growled.
‘To the medical centre. We’re already on Deck Four so it will only take a couple of minutes.’ If she was annoyed by his tone there was no sign.
Gabriel heaved a sigh of relief and settled back in the chair. He’d be fine once he got something for this headache and was out of these wet clothes. Then he could get started.
The chair turned sharply into the modern medical centre. Consulting rooms, treatment rooms, in-patient beds and state-of-the-art diagnostics and emergency equipment. He knew the spec for this place off by heart—it was impressive, even by his exacting standards.
She wheeled him through to one of the rooms and pulled the curtains around the bed, pushing the brake on the wheelchair. She disappeared for a second and came back with a towel and set of scrubs.
Francesca’s brain was whirring. Gabriel Russo. Why was that name so familiar? Then it hit her like a ton of bricks falling from the sky. She had seen him before. Only last time he’d been wearing a pair of white designer swimming trunks and been perched on the edge of a multi-million-pound yacht, his arm lazily flung around the shoulders of her bikini-clad friend Jill.
The Italian stallion, Jill had called him and that picture had adorned her flatmate’s bedside cabinet until one night when a sobbing Jill had phoned Francesca at 3:00 a.m. to come and pick her up.
Francesca would never forget the sight of Jill in her sodden green designer gown, her hair plastered around her face and tears running like rivulets down her cheeks after Gabriel had flung her out of his penthouse flat.
Jill had been broken-hearted over his treatment of her and had taken a good few weeks to get over him—a long time for Jill.
And Francesca had waited a long time, too—to tell this man exactly what she thought of him. He was alive. He was breathing. His heart rate was sound. After a few general observations for head injuries he should be fine. There was a determined edge to her chin; it would be criminal to waste this opportunity. And she had absolutely no intention of doing so.
Something was wrong. Something had changed. He could sense it immediately; the tension in the air was palpable. Right now, all he wanted to do was climb into that pristine white bed, close his eyes and lose this thumping headache.
But the soft side of his Mediterranean princess had vanished and she was staring at him as if he were something she’d just trodden on.
Or maybe he was imagining it? Maybe the resuscitation and head knock had affected him more than he’d thought?
‘You’re Gabriel Russo.’
Gabriel’s pounding head jerked in response to the sharp tone in her voice. He wasn’t imagining it. ‘I thought we had established that.’
‘No, you’re Gabriel Russo, Italian stallion.’ She lifted her fingers in the air, making the quotation mark signs, wrinkled her nose and then continued, ‘Stinking love rat. You used to date my friend Jill—until you threw her out of your apartment in London at 3:00 a.m. in the pouring rain.’
‘No one’s ever called me Italian stallion to my face before.’ He felt almost amused. The nickname had been plastered across the press often enough. He wasn’t used to being blindsided. Then again, he wasn’t used to being resuscitated.
Jill. The name flickered through his brain. He’d certainly dated more than his fair share of beautiful women and he’d worked all over the world. Something fell into place. London. No. Let’s hope she wasn’t talking about that Jill. Just what he needed—a misguided, loyal friend. If his head wasn’t thumping so much this could almost be funny. Not only that—Ms Misguided was a knockout. A beautiful work colleague would never be a problem. But an angry, venomous one would be. This was a small team. They had to work together. It could be badly affected by two people who didn’t get on.
She wasn’t finished. ‘But I bet plenty of women have called you a heartbreaker before.’
‘Have we met?’ His eyes ran up and down her body and she felt a prickle of disgust—he’d almost mirrored her thoughts from earlier. ‘I think I’d remember.’
A few minutes before she’d had nice thoughts drifting about her head about their new doctor. She’d thought he was handsome. She’d thought he was fit. She’d even thought… No. She hadn’t. She couldn’t possibly have.
He frowned. ‘Jill? Who was she again? Remind me.’
Francesca felt rage build inside her. Arrogant so-and-so. The palm of her hand itched—she wanted it to come into contact with his perfect cheek.
‘Six years ago. London. Blonde model. You took her on your yacht for the weekend.’
‘Oh, that Jill.’ His frown deepened, puckering little lines around his eyes. He turned away, pulling his muddied jacket and T-shirt over his head, and she sensed it was on purpose. She tossed the scrubs and towel onto the bed beside him.
‘Yes, that Jill.’ The volume of her voice increased in proportion to her rage. ‘The one you dumped in the middle of the night in the pouring rain outside your flat. What kind of a man does that?’
He whipped around, the muddied jacket and T-shirt clenched in his fists, leaving his wide brown chest right in front of her eyes. The fury in her voice couldn’t match the venom in his eyes. ‘What kind of a man does that?’ he growled.
She gulped. He was half-dressed, his shoulder muscles tense, his bare abdomen rigid. If they were shooting an action movie right now he would be the perfect poster-boy hero.
All of a sudden the room felt much smaller. Maybe it was the six-foot-four presence. All trembling muscle and eyes shooting fireballs in her direction.
She could feel every hair on her body stand on end. And she hated it.
Because amongst the repulsion there was something else she was feeling—something more—and it went against every principle she had.
She pushed all those thoughts aside. If she ignored them then they weren’t actually there.
He still hadn’t answered. Probably because he was incoherent with rage.
‘What are you doing here anyway? Aren’t you supposed to be some billionaire-type doctor? You don’t actually have to work for a living, do you? Why on earth would you be working on a cruise ship?’
He shook his head, almost imperceptibly. What a surprise. All the usual assumptions, misunderstandings and wrong conclusions. All the things he went to pains to shake off. Normally he wouldn’t care what some stranger thought of him. But this stranger was part of his team and she was going to have to learn who was boss around here—hardly an ideal start. ‘Some things you wouldn’t understand.’ He leaned against the side of the bed, and could feel the pressure inside his head increase.
‘Try me.’
Something flashed across his face. He took a deep breath. ‘How well do you know Jill?’
‘She is my friend. She was my flatmate in London. We lived together for six months.’
‘Six years ago?’ There was an edge to his voice—almost as if he couldn’t believe someone had been friends with
