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His eyelids flickered open. The sun was too bright.
Someone was trying to block the sunlight out.
Rats. It must be a dream. She was far too pretty for real life.
She was every guy’s dream. A real-life modern-day princess. Mediterranean skin and dark eyes with tumbling brown curls. But something in this fairy-tale still wasn’t working.
She spoke again. ‘There we go, that’s better.’
It was that accent. It didn’t fit with his Mediterranean dream princess.
It confused him. Made his brain hurt. No—that wasn’t his brain, that was his head.
He blinked again. The smell of the Adriatic Sea assaulting his senses. His skin was prickling. All of a sudden he felt uncomfortable. Something wasn’t right. He was wet. Not just damp but soaked all over.
In the space of a few seconds the jigsaw puzzle pieces all fell into place. The young boy drowning, his attempt at saving him and the almighty crack to his head. He pushed himself up.
‘Whoa, sailor. Take it easy there. You’ve had a bump on the head.’
‘You can say that again,’ he mumbled, squinting in the sunlight. ‘And it’s Doctor, not sailor.’
The princess’s face broke into a wide perfect-toothed smile. ‘Actually, I’ll correct you there. On board, you’re a sailor first, doctor second.’
David Marsh leaned forward, clutching some wet credentials in his hand. He held out his other hand. ‘Well, this is an interesting way to meet our new boss. Gabriel Russo, I’m Dr David Marsh, your partner in crime. And this…’ he nodded towards Francesca ‘… is Francesca Cruz, one of our nurse practitioners. But as you’ve just been mouth to mouth with each other, introductions seem a little late.’ He signalled to the nearby crewmen. ‘We’re just going to get you on this stretcher and take you to the medical centre to check you over.’
Francesca felt a chill go down her spine at the name. She recognised it but couldn’t for the life of her think why. She stared at him again. Was he vaguely familiar? She was sure she’d never met him, and with features like those he wasn’t the kind of man you’d forget.
Gabriel looked horrified and shook his head, water flying everywhere. ‘No stretcher. I’m fine. I can walk.’ He pushed his hands on the bottom of the boat and stood up, standing still for a few seconds to make sure his balance was steady.
His eyes found the thick rope securing the small boat to the quay before he stepped over the gap and back to the safety of solid ground. He spun round to face Francesca. ‘How’s the boy? Is he all right?’ But he’d turned too quickly and he swayed.
She caught hold of his arm and gave him a cautious smile. ‘He’s on his way to the medical centre to be checked out. He was conscious, breathing but distinctly pale when he arrived. Now, how about I get you a wheelchair?’
‘I don’t do wheelchairs.’
She signalled over his shoulder. ‘I can be very bossy when I want to be.’
Dr Marsh cut in, ‘I can testify to that. Particularly if you think you’re going to get the last chocolate. I should warn you in advance that’s criminal activity in the medical centre.’
Gabriel felt pressure at the back of his legs as he thudded down into a wheelchair that had appeared out of thin air. ‘I said I don’t do chairs,’ he growled.
‘Let’s argue about that later,’ said Francesca as she swept the wheelchair along the dock.
The hairs on his arms were standing on end and he started to shiver—an involuntary action—a sign of shock. A few seconds later a space blanket was placed around his shoulders.
He grudgingly pulled it around him, noting the efficiency of his new staff and the easy rapport and teamwork—all good signs. Within a few seconds his nurse appeared to have walked the hundreds of yards along the dock and was pushing him up the gangway.
This was a nightmare. The worst way possible to meet your new staff. Yet another reason he should never have taken this job.
She seemed to turn automatically to her left, heading toward the service elevators. Gabriel felt mild panic start to build in his chest. Could this day get any worse?
Then she quickly veered off to the right. ‘Where are we going?’ he growled.
‘To the medical centre. We’re already on Deck Four so it will only take a couple of minutes.’ If she was annoyed by his tone there was no sign.
Gabriel heaved a sigh of relief and settled back in the chair. He’d be fine once he got something for this headache and was out of these wet clothes. Then he could get started.
The chair turned sharply into the modern medical centre. Consulting rooms, treatment rooms, in-patient beds and state-of-the-art diagnostics and emergency equipment. He knew the spec for this place off by heart—it was impressive, even by his exacting standards.
She wheeled him through to one of the rooms and pulled the curtains around the bed, pushing the brake on the wheelchair. She disappeared for a second and came back with a towel and set of scrubs.
Francesca’s brain was whirring. Gabriel Russo. Why was that name so familiar? Then it hit her like a ton of bricks falling from the sky. She had seen him before. Only last time he’d been wearing a pair of white designer swimming trunks and been perched on the edge of a multi-million-pound yacht, his arm lazily flung around the shoulders of her bikini-clad friend Jill.
The Italian stallion, Jill had called him and that picture had adorned her flatmate’s bedside cabinet until one night when a sobbing Jill had phoned Francesca at 3:00 a.m. to come and pick her up.
Francesca would never forget the sight of Jill in her sodden green designer gown, her hair plastered around her face and tears running like rivulets down her cheeks after Gabriel had flung her out of his penthouse flat.
Jill had been broken-hearted over his treatment of her and had taken a good few weeks to get over him—a long time for Jill.
And Francesca had waited a long time, too—to tell this man exactly what she thought of him. He was alive. He was breathing. His heart rate was sound. After a few general observations for head injuries he should be fine. There was a determined edge to her chin; it would be criminal to waste this opportunity. And she had absolutely no intention of doing so.
Something was wrong. Something had changed. He could sense it immediately; the tension in the air was palpable. Right now, all he wanted to do was climb into that pristine white bed, close his eyes and lose this thumping headache.
But the soft side of his Mediterranean princess had vanished and she was staring at him as if he were something she’d just trodden on.
Or maybe he was imagining it? Maybe the resuscitation and head knock had affected him more than he’d thought?
‘You’re Gabriel Russo.’
Gabriel’s pounding head jerked in response to the sharp tone in her voice. He wasn’t imagining it. ‘I thought we had established that.’
‘No, you’re Gabriel Russo, Italian stallion.’ She lifted her fingers in the air, making the quotation mark signs, wrinkled her nose and then continued, ‘Stinking love rat. You used to date my friend Jill—until you threw her out of your apartment in London at 3:00 a.m. in the pouring rain.’
‘No one’s ever called me Italian stallion to my face before.’ He felt almost amused. The nickname had been plastered across the press often enough. He wasn’t used to being blindsided. Then again, he wasn’t used to being resuscitated.
Jill. The name flickered through his brain. He’d certainly dated more than his fair share of beautiful women and he’d worked all over the world. Something fell into place. London. No. Let’s hope she wasn’t talking about that Jill. Just what he needed—a misguided, loyal friend. If his head wasn’t thumping so much this could almost be funny. Not only that—Ms Misguided was a knockout. A beautiful work colleague would never be a problem. But an angry, venomous one would be. This was a small team. They had to work together. It could be badly affected by two people who didn’t get on.
She wasn’t finished. ‘But I bet plenty of women have called you a heartbreaker before.’
‘Have we met?’ His eyes ran up and down her body and she felt a prickle of disgust—he’d almost mirrored her thoughts from earlier. ‘I think I’d remember.’
A few minutes before she’d had nice thoughts drifting about her head about their new doctor. She’d thought he was handsome. She’d thought he was fit. She’d even thought… No. She hadn’t. She couldn’t possibly have.
He frowned. ‘Jill? Who was she again? Remind me.’
Francesca felt rage build inside her. Arrogant so-and-so. The palm of her hand itched—she wanted it to come into contact with his perfect cheek.
‘Six years ago. London. Blonde model. You took her on your yacht for the weekend.’
‘Oh, that Jill.’ His frown deepened, puckering little lines around his eyes. He turned away, pulling his muddied jacket and T-shirt over his head, and she sensed it was on purpose. She tossed the scrubs and towel onto the bed beside him.
‘Yes, that Jill.’ The volume of her voice increased in proportion to her rage. ‘The one you dumped in the middle of the night in the pouring rain outside your flat. What kind of a man does that?’
He whipped around, the muddied jacket and T-shirt clenched in his fists, leaving his wide brown chest right in front of her eyes. The fury in her voice couldn’t match the venom in his eyes. ‘What kind of a man does that?’ he growled.
She gulped. He was half-dressed, his shoulder muscles tense, his bare abdomen rigid. If they were shooting an action movie right now he would be the perfect poster-boy hero.
All of a sudden the room felt much smaller. Maybe it was the six-foot-four presence. All trembling muscle and eyes shooting fireballs in her direction.
She could feel every hair on her body stand on end. And she hated it.
Because amongst the repulsion there was something else she was feeling—something more—and it went against every principle she had.
She pushed all those thoughts aside. If she ignored them then they weren’t actually there.
He still hadn’t answered. Probably because he was incoherent with rage.
‘What are you doing here anyway? Aren’t you supposed to be some billionaire-type doctor? You don’t actually have to work for a living, do you? Why on earth would you be working on a cruise ship?’
He shook his head, almost imperceptibly. What a surprise. All the usual assumptions, misunderstandings and wrong conclusions. All the things he went to pains to shake off. Normally he wouldn’t care what some stranger thought of him. But this stranger was part of his team and she was going to have to learn who was boss around here—hardly an ideal start. ‘Some things you wouldn’t understand.’ He leaned against the side of the bed, and could feel the pressure inside his head increase.
‘Try me.’
Something flashed across his face. He took a deep breath. ‘How well do you know Jill?’
‘She is my friend. She was my flatmate in London. We lived together for six months.’
‘Six years ago?’ There was an edge to his voice—almost as if he couldn’t believe someone had been friends with Jill that long.
‘Yes. We don’t live together any more but we keep in touch.’ She scanned her brain, trying to think of the last time she’d heard from Jill—maybe a week or more?
‘And how many times did you have to pick her up heartbroken in the middle of the night?’
‘Once.’ Not strictly true. But he was beginning to look too smug. There was a lot not to like. He was too handsome and too sure of himself. And she didn’t like that look on his face—as if he knew something she didn’t.
‘Jill is a really good friend of mine. She helped me when I needed it most. Make no mistake about where my loyalty lies, Gabriel.’
Those words didn’t even touch what Jill had done for her. When her father had died, Jill had dropped everything and flown straight up from London to Glasgow. She’d organised the funeral, dealt with the post-mortem, sorted out the insurance and the contents of the house—all things that Francesca couldn’t possibly have dealt with. Jill had been her rock.
In the past their relationship had always felt uneven, as if Francesca was constantly running after Jill and taking care of her. But when the chips had been down Jill had more than risen to the challenge. Francesca couldn’t have got through it without her.
‘How long are you here for?’
‘I haven’t even done my first shift and you’re trying to get rid of me?’
She shrugged.
‘As long as I want. I took this job at short notice—someone had broken their contract—so I was pretty much offered what I wanted. It’s up to me to decide how long I want to stay.’
Great. Who knew how long she would be stuck with him? ‘You didn’t answer the original question. Why would a billionaire doc like you want to be working on a cruise ship?’
He waved his hand dismissively. ‘Family stuff.’
It was the first interesting thing he’d said.
Yip. The walls in the room were definitely closing in on her. This was her worst nightmare. Working with this man every day was going to play havoc with her senses and her principles. She hated the fact that under other circumstances she might like him. She hated the fact she’d almost flirted with him.
‘I know you’ll have some clean uniforms in your quarters but how about putting these on right now?’ She pointed to the scrubs. She wrinkled her nose at the ruined jacket and T-shirt, still in his hand. ‘I don’t care how good the laundry staff are here, they’re not going to be able to save those.’
Gabriel stood up, his legs feeling firmer than before. He hadn’t even considered his appearance. The pristine white uniform he was holding was covered in remnants of brown sludge. His body hadn’t fared much better. From the port wall perhaps? She was right, no matter what the TV adverts pretended to show, no washing powder on the planet could sort this out.
He grabbed the towel to rub his hair, momentarily forgetting the reason he was there and wincing as the edge of the towel caught his wound.
‘Easy, tiger.’ Francesca pushed him down onto the edge of the bed. ‘Let me do that.’ She took the towel from his hands and gently dried around the edges.
‘Stop fussing,’ he muttered, trying to swat her hand away. ‘I need a shower.’
Francesca was doing her best to push her anger aside. She had a job to do. Whether she liked him or not, he was a patient—one she’d just resuscitated and with a head injury. She was a good nurse. This was straightforward. She could do this. ‘Right now I’m in charge—not you. You can go in the shower when I say so.’ She stuck a tympanic thermometer in his ear. ‘I’m going to do a full set of neurological observations on you, then clean that head wound and either glue or stitch it.’ She glanced at the reading on the thermometer. ‘You’re still cold. We’re going to heat you up a bit first.’ She pulled a blanket from one of the nearby cupboards.
Gabriel sighed. At least she was an efficient nurse, even if she was smart-mouthed and hated his guts. ‘Where’s Dr Marsh?’
She peered around the edge of the door. ‘He and Katherine are dealing with the teenager. Children get priority. I’m sure you’d agree with that.’
The child, of course. What was he thinking? There was a child to be attended to. ‘I should go and check him over.’ He tried to push his blanket off, but she laid her hand firmly on his shoulder.
The constricting feeling across his chest was almost instant. Paediatrics—children were his whole reason for being a doctor. There was no way he’d watch a child suffer. He couldn’t stand the thought that there was a child in the next room requiring attention while he was being pushed onto a bed.
It made him feel useless. It pushed him into dark places imprinted on his mind. Memories of long ago. Of a child with a scream that sent shivers down his spine. Feelings he’d spent his whole professional career trying to avert.
He pushed himself off the bed again.
‘Gabriel.’
Her face was right in front of his, her large brown eyes looking him straight on and her voice firm.
‘Ryan is fine. David Marsh is more than capable of looking after a shocked teenager. Maybe—just maybe—if we were resuscitating him, like we did with you, I might let you go and assist. But this isn’t an emergency situation. You’re not needed. You’re not even officially on duty. Right now you’re a patient, not a doctor. And a cranky one at that. You’d better hope that your head injury is making you cranky because if that’s your normal temperament you won’t last five minutes in here.
She was right. The rational part of his brain that was still functioning knew she was right. But his heart was ruling his head. He was cursing himself for not paying more attention to the port wall. He shouldn’t have dived straight in, he should have taken a few more seconds to get his bearings. Then maybe he could have protected Ryan and stopped him from slipping from his arms.
They could hear rapid chatter next door. She obviously didn’t realise his background in paediatrics. It was hardly surprising. Six years ago he’d been just about to pick his speciality and he’d dumped Jill before he’d made his final choice.
‘You should stay where you are. I’m going to attach you to a monitor for a few hours. You, sir, are going to do exactly as I say—whether you like it or not.’ She pulled the wires from the nearby monitor. ‘I’m not the pushover Jill was,’ she murmured.
Gabriel felt a weight settle on his chest again. For a second he’d seen a little glimpse of humour from her. For a second he’d thought maybe she didn’t hate him quite as much as it seemed. This was the last thing he needed—some smart-mouthed nurse with a load of preconceived ideas him. How close was she to Jill? Hopefully she didn’t have any of the same tendencies—that could be disastrous.
Every part of his body was beginning to ache and if he didn’t get something for this headache soon he was going to erupt.
It was almost as if she’d read his mind. ‘I’ll give you something for your headache in a few moments. I want to have a clear baseline set of neuro obs and I can’t give you anything too strong—I don’t want to dull your senses.’ There was a hint of humour in her voice, the implication that his senses were already dulled crystal clear.
It was just about as much as he could take.
‘Enough about me. What about you?’ he snapped. ‘What’s with the accent? Where are you from?’
The unexpected question caught her unawares and she jolted. She put the unattached wires down and her brow wrinkled. She bent to shine her penlight in his eyes again, satisfying herself that his pupils were equal and reactive.
‘I’m from Scotland.’ She straightened up.
‘You don’t look like you’re from Scotland,’ he mumbled as he dropped the towel he’d been using to dry himself, revealing the taut abdominal muscles, and pulled the scrub top over his head. ‘You look like a native. And what were you doing in London?’
‘I could be offended by that,’ she said quickly, placing one hand on her hip as she tried to drag her eyes away from his stomach. Was this his natural response? Was he normally so blunt? Or was this an altered response that she should be concerned about? She had no background knowledge on which to base a judgment. Should she just take for granted that he could be quite rude?
He’d paused, half-dressed, and was watching her. Watching the way her eyes were looking at his taut abdomen. She felt the colour flooding into her cheeks. There was no point averting her eyes, she’d been well and truly caught. She could be cheeky, too.
‘Put those away. You’ll give a girl a complex. And they’ll need to go, too.’ She pointed at his muddied underwear and handed him the scrub bottoms, averting her eyes for a few seconds to allow him some privacy. She slid her hand up inside his scrub top to attach the leads to his chest. His brown, muscled chest.
Time to change the subject. ‘My parents were from Trapetto, a fishing village in Sicily. But I was brought up in Scotland. I’m a Glasgow girl through and through.’ She waved her hand. ‘And don’t even try to speak to me in Italian. I’m not fluent at all—I know enough for emergencies and how to order dinner but that’s it.’
‘Didn’t you speak Italian at home?’
His voice brought her back to reality. ‘Rarely. There wasn’t much call for it in Glasgow.’
Her eyelids had lowered, as if this wasn’t a conversation she wanted to get into. Why was that?
Francesca picked up his dirty clothes. ‘I take it you’re okay if I dump these?’
He nodded and shifted on the bed, frowning at his attached leads. ‘So what are you doing here, Francesca?’
She froze, a little shocked by the bluntness of the question. This guy was going to take a bit of getting used to.
She frowned at him, knowing her brow was wrinkled and it wasn’t the most flattering of looks. ‘What on earth are you talking about?’
There it was again, that little hint of something—but not quite obvious.
‘I would have thought that was obvious. I’m here working as an ANP. Maybe I should check that head knock of yours again.’
His eyebrows lifted. ‘I’m curious what a young, well-qualified nurse like you is doing here.’ His hand swept outwards to the surrounding area.
She felt a little shiver steal down her spine. Nosy parker.
She kept her voice steady. ‘You mean here…’ she spread her arms out and spun round ‘… in this state-of-the-art medical complex, in the middle of the Mediterranean, with a different port every day and a chance to see the world?’
She planted her hands on her hips and looked at him as defiantly as she could. She was stating the obvious. The thing that any website would quote for prospective job-seekers. It was a cop-out and she knew it. But she didn’t like the way he’d asked the question. It was as if he’d already peered deep inside her and knew things she didn’t want anyone else to know.
‘I’m just curious. Your family is in Glasgow. And yet, you’re here…’ His voice tailed off. Almost as if he was contemplating the thought himself.
Something inside her snapped. Were all Italians as old-fashioned as him?
‘My family isn’t in Glasgow any more. Get a life, Gabriel. Isn’t a girl allowed to spread her wings and get a job elsewhere? Maybe I’m trying to connect with my roots in Sicily. Maybe I was just bored in Glasgow. Maybe I want to see the world. Or it could just be that I’m killing time until I get my visa to Australia. I thought cruise ships would be fun. Truth be told, so far I’ve found it all a bit boring.’ The words were out before she’d thought about it. Out before she had a chance to take them back.
She cringed. He was her boss. He was her brand-new boss, who had no idea about her skills, experience and competency level—probably the only things that could be her saving grace right now. How to win friends and influence people. Not.
She pushed the dirty clothes inside a plastic disposal bag, ‘I’ll get rid of these,’ she muttered as she turned to leave.
This was going to be nightmare. This ship was huge. Big enough for two thousand, six hundred passengers and five hundred staff. But this medical centre? Not so big. And the staff worked very closely together. Some days the medical centre felt positively crowded.
And the last thing she needed was to be stuck with some playboy doc. A pain shot through her chest. The last time she’d been distracted by a playboy doc it had had a devastating effect on her family life, causing irreparable damage. She could not allow that to happen again, no matter what the circumstances.
Every part of her body was buzzing. She hadn’t even had a chance to think about what had happened today. She’d resuscitated someone.
Someone who could, potentially, have died if she hadn’t taken those actions.
The thought of dealing with a death again horrified her. It didn’t matter that she was a nurse. Her circumstances had changed. Everything had changed.