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THE dark eyes swivelled briefly in Dervla’s direction as she untangled an IV line before Gianfranco’s attention returned to the boy in the bed.

‘I understand it will be some time before he regains consciousness …?’ His low, slightly accented voice had a tactile quality that sent an illicit shiver along Dervla’s susceptible nerve endings.

She was accustomed to dealing with tearful, distraught relatives, but this man did not fit neatly into that category—or, she suspected, any other!

Superficially at least he appeared utterly composed.

She might have called him cold if she hadn’t been given that brief glimpse behind the mask of clinical composure. She couldn’t see his face as he leant forward and brushed a strand of dark hair from his son’s waxy brow, but she could see the tell-tale tremor in his long tapering brown fingers.

‘These things are hard to predict.’

‘Try,’ he recommended tersely. ‘And please take that expression off your face,’ he said without actually looking at her.

Dervla started guiltily and wondered if eyes in the back of his head were the secret to his success?

‘I do not need sympathy. I need answers.’ His clinical detachment slipped another notch as he added angrily, ‘Neither do I need you to dumb down for my benefit. I may not have a medical degree but I am not an imbecile!’

Dervla was not offended by his manner. She had dealt with anxious parents before, though admittedly not one who looked like a fallen angel.

She was pretty sure that if she had met him outside the precincts of the hospital in a non-professional capacity—a pretty unlikely scenario as they inhabited different worlds—she might have found Gianfranco Bruni overwhelming.

But that was not the case now.

And even if it had been she could hide any inappropriate feelings behind her professional mask, because here it didn’t matter how much money he had or how many politicians or film stars he classed as close personal friends. Here and now he was a father worried out of his skull about his son and it was her job to make sure the son got well and the father stopped worrying.

Dervla was good at her job.

‘I’m sure the doctors have already explained the situation.’

Her soothing tone that calmed so many patients had no visible effect on this man. He silenced her with an imperious movement of his head. ‘The doctors talk and say nothing!’ He sounded disgusted.

‘And you thought I’d be easier to bully. Sorry, but it doesn’t work that way.’

He raised an astonished ebony brow and muttered something under his breath in Italian. Dervla struggled to maintain her serene smile as that heavy-lidded gaze moved across her face as though he was seeing her for the first time.

She got the distinct impression he wasn’t overly impressed by what he saw.

‘You think I’m a bully?’

It was pretty obvious that he didn’t actually give a damn what she thought of him. She was starting to doubt he cared what anyone thought about him. But he did sound genuinely curious.

‘I wouldn’t know about that, but I do know that you’re a worried father.’ Her eyes softened as they swept across the face of the unconscious youngster. ‘He really is in the right place, you know.’

She turned her head in time to see emotion flicker in the back of those spectacular obsidian eyes, but a moment later as they fixed on her there was no residual softness reflected in the dark surface.

‘Pity, Nurse, he were not in the right place at two this afternoon.’ He inhaled, turned his head and passed a hand across his eyes as though to banish nightmare images that were playing in his head.

‘Look, is there anyone I can contact for you?’ In her opinion this was not a time when anyone should be alone.

‘I am more than capable of making a phone call should I need to.’

It was clear he was also capable of being even more abrasively rude if he felt she had trespassed on personal territory. ‘Fine.’ She accepted the latest snub with a smile but risked another by adding, ‘Alberto’s mother or …?’

The hand dropped and he looked at her coldly, condensing what must have been a heartbreaking event in his life into a short factual sentence. ‘Alberto’s mother is dead.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘And to save you the bother, it’s not a juicy titbit that the papers will shell out for. Old news, I’m afraid. The media have already done the story to death.’

It took a few seconds for the implication to sink in. When it did the angry colour flew to her cheeks.

With a forced smile she levelled her glittering gaze on his face. ‘I can assure you, Mr Bruni, that like myself all the hospital staff here take patient confidentiality very seriously.’

‘I made you angry.’

He sounded surprised … Good God, how did the wretched man expect her to feel? He’d just virtually said she’d sell her soul if the price was right! She compressed her generous lips into a tight smile. ‘I’m not angry,’ she lied.

Her denial appeared to amuse him, if the cynical curve of his sensual mouth could be termed a smile. ‘The voice was good but the eyes need some work … they are very expressive.’ His glance lingered briefly on her wide emerald-green eyes. ‘No insult was intended, Nurse …’ his heavy lidded eyes swerved to the name badge on her heaving bosom before he inserted ‘… Smith.’

His cynical drawl got so far under Dervla’s skin that she really struggled to remember that he was a man in an emotionally vulnerable position in need of sensitive handling.

‘It’s nothing personal,’ he added. ‘Everyone has their price.’

‘If I believed that, I’d be too depressed to get up in the morning, Mr Bruni. There’s a coffee machine in the relatives’ sitting room,’ she added, hoping that coffee was an impersonal enough subject to suit this cynical man with the obvious allergy to sympathy. ‘If you’d like to go there while I make Alberto comfortable …?’

‘I would have thought that making my son comfortable with half a dozen tubes sticking out of him is well nigh impossible.’

‘They do tea and hot chocolate too. Though it’s actually pretty hard to tell the difference,’ she admitted. ‘But it’s wet.’

‘Tea … per amor di Dio!’ he echoed, looking at her as though she were a raving lunatic. ‘The British think tea cures all things. Are you sure that’s not what you’re drip-feeding him?’ he asked, his eyes shifting to the bag of fluid suspended above his son’s bed. ‘I require no refreshments and I prefer it when you are trying to antagonise me than when you are trying to mother me.’

‘I wasn’t trying to antagonise you!’ she protested, then added belatedly, ‘Or mother you.’ Being forced to talk to the back of his head gave her the opportunity to see that underneath the layer of dust, blood and grime his hair 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 chair closer to the bed and folding his long length into it. ‘I’m sure you graduated top of empathy in your class, but save it for someone who prefers mushy sentiment to proficiency.’

‘I hope one doesn’t preclude the other, Mr Bruni,’ she said quietly.

‘Dervla, is there a problem?’

Dervla, who hadn’t been aware of the charge nurse’s approach, started as he spoke. She took a deep breath and willed her pulse rate to slow. ‘No, no problem.’

John gave a nod, but did not look entirely convinced as his glance slid from Dervla to the tall Italian. ‘Mr Bruni, I’ve arranged for a porter with a wheelchair to take you to Casualty. One of the plastic surgeons is standing by.’

Gianfranco Bruni looked at him blankly.

‘Porter?’

‘With a chair.’

‘You think I am an invalid?’

‘It’s hospital policy, Mr Bruni, and the sooner that head wound is sutured, the better.’

‘My head?’

Dervla was not surprised to see John’s expression sharpen into suspicious concern as he looked at Gianfranco Bruni. The Italian looked so baffled by the reference that she suspected he had forgotten he was injured, or maybe he hadn’t even noticed.

‘You’ve got a deep gash six inches long on your forehead,’ the charge nurse explained. ‘You didn’t lose consciousness at any point, did you?’

Gianfranco Bruni gave a dismissive wave and turned away. ‘It’s a scratch,’ he retorted irritably.

Dervla’s exasperation got the better of her. ‘Your scratch is bleeding all over the floor.’

The Italian’s head slewed back. ‘Who, Nurse, do you think you are talking to?’

‘I think I’m talking to a man who would prefer deference to the truth, an extremely stubborn man who wouldn’t relinquish control if his life depended on it.’

It was hard to tell which of the two men was looking more astonished by her outburst.

‘Dervla,’ John began, ‘it might be better if you—’

‘It’s bleeding.’ They both turned in unison to see Gianfranco Bruni looking at the blood on his fingers, his expression oddly blank.

‘Don’t be alarmed,’ she cautioned, regarding him warily. He wasn’t the most obvious candidate, but she had seen big, tough-looking chaps faint away at the sight of blood—especially their own.

His head came up with a snap. ‘I am not alarmed. Just give me some tape—a dressing or something to cover it.’

‘This is not a do-it-yourself hospital, Mr. Bruni,’ John intervened quietly.

‘She can do it,’ the Italian said suddenly, stabbing a finger towards Dervla.

Dervla’s jaw dropped. ‘Me!’ She really hoped he didn’t mean what she thought he did.

‘Nurse Smith is—’

‘Is she not able?’

‘Of course she’s able, but after the plastic surgeon has sewn you up there will hardly be a scar.’

The Italian looked at the other man, his upper lip curling as he snarled contemptuously, ‘You think I give a damn about my face?’

His hand lifted in an angry gesture that invited them to look at the object under discussion. It was an invitation that Dervla found hard to refuse.

He might dismiss his looks, but in her opinion a man who looked like him could be forgiven a little of the vanity he appeared to despise.

‘Surely your surgeons have better things to do today than sew up my scratch? My son is not the only one fighting for his life,’ he bit through clenched teeth as he stared with dark pain-filled eyes at the unconscious figure in the bed. ‘I want her,’ he said without looking at Dervla. ‘Nurse Smith.’

They said it was always good to be wanted—but they were wrong, Dervla decided grimly as her stomach churned with unprofessional trepidation.

John shrugged, shot Dervla a questioning look and to her dismay asked, ‘Are you all right with that, Dervla?’

Dervla, who was about as all right with it as putting her hand in a live electric socket, struggled to conceal her irrational horror.

‘Don’t worry. I am not litigious,’ the Italian remarked as she hesitated.

Her head turned and her eyes brushed the cynical deepset eyes of the injured billionaire. ‘I’m not worried about you suing me.’ And she had no doubt about her ability to perform the relatively minor procedure; she had sutured hundreds of wounds. No, her reluctance had more to do with an irrational and strong disinclination to touch the man.

‘The plastic surgeon would make a much better job. I don’t usually—’

His broad shoulders lifted fractionally in a fluid shrug. ‘So be flexible.’

‘Because you won’t be?’

The suggestion brought his narrowed scrutiny zeroing in on her face. Beside her Dervla was dimly aware of John looking astonished and not very happy.

‘You worked that out faster than most people.’

Was that a compliment? she wondered. The lift of one corner of his wide, sensually sculpted mouth might have been his version of a smile …? But then again, she thought, maybe not.

It was five minutes later when Dervla led the way to the small curtained-off section very conscious of the tall man who followed her. She motioned him to the seat and angled the light on his face before washing her hands and sliding them into sterile gloves.

As she leaned closer to clean the wound her nostrils quivered in response to the male scent of his body. The harsh artificial light, not normally flattering, served to emphasise the hollows and planes of his strong-boned face.

‘I’m sorry.’ Under the accumulated grime and blood there was a grey tinge to his skin that she was guessing was not normal.

‘For what?’

‘Hurting you.’

‘I think it’s hurting you more than me.’ The realisation brought a flicker of amusement to his deepset eyes. ‘Are you sure you have the right temperament to be a nurse?’

‘Not everyone,’ she retorted tartly, ‘thinks empathy is a bad thing.’ She paused, a swab in her hand, and asked hopefully, ‘Are you sure that you wouldn’t prefer one of the doctors to do this? It really is a deep wound.’

‘Just get on with it.’

‘Fine, if that’s what you want. I’ll just put in some local anaesthetic to—’

He shook his dark head irritably. ‘Forget that. Just sew the damned thing up.’

‘You really don’t have to prove how macho you are. There’s nobody here but me.’

He looked at her with a contemptuous smile. ‘I thought you’d enjoy having me at your mercy,’ he taunted.

Like most nurses Dervla had ducked more than one blow from drunks in Casualty, and on one memorable occasion had had her shoulder dislocated by a confused patient who had wanted to jump out a second-floor window, but none had made her feel quite as vulnerable or as angry as this man did.

Dervla, who had always prided herself on her professionalism, was deeply dismayed. In her job you simply couldn’t mix professional with personal—it was a line you simply did not cross.

Of course she was only human and inevitably she felt a personal connection with some patients that she did not with others.

With this man she wouldn’t want a connection of any variety!

‘Fine.’

She worked as swiftly as she could, her tongue caught between her teeth as she concentrated on knitting the torn flesh neatly together. He didn’t flinch, which could mean she was really good at what she was doing, but more likely meant he was too stupidly stubborn to admit it hurt.

‘There,’ she said, taking a step back to view her handiwork. ‘You’re done. Now take things slowly—you might feel …’

Before she had finished speaking he had removed the sterile towel she had placed around his shoulders and was on his feet.

He stood, drew back the curtain and arched an enquiring brow at her.

‘I might feel what, Nurse?’

‘Faint if you get up too quickly.’

For a moment his teeth flashed white, his lean bronzed face making him look momentarily a lot younger, and—had it not been clearly impossible—even more attractive. ‘Sorry to disappoint you.’

A wet coat being slung onto the sofa beside her jerked Dervla abruptly back to the present. She blinked from the images on the television screen to the figure who was heading to the kitchen where the sounds proclaimed she was filling a kettle.

Sue returned a moment later. ‘It’s absolutely foul out there,’ she complained, running her hands through her wet dark curls. ‘You’ve been crying!’ she accused, peering at Dervla’s damp face.

‘No …’ Dervla lifted a hand to her face and felt the salty moisture on her skin. ‘I suppose I might have,’ she admitted.

‘This,’ her friend said, kicking off her shoes quite literally—they hit the opposite wall, ‘is driving me crazy. I’ve respected your privacy but I’m only human. I have to know—why did you walk out on the delicious Gianfranco? Who clearly adores the ground you walk on.’ She flopped down on the sofa beside Dervla and pushed her coat on the floor. ‘So spill. Give me all the lurid details.’

‘He doesn’t adore me or the ground I walk on.’ The only thing Gianfranco adored was his son and the memory of his dead wife. Dervla raised her empty mug. ‘To new beginnings!’

‘What?’ Sue said, staring at her friend’s bitter face with concern.

‘That was the toast Carla gave when she took me to lunch that first week. She said it was marvellous that Gianfranco had met me, that he was finally able to move on and have a relationship without feeling he was being unfaithful to Sara’s memory.’

‘Well, I’d prefer the woman if she had the odd skin blemish, but she’s got a point, Dervla—’

‘Only she was wrong,’ Dervla cut in huskily. ‘He hadn’t moved on—he hasn’t, and he doesn’t love me.’

‘Don’t be stupid. Of course—’

‘No.’ Dervla shook her head slowly from side to side. ‘He never pretended to, he still loves her.’ My life isn’t over, she reminded herself. It just feels that way. ‘It’s not a baby he doesn’t want—it’s my baby.’

Sue stared at her with eyes like saucers. ‘Baby! But I thought that you couldn’t have a baby. You thought it would be the deal-breaker when you told him,’ she reminded her friend. ‘You were over the moon when he said it was no problem with him.’

Dervla nodded miserably. ‘He said he already had Alberto and he didn’t want any more children. That we had a ready-made family.’

‘But you want your own, and there’s a chance …?’

Dervla nodded. Sue was one of the few people she had ever told about the tragic long-term consequences of complications after a perforated appendix and the subsequent peritonitis that had put her on the critical list in her teens.

‘I might be able to have a baby, but not,’ she added, the tears beginning to overflow in earnest from her tragic emerald eyes, ‘with Gianfranco. I have to choose a baby or him.’

Sue’s arms went around her as she began to weep loudly.