is your first day, if you don’t already have plans, then you’re very welcome to come to the canteen with me if you’d like some company and someone to show you where things are.’
Not a date, then: a colleague simply being kind and offering to show him around his new place of work. He could manage that. ‘Thanks. That’d be nice.’
‘Don’t thank me just yet,’ she warned.
‘Why?’ he asked, confused. ‘Is the food not very nice here?’
‘It’s nothing to do with the food,’ she said. ‘Actually, I’ll buy your lunch as I have a proposition for you.’
Lorenzo was pretty sure that it was just a turn of phrase, but the word ‘proposition’ put all sorts of inappropriate ideas in his head. Jenna Harris was gorgeous as well as being bubbly, with her mop of blonde curls that she wore pulled back in a scrunchie on the ward, wide blue eyes and ready smile. He liked the way she’d been with their patients and their parents: kind, clear and sympathetic.
But, after what had happened with Georgia and Florence, he wasn’t up for falling in love again and getting his heart well and truly trampled on. This was his new start, and he intended to focus on his job, not his personal life.
‘Proposition,’ he said carefully.
‘I’ll explain over lunch. Meet you back here after your next patient?’ she asked.
‘OK,’ he said.
At the canteen, Lorenzo chose a sandwich, fruit and coffee, and Jenna did the same.
‘You really don’t have to buy me lunch,’ he said while they queued to pay.
‘Oh, but I do,’ she corrected, ‘because I want you to feel ever so slightly beholden to me.’
So she was being manipulative? That was pretty much how Georgia had been with him. Except Jenna was being up front about it instead of hiding secrets. Well, he’d try to keep an open mind and listen to what she had to say before he made any judgements.
Once they’d sat down, he asked, ‘So what’s the proposition?’
Her eyes widened. ‘Hang on, aren’t we supposed to be doing all the usual pleasantries first? Like, where did you train, what made you pick paediatrics, does your family live near, that sort of thing?’
He shrugged. ‘OK. I trained in London, I picked paediatrics because it was my favourite rotation when I was training; my parents, brother and sister all live in East London at the moment but my parents are thinking of moving back to their roots in Lake Garda when my father retires; and I’m single.’ Most importantly, he added, ‘And I’m not looking for a partner.’ He’d had completely the wrong idea about his marriage, thinking that he and Georgia were happy. But things hadn’t been what they’d seemed; he’d lived a lie for nearly two years before Georgia had finally cracked and told him the truth about Florence. Though he kept that particular black hole behind high walls and barbed wire. ‘You?’
‘I trained here in Muswell Hill, and I chose paediatrics for the same reason as you—I like kids and I really love making them better. My parents and my sister all live in London, about half an hour away from me; and I’m also single and not looking for a partner.’ She smiled. ‘Which means that you and I can be friends.’
‘Is this part of the proposition?’ he checked.
She laughed. ‘Absolutely not. But we’re a close-knit team on our ward and we do a lot of things together. Team nights out for pizza and ten-pin bowling, cinema, picnics on the beach in summer—that sort of thing. It’s kind of like having an extended family. Partners and kids come along to half the stuff and it’s lovely.’
A family. The thing he’d once had—and lost. And how he missed it. But he knew he was lucky to have what he had: a large extended Italian family who loved him. Wanting more was just greedy.
He shook himself. Jenna didn’t know about his past, and she didn’t need to know. Besides, she’d clearly meant to reassure him that he’d picked a really nice place to work. ‘Sounds good,’ he said, forcing himself to keep his tone light.
She raised her coffee mug at him. ‘Welcome to the team. I think you’re going to love it here as much as I do.’
He hoped so, too, but he’d reserve judgement until he’d been here a while. ‘And the proposition?’
‘I’m on the ward’s fundraising committee. A week on Saturday, we’re holding a six-hour danceathon to raise money for new toys for the ward,’ she explained. ‘People pay a fixed sum to enter, and they can be sponsored either for a flat fee or for each hour they stay on the dance floor.’
Now he understood what the proposition was. ‘You want me to be one of the dancers?’
‘If you’re not on duty, then yes, please.’
Which would be an easy let-out for him. Except she’d know pretty quickly that he wasn’t telling the truth, and he didn’t want to start his professional life here with a lie. He’d had enough of lies.
‘I’m off duty.’
‘Good.’ She smiled. ‘It should be easy for you. Aren’t all Italian men meant to be wonderful dancers?’
‘That,’ he said, ‘is a sweeping generalisation. And I’m afraid I’ll have to disappoint you, because I have two left feet.’
‘So do half the people who are coming along on the day. It really doesn’t matter what you look like or how badly you dance, as long as you raise some money for the toys. It’s going to be fun,’ she said. ‘And you’ll get to hear Maybe Baby play.’
‘Who are Maybe Baby?’ he asked.
‘They’re pretty much the hospital’s house band—they play at a lot of weddings and special occasions,’ Jenna explained. ‘Half of them are from the Maternity ward—Anton on guitar and Gilly on bass—and from our department there’s Keely on vocals and Martin on drums. They’re fantastic.’
‘They’re playing for the whole six hours?’
‘Probably for about half of it,’ she said. ‘Nathan, one of the porters in the Emergency Department, is a DJ when he’s not working here, so he’s doing the other half of the music for us. We’re holding the danceathon in the local high school’s sports hall; one of the local pubs is running a bar for us and donating the profits from the night, and a few of the parents of children we’ve treated heard what we’re doing and offered to sort out the food for us. Plus we’ve sweet-talked a few local businesses into donating raffle prizes, everything from nice toiletries to chocolates to vouchers towards a meal.’
Lorenzo had the strongest feeling that she was downplaying her own role in this. Clearly it was something she’d been deeply involved in, something close to her heart.
‘I’m more than happy to sponsor someone,’ he said, ‘and maybe take tickets on the door or help run your raffle stall. But I’m afraid it’s a no to the dancing.’
‘It’s a shame I can’t talk you into it, because it’ll be fun,’ she said, ‘but I’ll take the offer of manning a stall, for however much
