NINE
“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.
