the clinic door.
Kiki picked up her bag, but he put his hand up to stop her.
‘One sec.’
She paused, looked back, and her stomach sank. She’d been afraid of this.
Will scratched his head. ‘So what’s going on between you two?’
‘Which two?’ She’d hoped nothing had been noticed. Nothing had been said. She hadn’t even looked at Stefano as they’d wheeled Marla out.
Will waited patiently and Kiki felt the blush heat her cheeks. The silence stretched and she didn’t like silence. That was her only excuse for being unable to extricate herself. ‘You mean me and Theros’s brother? Nothing.’ How the heck had Wilhelm sensed that? ‘I don’t know what you mean.’
She switched off a computer she’d thankfully missed at shut-down. An excuse to turn away.
But the flood of memories she’d been holding back all day rose like a wave in her throat. Such rotten timing. She concentrated on her feet, firmly planted on the deck. She was not going under. Control re-established, she turned back to Will, who tilted his head and went on.
‘Come on. I may be a bit oblivious sometimes, but the air was thick between you two and the guy was watching your neck like Dracula on a diet. Nick didn’t mention you knew any royalty?’
Because she’d told no one about her stupidity—not even her closest sibling, and definitely not any of her sisters. ‘Nick has nothing to do with this.’ Because her brother Nick would be out for Stefano’s blood if he knew what the Prince had done to his little sister. ‘Stefano is a surgical consultant I worked with him briefly in Sydney during my last rotation.’
‘You worked with a prince?’
Will looked even more interested, not less, and Kiki could feel the walls of the little clinic begin to close in on her. She didn’t want to think about that time with Stefano, let alone talk about it, but her South African colleague could miss the obvious sometimes.
He proved it. ‘So what happened?’
‘That’s all there is.’ To her horror her eyes filled with tears. Not because of Stefano, but at the thought of the sadness that had been building for this past week.
‘Hey. I’ve upset you.’ Will shook his head. ‘Sorry. I just want you to know I’m here to listen if you need an ear.’ He raised his hands in defence. ‘I promised Nick I’d look out for you.’
Don’t mention this to Nick. But if she said it out loud it would be the first thing he’d do. ‘I’m a big girl, Will. I don’t want to talk about it. Don’t need to talk about it.’
Even she could hear the over-reaction. She sighed. Too vehement.
She turned away to wipe at the tear that had slid out against her will. ‘Sorry—water under the bridge, that’s all.’
‘Well, if he gives you a hard time just let me know,’ Will said gruffly, and she nodded and fled.
CHAPTER TWO
WHEN KIKI FINALLY fell asleep that night her dreams were filled with the sensation of being lost and alone, and always in the distance was Stefano, turned the other way and choosing not to see her.
When she woke she had tears on her cheeks, and despite the sun streaming in she was so exhausted she wanted to roll over and bury her head. Her shift didn’t start until eleven but she wouldn’t get back to sleep.
Through the open window she could hear the mooring crew as they secured the ship to the wharf in Naples, and she lay on her bunk and felt the ship creak and strain against its ropes.
And that made her think of yesterday’s latex session gone wrong.
Unwillingly, she felt her lips curve—which wasn’t a bad thing considering the night—and she knew at some stage she would have to share the story—names changed to protect the innocent—with her closest sibling. Nick would certainly enjoy the sense of the ridiculous.
She still didn’t get why Stefano was on his brother’s holiday.
From the brief mention Stefano had made of Aspelicus, Kiki gathered the island, once home to an ancient Greek school of physicians, a splinter school similar to the one on the more southern island of Asclepius, was a beautiful cliff-edged principality, with a harbour originally on the trade routes as a safe haven.
She’d spent hours online and discovered it had grown more Italian and French since its Greek heritage, and that its royal family were far more famous than she’d realised.
She’d been a fool. Of course Stefano had not returned for a brief fling he’d once had in the Antipodes.
His family had developed a stronghold in spices and teas from China, and the tiny monarchy had become incredibly wealthy. Now it was thriving on the sale of gourmet olive oil from the trees that dotted the hills, its cash flow supplemented by high-roller casinos and its own world-famous horse race along the lines of neighbouring Monaco’s, which had its Grand Prix, and a borrowed idea from its neighbour to become a tax haven for residents.
On the other side of the island a sprawling low-rise hospital had gained international recognition for reconstructive surgery, with Stefano as its director.
The royal family could be traced back a thousand years, but somewhere each generation held a physician who had been available for the poorer people, as well as those who could pay.
It had all sounded incredibly romantic even from the few facts Stefano had shared with her.
She had waited for him to return.
But he hadn’t.
She could remember as if it were yesterday when she’d applied for the job on the Sea Goddess, her brother’s old ship.
Kiki had always idolised her gorgeous, crazy showman of a big brother—the only one of her high-achieving siblings who understood her.
She never had found out what had precipitated Nick’s escape from reality but for herself it was wanting something totally different from the empty nursery she’d created for a child that would never come.
She’d never shared her loss with anyone. She hadn’t been able to share with the absent Stefano, and she’d thought an ordinary cruise ship the last place she would find him and reopen wounds.
Unlike her older sisters, Nick had seen she wasn’t herself and cheered her on. So she’d started on the hospitality side of the ship, which had forced her to return to her usual outgoing self, the person she’d lost for a while, and she’d even started to forgive the male of the species, to laugh with Nick’s friend Miko and the waiters.
Until she’d begun to miss medicine.
When the opportunity had come she’d switched roles, and the last three months had been good under Wilhelm’s guidance in the ship’s hospital.
It had all been fine—until now.
Maybe
