LITMIR.BIZ

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minutes. He gave Ernie every chance. It wasn’t until the down time reached thirty minutes that he finally called it.

      He placed his hands on Nat’s, stilling their downward trajectory. ‘Thank you,’ he said. Then he looked at the clock. ‘Time of death fifteen twenty-two hours.’

      Nat looked down at his hands. She could just see her own through the gloved fingers of his. She noticed for the first time his sleeves were rolled back to reveal the dark hair of his bronzed forearms and she absently thought how strong they looked. How manly.

      She glanced at him and their eyes locked, a strange solidarity uniting them. She could see the impact of this loss in his bleak stare. As she watched, his gaze drifted briefly south, lapping her cleavage, and she felt her nipples bead as if he’d actually caressed them. When he looked back at her, all she could see was heat.

      Two beats passed and then as quickly as the heat had come it disappeared and he was removing his hands, extending one to help her off the gurney. Dragging her gaze from him, she accepted, easing back to the floor.

      Her knees nearly buckled and Nat snatched her hand away, grabbing for the edge of the trolley to steady herself.

      ‘Are you okay?’ he asked as he watched her wobble slightly.

      Nat rubbed her at her knees. ‘Fine’

      Except, staring down at Ernie, she knew it wasn’t. Ernie was dead. And whatever was going on between her and Alessandro didn’t matter next to that. Neither did it matter that she’d only known Ernie for only a handful of minutes—he was still dead. Gone. The twinkle in his eyes extinguished for ever. In fact, it made it worse that she didn’t know him. It was wrong that a person should die surrounded by strangers.

      She felt as she always did, overwhelmingly sad.

      Alessandro nodded. ‘We need to talk to his family.’

      His cold onyx gaze bored into hers with an air of expectation, no trace of the heat from a moment ago.

       Looked like she was going with him.

      Confronted with the businesslike professional, she wondered if she’d imagined the fleeting glimpse of sorrow and passion she’d seen. Her tummy growled again and she bargained with it for another half an hour.

      Alessandro strode briskly ahead and Nat worried as she followed him. Sure, the view was good. His trousers hugged the tight contours of his butt and each stride emphasised not only the power of his legs but pulled at his shirt, emphasising the broadness of his back.

      But none of that meant this man was remotely equipped to talk to grieving relatives. He was still grieving himself. Had Ernie’s death resonated with him? Had this death reminded him of his dead wife, of his own grief?

      He was obviously a consultant, she didn’t think for a moment this was his first time. But if he was as emotionally disconnected with this family as he was with his son, it could be disastrous for them. As a nurse she was used to being involved in these conversations but did he only want her there to fill in the emotional gaps for him? Was she going to be left to pick up the pieces like she’d done too many times before in her career because too often doctors were ill equipped for this sort of situation?

      She contemplated saying something. But despite the brief flare of desire that had licked her with heat, his terse This is none of your business from yesterday still rang in her ears and she didn’t want to annoy him before this heart-wrenching job. But he seemed as tense as yesterday, as distant, and not even the growling of her stomach could override the foreboding that shadowed her as she tried to keep up with his impossibly long stride.

      Telling someone their husband/child/mother/significant other had died was always dreadful. As a health-care worker, Nat would rather clean bedpans all shift than witness the devastating effects of those awful few words. But she knew Ernie’s wife and kids deserved the truth and she knew they’d have questions that only someone who had been there could answer.

       And that was her.

      She couldn’t back away from that. No matter how much she wanted to.

      Much to her surprise, Alessandro again totally confounded her. He spoke softly, his accent more apparent as he gently outlined what had happened and how they’d tried but in the end there had been nothing they could do to bring Ernie back. The family cried and got angry and asked questions and Alessandro was calm and gentle and patient.

      He was compassion personified.

      And at the end when Ernie’s wife tentatively put out her hand to bridge the short distance between Alessandro and herself and then thought better of it and withdrew it, it was he who reached out and took her hand.

      It should have melted her marshmallow heart in an instant. But it didn’t.

      It reminded her of yesterday and Julian reaching for his father’s hand and it had the opposite effect. She was furious. It felt like a red-hot poker had been shoved through her heart. She wasn’t sure if it was the lack of food or the lack of sleep but she felt irrationally angry.

      Was this man schizophrenic? Was he some sort of Jekyll and Hyde? How could he offer Ernie’s wife, a relative stranger, the comfort he denied his own child?

      He’d shown this family, this previously unknown collection of people, more sensitivity, more emotion, than he’d displayed for his four-year-old son. Yesterday she’d thought he was emotionally crippled. Grieving for his wife. Today, as they’d walked to do this, she’d worried about it again. Worried about his ability to empathise when he was buried under the weight of his own grief.

      But it wasn’t the case. He was obviously a brilliant emergency physician with a fabulous bedside manner. He just didn’t take it home with him. To the most important person in the world. To his own child. To his son.

      They left Ernie’s family after about twenty minutes and Nat had never been more pleased to be shed of a person in her life. She steamed ahead, knowing if she didn’t get away from him she would say something she would regret.

      Alessandro frowned as Nat forged ahead. She seemed upset and as much as he didn’t want anything to do with the woman who could almost have been Camilla’s twin, they worked together and he knew that sudden death, such as they’d both just been part of, took its toll.

      He caught her up. ‘Are you okay?’

      ‘Fine.’ She repeated her response from earlier.

      Except she wasn’t. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that something was bothering her. He grabbed her arm to prevent her walking away any further. ‘I don’t think you are.’

      Nat looked at his bronzed hand on her pale arm. She looked at him. Oh, Senor, you really don’t want to mess with me now. She pulled her arm away but he tightened his grip.

      Heat radiated from his hand and spread up her arm to her breasts and belly. Damn it, she did not want to feel like this. Not now. She was mad. Furious. She sucked in a breath, ragged from her brisk walk and the rage bubbling beneath the surface.

      They were standing in the corridor facing each other and it was as if time stood still around them and they were the only two people on the planet. Nat couldn’t believe how it was possible to want to shake someone and totally pash their lips off at the same time.

      ‘I’m fine.’ The denial was low and guttural.

      Alessandro could see the agitated rise and fall of her chest, see the colour in her cheeks. His gaze drifted to her mouth, her parted lips enticing.

      He dragged his gaze away. ‘I don’t believe you. I know these cases can be difficult—’

      Nat’s snort ripped through his words and gave her mouth something else to do other than beg for his kiss. ‘You think this is about Ernie?’ She stared into his handsome face, at his peppered jaw line. How could she want someone who was so bloody obtuse?

      ‘It’s not?’

      Nat

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