t suppose I can bribe you to smuggle me out of here?’ He tried to look as non-threatening as possible. ‘I own a home up the coast. Incredible views from the master bedroom.’
The nurse flushed scarlet and her eyes met his. He saw the excitement there and the way her lips parted as she caught her breath. Unfortunately he could also read her mind, which was busy spinning dreams ending with ‘nurse marries Prince’.
Thinking of his parents’ dutiful, entirely loveless marriage, he felt suddenly cold.
He had no idea why marriage was the ultimate goal for so many people. To him it seemed like the road to hell. He’d rather be trampled by a whole herd of horses than commit to one woman for the rest of his life. Especially a woman whose only interest in him was the fact he had royal blood.
‘You understand that this is a purely indecent proposal.’ He shifted his leg, but it did nothing to ease the pain. ‘My house has amazing sea views from every room and a hot tub on the deck. You can scrub my back and give me a private physio session.’
‘This is Cornwall.’ A crisp female voice came from the doorway. ‘If she uses the hot tub in April, she’ll catch pneumonia. Hello, Alessandro. You look as though you’re in a filthy mood. Hope I’m not supposed to bow or curtsey.’
It was a voice he hadn’t heard for more than a decade, but the recognition was immediate and powerful. His body tightened in a reaction so basic, so elemental that he was relieved that he was confined to bed, with all the privacy that afforded. Temptation, he thought, wasn’t something a man easily forgot. And Natasha O’Hara had been temptation on legs. A girl, desperate to become a woman. At seventeen, she’d tried everything to get him to notice her.
And he’d noticed.
Oh, yes, he’d noticed.
Remembering, Alessandro felt his muscles tighten. Sweat dampened his brow. He wasn’t sure whether the pain in his chest was due to fractured ribs or guilt.
He’d treated her badly.
She strolled into the room with a confidence that told him the awkward teenager was long gone. There was no sign of the stiff formality that everyone else displayed around him. She didn’t blush, call him ‘Your Highness’, or look as though she was about to bow and scrape at his feet. Her gaze was direct and challenging and he would have laughed with relief if it hadn’t been for the uncomfortable feeling deep inside him. Tasha had always shown guts and intelligence. If someone had told her to bow or curtsey, her response would have been to ask why. One of the reasons he’d loved spending time with her was because she’d treated him as a normal human being.
And in return he’d broken her heart.
He shifted uncomfortably in the bed, but the guilt stayed with him.
Was she the sort of woman who bore grudges? Not for a moment did he think she would have forgotten that summer any more than he had.
‘Are you going to pretend you don’t recognise me?’ Her tone was light and friendly and if she was bearing a grudge there was no sign of it.
Alessandro relaxed slightly. Maybe the guilt was misplaced. She’d been very young, he reasoned. He’d probably barely featured on her adolescent landscape. Everything healed quickly in childhood—broken bones and broken hearts.
Still watching him, she paused beside the bed. Her top was a vivid scarlet and she wore it tucked into skinny jeans, her dark hair tumbling down her back in snaky black curls. She looked like a cross between a gypsy and a flamenco dancer and Alessandro felt his mouth dry and his body harden in an all-male reaction.
The wild child had grown up.
‘You’ve spilt water on your T-shirt.’ She eyed his damp chest and he felt something stir inside him.
‘It isn’t easy manoeuvring with a broken ankle and two broken ribs.’
‘Poor Alessandro.’ Her voice poured over him like honey, soft and sympathetic. ‘So that’s why you’re so cranky. It must be awful to feel so helpless.’
Pain gnawed at his temper, fraying his control. He’d kept his mind off the pain by thinking of ways to get himself out of the hospital, but her presence disturbed his focus. And the way she was looking at him felt wrong. He would have expected her to be angry with him or, if not angry, then at least a little shy? Or maybe embarrassed. After all, he’d— Alessandro moved awkwardly and pain rocketed through him. ‘What are you doing here?’ He ruthlessly ignored the pain. ‘Josh mentioned that you worked at a hospital miles away.’
‘Not any more. I’m...’ she paused and then smiled ‘...in between jobs.’
Their eyes met and held and Alessandro wondered what the hell he’d done to deserve this extra punishment. ‘You’re looking good, Natasha.’ Too good, he thought, noticing in that single reluctant glance that her body had fulfilled its teenage promise. As a girl, she’d been teenage temptation. As a woman, Natasha O’Hara was a vision of glorious curves that made a man think of nothing but wild sex. And thinking of wild sex made him ache in the only place that wasn’t already aching, so he looked away from those smooth arms, tried to block out the image of those slender limbs and told himself that the last glossy mouth he’d kissed had led to nothing but trouble.
‘Thanks, Nurse...er...’ She squinted at the name badge. ‘Carpenter. You’ve taken enough abuse from this patient for one day. I’ll take it from here.’
Nurse Carpenter’s face fell. ‘But I’ve just come on duty and His Highness needs—’
‘I know exactly what His Highness needs.’ The words were a polite but firm dismissal and Alessandro tried to remember whether she’d had that air of command as a teenager. No, definitely not. She’d been full of wide-eyed, barely repressed excitement and optimism. ‘Hopeless romantic’ hadn’t begun to describe her.
The nurse gave Alessandro a final wistful look and melted away.
Tasha closed the door firmly, leaving the two of them enclosed in the private room. ‘Yes, Your Highness, no, Your Highness—it must drive you crazy. Or do you like your women servile?’
She was such a contrast to all the other people he’d come into contact with since he’d crashed into the mud on the polo field that Alessandro found himself laughing for the first time in weeks. ‘Definitely not servile.’
‘Good, because if I have to call you Your Highness every two minutes, this is never going to work.’
Alessandro watched as she strolled across the room. Something about the way she was looking at him made him uneasy. Or maybe it was just the guilt, he thought. It was definitely there, shimmering underneath the surface. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘You have to stop eating the nurses for breakfast, Alessandro. They’re all terrified of you.’
‘I’m a pussy cat.’
Her mouth flickered. ‘Right.’
‘Maybe I’m a little cranky, but I’m not good at lying in bed, doing nothing.’
‘Then you’d better get used to it.’ Her gaze was frank and direct. ‘I looked at your X-rays. You won’t be walking on that ankle for a while. You’ve made a mess of your bones.’
‘Not me. The horse.’ But it had been his fault and the knowledge gnawed at him. He’d been distracted. To take his mind off that, he studied her closely. Was she taller or was it the way she held herself? There was a confidence about her that hadn’t been there a decade before. A knowledge of herself as a woman. It showed itself in the way her hips swayed when she walked and the hint of cleavage revealed by the neck of her casual top. Trapped and immobile, unaccustomed to feeling helpless in any situation, Alessandro set his teeth and tried to think cold thoughts. ‘What are you doing here, Tasha?’ He hadn’t seen her since that night—the night when he’d left her sobbing, her make-up streaked over her beautiful face.
He pushed the memory aside, trying to lose it in the darkness of everything else he was trying to forget.
‘Rumour is you’re looking for a nurse so you can escape from this place.’
‘In this case rumour is correct.’ But he was starting to wonder whether being trapped at home with a star-struck nurse who called him Your Highness every two minutes might not be just as irritating as being in hospital.
‘I can’t imagine who would want the job. As temperaments go, yours is pretty volatile.’
‘Once I’m out of here my temper will be just fine. Josh promised to find me a nurse by the end of the day. Do you know if he’s had any luck?’
‘Depends on your definition of luck.’ She picked up the phone that he’d slung on the bedcover. ‘You shouldn’t be using this in the hospital. It’s breaking the rules.’
‘So I’ve been told. Trouble is, I’ve never been much good with rules.’
Her beautiful mouth flickered into a tiny smile of mutual understanding. ‘That’s one thing we have in common, then. But while you’re in here, you have to behave.’
‘Discharge me and I’ll behave. So—has he found me a nurse?’
‘Not a nurse, exactly.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean? I have to have someone who knows what they’re talking about. And preferably someone who doesn’t call me Your Highness at the end of every sentence.’ He needed to get out of here before lying here trapped with his own thoughts drove him crazy. He needed distraction.
Tasha lifted her head. Her gaze connected with his. ‘I know what I’m talking about. And I have no intention of calling you Your Highness.’
‘You?’ Alessandro felt shock thud through his gut. ‘You’re a children’s doctor.’ She was also someone he’d carefully avoided for over a decade.
‘I’m a doctor. My speciality just happens to be children. But I have all the skills necessary to assist your rehabilitation. I can nag you to do your exercises, throw away the junk food and make sure you take lots of healing early nights—’ humour lightened her voice ‘—on your own. I’ve never been anyone’s nurse before but I’m a quick study.’
His mouth felt dry but he was in too much pain to try and reach for his glass again. ‘You’re offering to nurse me?’
‘We’re old friends, Alessandro. It’s the least I can do.’ Her smile was warm and genuine, so why did he feel so uneasy?
Something didn’t feel right.
He decided that this was one of those occasions that merited the direct approach. ‘You and I, we didn’t exactly part on good terms.’
‘No. You were a complete bastard,’ she said frankly, ‘but that was a long time ago. I was at an impressionable age. Do you honestly think I’m still bothered about something that happened almost ten years ago? That would be ridiculous, don’t you think?’
Would it?
He looked at her for a long moment, his eyes searching out the true sentiment behind the lightly spoken words. ‘Tasha—’
She leaned towards him, mockery in her gaze. ‘I was seventeen years old. I had no taste, and I was overwhelmed by the fact that you were a prince. And now we’ve got that out of the way, can we just forget it? No girl should be made to feel embarrassed about the foolish crushes she had as a teenager. So what do you say, Alessandro? Am I hired?’
* * *
Josh opened the front door of his house, his mood swerving between elation and guilt.
He tried to push the guilt back where it belonged.
His marriage to Rebecca was over. She was the one who had called time on their relationship and moved out. They’d wanted different things. Right through their relationship, they’d wanted different things.
As he hung up his jacket Megan’s fragrance engulfed him, wrapping him in memories.
Maybe he’d moved on a bit quickly, but he was human, and when it came to Megan...
Just thinking about her lifted his mood, and he closed the front door, relieved that Tasha had refused his invitation to come home with him. He needed time to think, but already his mind was racing ahead, thinking of the future. He wanted Megan here, with him, all the time. He wanted to laugh with her over a meal, he wanted to sleep with her and wake up with her. They were adults, weren’t they? He was past the age of wanting to creep around like a teenager. Snatched moments in the on-call room would never be enough for him. He knew what he wanted now.
He wanted Megan. In his life. For ever.
Energised by a certainty he’d never felt before, Josh checked his phone, hoping to find a message from her, but there was nothing and he was surprised by the strength of the disappointment that thudded through him.
Had she gone back to sleep after he’d received the call that his sister was in the department? He imagined her still lying there, in sheets tangled from the heat of their loving, dreaming about what they’d shared.
Was she planning even as he was planning?
Pondering that question, he threw his keys on the table, feeling lighter than he had in months. Smiling slightly, he retrieved the post from the floor and strolled into the kitchen, lured by the promise of strong coffee.
‘Hello, Josh.’ Rebecca sat there, her beautiful face pale, her eyes sharp with accusation.
Reality slapped his dreams in the face.
Josh felt the lightness evaporate and a sick dread that he couldn’t identify settled around him like a dark cloak. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘I’m your wife, Josh.’ Her tone was brittle. ‘This is still my home.’
Guilt churned inside him. It was hard to remember they’d ever been close. Hard to remember that once they’d chosen each other.
‘Where were you last night?’
He bit back the urge to tell her to mind her own business. ‘At the hospital. It’s where I work.’
‘But you weren’t working, were you? And don’t bother lying to me because I phoned the hospital to ask where you were.’ She gave a thin smile. ‘Consultant’s wife’s privileges. No one knew where you were, but they did know you weren’t on duty.’
Josh felt as though the walls of the house were closing in on him. Moments ago his future had seemed so clear. Now all he saw was murky black. ‘Rebecca—’
‘Am I supposed to be grateful that you didn’t have sex with her in our bed?’ Her fury snapped chunks out of the fragile remains of their relationship. ‘Who is she, Josh? And don’t bother denying there’s someone else because I can see it in your eyes.’
It wasn’t just in his eyes. It was in his heart. It was all through him and it gave him strength to do the right thing. To fight.
Josh straightened his shoulders. ‘There is someone. You and I—our relationship is over, Rebecca. We’ve agreed that, and—’
‘I’m pregnant.’
The silence in the room was absolute. It was as if the words had stopped time but he knew it wasn’t the case because the hands of the kitchen clock were still moving.
Pregnant. A baby.
Josh felt strangely detached. The words floated through his numb brain but didn’t settle. Pregnant. It was as if he was outside himself, looking in. And then reality punched him in the gut. Denial burst to the surface, driven by a desperate need to hold onto the dream. ‘No.’ The word was dragged from deep inside him. ‘You can’t be. That isn’t possible.’
‘Why? Because it isn’t convenient for you? Because it isn’t what you want?’ Her voice rose. ‘I’ve got news for you, Josh. Babies don’t always come along at the most convenient moment in your life.’
He knew that. Just hours ago Megan had finally confirmed that the baby she’d lost so traumatically eight years earlier had been his—a cruel epilogue to the night both of them had spent in hell. His decision to save Megan’s life all those years before had cost her a child. Their child. The knowledge intensified a guilt and pain that had never left him.
When he and Rebecca had split, his first thought had been, Thank goodness we didn’t have kids.
And now...
‘You know I don’t want children.’
Rebecca’s laugh was devoid of humour. ‘Maybe you should have thought about that before you had sex with me.’ There was a coarseness to her declaration that made him feel like scrubbing his skin.
‘That was a mistake.’ Josh stood still, the ache in his heart more painful than anything physical that she could inflict on him. Now, with some distance, he couldn’t imagine why they’d had sex again. What had driven him back into her bed? His brain tried to drag out details from that night but all he remembered was her, urging him on... ‘Did you do it on purpose?’ Blind with pain, he shot the words at her, wanting the truth even though he knew it wouldn’t change the facts. The colour in her cheeks answered his question and he swallowed down the bitter taste of contempt. ‘You chose to bring a child into a dead, loveless marriage?’
‘You chose to have sex with me,’ she said acidly. ‘So it’s not completely dead, is it? Or maybe you’ve conveniently forgotten that night.’
No, he hadn’t forgotten. The memory sat in his gut, the regret hard and undigested. Of all the mistakes he’d made in his life, that was the biggest. If he could rewind the clock... ‘You were taking the Pill.’
‘I’m pregnant, Josh. Nothing either of us does or says is going to change that. So before you get too deeply embedded in this exciting new relationship of yours, we need to think what we’re going to do. You’re going to be a father.’
CHAPTER THREE
AS IDEAS went, this had been one of her worst.
Tense and on edge, Tasha paced around Alessandro’s stunning, contemporary clifftop home, wishing she’d never agreed to the plan. But refusing would have invited awkward questions from Josh. And anyway, she hadn’t thought for a moment that she’d feel anything for Alessandro except mild contempt.
She’d planned to wash the boy out of her hair—she’d forgotten that the boy was now a man. A man who oozed sex appeal and natural authority even when badly injured. From the moment she’d walked into his private room and seen him watching the nurse through those slanting, slightly mocking eyes she’d known she was in trouble.
The nerves jumped in her stomach and she realised how long it had been since she’d been around a man who had that effect on her. The few relationships she had, she was careful to keep light and casual. She preferred it that way.
Her usual confidence deserting her, Tasha kept her back to him and focused her attention on the house. The place was incredible. Built on one level, floor-to-ceiling glass wrapped itself around the house, giving uninterrupted views over the beach from every angle of the living room. Deep soft sofas in ocean colours grouped around a large blue-and-white-striped rug and there were touches of the sea everywhere. Elegant pieces of driftwood. An old anchor. And then there were the paintings and the books.
Tasha glanced in envy at the bookshelves and wished she had a free month to read her way through the collection while lying on one of those squashy sofas and occasionally looking at the view. Somehow the place managed to be stylish and contemporary while maintaining a cosy, intimate feel.
‘How on earth did you find this place?’
‘I knew where I wanted to live. When this house came up, someone tipped me off.’
Knowing how much property cost in this part of the world, Tasha gave a wry smile. ‘I dread to think how much you paid.’
‘The real problem was planning permission. The original house was structurally unsound and we had to persuade them that this would enhance the landscape.’
Tasha glanced up at the double height living room, awash with light. ‘Your architect was clever.’
The view alone would have fetched millions. Outside, a wide deck curved around the house, a glass balustrade offering some protection while ensuring that not a single element of the outdoors was lost. The home shrieked style and sophistication. And then there were the gadgets...
It was a contemporary palace, she thought, fit for a playboy prince.
The evidence of wealth was everywhere and the high-tech security meant there was no forgetting the identity of her patient. From the moment the electronic gates had opened onto the long winding drive that led up to the clifftop house, she’d been aware of the security cameras. And then there was the team of highly trained security staff who worked shifts protecting the prince.
Tasha risked a glance at him and thought to herself that he didn’t look like a man who needed anyone’s protection. From the dark stubble on his jaw to the dangerous gleam of his eyes, he was more pirate than prince.
It occurred to her that she’d only ever met him in her world. Never in his. She’d never thought of him like this, with protection officers on twenty-four-hour rotation.