Claiming His Pregnant Princess
Annie O'Neil
Hello, Beatrice.Face-to-face with the man she'd loved and lost two years ago, Dr. (and Princess) Bea di Jesolo knows she has no right to forgiveness, but she hopes they can call a truce for the sake of their patients.Pediatrician Dominic Coutts had always seen the woman beneath the royal fanfare that surrounded Bea: at heart, she was more surgical gown than ball gown. But loving her had cost him once. Could he risk his heart again—especially when he discovers her secret?Italian RoyalsTwo royal medics - can they find the perfect match!
“Hello, Beatrice.”
Face-to-face with the man she’d loved and lost two years ago, Dr. (and Princess) Bea di Jesolo knows she has no right to forgiveness, but she hopes they can call a truce for the sake of their patients.
Pediatrician Jamie Coutts had always seen the woman beneath the royal fanfare that surrounded Bea: at heart, she was more surgical gown than ball gown. But loving her had cost him once. Could he risk his heart again—especially when he discovers her secret?
Dear Reader,
I don’t know why—sometimes the world just works in mysterious ways—but these two characters came to me so easily. I just loved them—and their obvious love for one another.
There are times in life, aren’t there, when we get ourselves in a pickle? Sometimes we aren’t even sure how it’s worked out that way. This is one of those times for Beatrice…and it’s one heck of a pickle. Huge!
I really hope you enjoy both Bea’s and Jamie’s journeys, at the conclusion of my duet, and seeing how two friends from two totally different backgrounds find love.
Enjoy some Italian food while you’re reading this, and don’t be shy about getting in touch. You can reach me at annieoneilbooks.com (http://www.annieoneilbooks.com), on Twitter, @annieoneilbooks (https://twitter.com/annieoneilbooks?lang=en), or find me on Facebook…
Annie O’ xx
Claiming His Pregnant Princess
Annie O’Neil
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Books by Annie O’Neil
Mills & Boon Medical Romance
Paddington Children’s Hospital
Healing the Sheikh’s Heart
Hot Latin Docs
Santiago’s Convenient Fiancée
Christmas Eve Magic
The Nightshift Before Christmas
The Monticello Baby Miracles
One Night, Twin Consequences
One Night…with Her Boss
London’s Most Eligible Doctor
Her Hot Highland Doc
Visit the Author Profile page
at millsandboon.co.uk (http://millsandboon.co.uk) for more titles.
This book is dedicated to my great friend Jess. She had the most epic hen do in the history of hen parties and somehow we ended up in a three-mile parade in the centre of a town just outside of Venice. As you do when you’re dressed as a nun and the lawfully intended is dressed as a minx. I mean bride.
Big love, Annie O’ xx
Praise for Annie O’Neil
‘This is a beautifully written story that will pull you in from page one and keep you up late, turning the pages.’
—Goodreads on
Doctor...to Duchess?
Annie O’Neil won the 2016 RoNA Rose Award for her book Doctor…to Duchess?
Contents
Cover (#ubd48d9c2-665e-5267-bcfa-3eb189dee94b)
Back Cover Text (#u7a131204-997e-569e-9eb6-5381633dcfb5)
Dear Reader (#u98962120-a5e5-507c-89b1-aee617e7e1a8)
Title Page (#u63a8852d-7a0d-5c57-94d3-5d7d9a47f27b)
Booklist (#u161a7d3e-90ad-599f-a58d-b760292bc02a)
Dedication (#uf0ba528f-c94f-5639-bea5-ed7d7dd837d1)
Praise (#u2576c103-83f3-5c7a-bd25-ea5b6926a744)
CHAPTER ONE (#ubda69470-fc5b-5f52-a9b4-f6eefb32b605)
CHAPTER TWO (#uda7d7b5b-fa13-5ad7-9d57-9aa74fcb727d)
CHAPTER THREE (#u3d2e0f85-d605-5a52-9a21-d88809082bc5)
CHAPTER FOUR (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)
EPILOGUE (#litres_trial_promo)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ONE (#u62f58ab4-51a4-5917-861e-c8b3310d59b0)
“DR. JESOLO! THERE’S a full waiting room!”
“Si, pronto, Teo!” Bea poked her head out of the curtained exam space and then repeated herself in English, just in case her Australian coworker hadn’t understood. “On my way.”
He nodded, screwed his nose up for a minute and gave her a funny look.
She hoped her pasted-on happy face simply looked like a case of first-day jitters.
Her new colleague didn’t need to know she was fighting another wave of impossible-to-quench tears.
She swiped at her eyes again and forced herself to tune in to the various conversations happening in the exam areas surrounding hers.
English, Italian, French and German. Broken arms. Asthma attacks. Altitude sickness. They were all mingled together up here in Torpisi, and she was loving every moment of it. Or would be if she could get her eyes to dry and see another patient.
That was why this multilingual, brain-stretching trauma center suited her needs to a tee.
Hormones or history. It was always a toss-up as to which would unleash the next flood.
You can do this. You’re a princess! Trained in the art of...of artifice.
At least work would give her poor over-wrung tear ducts a break.
The Clinica Torpisi catered to the needs of international tourists. Ones who didn’t read the gossip rags. Adrenaline junkies, fun seekers and good old-fashioned holidaymakers kept the clinica operating on full steam over the summer—and probably more so in the winter, when the skiing crowd came in. It was the perfect place to hide in plain sight. And to create some much-needed distraction from her real-life problems.
Zurich, Lyon, Salzburg and even Milan were only a couple of hours’ drive away, but the press still hadn’t caught wind of the fact that she was up here in this magical Italian mountain hideaway.
Ha! Foiled again. Just the way she liked it. They’d had their pound of flesh after the wedding nightmare. Painting a picture of her as if she’d been abandoned at the altar... The cheek! She’d been made of fool of, perhaps, but she’d been the one to pull off her ring and walk away.
The press might have stolen what little dignity Bea had left, but she wouldn’t let them take away her precious Italy. Especially now that returning to England was out of the question.
Her fingers pressed against her lips as the strong sting of emotion teased the back of her nose again.
Ugh. She’d tried her best to shake off those memories. The ones she’d kept locked away the day since she’d agreed to her mother’s harebrained plan. What a fool she’d been!
She’d had a shot of living the perfect life and had ruined it in a vainglorious attempt to please her blue-blooded family. Power and position. It was all they’d wanted.
Well...they’d hit the tabloids, all right, just not in the way anyone had anticipated.
Hopefully the paparazzi were now too busy jetting around the globe trying to find “Italy’s favorite playboy prince” to worry about her any longer.
Bea pulled the used paper off the exam table and stuffed it in the bin. It was her own fault this mess had blown up in her face. If she’d stayed strong, told her parents she was in love with someone else...
Inhale. Exhale.
That was in the past now. She’d made the wrong decision and now she was paying for it.
Bea took a quick scan of the room, then glanced in the mirror before heading out for her next patient, smiling ruefully as she went. Trust an Italian clinic in the middle of nowhere to have mirrors everywhere! She was willing to bet the hospital on the Austrian side of town didn’t have a single one. Practical. Sensible. More her style. Maybe she should have tried to get a job there...
Her eyes flicked up to the heavens, then down again.
Quit second-guessing yourself! It’s day one, and so far so good.
She forced herself to look square into the mirror at the “new” Bea.
No more Principessa Beatrice Vittoria di Jesolo, fiancée of Italy’s favorite “Scoundrel Prince.”
Her eyes narrowed as she recataloged those memories. Everything happened for a reason, and deep in her heart she knew marrying for tradition rather than for love would have been a huge mistake. Even if it would have made her mother happy.
A mirthless laugh leapt from her chest.
She was well and truly written out of the will now!
She shrugged her shoulders up and down, then gave her cheeks a quick pinch.
Saying goodbye to that life had been easy.
The hard part was living with herself after having let things go as far as they had.
“Dr. Jesolo?”
Bea started, and wagged her finger at herself in the mirror.
Self-pity wasn’t going to help either. Work would.
“Si, sto arrivando!”
From today she was simply Dr. Bea Jesolo, trauma doctor to the fun-loving thrill seekers up here in Italy’s beautiful Alpine region.
She tipped her head to the side. Now that she was a bit more used to it, she liked the pixie haircut. The gloss of platinum blond. It still caught her by surprise when she passed shop windows, but there were unexpected perks. It made her brown eyes look more like liquid shots of espresso than ever before. Not that she was on the market or anything. Just get up, work, go to bed and repeat. Which made the short, easy-to-style cut practical. Much better than the long tresses she’d grown especially for the wedding.
She gave a wayward strand a tweak, then made a silly face at herself when it bounced back out of place.
Undercover Princess.
That was this morning’s newspaper headline. She’d seen it on the newsstand when she’d walked into work. There had been a picture of heaven knew who on the front page of Italy’s most popular gossip magazine. A shadowy photo showing someone—no doubt a model wearing a wig—looking furtively over her shoulder as she was swept through airport security in Germany. Or was it Holland? Utrecht? Somewhere she wasn’t.
Undercover Princess, indeed.
She pulled her stethoscope back into place around her neck and shrugged the headline away.
It was a damn sight better than the handful she’d seen before sneaking away to lick her wounds on her brother’s ridiculous superyacht for six weeks, ducking and dodging the press among the Greek islands.
There were perks to having a privileged family. And, of course, pitfalls.
Abandoned by the Wolf!
Prince Picks Fair Maid over Princess!
Altar-cation for Italy’s Heartbroken Princess.
Heartbroken? Ha! Hardly.
Love-Rat Prince Crumbles at the First Hurdle
That was getting closer. Or maybe:
Pregnant Principessa Prepares for First Solo as Mama.
Not that anyone knew that little bit of tabloid gold.
Doctor by day...
Her hand crept to her belly. Though she wasn’t showing yet, she knew the little tiny bud of a baby was in there...just the size of an apple seed. Maybe a little more? Bigger, smaller... Either way she’d protect that blossoming life with every ounce of power she possessed. Hers and hers alone. How she’d go about living the rest of her life once the baby was born was a problem she hadn’t yet sorted, but she’d get there. Because she didn’t have much of a choice.
Bea swiped at her eyes, forced on a smile, then pulled open the curtain. Nothing like a patient to realign her focus.
“Leah Stokes?”
She scanned the room, bracing herself against the moment that someone recognized her, air straining against her lungs. Her shoulders dropped and she blew a breath slowly past her lips as all the patients looked up, shook their heads, then went back to their magazines and conversations. All except a young twentysomething woman, who was pushing herself up from her chair. She was kitted out in cycling gear and... Oh. Ouch!
“Looks like some serious road rash there.” Bea’s brow furrowed in sympathy and she quickly walked over to the woman and put her arm around her waist. “Lean on me. That’s right. Just put your arm around my shoulder and let me take some of the weight.”
“I don’t think I can make it all the way.” Leah drew in a sharp breath, tears beginning to trickle down her cheeks now that help was here.
“Can I get a hand?” Bea called out.
There were a couple of guys in rescue uniforms at the front desk. She called again to get their attention. When the closest one looked up, the blond...
Her breath caught in her throat.
He wasn’t blond. His hair was hay colored—that was how she’d always remembered it... The color of British summertime.
A perfect complement to startling green eyes.
As their gazes grazed, then caught, Bea’s heart stopped beating. Just...froze.
She’d know that face anywhere. It had been two long years. Two painfully long years of trying to convince herself she’d done the right thing, all the while knowing she hadn’t.
Fate had intervened in saving her from a loveless marriage, but what was it doing now?
Taunting her with what she could never have?
She blinked and looked again.
Those green eyes would haunt her until the end of time.
Before she could stop herself she spoke the name she’d thought she’d never utter again.
“Jamie?”
* * *
For a moment Jamie thought he was hallucinating. It couldn’t be her. Beatrice was meant to be on her honeymoon right now. That and no one called him Jamie.
He’d gone back to James the day she’d left. He’d changed a lot of things since then.
“Jamie, is that you?”
For a moment everything blurred into the background as he looked straight into the eyes of the woman he had once thought he would spend his life with.
Still the same dark, get-lost-in-them irises, but there was something new in them. Something...wary. No, that wasn’t right. Something...fragile. Unsure. Things he’d never seen in them before.
Her hair was different. Still short, but... Why had she gone platinum? Her formerly chestnut-brown hair, silky soft, particularly when it brushed against... A shot of heat shunted through him as powerfully as it had the first time he’d touched it. Touched her.
Instinct took over. She was struggling with a patient. Before he could think better of it, he was on the other side of her, calling to his colleague to find a wheelchair.
“What’s your name, love?” he asked the girl, who was whispering words of encouragement to herself in English.
“Leah,” Beatrice answered for her. “Leah Stokes.”
Jamie hid a flinch as the sound of Beatrice’s voice lanced another memory he’d sealed tight. If he’d doubted for a second that this transformed woman—the blond hair, the uncharacteristically plain clothing, the slight shadows hinting at sleepless nights—was the love of his life, he knew it now. She had a husky, made-for-late-night-radio voice that was perfect for a doctor offering words as an immediate antidote for pain. Even better for a lover whispering sweet nothings in your ear.
“The exam table isn’t far away. Instead of waiting shall we—” Beatrice began.
He nodded before she’d finished. Once-familiar routines returned to him with an ease he hadn’t expected. The looks that made language unnecessary. The gestures the said everything. They’d done this particular move when he’d “popped in” accidentally on purpose to help out with her trauma training. Carried patients here and there. Practiced the weave of wrists and hands. Supported each other.
“On three?” The rush of memory and emotion almost blindsided him. He’d been a fool to let her go. Not to fight harder.
But a modern-day commoner versus a latter-day prince?
There’d been no contest. He’d seen it in her eyes.
Like a fool, he looked up.
“One...two...”
He saw the words appear on her lips but could hardly hear them, such was the rush of blood charging around his head.
Never again.
That was what he’d told himself.
Never again would he let himself be so naive. So vulnerable. So in love.
As one they dipped, eyes glued to each other’s, clasped one another’s wrists and scooped up the patient between them, hardly feeling Leah’s fingers as they pressed into their shoulders once she’d been lifted off the ground.
It definitely wasn’t the way he’d imagined seeing Beatrice again. If ever.
“Just here on the exam table, per favore.” Beatrice had shifted her gaze to her patient, her hands slipping to Leah’s leg to ensure the abraded skin was kept clear of rubbing against the paper covering the table. “Thank you, Dr. Coutts.”
Her dark brown eyes flitted back toward him before she returned her full attention to her patient, but in that micromoment he saw all that he needed to know. Seeing him had thrown her as off-kilter as it had him.
Whether it was a good thing or a bad thing was impossible to ascertain. At least he hadn’t seen the thing he feared most: indifference. He would have packed his bags and left then and there. But something—the tiniest glimmer of something bright flickering in those espresso-rich eyes of hers—said it would be worth his while to stay.
Answers were answers, after all.
“I’ll leave you to it, then,” he said, tugging the curtain around the exam table, his eyes taking just a fraction of a second longer than necessary to search her hand for the ring. Jewelry had never been his thing, but that ridiculously huge, pink cushion-cut diamond ring—a family heirloom, she’d said—was etched in his mind’s eye as clearly as the day she’d told him she was moving back to Italy. Family, she’d said. Obligations. Tradition.
He yanked the curtain shut, unable to move as he processed what he’d seen. Pleasure? Pain? Satisfaction that neither of them had succeeded in gaining what they’d sought?
A chilling numbness began to creep through his veins.
No sign of a ring.
Nothing.
Each and every one of her fingers was bare.
* * *
Bea’s heart was thumping so hard behind her simple cotton top she was sure her patient could see it.
Even though she had taken longer than normal to put on her hygienic gloves, Leah would have had to be blind not to notice her fingers shaking.
Jamie Coutts.
The only man who’d laid full claim to her heart.
Why wasn’t he in England?
Leaving Jamie had been the most painful thing she’d ever done. The betrayal she’d seen in his eyes would stay with her forever. Having to live with it was so much worse.
“Is everything all right?” Leah asked.
“Si, va bene.” Bea gave her head a quick shake, pushed her hands between her knees to steady them and reminded herself to speak English. She had a patient. Rehashing the day she’d told the man she loved she was going to marry another would have to wait.
“Let’s take a look at this leg of yours.” Bea gave her hands a quick check. Jitter-free. Good. “Cycling, was it?”
“We were coming down one of the passes,” Leah confirmed, her wince deepening as Bea began gently to press the blue pads of her gloved hands along the injury. “A car came up alongside me. I panicked and hit the verge too fast.”
“A fall when you’re wearing these clip shoes can be tough. It looks largely superficial. Not too much bleeding. But from the swelling on your knee it looks like you took quite a blow.” Bea glanced up at her, “I’m just going to take your shoes off, all right? Do you feel like anything might be broken? Sprained?”
Leah shook her head. “It’s hard to say. I think it’s the road rash that hurts the most, but my knee is throbbing!”
“Did you get any ice on it straight after you fell? A cool pack?”
“No...” Leah tugged her fingers through her short tangle of hazel curls, loosening some meadow grass as she did so, before swiping at a few more tears. “The guys had all ridden ahead. Downhill pelotons freak me out—and I wasn’t carrying a first-aid kit with me. A local couple saw me fall and brought me here.”
Poor thing. Left to fend for herself.
It’s not any fun, is it, amore?
Bea gave her a smile. “Trying to keep up with a peloton of adrenaline junkies is tough.” She pushed herself back on the wheelie stool and looked in the supplies cart for the best dressings. “I don’t think you’ve broken anything, but it’s probably worth getting some X-rays just in case.”
“But we’ve still got four more days of riding!” Leah protested, the streaks of dirt on her face disappearing in dark trickles as her tears increased. “Richard’s going to think I’m such a weakling. This was meant to be the time I showed him I could keep up with the boys.”
Bea took a quick glance at Leah’s fingers. Bare, just like hers. “Boyfriend?” she chanced.
“Probably not for long. He’s going to think I’m such a wimp!”
“With a road rash like that?” Bea protested with a smile. “This shows exactly how tough you are. I’ve had men in here with half the scraping your thigh has taken, howling like babies.”
“Howling?” A smile teased at Leah’s lips.
“Howling,” Bea confirmed with a definitive nod.
She wouldn’t mind tipping back her head and letting out a full-pelt she-wolf howl herself right now, but instead she told herself off in her mother’s exacting tones. Princesses don’t howl. Princesses set an example.
She screwed her lips to the right as she forced her attention back to Leah’s leg. “Mi scusi, I can’t see what I need to dress this leg of yours in here. I want to get some alginate and silver dressings for you.”
“What are those?”
“They’re both pretty amazing, actually. You should get some dressings to carry in your pack. There are derivatives from algae in one of them—really good for wounds like this. Ones that ooze.”
Leah sucked in her breath after touching a spot on her thigh. “It’s so disgusting.”
“It’s not pretty now, but it will definitely heal well. Once the dressing gets wet, it will begin to form a gel and absorb any liquid from the abrasion.” She pressed her hands into her knees and put on her best I-know-it-stinks face. “Keeping the wound moist is essential to preventing scarring. The dressing I’m hoping to use contains silver. It’s antibacterial, so it will keep the wound clean of infection.” Bea tipped her head to catch Leah’s eye before she rose. “Are you going to be all right for a few minutes while I get the supplies?”
Leah half nodded, her interest already diverted as she pulled her phone out of her bag and flicked on the camera app. “I’m going to send the guys some pictures. Give them a proper guilt trip for abandoning me.”
“Back in a minute,” Bea said unnecessarily as Leah snapped away.
No doubt the photos would be hitting all sorts of social media sites in seconds. She’d taken all those things off her telefono within hours of the wedding being called off. She’d even tried throwing the phone in a canal when some wily reporter had got hold of her number, but Francesca hadn’t let her.
“Just put the thing on Mute or change your number,” Fran had insisted. “Use us. Stay contactable. We want to help.”
If only someone could help. But she and she alone had got herself into this mess.
Bea hurried into the supplies room before a fresh hit of tears glossed her eyes. She missed her best friend. Could really do with a Bea-and-Fran night on the sofa. A pizza. Box set. Bottle of wine—nope! Nix the wine. But... Oh...nix everything. Now that Fran had gone and fallen in love with Luca, and the pair of them were making a real go of the clinic at Mont di Mare, Bea would have to make do on her own. And stay busy. Extra busy. Any and all distractions were welcome.
She forced herself to focus on the shelves of supplies, desperate to remember why she’d gone to the room in the first place.
“Hello, Beatrice.”
She froze at the sound of Jamie’s voice. Then, despite every single one of her senses being on high alert, she smiled. How could she have forgotten it? That Northern English lilt of his accent. The liquid edge he added to the end of her name where Italians turned it into two harsher syllables. From his tongue her named sounded like sweet mountain water...
When she turned to face him, her smile dropped instantly. Jamie’s expression told her everything she needed to know.
He wasn’t letting bygones stay back in England, where she’d left him some seven-hundred-odd days ago. But who was counting? Numbers meant nothing when everything about his demeanor told her it was the witching hour. Time to confront the past she’d never been able to forget.
* * *
“Since when does Italy’s most pampered princess get her own supplies?”
The comment held more rancor than Jamie had hoped to achieve. He’d been aiming for a casual “fancy meeting you here,” but he’d actually nailed expressing the months of bitterness he’d been unable to shake since she’d left him. True, he hadn’t put up much of a fight, but she had made it more than clear that her future was in Italy. With another man.
It had blindsided him. One minute they were more in love than he could imagine a couple ever being. The next, after that sudden solo trip to Venice, her heart had belonged to another.
He’d not thought her so fickle. It had been a harsh way to learn why they called love blind.
When their gazes connected the color dropped from Beatrice’s face. A part of him hated eliciting this bleak reaction—another part was pleased to see he still had an effect on her.
Ashen faced with shaking palms wasn’t what he’d been hoping for... Seeing her at all hadn’t been what he’d been hoping for...but no matter how hard he tried, no matter how many corners he’d turned since he’d left England, he didn’t seem to be able to shake her. This was either kismet or some sort of hellish purgatory. From the look on her face, it wasn’t the former.
Self-loathing swept through him for lashing out at Beatrice. A woman who’d done little more than proactively pursue the life she wanted. Which was more than he could say for himself.
“What are you doing here, Beatrice? Aren’t you meant to be on honeymoon? Or is this part of it? Dropping in to local clinics to grace us with your largesse before embarking on a shopping spree. Dubai, perhaps? Turkey? Shouldn’t you be buying silver spoons for the long line of di Jesolos yet to come into the world?”
Jamie hated himself as the vitriol poured out of him. Hated himself even more as he watched Beatrice’s full lips part only to say nothing, her features crumpling in disbelief as if he’d shivved her right then and there rather than simply pointed out everything the tabloids had been crowing about. The engagement. The impending wedding. The royal babies they were hoping would quickly follow the exotic and lengthy honeymoon.
A month ago he’d refused to read anymore. He’d endured enough.
He looked deep into her eyes, willing her to tell him something. Anything to ease the pain.
As quickly as the ire had flared up in him, it disappeared.
You’re not this man. She must’ve had her reasons.
Jamie took a step forward, his natural instinct to put a hand on Beatrice’s arm—to touch her, to apologize. As he closed the space between them the handful of gel packs and silver dressings she’d been holding dropped from her fingers. They knelt simultaneously to collect them, colliding with the inevitable head bump and mumbled apologies.
Crouching on the floor, each with a hand to their forehead, they stared at one another as if waiting for the other to pounce.
By God, she is beautiful.
“You’ve grown your hair,” she said finally.
She was so close he could kiss her. Put his hand at the nape of her neck as he’d done so many times before, draw her to him and...
She was talking about haircuts.
A haircut had been the last thing on his mind when she’d left. Work. Work had been all he’d had and he’d thrown himself so far into the deep end he’d been blind to everything else. Got too involved. So close he’d literally drained the blood from his own body to help ease the pain of his patient.
Elisa.
That poor little girl. They’d shared a rare blood type. Foolishly he’d thought that if he saved her life he might be able to save himself. In the end his boss had made him choose. Take a step back or leave.
So here he was in Italy, just when he’d thought he was beginning to see straight again, eye to eye with the woman who had all but sucked the marrow from his bones.
“It looks nice,” Beatrice said, her finger indicating the hair he knew curled on and around his shirt collar. What was it she’d always called him? Hay head? Straw head? Something like that. Something that brought back too many memories of those perfect summer months they’d shared together.
He nodded his thanks. Blissful summers were a thing of the past. Now they were reduced to social niceties.
Fair enough. He glanced at his watch. The chopper would be leaving in five. He needed to press on.
“C’mon. Let’s get these picked up. Get you back to your patient.” No matter how deeply he’d been hurt, patients were the priority.
She reached forward, sucking in a sharp breath when their fingers brushed, each reaching for the same packet of dressings.
“I’m not made of poison, you know.”
Beatrice’s gaze shot up to meet his, those rich brown eyes of hers looking larger than ever. He couldn’t tell if it was because she’d lost weight or because they were punctuated by twilight-blue shadows. Either way, she didn’t look happy.
“No one knows who I am here,” she bit out, her voice low and urgent as she clutched the supplies to her chest. “I would appreciate it if you could keep it that way.”
A huff of disbelief emptied his chest of oxygen. Flaunting the family name was the reason she’d left him, and now she wanted to be anonymous?
She met his gaze as she finished scanning his uniform. “Since when do pediatricians wear high-octane rescue gear? I thought life in a children’s ward was all the excitement you needed?”
“Snide comments were never your thing.”
“Pushing boundaries was never yours.”
Jamie’s lungs strained against a deep breath, all the while keeping tight hold of the eye contact. He wanted her to see the man he’d become.
After a measured exhalation he let himself savor the pain of his teeth grating across his lower lip. He turned to leave, then changed his mind, throwing the words over his shoulder as if it were the most casual thing in the world to lacerate the woman he loved with words.
“People change, Dr. Jesolo. Some of us for the better.”
* * *
Ten minutes later and the sting of his comment still hadn’t worn off. Perhaps it never would.
And hiding in the staff room with her friendly Aussie colleague had only made things worse. He was a messenger with even more bad news.
Jamie Coutts was not just back in her life—he was her boss.
“Wait a minute, Teo.” Bea held up a hand, hardly believing what she was hearing. “He’s what?”
Teo Brandisi gave Bea a patient smile and handed her the cup of herbal tea he’d promised her hours earlier in the busy shift.
“The big boss man. The big kahuna. Mayor of medics.”
“But you hired me.”
“He was out in the field. He hands over the reins to me when he’s away.”
“But—”
“Quit trying to fight it, sweetheart. He’s le grand fromage—all right? I wouldn’t be working here without his approval, so if you’ve got a bone to pick with him, I’m recusing myself. He has my back. I have his. You got me?” Teo continued in his broad Australian accent.
Bea shook her head and waved her hands. “No, it’s not that. I’ve nothing against Dr. Coutts.”
Liar.
She cleared her throat, forcing herself to sound more neutral. “I just don’t understand why he had to approve appointing you but not me.”
“Foreign doctor.” Teo pointed at himself. “We can’t just swan in and take all the choice jobs. Even though he’s English, he’s been qualified to practice here for over a year.”
He’d been in Italy for a year and she hadn’t known.
Well...she’d done a whole lot of things he didn’t know about, so fair was fair.
“My advice?” Teo was on a roll. “You have to suck up to people like James Coutts.”
“James?”
“Yeah... Why?”
Teo scrunched up his nose and looked at her as if she was giving proof positive she was losing her marbles. Maybe she was. And if Jamie was James, and she’d shortened her name to Bea, then the only thing that was clear was that they were both trying to be someone new.
A reinvention game.
Only games were meant to be fun. And everything about seeing Jamie again was far from fun. Confronting what she’d done to him was going to be the hardest thing she’d ever done.
“Anyhoo...” Teo continued. “James has got the whole British-reserve thing going on big-time.” A glint of admiration brightened his blue eyes. “The man’s like an impenetrable fortress. Impossible to read. Well done!” He clapped her on the shoulder. “A gold star to Dr. Jesolo for getting under the Stone Man’s skin!”
“The Stone Man?”
“Yeah. We all take bets on how many facial expressions he actually has. I’m going with three. Contemplative. Not happy. And his usual go-to face—Mr. Neutral. No reading that face. No way, no how.”
Bea hid her face in the steam of her tea for a minute. Her kind, gentle Jamie was an impenetrable fortress? That wasn’t like him. Then again...she was hardly the same. Why should he be?
“It’s most likely a fluke. That or he doesn’t like blondes?”
Teo gave her a sidelong glance as if he already knew the whole story. Could tell she was just making things up. Covering a truth she wasn’t yet ready to divulge.
“Fair enough.”
They stood in an awkward silence until Bea launched into a sudden interest in removing her herbal tea bag from her mug.
If Teo had known she was pregnant, she could have just blown the whole thing off as a bout of pregnancy brain. Not that she even knew if pregnancy brain hit this early. Sharp bouts of fatigue certainly had. And morning sickness. She’d never look at a hamburger the same way again! At least when she’d been on her brother’s yacht she’d managed to fob off the nausea she’d felt as seasickness. Now that she was up here in the mountains she couldn’t do that. It was meant to pass soon. And by the time her contract was up she’d be off to hide away the rest of her pregnancy somewhere else.
“So, on a day-to-day basis you’re my boss?” She kept her eyes on her tea, wincing at the note of hope in her voice.
“Nope. Dr. James Coutts is your actual boss,” Teo continued, after taking his shot of espresso down in one swift gulp.
Classic Italian. She would be amazed if he went back to Australia. He might be second generation in Australia, but the man had Italy in his bones.
“I step in when he’s out on rescue calls, like today. The fact I was on duty when we held your interview was just a coincidence.”
“So...he knew I was coming?”
The interview had been a week ago. Start date today. He’d had a whole week to come to terms with things and yet she was sure she’d seen shock in his eyes. The same shock of recognition that had reverberated through to her very core.
“He knew someone was coming, but he’s been tied up training the emergency squads.”
Her Jamie? Better-safe-than-sorry Jamie?
She’d always thought she was a solid rock until she’d met him. But no one had been more reliable, more sound than him.
“He’s pretty good about not breathing down your neck.” Teo pulled open a cupboard and began to look around for some biscuits. “And he lets staff make decisions in his absence. He’s a really good guy, actually. Don’t let the whole Dr. Impenetrable thing get to you.”
Her lips thinned. Jamie was better than a good guy. He was the kindest man she’d ever met.
Strangely, it came as a relief to hear his bitterness seemed to be solely reserved for her. Deservedly so. How she could have dumped him just to make good on an antiquated match between her family and the Roldolfos was beyond her now. Family loyalty meant altogether different things when your blue-blooded mother was trying to uphold hundreds of years of tradition. Pass the princess baton...even if it came at her daughter’s expense.
She heard Teo sigh and looked up to catch him lovingly gazing at a plate of homemade biscotti. Someone’s grandmother’s, no doubt. There was a lot of bragging about grandmothers up here. She missed hers. No doubt she would have had some wise words for the insane situation Bea was in now.
“Did you hear the crew earlier? Sounds like it was a pretty intense case,” Teo continued, oblivious to the turmoil Bea was enduring.
“I didn’t see any patients come down from the helipad.” She shook her head in confusion.
“They dropped the patient off in Switzerland. A little kid. Five, maybe six years old—broke his leg. Compound fracture. Tib-fib job. Massive blood loss. The mother nearly lost the plot. She was attacking the staff, threatened to kill one of them if they didn’t let her on the helicopt—”
“All right, all right.” Bea held up a hand, feeling a swell of nausea rise and take hold as he painted the picture. “It’s obvious someone’s a bit jealous that he wasn’t out on the rescue squad today.”
“I’m on tomorrow.” Teo gave his hands a quick excited rub. “You can sign up, too, if you like. We do it on rotation, because summers are so busy up here, but you’d probably have to do your first few with James. The man is a right daredevil when’s he’s wearing the old rescue gear. Biscotti?” He held out a plate filled with the oblong biscuits.
“No, grazie. Or, actually...” Maybe it would help settle her stomach. She took one of the crunchy biscuits and gave him a smile.
He gave the door frame a final pat and then was gone.
Bea sank into a nearby chair. As far as she was concerned, Teo could have all her emergency-rescue shifts. About eight weeks, two days and...she glanced at her watch...three hours ago she would have been all over them. High-octane rescues and first-class medical treatment? Amazing experiences.
Experiences she would have to miss now.
Compromising the tiny life inside her while the former love of her life looked on...
She let her head sink into her hands.
Clinica Torpisi wasn’t going to be the healing hideaway she’d been hoping for.
More like hell on earth.
CHAPTER TWO (#u62f58ab4-51a4-5917-861e-c8b3310d59b0)
HE SAW HER across the piazza. Jamie wondered now, having adjusted to the platinum blond hair, how he hadn’t noticed her instantly. He certainly had when she’d walked into Northern General. How could he not have when he’d entered the clinica?
Fathomless chocolate-brown eyes straight out of the Italian-nymph guidebook. Slender. The darkest chestnut hair he’d ever seen. Short, but thick enough to lose his hands in when he wanted to put his fingers against the nape of her soft, swan-like neck. Perfect raspberry-red lips. Olive skin. Carrying herself like royalty.
She was royalty.
He shook his head again.
Little wonder he hadn’t recognized her straight off. He hadn’t wanted to.
A bit of shock.
A splash of denial.
Hope, pain, love, despair... All those things and more made up the roiling ball of conflict burning in his heart. Most of all he just wanted to understand why.
He hitched his trousers onto his hips. She wasn’t the only one who’d lost weight in the past couple of years.
Stop apportioning blame.
The closer he got, the more he wondered what the hell he was doing.
No. That wasn’t true. Ripping off the bandage had become his modus operandi since she’d left. He might as well stick true to his course. Life wasn’t sweet. Might as well get used to it.
“Mind if I join you?”
Beatrice started, as if her thoughts had been a thousand miles away. When she’d pulled him into focus he watched as she searched his face for signs of enmity. He couldn’t say he blamed her. After his performance in the supplies room earlier in the day he’d hardly made a good show of the manners his mother had drilled into him.
“Please...” Beatrice pushed aside a small plate of antipasti and indicated the chair beside her. One from which he could enjoy the stunning lakeside view. One that would seat them side by side, where they wouldn’t have to look into the other’s eyes.
He sank into the chair, grateful for this reprieve from animosity. Perhaps a few hours apart had been what they’d each needed. Time to process.
“Is that a spritzer you’re having?” He pointed at the bright orange drink on the table, the glass beaded with condensation as the final rays of sunlight disappeared behind the mountain peaks beyond the lake.
“No.” She shook her head. “I never liked spritzers. Too...” Her nose crinkled as she sought the right word. “Aftertasty,” she said finally, her lips tipping up into the first suggestion of a smile he’d seen. “Orange soda is my new guilty pleasure. I don’t seem to be able to drink enough of it.”
He was about to launch into the lecture he gave all his patients—too many fizzy drinks were bad for the bones, bad for the brain, bad for the body—but just seeing the tension release from the corners of her eyes as she lifted the glass, put her lips around the red and white stripes of the straw and drew in a cool draught made him swallow it.
He hadn’t come here to deliver a lecture. He had questions. Thousands of questions.
A waiter swooped in, as they all did at this time of day, keen to get as many people as possible their drinks before the early-dining Americans began infiltrating the wide square in advance of the Europeans.
He and Beatrice both bit back smiles at the waiter’s terse “Is that all for signor?” after he’d settled on a sparkling water.
“Going back to the clinic?” Beatrice asked.
“That obvious?”
“Mmm, ’fraid so.” Beatrice looked out toward the square as she spoke. “It would be a glass of Gavi di Gavi if you were finished, wouldn’t it? If...” She hesitated. “If memory serves me right.”
He nodded. Surprised she’d remembered such a silly detail. Then again, there wasn’t a single detail he’d forgotten about her. Maybe...
He rammed his knuckles into his thigh.
Maybe was for other people. He was all about sure things. And Beatrice wasn’t one of them.
Jamie scrubbed a hand along his chin, then scraped his chair around on the stone cobbles until he faced her head-on.
“What are you doing here, Beatrice?”
“Well, that’s a nice way to—” She stopped herself and lifted a hand so that he would give her a moment to think. Say what she really meant to.
Despite himself, he smiled. She’d always been that way. A thinker. Just like him. The more they’d learned about each other, the stronger the pull had been. Interns hadn’t been meant to date residents—but try telling that to two people drawn to each other as magnetically as iron and nitrogen. Weighted and weightless. He’d felt both of those things when he’d been with her. Secure in himself as he’d never been before, and so damn happy he would have sworn his feet hadn’t touched the ground after the first time he’d tasted those raspberry-ripe lips of hers.
“You have read the papers lately, haven’t you?” Beatrice asked eventually.
“I have a hunch that world peace is a long way off, so I tend to steer clear of them.” Jamie leant forward in his chair, elbows pressed to his knees. “C’mon, Beatrice. Quit throwing questions back at me. Why are you in Torpisi?”
She shook her head in disbelief. “You are the one person in the world I wish had read the tabloids and you haven’t!” She threw her hands up in the air and gave a small isn’t-the-world-ridiculous? laugh.
When their eyes met again there was kindness in hers. A tenderness reserved just for him that he might have lived on in a different time and place.
“I never got married.”
She took another sip of her soft drink and looked away as casually as if she’d just told him the time. Or perhaps it was guilt that wouldn’t let her meet his eye.
Jamie blinked a few times, his body utterly stationary, doing its best to ingest the news.
Despite his best efforts to remain neutral, something hardened in him. “Is this some sort of joke?”
She shook her head, seemingly confused about the question.
“Why did you do it?”
“Do what?” It was her turn to look bewildered.
“Oh, well...let’s see, here, love. Quite a few things, now that I come to think of it.”
He spread out his fingers and started ticking them off, his tone level, though his message was heated.
“Up and leave me for a man you didn’t love. Ruin the future we’d planned together. All that to never even see it through?”
He pulled his fingers into tight fists and gave his thighs a quick drumming.
“Is this some sort of cruel game you’re playing, Beatrice?”
He pushed back in his chair and rose, no longer sure he could even look her in the eye.
“If you’re here to rub it in and make sure you made your impact, you can count me out.”
* * *
“Jamie! Wait!”
Bea’s voice sounded harsh to her own ears. As quickly as she’d reached out to stop Jamie from leaving she wished she’d rescinded the invitation, tightly wrapping her arms around herself to brace herself against the shards of ice coursing through her veins.
She’d betrayed too much by calling out to him. Jamie would know better than anyone that there had been pain in her voice. The ache of loss. But what was she going to do? Explain what a fool she’d been? That she’d gone and got herself pregnant at an IVF clinic in advance of her wedding so her family, the press and the whole of Italy could coo and smile over the Prince and the Principessa’s “honeymoon baby”?
She was the only one in the world who knew that her fiancé—her ex-fiancé—was infertile, apart from a doctor whose silence had been bought. She was surprised he’d even told her. Perhaps their family get-togethers had begun to rely a bit too heavily on talk of children running around the palazzo, in order to cover up the obvious fact that neither of them were very much in love.
Their one joint decision: an IVF baby. Keeping it as quiet as possible. A private clinic. More paid-off doctors and nurses. An anonymous donor.
The less anyone knew, the easier it had been to go ahead with it.
Her sole investment in a relationship she had known would never claim her heart. A child... A child who had been meant to bring some light into her life.
Now it just filled her with fear. Confirmation that she’d been a fool to agree to the plan. She no longer had the support of her family and, worse, she would be a single mother in a world where it was already tough enough to survive on her own.
It hadn’t felt that way when she’d been with Jamie. With him she’d felt...invincible.
Relief washed through her when Jamie sat down again, pressing his hips deeper into the chair, his back ramrod straight as he drained his water glass in one fluid draught before deigning to look her in the eye.
“I’m in trouble, Jamie.”
As quickly as he’d tried to leave, Jamie pulled his chair up close, knees wide so they flanked hers, fingers spread as he cupped her face in both his broad hands, searching her eyes for information.
“Are you hurt? Did he hurt you?”
No, but I hurt you.
He used an index finger to swipe at a couple of errant locks of hair so his access to her eyes was unfettered. Against his better judgment—she could see that in his eyes—he traced his finger along the contour of her jawline, coming to a halt, as he had so many times before, before gently cradling the length of her neck as if he were about to lean in and kiss her.
It was like rediscovering her senses all over again. As if part of her had died the day she’d told him she was returning home to marry another man.
She blinked away the rising swell of tears.
Part of her had died that day. The part that believed in love conquering all. The part that believed in destiny.
“Beatrice,” Jamie pressed. “Did he hurt you?”
I was a fool to have left you.
She shook her head, instantly feeling the loss of his touch when he dropped his hands, sat back in his chair and rammed them into his front pockets, as if trying to hide the fact that his long surgeon’s fingers were balled into tight fists. For the second time in as many minutes. Twice as many times as she’d ever seen him make the gesture before.
He’d aged in the years since she’d seen him last. Nothing severe, as if he’d been sick or a decade had passed, but he had changed. His was a proper grown-up male face now, instead of holding the hints of youth she had sometimes seen at the hospital, when he’d caught her looking at him and smiled.
It felt like a million years ago. Hard to believe it was just two short years since he’d been thirty-three and she twenty-eight.
“Just a young lass, you are,” he would say, and laugh whenever she whined about feeling old after a long shift. “Perfect for me,” he’d say, before dropping a surreptitious kiss on her forehead in one of the busy hospital corridors. They’d been little moments in heaven. Perfect.
She closed her eyes against the memory, gave them a rub, then forced herself to confront the present. It was all of her own making, so she might as well see it for what it was. Payback.
A painful price she knew she had to pay when all she really wanted was for him to love her again as he once had.
Impossible.
Sun-tanned crinkles fanned out from Jamie’s eyes, which she still wasn’t quite brave enough to meet. The straw gold of his hair was interwoven with a few threads of silver. At the temples, mostly. More than she thought a man of thirty-five should have.
But what would she know? When she grew her dyed hair out again it might all be gray after the level of stress she’d endured these past few weeks. It was a wonder she hadn’t lost the baby.
Her hands automatically crept to her stomach, one folding protectively over the other.
“Did he hurt you?” Jamie repeated, the air between them thick with untold truths.
“Only my pride,” she conceded. “He didn’t want me.”
The explanation came out as false, too chirpy. She hadn’t wanted Marco either. What she most likely really owed him was a thank-you letter.
“Can you believe it?” She put on a smile and grinned at the real love of her life, as if having her arranged marriage grind to a halt in front of some of Europe’s most elite families had been the silliest thing to have happened to her in years.
“He should be shot.”
“Jamie...” Bea shook her head. “Don’t be—” She huffed out a lungful of frustration, then unfolded her arms from their tight cinch across her chest, visible proof she was trying her best to be honest with him. Open. Vulnerable. “Mi scusi. I’m sorry. I don’t have any right to tell you what to feel.”
“You’re damn right you don’t,” he shot back, but with less venom than before.
Something in her gave. He deserved to vent whatever amount of spleen he needed to.
“Serves you right” was probably lurking there in his throat. Along with a bit of “now you know how it feels” followed by a splash of “what goes around comes around” as a chaser.
She deserved the venom—and more.
After a moment had passed, with each of them silently collecting their thoughts, Jamie reached across and took one of her hands in his, weaving their fingers together as naturally as if they’d never been apart.
A million tiny sparks lit up inside her. A sensation she’d never once felt with her ex-fiancé.
Obligation didn’t elicit rushes of desire. She’d learned that the hard way.
“Talk to me, Beatrice.”
His voice was gentle. Kind. His thumb rubbed along the back of her hand as his features softened, making it clear he was present—there just for her.
In that instant she felt he was back. The man she’d met and fallen in love with in the corridors of a busy inner-city hospital tucked way up in the North of England. Their entire worlds had been each other and medicine.
She vividly remembered the first time she’d seen him. So English! Male. He’d exuded...capability. So refreshing after a lifetime of worrying about etiquette and decorum and the thousands of other silly little things that had mattered to her mother and not one jot to her. Surviving finishing school had been down to Fran. Without her... She didn’t even want to think about it.
She glanced up at Jamie. His eyes were steady...patient... She knew as well as he did that he would wait all evening if he needed to.
She lifted her gaze just in time to see the topmost arc of the sun disappear behind the mountain peaks.
“Maybe we could walk?” she suggested.
He nodded, unlacing his fingers from hers as he rose.
She curled one hand around the other in a ridiculous attempt to save the sensation.
He pointed toward the far end of the piazza. “Let’s go out along the lake. Have you been to the promenade yet? Seen the boats?”
She shook her head. She’d had enough of boats and morning sickness over the past few weeks to last a lifetime. She agreed to the route anyway. It wasn’t as if this was meant to be easy.
* * *
Every part of Jamie itched to reach out and touch Beatrice. Hold her hand. Put a protective arm around her shoulder. There was something incredibly fragile about her he wasn’t sure he’d seen before. She was nursing something more than a chink in her pride. And all the rage he’d thought would come to the fore if he ever found himself in her orbit again... It was there, all right. It just wasn’t ready to blow.
Instinct told him to take things slowly. And then start digging. A verbal attack would elicit nothing. As for a physical attack... If that man had laid one finger on her—
“How are you settling in here? Everyone at the clinic helping you get your bearings?”
Beatrice nodded enthusiastically. “I love it. All one day of it, that is.”
He smiled at the note of genuine happiness in her voice. Excellent. The staff were making her feel at home. He fought the need to press her. To get her to spill everything. Explain how she’d found it so easy to break his heart.
“Your contract is...?”
“For the rest of the summer. I guess one of the early-summer staffers left before expected?”
“No.” He shook his head. “She had a baby. Worked right up until her due date.”
“Ah...”
Beatrice’s gaze jumped from boat to boat moored along the quayside. Families and groups of friends were spilling out onto the promenade to find which restaurant they’d eat in tonight.
“I suppose she’ll be coming back, then, after maternity leave. Although I did tell your colleague, Dr. Brandisi, that I would be happy to extend if the clinic loses any essential staff after the season ends.”
“It waxes and wanes up here. There’ll be a time when the summer wraps up where we hit a lull, and then ski season brings in another lot. It’s usually all right with just the bare minimum of hands on deck.”
Beatrice threw a quick smile his way, her lips still pressed tight, so he continued. “Mostly Italians to start, then Swiss, German, Austrian... A complete pick ’n’ mix at the height of the season.”
That was why he liked it. Nothing stayed the same. Change was the only thing keeping him afloat since he’d finally faced facts and left Northern General. Everything about that place had reminded him of Beatrice. And then, after Elisa... That had been the hardest time of death he’d ever had to call.
He swallowed and pushed his finger through a small pool of lake water on the square guard railing, visibly dividing it in two.
Everything leaves its mark. And nothing stays the same.
Those were the two lessons he’d learned after Beatrice had left. Now was the time to prove it.
He rubbed his hands together and belatedly returned her smile. “So! What sort of cases have you had today? Anything juicy?”
They might as well play My Injuries Were Worse Than Yours until she was ready to talk.
The tension in Beatrice’s shoulders eased and she relaxed into a proper smile. “Actually, all my cases have been really different to what I treated at home in Venice. With all the recreational sports up here I’m seeing all sorts of new things. It’s made a great change.”
He felt his jaw shift at the mention of “home.” Home—for a few months at the end of their relationship, at least—had been their tiny little apartment, around the corner from the hospital. The one they’d vowed to stay in until they could afford one of the big, rambling stone homes on the outer reaches of the city. One of those houses that would fall apart if someone didn’t give it some TLC. The kind of house where there’d be plenty of room for children to play. Not that they’d talked about the two boys and two girls they’d hoped to have one day. Much.
Let it go, Jamie. It was all just a pipe dream.
“Were you still working in trauma? When you came back to Italy?” he added.
“Off and on.” She nodded. “But mostly I was working in a free clinic for refugees. So many people coming in on boats...”
“With all your language skills you must’ve been a real asset. Were you based in Venice?” He might as well try to visualize some sort of picture.
“Just outside. On the mainland.” She stopped farther along the railing, where the view to the lake and the mountains beyond was unimpeded by boats, and drew in a deep breath, curling her fingers around the cool metal until her knuckles were pale.
The deepening colors of the early-evening sky rendered the lake a dark blue—so dark it was hard to imagine how deep it might be. Fathomless.
“It was relentless. Working there. The poverty. The sickness. The number of lives lost all in the pursuit of a dream.”
“Happiness?” he asked softly.
“Freedom.”
When she turned to him the hit of connection was so powerful he almost stumbled. It was as if she was trying to tell him something. That her moving back to Italy had been a mistake? That she wished she could turn back time as much as he did?
“Do you miss it? Working at the refugee clinic?” he qualified.
If she was going to up and leave again, he had to know. Had to reassemble the wall he’d been building brick by brick around his heart only to have the foundations crumble to bits when she’d walked back into his life.
She turned her head, resting her chin on her shoulder, and looked at him.
“No.” Her head shook a little. “I mean, it was obviously rewarding. But I don’t miss being there. Venice...”
Something in him gave. His breath began filling his lungs a bit more deeply.
“What drew you up here to our little Alpine retreat?”
He leant against the railing, unsurprised to see her give him a sideways double take.
Nice one, Jamie. Super casual. Not.
“I used to come up here to one of my cousins’ places. Skiing. The next valley over, actually,” she corrected herself, then continued, her eyes softening into a faraway smile. “One year I brought Fran with me. Remember Francesca? My mad friend from America? I don’t think you met her, but she was—” Beatrice stopped, the smile dropping from her eyes. “We saw each other recently. She’s getting married.”
“Ah.” Jamie nodded.
What was he meant to say to that? Congratulations, I wish I was, too? He elbowed the rancorous thoughts away and reharnessed himself to the light-banter variety of conversational tactics.
“Wasn’t there something about finishing school and a giggle-laden walk of shame before the term was out? Mussed-up white gloves or something?”
“We snuck away one day.” Beatrice feigned a gasp of horror. “Away from the ‘good’ set.”
“You mean the ‘crowned cotillion crowd’?” he asked without thinking twice.
Beatrice had been so contemptuous of them then. The group of titled friends and extended family who seemed to drift across Europe together in packs. Hunting down the next in place, the next big thing so they could put their mark on it, suck it dry, then leave. The exact type of person she’d left him for. Oh, the irony.
When he looked across to see if his comment had rankled he was surprised to see another small cynical smile in Beatrice’s dark eyes.
Huh. Maybe she’d softened. Saw things now she hadn’t before. Not that he and Beatrice had ever “hung with the crowd.” Nor any crowd, for that matter. They had been a self-contained unit.
It had never once occurred to him that she was keeping him at arm’s length from the affluent, titled set she’d grown up with. He’d never considered himself hung up on his low-income upbringing. The opposite, if anything. Proud. He was from a typical Northern family. Typical of his part of the North anyway. Father down the mines. Mother working as a dinner lady at the local primary school. Brother and sister had followed suit, but he’d been the so-called golden boy. Scholarships to private schools. Oxford University. An internship at London’s most prestigious pediatric hospital before he’d returned to the part of the country he’d always called home.
Meeting and falling in love with Beatrice had just been part of the trajectory. Local boy falls in love with princess. Only that hadn’t been the way it had played out at all. He hadn’t known about Beatrice’s past for—had it been a year? Maybe longer. Those two years at Northern General had been like living in a cocoon. Nestled up there in the part of the country he knew and loved best, hoping he’d spend each and every day of the rest of his life with Beatrice by his side.
He cleared his throat. “Sorry—you were saying about your friend?”
“Si—yes.” Bea gave her head a shake, as if clearing away her own memories. “She’s staying in Italy. Fallen in love with an Italian.”
“Happens to the best of us.”
Beatrice looked away.
He hadn’t meant to say that. Not in that way. Not with anger lacing the words.
“It’s a magical place up here. I’m glad I came,” she said at last.
He nodded, turning to face the view. Despite the summer, snow still capped the high Alpine ridges soaring above the broad expanse of blue that was one of Europe’s most beautiful high-altitude lakes.
“You know there’s a little island out there?”
“Really? Uninhabited?”
“Quite the opposite. There’s a group of monks. A small group living there... It’s quite a beautiful retreat. Stone and wood. Simple rooms. Cells, they call them.”
“Sounds more like a prison than a place of worship.” Beatrice’s eyebrows tugged together, but her expression was more curious than judgmental.
“No. The simplicity is its beauty. Gives you plenty of time to think.”
He should know. He’d spent long enough in one of those cells, just staring at the stone walls until he could find a way to make sense of the world again. The friary was the reason he’d chosen to come here in the first place. He’d needed to hide away from the world for a while and atone for—he still didn’t know what.
Failing himself?
Not fighting hard enough for Elisa’s life?
Not fighting hard enough for Beatrice?
Those two years they’d spent together in England felt like a lifetime ago. He’d felt...vital—full of the joys of life. In his prime. When she’d told him she didn’t want him anymore he’d just shut down. “Fine,” he had said, and pointed toward the door. What are you waiting for?
He sure as hell hadn’t found any answers when she’d taken him up on his offer.
And he was certain there hadn’t been any when Elisa had died.
He’d found a modicum of peace when he’d gone out to that tiny island friary.
When one of the monks had fallen ill he’d brought him to the clinic here on the lakeside, had accepted the odd shift and found himself, bit by bit, coming back to life. Part of him wondered if the monk had been faking it. And when the clinic “just happened” to mention they needed full-time staff he’d thrown his hat into the ring. He’d been there almost a year now and—as strange as it sounded for a village several hundreds of years old—he felt a part of the place.
“They make some sort of famous Christmas cake—a special sort of panettone. I’m surprised you haven’t heard of it.”
“The Friars of Torpisi!” Beatrice clapped her hands together, her eyes lighting up as the dots connected. “Of course. I had some last Natale.”
Again that faraway look stole across her face.
What happened to you, my love?
Jamie scrubbed a hand through his hair before stuffing both hands into his pockets again.
Perhaps some questions were best left unanswered.
CHAPTER THREE (#u62f58ab4-51a4-5917-861e-c8b3310d59b0)
“HOW CAN YOU do that?” Bea asked, finally pressing herself into the entire point of the walk. Laying her cards on the table.
“Do what?”
Jamie glanced over at her, his green eyes actively searching her face while the rest of his body remained turned toward the lake.
“Be so forgiving.”
“I hardly think I’m being forgiving. We’ve got to work together. It’d be a shame to lose a good doctor because of water under the bridge.”
Jamie’s hands disappeared behind his back. Whether he was crossing his fingers to cover the lie or polishing a fist to take it out on a wall later, she didn’t know. Either way it was a hard hit to take.
Water under the bridge.
No chance of reconciliation. Not that she had done a single solitary thing to earn his love, much less earn it a second time.
Even so...would it be crazy to take it as an olive branch?
“So you’re not going to fire me?”
He looked at her as if she’d gone mad. “Is that what you think this is about? I may be a lot of things, but I’m hardly a sadist, my love.”
A surprised laugh escaped her throat. “I can think of a thousand other things you could call me besides—” She stopped, finding herself completely unable to repeat the words.
My love.
A thousand times she’d said them once. More. An infinity of moments she’d closed down all in the name of tradition.
“Why aren’t you married?”
Shocked at the bluntness of his question, Bea froze as her mind raced for the right answer. The truth might push him away even further. Yank back his olive branch.
Just tell him. You owe him that much.
“The most immediate answer is that he was cheating on me.”
Color flooded Jamie’s face. The show of emotion meant more to her than she could say.
She continued before she could think better of it. “So I gave him back his ring and told him the wedding was off.”
Jamie’s shoulders broadened as he pressed himself to his full height. “He’d better have left the country if he knows what’s good for him.”
“He has.” She had to laugh. “He’s taken his new lover on our honeymoon.”
“The tabloids must be loving that.”
Jamie laughed, too, but she could see he was far from amused.
“I’ve been doing my best to avoid the tabloids.”
“Probably just as well.”
“Why? Have you heard something?”
“No, no.” He held up his hands. “I hate those things as much as you do. They’re...toxic.”
“You’ve got that right.”
He leant against the railing, his back to the view, and folded his arms across his chest. “You don’t seem that upset for someone whose fiancé has ripped her future into tatters.”
It’s so much more complicated than I ever imagined it would be.
“I think you and I both know I never loved him.”
There it was. The real truth. Whether or not it would make Jamie hate her more, or ultimately find a way to forgive her, only time would tell.
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