LITMIR.BIZ

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was black as ebony and silky straight. It was the sort of hair that might be pleasant to run your fingers through—if, of course, it were on someone else’s head.

      ‘Actually I was just being tactful. It will be easier to attend to your son if you are … well, not here.’ She was barely able to repress a shudder at the thought of those dark eyes watching her every move.

      He turned his head. The smile on his lips did not reach his eyes. ‘I admire your candour,’ he said, sounding anything but admiring. ‘And let me pay you the compliment of being equally frank. I am not even slightly concerned with making your life easier, or hospital protocol.’

      Big surprise!

      By sheer will she kept her expression impassive. It was hard. She found it impossible not to be moved by his obvious devotion to his son, but, God, this man was hard going.

      ‘Relatives very often find it distressing to watch their loved ones—’

      He cut across her in a voice that leaked impatience, the same impatience that was evident in the tension in every sinew of his long, lean body. ‘It was distressing to be required to dig my son out of the rubble.’

      The reminder of the ordeal he had so recently endured made Dervla ashamed of losing her objectivity. There was no excuse in her eyes for allowing personal feelings, especially antagonism, to influence her in the workplace.

      ‘It must have been terrible,’ she said softly.

      Appearing not to hear her soft comment, Gianfranco held up his hands and stared at his long fingers ingrained with dirt and blood for several seconds before he shook his head.

      Wondering what images he was trying to banish, Dervla felt a surge of sympathy that she knew better than to express.

      ‘Watching you take his blood pressure—’ he said, switching his attention back to her so abruptly that Dervla flinched ‘—is something I feel able to deal with without passing out.’

      She wished she could share his confidence. The man was obviously operating on adrenaline, and will-power. The former at least was not inexhaustible and at some point it was going to hit him.

      Not yet, it seemed.

      She watched as he rotated his broad shoulders as if to iron out the kinks in his spine, then with a fluid shrug he drew himself up to his full height.

      Forced to tilt her head back to meet his eyes, Dervla was struck even more forcibly than ever by the overwhelming nature of the Italian’s physical presence.

      He levelled a thoughtful gaze at her, holding her eyes for several uncomfortable—as her sweaty palms attested—moments, and then without a word took hold of the chair drawn up to the bed and dragged it back a few feet to give her clear access.

      ‘I will not get in your way, but I will not leave.’

      By his standards this was clearly a major concession and there seemed very little point in pushing it—the man had about as much flexibility as a chunk of granite.

      Her lashes lowered as her eyes slid downwards skimming his long, lean body. He was hard in a physical as well as intellectual sense, but, added the voice in her head, much warmer to the touch.

      Before she could prevent it an image formed in Dervla’s head of pale fingers trailing down the perfectly formed contours of his golden chest.

      Utterly appalled at the intrusive image—for heaven’s sake, she was a professional!—Dervla grunted some sort of acknowledgement and moved past him.

      Once she began to work and focus her attention on what she was actually here to do it was a relief to be able to push all thought of warm, silky-textured skin from her mind. Heaven knew how it got there to begin with!

      Dervla was pleased to discover the young Italian boy’s observations gave no cause for concern. Casting a final expert eye over the boy’s pale face, she smoothed back a hank of dark hair from his brow and murmured, ‘All done for now, Alberto.’

      Straightening up, she walked to the bottom of the bed and washed her hands with the gel provided before she acknowledged the father’s presence.

      ‘He’s doing—’

      ‘Let me guess, as well as can be expected. Dio, do you people ever run out of meaningless platitudes?’

      ‘Your son is young and strong and the surgery went well, Mr Bruni. You really shouldn’t anticipate problems before they happen,’ she counselled calmly.

      ‘You were talking to him?’

      ‘Yes, I always explain what I’m doing to patients.’

      He angled a dark brow and winced slightly as the movement evidently tugged at the raw open edges of the deep gash on his forehead. ‘It does have a soothing quality.’

      She stared at him with a perplexed frown.

      ‘Your voice.’ Before she could decide how to respond to this comment his attention shifted back to his son. ‘If he had not gone back for that damned computer game … a computer game!’ He closed his eyes and inhaled, rubbing the indentation between his brows as he rose to his feet.

      He stood there towering over her, staring down at his son’s bruised face, a nerve clenching in his angular jaw as he sucked in air through flared nostrils before adding in a harsh driven voice, ‘My son might die because I wanted to teach him a lesson about values, that being a rich man’s only child doesn’t mean you don’t have to work. He went back for his game because he knew I wouldn’t replace something lost through his carelessness. That might prove to be an expensive lesson—for Alberto.’

      Dervla watched, sympathy lodged like a stone in her chest, as his dark lashes swept downwards.

      The Italian swallowed hard, causing a convulsive ripple beneath the brown skin of his throat as he made a visible effort to suck in the emotions that spilled out.

      Dervla tensed as his dark eyes lifted.

      ‘What? No “It’s not your fault, Mr Bruni”?’ he drawled sarcastically.

      ‘I’m sure you don’t need me to tell you that,’ she said quietly.

      ‘You are clearly not a parent.’

      Dervla flinched as if he had inadvertently touched an exposed nerve. ‘No,’ she agreed levelly. ‘I am not a parent.’ And never would be.

      ‘A game worth a few pounds and I own the company …’ The rest of his raw observations were delivered in a staccato burst of Italian, but the sentiment of self-loathing was pretty much the same in any language.

      Dervla looked at his hands, clenched white-knuckled in frustration, and acted without thinking. She reached out and covered his hand with her own. ‘It wasn’t your fault,’ she told him fiercely. ‘It’s the monsters that planned this atrocity. Nothing,’ she added firmly, ‘will be achieved from beating yourself up about it or imagining a hundred if-only scenarios.’

      Gianfranco Bruni froze, his eyes glued to the small hand curled over his.

      The irrelevant thought that he had rather lovely hands, shapely and strong with long tapering fingers, flashed through her head as she gave one last squeeze before releasing her grip.

      ‘You really mustn’t blame yourself,’ she insisted earnestly.

      There was a short uncomfortable pause.

      ‘My son’s welfare is all that need concern you, Nurse. I thought we had established I do not need my hand held or my brow mopped by a ministering angel!’ He gave a sub-zero smile, raised one sable brow and added, ‘Do you understand?’

      The colour flew to her cheeks. The man was hurting, sure, but was there any need for him to be quite so unpleasant?

      ‘I understand,’ she said, keeping her voice level.

      ‘Good,’ he grunted, dragging the

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