Tempted by Her Italian Surgeon Page 16

  ‘I know. I understand that. Who does? Have you ever thought that perhaps, just perhaps, we could have had a…what did you call it?…symbiotic pathway? Walk it together? Be ourselves and yet part of something?’

  She thought of her mum and her flatmate and of the weekend and of how desperately she’d ached for Matteo when he hadn’t been there. How he had become the focus of her thoughts. ‘Everything I’ve ever seen has shown me that independence becomes interdependence and then dependence. I don’t want to depend on anyone. That wouldn’t be me. I don’t want to be like that.’

  He huffed out an exasperated breath. ‘It doesn’t have to be like that. I know plenty of people who have managed to have happy relationships. You don’t even want to take the risk.’

  Please, don’t ask again. Because I might just say yes. ‘No, Matteo. I don’t. For both of our sakes. It wouldn’t be fair.’ She turned away from him, unable to keep looking at those dark eyes that drew her in so deep. ‘Okay. I’ll go, if you insist. But I won’t say I’ve won. I don’t even want to think about that.’ This was no victory at all. ‘I think we’ve both won. And lost. And now I’m talking in circles. I’ll just go.’

  ‘Yes. Please.’

  She went to leave, biting back the shout, I want you. Please, don’t do this. Fighting back tears, knowing that stopping this before it became too intense, too hard to handle, too overpowering was the very right thing to do, even though her heart told her otherwise. But she hadn’t achieved all those amazing things in her life by listening to her heart. So it had no right to interfere now.

  Her head bobbed a little as she leaned towards the door. She was going.

  ‘Ivy. Stop.’ Matteo felt the blood boiling through his veins. This was not the best way to start a difficult day in the OR. This was not how he had planned this conversation to go. He had been going to ban her from the theatre, yes, but he hadn’t wanted to see her look so accepting of his rejection. So vulnerable. ‘This…this is… Just listen, you’re making me say things I don’t mean. You’re making me crazy.’

  She turned a little, her eyes brighter. Her mouth made a tentative attempt at a smile, but it just looked sad. ‘I know, and that’s the biggest problem of all. Apparently it doesn’t get any better with age. So my mum says, and she should know.’

  ‘She is better now?’

  ‘She’s exactly the same as always. With a slightly damaged heart. But haven’t we all?’

  He laughed. He actually laughed. Right in the middle of this…break-up of something that wasn’t even a whole of anything. He laughed. Because she was impressive, this woman. She was more than impressive. She had shown up today knowing that it would be the hardest thing to face him, but she had done it anyway. She had kept her sorrows to herself. She had hidden her emotions and kept on working. It was either admirable or downright destructive. Or both.

  And no matter what words came out of his mouth the feelings remained the same. He was awash with anger at her decision, with joy at knowing the real woman underneath the hard veneer, with a frustration that she was so damned private. With pride that she’d chosen him to take to bed, to tell her secrets to when she’d been ready. With a yearning for more and more and more, and he didn’t know what any of that meant.

  And then he did. The pieces began to slip into place.

  He had fallen in love with her. Of all the women in the damned hospital, in the damned city, in the whole damned world to fall in love with, he had chosen the most complicated, stubborn, uptight one of all. And now she was walking away and there was nothing he could do or say to make her stop because she didn’t believe she could do it. She didn’t believe that love could happen for her.

  And so this was what he was left with: he loved her and he didn’t know what to do with it. He didn’t want to love her. He didn’t want to like her even. Because, oh, mio Dio, she could be very difficult and all she cared about was her work.

  Like him. Like he used to be.

  He turned away and tried to steady himself. Panic swirled in his gut. He had protected himself for years against this. But, it seemed, it was something you could not fight in the end.

  ‘Ciao, Matteo. And thank you for everything. It was a hell of a lot better than nice.’ She was going. Leaving, because he had made her go. His mind began to swirl too. Why this? Why now? Why, in hell, her? But the only answers were right in front of his eyes.

  ‘Wait.’

  Taking too many steps closer to her, he touched her cheek. Pulled her to him. And he felt hesitation. For a moment he thought she might push him away, but instead she dragged him to her, clamped her mouth hard against his.

  ‘Matteo…’

  She was in his arms and the emotions filled his chest thick and heavy and yet weightless, and he tried to hold them back but they just kept coming, rising and filling him with this urgent need. ‘Ivy, ti amo.’

  And he hoped she did not understand or hear him, because the moment he’d said those words he’d known it was the wrong thing to say. The last thing he should do was open his heart to her.

  Then he was kissing her again. A rough, hard kiss filled with every damned ounce of emotion he had in him, and she was kissing him back with just as much. With anger. With joy and frustration that they just wouldn’t work, because she didn’t want them to.

  And because that had been the one startlingly honest thing she had said, he kissed her some more.

  ‘Okay, people, let’s get going. Oh. God. Sorry. Oops. Bad timing.’

  It was Nancy. Matteo winced. Now, to add humiliation to Ivy’s list of worries, their privately public display would definitely be hospital gossip.

  Ivy jerked away, the space where she’d been in his arms now just a heavy emptiness. She was swiping her hand across her mouth. Then she was gone. Along with his hope.

  He looked around for something to kick, to hit, to assuage these feelings of hurt and anger and…this new feeling of love. But there was a surge of people into the adjoining room. A child who needed an operation. A family waiting for his skills. A team needing to be led. So he just balled his hands into fists and took a minute to let the emotions wash through him.

  His heart was as empty as his arms. Because he knew, with certainty, that she would never come back. That he had lost her. Because she had never known such a thing as love and she was so desperately in need of it but, oh, so afraid. And now he had lost it too.

  * * *

  ‘Well done. You were great in there! Scary, but great.’ Becca gave Ivy a high five as they walked away from the sexual harassment tribunal. The wind had dropped and the afternoon was promising to be unseasonably warm. They took the shortcut through Regent’s Park back towards the hospital, dodging what appeared to be some kind of kiddie fun run event as they walked. ‘You knew exactly what you were doing, and you wiped the floor with his defence.’

  Ivy smiled. Ah, the naivety of the inexperienced. ‘I just let the evidence speak for itself. There really wasn’t anything he could say in the face of three witnesses.’ But Becca was right. She had felt like a fight this morning. In fact, she had felt like a fight quite a lot recently. She put it down to lack of sleep. Which in turn was a result of… She wouldn’t think about it. She wouldn’t think about him any more. It was too exhausting. Too damaging to ache and want and dream, and need someone so badly. She just needed to focus on work some more and he’d be gone from her brain soon. He would.

  The trouble was, almost a week on and he was still there, looming large inside her head.

  ‘But you just kept on. You were epic. I started to feel a bit sorry for him by the end. You needled and needled until he admitted everything.’ Becca put her hand on Ivy’s arm. ‘Girl crush alert. I think I’d like to be you when I grow up.’

  ‘Oh, no, you wouldn’t. Believe me. I do everything wrong.’

  Becca shook her head. ‘What? You just won a case, you did that right. You want to celebrate?’ They’d stopped outside a café, the smell of strong dark coffee irresistible.
And, for some reason, Ivy felt like staying a while, not rushing back. The thought of her stuffy office was nothing compared to the fresh air, the kids’ squeals and cheers as they crossed the finishing line. Ivy envied them their innocence.

  ‘Okay. A quick one.’

  Ivy placed the order and found Becca sitting at an outside table, swatting a large bee away. ‘I asked them to be quick. Shouldn’t be too long.’

  ‘Doesn’t matter if it is. To be honest, with the hours you’ve put in this week you’re owed a small break and… Oh, don’t they look pretty? So fresh and gorgeous.’ Becca was pointing towards a carpet of red and white flowers. ‘Tulips? I never know the names of flowers.’

  Ivy pulled out her notepad. ‘So, about tomorrow’s course. Are you sure you can handle it? You know the schedule?’

  Becca rolled her eyes. ‘We’ve been over and over this. Yes, I can handle it. It’s only the wrap-up, question time and feedback. It won’t be hard. But, you know, I did just point out that absolutely stunning tulip bed over there, and can you smell that divine smell? There are some seriously beautiful plants here but you don’t appear to notice them. Or anything out of the confines of your office.’

  Becca inhaled and looked a little apprehensive. ‘I wasn’t going to say anything, but I can’t let you go on like this. I know you’re not running tomorrow’s social media course because Dr Peachy Bum will be there…but I don’t know why. What on earth happened?’

  ‘Becca. Please.’ Ivy didn’t need this. She was coping just fine, and would continue to do so as long as she didn’t have to speak about it. Or think about him. ‘I have an unavoidable meeting with the board tomorrow, you know that.’

  ‘You could have rearranged it. Said you had an important previous appointment. And, yes, I’m overstepping again, but I’m worried about you. Seriously. You’ve been head down all week, locked in your office until all hours—and I know you think we all believe you’re working, but I can see straight through you. There’s not much more done than this time last week.’

  ‘There is. I would never let anything interfere with my work.’ Had she? Had she spent time staring out the window? Yes. But that had been critical thinking time. Had she thought about Matteo at all?

  Okay, yes. She’d thought about little else. She missed him. Missed having his arms wrapped around her, missed feeling able to tell him anything. Missed his smile and his laugh and…okay, yes. She missed his bum too.

  Becca tapped her finger on the tabletop. ‘Besides, there are doodles…incriminating doodles…’

  ‘What?’

  ‘In your bin. Words, doodles, hearts. Tear-stained hearts…’

  And Ivy had thought she’d managed to hide them away at the bottom of the rubbish bin. Hearts. Yeah, right. It was all fluff and nonsense and wishful thinking. ‘You are seriously deranged. Either that or you’ll go far in this profession—observation and attention to detail are key.’ For a moment Ivy thought Becca might explode with such an admission of excited suspicion. ‘But sorry to disappoint you, there weren’t any tears, I just spilled my water—’

  Becca’s voice dropped and softened. ‘Something happened, something momentous, and you think you can hide it all. But you can’t. Guess what? You’re human, Ivy, and you’re allowed to bleed.’

  Sure, but what if it never stops? ‘It wasn’t… I didn’t…’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  The coffee came and it was satisfactory, but not as nice as the one Matteo had bought for her that day he’d kissed her in the staffroom. Seemed she couldn’t do the most mundane of things without thinking about him. Fade, please, memory. Fade. But it didn’t fade, it just sent shooting pains to her chest instead. ‘I can’t talk about it.’

  Replacing her cup in its saucer, Becca shook her head. ‘Okay. Fine. Spend all your days solving everyone else’s problems just so you don’t have to think about your own.’

  Like her mother? ‘That’s not why I do this job.’

  Her assistant’s eyebrows rose. ‘Really?’

  ‘No. I do it because I want everyone to get a fair go. I love this job.’ Although recently it hadn’t held her attention quite as much as it always had. And she knew the reason. She just wasn’t ready to admit it. She wanted more in her life than files and injunctions and other people’s messes. She wanted a chance at her own happy mess. Hugo had filled a little space, but she ached for more.

  For Matteo.

  Becca ran her finger round the froth in her cup and licked. ‘You love being needed here. Does it…does it stop you from needing something else? Love? A peachy—?’

  ‘Stop it. I should fire you for insubordination.’

  ‘Well, you could, but that would mean you’d have to do tomorrow’s course on your own.’

  Panic twisted in her stomach. ‘I can’t see him, Becca. I just can’t.’

  Becca breathed out and smiled reassuringly. ‘Sure you can.’

  ‘I can?’ Yes, of course she could. He was just a man. She was fine. ‘I don’t think I can.’

  ‘So you had a thing?’

  Oh, what was the point in denying it? She knew any secrets shared would stay with Becca. She shrugged. ‘A small one.’

  ‘Wait, though, you look crushed. You’ve been so hyped up recently. Oh, Ivy…it wasn’t small at all. Was it? Not for you.’ Her hand slid across the table to Ivy’s shaking one. ‘You’ve fallen in love with him?’

  Do not cry. Do not cry. Do not cry. ‘I haven’t got time to do anything like that. I have a busy job—’

  ‘You do. You love him.’

  ‘And there are a lot of long hours involved. I have to review all the employment contracts starting from next Monday—’

  Becca patted her hand. ‘It’s okay, you know. It’s okay to be frightened. It’s okay to meet someone halfway. You don’t have to give all this up. You can do both. People do both.’

  ‘And then…’ Ivy stopped talking. Simply because there was a rock in her throat that she couldn’t squeeze words past. But she thought about her life. How she’d been forging forward her whole life because she so wanted people to take her seriously. Wanted people to notice her for the right reasons, and not because she couldn’t walk properly. And he had. Matteo had plucked her from the three billion women on the planet and had made her feel important. He’d given her the one thing she’d craved all her life. And it scared her so much. That responsibility, just taking what he was offering, it was overwhelming… Man, she was so scared. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Yes, what?’

  And she thought about her sleepless nights, and about how much she missed him. How she had never wanted to believe all that you complete me guff, but she could see how it could be possible that one person could make you more whole, better, stronger than before. That plenty of people weren’t like her mum, plenty of people had happy stable lives that they shared very successfully. It was a question of finding the right person for you.

  That person was Matteo. Her heart softened a little at the thought of him. And then filled with panic at the thought that she’d lost him already. ‘Yes. I think I love him. I don’t know for sure, but I think I could. I’d like to try.’ And that scared her the most.

  ‘Hallelujah. Great. Finally, we have a breakthrough.’ Becca raised her hands to the sky and cheered. ‘But does he love you back?’

  ‘I sincerely doubt it after everything I’ve said and done to stop that happening. He thinks I’m selfish and self-centred and only think about my work.’

  ‘Hmm, clearly the man’s a good judge of character.’ Becca flashed a smile. ‘Seriously, though, did he ever do anything that might make you think he felt the same?’

  Ivy thought about the kisses and the night of lovemaking, and driving her all that way home in the rain, and just the simple, sweet look in his eyes when he talked to her. The kisses, though—they couldn’t lie about the way he felt. No one could kiss like that and not mean it. ‘Yes. Lots and lots.’

  ‘So sh
ow him that you’re all of those things and so much more. You’re driven and dedicated and passionate. Italians like that.’

  ‘He does.’ And for the first time in for ever Ivy began to feel a little glimmer of hope blooming in her chest. She breathed deeply, the gorgeous scent of some exotic plant catching in her throat. He was right, there was so much more to life than work. There was him, Matteo Finelli. And her, Poison Ivy. Maybe they could try to be part of something. Something together. ‘But I really messed up. I just need to find a way to convince him.’

  Becca punched the air. ‘Yes! If anyone can, you can. Why don’t you just march right up to him and tell him?’

  Because she wasn’t that brave. ‘Because he’s the kind of man who judges by actions. I know him, Becca, he’s tired of all my words. He was hurt badly once by a girl who said she loved him but acted otherwise. She broke his heart and he’s waited all this time to take a chance on someone else. And when he did it backfired and he’s retreated to lick his wounds. It’s enough for me to accept that I love him, but I need to work out a way to prove it to him.’

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  IT WAS LATE. The transplant he’d just finished on a thirteen-year-old girl had been very difficult but she was recovering well. He had pre-op blood results to go through for the list tomorrow and an informal ward round to complete. He had a headache. And heartache. And he wanted to go to bed.

  But to top off the day from hell, someone had organised a night walk through Regent’s Park to raise money for the department. Tonight. For a dialysis machine. So he was duty bound to attend.

  ‘Wow, what’s happening?’ Regent’s Park was one of his usual running spots but as he approached it he was surprised at the size of the crowd. Everywhere he looked he saw people; adults, kids, baby strollers, all dressed up in green, a surging emerald sea. Getting closer, he heard clapping start. Quietly at first, but with every step he took it got louder and louder. And then he began to recognise faces. Joey’s mum and dad. Portia, who he’d operated on last year, and her family. Mathilde. Ahmed. Benjamin. All these familiar faces greeting him with cheers and smiles. What the hell? Why were they clapping?