watched him withdraw, startled by a twist of empathy deep inside.
Oh, no. No. No. No.
Alessandro Lombardi was a big boy. He didn’t need her empathy. It was bad enough that she was sexually attracted to him. He didn’t need her to comfort him and fix things too. His wife was dead—she couldn’t fix that. Only time could fix that.
‘I’m sorry. There I go again. None of my business.’
No. It wasn’t. But he was damned if he wasn’t opening his mouth to tell her anyway. ‘Nine months.’
Nat was surprised. Both that he had responded and by the nine months. She’d known it was recent but it was still confronting. No wonder they were both so raw. ‘I’m so very sorry,’ she murmured.
Alessandro watched as her gaze filled with pity, the blue of her irises turning soft and glassy in the gentle light. He couldn’t bear to see it. A sudden black fury streaked through him fast and hot like a lightning bolt from the deep well of self-hatred that bubbled never far from the surface. He didn’t deserve her pity. He wasn’t worthy of it. All he deserved was her contempt.
This was why he’d left England. To get far away from other people’s pity. Their well-meaning words and greeting-card platitudes. Knowing that he had driven her to her death, that he alone was responsible…the hypocrisy had eaten him up inside.
Looking into Julian’s face every day was more than he could stand. It was much easier not to.
He dropped his gaze. It took all of his willpower to drag himself back from the storm of broiling emotions squeezing his gut. ‘Nat,’ he said to the floor, before raising his face to meet hers, ‘is that short for something?’
There had been a moment, before he’d looked down, when she’d glimpsed a heart-breaking well of despair. But it was shuttered now, safely masked behind a gaze that could have been hewn from arctic tundra.
He was obviously still deeply in love with his wife. It was also obvious he wasn’t going to talk about it with her.
‘Natalie,’ she said, taking the not-so-subtle hint. ‘I was supposed to be a boy.’
‘Ah.’
‘Nathaniel. Nat for short.’
She told the story she knew off by heart, careful not to betray how inadequate it made her feel. How she’d never felt like she quite measured up because her father had wanted a boy. ‘My parents had kind of got used to thinking of me as Nat so they decided on Natalie.’
‘Nathalie.’ Alessandro rolled the Italian version round his tongue. ‘It’s pretty. Much prettier than Nat.’
It certainly was when he said it. His accent made a th pronunciation shading it with an exotic sound plain old Nat never had. Coming from his lips it sounded all grown up. No girl-next-door connotation. No one-size-fits-all, unisex, if-only-you’d-been-a-boy name.
In one breath he’d feminised it.
And right then, sitting on the floor in the gloom of a broken-down lift, she could see how women fell in love at first sight. Not that she was quite that stupid. Not any more. After Rob she knew better than to get involved with a man who was in love with another woman. Even a dead one.
But raw heat coated her insides and she squirmed against the floor to quell the sticky tentacles of desire.
‘I prefer Nat,’ she dismissed lightly, brushing at imaginary fluff on her skirt.
Alessandro dropped his eyes, watching the nervous gesture. It was preferable to the vulnerability he’d seen in her unmasked gaze.
‘Ah, yes, Nat. Nat, Nat, Nat. I hear that name so often at home these days I’m beginning to think you must have magical powers. I think you could give Harry Potter a run for his money.’
Nat, pleased to be off more personal subjects, laughed out loud. Right. If she had magical powers she sure as hell would have used them shamelessly to her advantage long before now. Made her father love her more. Made Rob love her more. Made them stay.
‘Julian talks about me?’
Despite not wanting to, Alessandro noticed the way her uniform pulled across her chest. The way the slide nestled in her cleavage. It had been such a long time since he’d noticed anything much about a woman at all but it was becoming a habit with this bossy, talkative Australian nurse.
He sent her a tight smile. ‘Nonstop.’
Nat grinned. ‘Sorry.’ But she really wasn’t. It made her happy to think she was making a difference to the serious little boy who came to the crèche. She knew she looked out for him on her days there and her heart melted faster than an ice-cube in this damn heat wave, when his sad little face lit up like a New Year’s Eve firework display the moment he spotted her.
Alessandro shrugged. ‘I’m pleased he…has someone.’ Even if hearing her name incessantly meant she was never far from his thoughts. Even if that transferred into the rare moments of sleep he managed to snatch during nights that seemed to last an eternity. Those few precious hours were suddenly full of her. Bizarre erotic snapshots the likes of which he hadn’t experienced since puberty.
Just another reason to despise himself a little bit more. Camilla hadn’t even been dead a year and he was fantasising about some…look-alike-but-not Australian bossy-boots, like a horny teenager.
‘He’s a great kid, Alessandro.’
Her voice had softened and he could tell she held genuine affection for Julian. He wished his own relationship with his son was as uncomplicated. When he looked at Julian he saw Camilla and his guilt ratcheted up another notch. ‘I know.’
And he did know. But he didn’t know how to reach a child who was a stranger to him. He didn’t know how to look at his son, love his son and pretend that he wasn’t the reason Julian’s world had been torn apart.
Perhaps if they’d been closer…
They looked at each other for a long moment, the air thick between them with things neither of them were game enough to say aloud. A phone ringing broke the compelling eye contact and it took a few seconds for Nat to realise it wasn’t the lift emergency phone but her mobile.
She pulled it out of her pocket. ‘Huh, look at that,’ she mused. ‘Good reception. Go figure.’ She looked at the number on the screen and gave an inward groan. Great timing.
It was difficult for Alessandro not to eavesdrop. It was impossible to even pretend he wasn’t. There was him and her in a tiny metal box, not much light and nothing else to do. He did try to feign disinterest, pulling his pager out and deleting the build-up of stored messages, but it was obvious she was having problems with her lease.
When Nat pushed the ‘end’ button on her phone with a grimace he said, ‘Problemo?’
Nat sighed and stuffed the phone back in her pocket. ‘You could say that.’
‘Sounds like you’re having trouble with your landlord.’
Nat gave a derisive snort. ‘That’s an understatement.
