LITMIR.BIZ

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she resolved. She found him too unsettling. Too attractive. And if that wasn’t downright immoral, given the circumstances, then it was surely utter folly. Because any fool knew it took at least a year to recover from being dumped practically at the altar, and that to allow oneself to be drawn to another man in the interim was courting nothing but trouble.

      No. The less she saw of Dr. Carlo Rossi, the better.

      CHAPTER TWO

      HE HELD open the door to the outer office and watched as she walked past him and away down the hall. His first impression had been that she was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen; his second, that she was also the coldest. Antarctica was a fitting destination for such an ice queen.

      She’d listened impassively as he described her father’s condition, and might have rehearsed her questions, so succinctly did she deliver them. She’d accepted without argument answers which other people would have refused to countenance.

      He’d conveyed bad news before, more often than he cared to remember. And the responses he received fell into pretty much the same broad categories.

      Please, Doctor, there must be something more you can do!

      Money’s no object—we can pay any amount.

      We’re praying for a miracle. We won’t give up hope!

      But Danielle Blake? You should have let him die! He’d be better off!

      And spoken with such vehemence that even he was shocked. Who could conjure up sympathy for such a woman?

      The only other time her composure had slipped had been when Anita had greeted her. Then, for one brief and brilliant moment, she had smiled. Her chilly beauty had become suffused with radiant warmth, and he’d thought to himself, I was mistaken. There is a heart under that porcelain skin, after all.

      Too soon, though, the mask came down again, and no amount of subtle probing on his part had succeeded in moving it. Immersed in her own needs, her own self-involved world, she had resisted his every effort.

      Trained to observe the most minute detail, he’d picked up on the revealing way she’d clenched her clasped hands when he’d asked if she had a lover waiting at home. So that was it, he’d deduced. She was too caught up with some other man to spare any emotion for the one who’d given her life.

      Usually he vented his rare anger at himself; at his inability to right all wrongs, to cure all ills. At that moment, though, it had been directed entirely at her. He’d wanted to shake her. Violently enough to shatter her brittle detachment and leave it lying in pieces at her feet.

      Of course, he’d done no such thing. And noting now the rigid set of her spine, the proud tilt of her chin, the almost glassy determination in her eyes, he wondered if he’d misjudged her, after all. Was it just that she was exhausted? So stressed out that what he’d perceived to be indifference was really a fiercely self-protective barrier, erected to keep herself in check and everyone else at a distance?

      Whatever the reason, she was so tense that it would take little for her control to snap. Like a marionette whose strings were being jerked unevenly, she walked away from him so rapidly that, at times, she almost broke into a run. Intrigued, he locked the outer office door and followed her, curious to discover why she was so anxious to escape. He was surprised when, instead of leaving the hospital as he’d expected, she turned into the ICU wing and made for Alan Blake’s room.

      She didn’t hear him step in behind her. All her attention was focused on her father. She perched on the edge of the chair, and clutched the raised metal guardrails of the bed as if they were all that prevented her from losing her grip on sanity.

      Not wishing to startle her, Carlo cleared his throat softly, but the way her entire body shuddered from the impact, he might as well have fired a cannon down the hall. She was too thin, too frail, and again he thought, I have judged her unfairly. She is close to collapse.

      He came and stood next to her. “I understand you spent all last night here at your father’s bedside, signorina.”

      “Yes,” she said bleakly, her gaze never wavering from her father’s face. “Did I break some unwritten law by doing so?”

      “Not at all. However, I think it would be unwise for you to do the same thing again tonight.”

      “Why is that?”

      “You need rest—proper rest, in a bed,” he added firmly, anticipating the objection she was about to voice.

      She allowed herself the merest shake of her head. “No point. I wouldn’t be able to sleep.”

      “I will prescribe something to ensure that you do. Which hotel are you staying at?”

      “Hotel?” Blankly she repeated the word as if he’d spoken it in foreign tongues far beyond her understanding. “I came straight here from the airport.”

      “I suspected as much.” He closed his hand over her shoulder. She felt fragile as spun glass under the fine wool of her jacket. “We must do something about that.”

      “We?” She spared him a brief, indignant look. “Since when have you been part of the equation?”

      “Since I came to see you’re utterly worn out and running on emotional overload. It’s to my shame that I didn’t realize it sooner but now that I have, I consider it my responsibility to remedy the situation. After all, signorina, it would serve no useful purpose for you to be hospitalized, along with your father.”

      Wearily, she leaned back in the chair and closed her eyes. “I feel as if I’ve been here for days, yet it’s been barely twenty-four hours.”

      “Time drags when one is waiting for a miracle.” He took her hand and drew her out of the chair. “Come. I’ll show you a quiet guest house not too far away from the hospital, and little known to the tourists. You’ll be able to rest comfortably there.”

      She swayed on her feet and he reached for her, afraid she might fall. She sagged against him and for a second or two he held her, intoxicated by the fragrance of her hair, and unaccountably moved by her frailty. “I don’t need a guest house,” she muttered. “I prefer to remain here.”

      Reminding himself that his interest in her was purely professional, he said, “I’m not giving you a choice. Is that all that you brought with you?”

      She glanced at the small suitcase and carry-on bag heaped in the corner with her purse, and nodded dully. “Yes.”

      He steadied her with an arm around her waist, and slung the bag over the raised towing handle of the suitcase. “You travel light, for a woman,” he remarked, steering her down the hall to the side entrance that gave onto the staff parking area. “Most women I know require twice as much luggage when they make a journey.”

      “I left home in a hurry. There wasn’t time to pack anything more than a few essentials.”

      “No, of course not.”

      The sun lay warm on his car, leaving the interior cosy as a nest. She sank into the passenger seat, let out a sigh, and was asleep before he’d driven a hundred meters. In repose, her face was tranquil, her mouth softly vulnerable. Her lashes were long and fine, her brows delicately arched.

      She looked nothing like her father. Even though he was comatose, Alan Blake’s face betrayed a tough strength not found in his daughter’s, and once again Carlo found himself wondering what really lay beneath that cool facade she presented to the world.

      Situated in its own well-kept gardens, L’Albergo di Camellia stood at the end of a quiet road bordered on one side by the lake, and on the other by one of the town’s many parks. The proprietors, Luigi and Stella Colombo, knew him well. Several years before, he’d successfully operated on Stella’s mother for a brain aneurysm, thereby saving her life and earning their lasting gratitude.

      “We have just the room,” Stella said, when he explained the situation. “Upstairs,

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