her heart. She wasn’t sure if it was the lack of food or the lack of sleep but she felt irrationally angry.
Was this man schizophrenic? Was he some sort of Jekyll and Hyde? How could he offer Ernie’s wife, a relative stranger, the comfort he denied his own child?
He’d shown this family, this previously unknown collection of people, more sensitivity, more emotion, than he’d displayed for his four-year-old son. Yesterday she’d thought he was emotionally crippled. Grieving for his wife. Today, as they’d walked to do this, she’d worried about it again. Worried about his ability to empathise when he was buried under the weight of his own grief.
But it wasn’t the case. He was obviously a brilliant emergency physician with a fabulous bedside manner. He just didn’t take it home with him. To the most important person in the world. To his own child. To his son.
They left Ernie’s family after about twenty minutes and Nat had never been more pleased to be shed of a person in her life. She steamed ahead, knowing if she didn’t get away from him she would say something she would regret.
Alessandro frowned as Nat forged ahead. She seemed upset and as much as he didn’t want anything to do with the woman who could almost have been Camilla’s twin, they worked together and he knew that sudden death, such as they’d both just been part of, took its toll.
He caught her up. ‘Are you okay?’
‘Fine.’ She repeated her response from earlier.
Except she wasn’t. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that something was bothering her. He grabbed her arm to prevent her walking away any further. ‘I don’t think you are.’
Nat looked at his bronzed hand on her pale arm. She looked at him. Oh, Senor, you really don’t want to mess with me now. She pulled her arm away but he tightened his grip.
Heat radiated from his hand and spread up her arm to her breasts and belly. Damn it, she did not want to feel like this. Not now. She was mad. Furious. She sucked in a breath, ragged from her brisk walk and the rage bubbling beneath the surface.
They were standing in the corridor facing each other and it was as if time stood still around them and they were the only two people on the planet. Nat couldn’t believe how it was possible to want to shake someone and totally pash their lips off at the same time.
‘I’m fine.’ The denial was low and guttural.
Alessandro could see the agitated rise and fall of her chest, see the colour in her cheeks. His gaze drifted to her mouth, her parted lips enticing.
He dragged his gaze away. ‘I don’t believe you. I know these cases can be difficult—’
Nat’s snort ripped through his words and gave her mouth something else to do other than beg for his kiss. ‘You think this is about Ernie?’ She stared into his handsome face, at his peppered jaw line. How could she want someone who was so bloody obtuse?
‘It’s not?’
Nat snorted again and she knew she couldn’t hold it back any longer. ‘Tell me, how is it that you can reach out and hold a stranger’s hand and yet you can’t offer your own son the same comfort?’
Alessandro froze at the accusation in her words. He dropped his hand from her arm as if he’d suddenly discovered she was suffering from the ebola virus. Nat watched his black ice eyes chill over as he paled beneath his magnificent bronze complexion. But she was on a roll now and she’d come this far.
‘Nothing to say?’ she taunted.
‘Oh, I think you’ve said enough for both of us. Don’t you?’
And before she knew it he’d turned on his heel, his rapidly departing figure storming along the corridor ahead.
She sucked in a breath, her body quivering from anger and something else even more primitive. She guessed she should feel chastised but she couldn’t. If he could show this level of compassion at work, even if it was just an act, he sure as hell could show it at home.
If she could save Julian from the emotional wasteland she’d trodden, trying to please her father throughout her childhood, then she would. Attraction or no attraction.
So, no. She hadn’t said enough. Not nearly enough. Not by a long shot.
Chapter Two
TWO weeks later Brisbane was in the throes of an unremitting heatwave. The power grid couldn’t keep up with consumer demand for ceiling fans and 24-hour-a-day air-conditioning. Tempers were short. Road rage, heat stroke and dehydration were rampant.
Even in a city that regularly sweltered each summer, the temperatures were extreme. But this was spring and totally ironic when the other side of the world battled the looming pandemic of a horrible new strain of influenza and unseasonal snow was causing general havoc.
Nat actually looked forward to stepping through the doors of St Auburn’s and being enveloped in a cool blast of air. Anywhere was better than her hot little box the real estate agent euphemistically called a townhouse in a breezeless suburb blistering beneath the sun’s relentless rays.
Not that it would matter soon, seeing that it looked like she was going to be evicted by the end of the month.
Nat stepped into the crowded lift on the eighth floor, pondering this conundrum yet again. She’d just transferred another heat-stroke victim to the medical ward and was returning to the department. She squeezed in and, noting the ground-floor button had already been pushed, let her mind wander to the phone call she was expecting from the realtor any time now. She would find out today whether she could get an extension on her lease.
It wasn’t until the lift emptied out over the next few floors and she had some more room to move that she was even aware of her fellow travellers. Two more people got out at the fourth floor and she was suddenly aware of there being only one other person left. Big and looming behind her. A strange sixth sense, or possibly foreboding, settled around her and she glanced quickly over her shoulder.
Alessandro Lombardi stared back at her, one dark eyebrow quirked sardonically. Hell. She had only seen him very briefly and at a distance in the last couple of weeks since she’d basically accused him of being a terrible father. He was wearing a pale lemon shirt and a classy orange tie. A stethoscope was slung casually around his neck.
In short he was looking damn fine and her hormones roared to life.
She turned back to the panel, pressing ‘G’ several times as the door slowly shut, her heart beating double time.
A fleeting smile touched Alessandro’s mouth as he stared at her back, her blonde ponytail brushing her collar. It was the first time he’d been close to her since her outburst a little while ago. But he’d certainly heard her name frequently enough. Julian had spoken of little else. He’d heard it so often he’d started to dream about her.
He moved to stand beside her. ‘Good afternoon, Nat.’
Nat took a steadying breath. ‘Dr Lombardi,’ she said, refusing to turn and face him. She jabbed at the ‘G’ several more times—why was this lift so damn slow?
