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‘Oh. Hello, Matteo. I … er …’ She sat bolt upright, shoving her feet back into her shoes. Had he seen? ‘Whoa, how long was I asleep for? I should be getting back to work.’
‘No. Wait. Here.’ He handed her a hospital-issue white porcelain cup with something that smelled like heaven in it. ‘Drink this first. I smuggled it in from Enrico’s so don’t breathe a word to anyone.’
He’d brought her coffee? Staring at the cup, she grimaced. ‘Did you put poison in?’
‘Me? Poison the enemy? I wouldn’t stoop so low. Besides, I get the feeling I’ve won this part of the battle.’
‘I think I’m starting to see things a little from your point of view. But that doesn’t mean I’m backing down or admitting a darned thing.’ She took a sip and smiled, leaning her head back against the lumpy cushions. He’d brought her coffee? She didn’t want to read anything into that. ‘It’s perfect. Thank you. How did you know what I liked? Guesswork?’
‘When I described you to Enrico he said you always have the caffe lungo. Americano … Grande … whatever you all call it here. Strong and black.’
She didn’t know what to say. ‘Thank you. That’s very nice of you.’
When he’d stormed into her office that first day she hadn’t imagined he could be like this. She’d jumped to the conclusion that he was all mucho macho Italiano. And, yes, he was. But he was so much more than that. So much more that she was trying hard to resist. And he was making it harder by the minute.
‘Ivy.’ His eyes shot to her foot and back again, his voice softer. ‘What happened?’
Oh, wow again. Straight to the point. ‘That? Nothing much. It was all so long ago.’
‘And yet still you try to hide it.’ Slipping her shoe off, he examined her foot, holding it firmly when she tried to wriggle it away. ‘An accident? A car? Crush injury or something?’
‘A-ha. Or something.’ What to say? She took a breath and thought, struggled for a moment. This was too personal, she never spoke of it, never referenced it—had tried to put that experience to the back of her mind—but even so, it fuelled her job every day. Would it matter if she told him? Was that opening up too much of herself?
Yes. ‘Look, it’s not important. Thanks for an awesome day. I’ll get going now.’
His hand closed over her foot. It was warm. It was safe. The safest she’d felt for a long time. ‘I’m not going to let you walk out of here until I know what caused this. I know that’s hard for you. I know you don’t understand the need to be open. But it will be fine to talk of it. It will help. Maybe. I want to know. For you.’
For you. God, what did that mean? But trying not to talk about it would make it seem like an even bigger issue—and, really, she wanted to downplay it.
‘I … er …’ She didn’t know where to start, so she just started at the beginning. ‘I was four. My stepdad was new to us, not married to my mum yet, in fact they’d not long met, and he was trying to show off—to bond. He had me by the feet and was swinging me round and round and at first I was enjoying it. But his grip was so, so tight and I was going too fast and too high and no matter what I said he just kept on doing it to impress my mum. I started to panic and wriggled out of his grip. Hit the floor. Broke my ankle.’
‘Ouch.’
‘Yep. Mum didn’t believe it hurt as badly as it did so I tried to walk on it. A few days later it was just so swollen and painful I talked her into taking me to the hospital. Turned out it was broken in a couple of places and had started to heal badly. The orthopaedic surgeon was new and … well, let’s say he wasn’t in the right head space to be working. He attached an external metal frame to fix it—but he didn’t do it properly. The upshot was I ended up with a badly deformed foot and twelve more surgeries to try to fix it.’
‘When you say not in the right head space …?’
The all-too-familiar anger rippled through her. ‘Drunk. On whisky and power.’
‘Oh.’ He started to stroke over the scars that snaked round her foot, her ankle, her calf, the knobbly, mottled skin more sensitive to his touch. And again she tried to pull away. How many men had flinched at the sight of it? How many had laughed at her? How long had she endured the teasing at school and beyond? The revulsion? His eyes widened. ‘That’s a real shame. I’m so sorry.’
‘Don’t be. It’s in the past.’
He let her foot down then settled himself on the other end of the couch. Lifted her foot again and continued to stroke it as if it was the most normal thing he’d ever done. He smelt of dark brown Betadine, that distinctive hospital smell, but over-laced with his own particular scent of spice and pure raw man. ‘But you are still affected by it, Ivy, I can see.’
‘Plenty of people have worse than this, you only have to spend a day in this hospital to see that. It doesn’t hurt much.’ Actually, it did. Not a day or an hour went by without pain, but talking about it made it worse. What had hurt much more had been the reaction from everyone else. Cripple. Ugly. Time-waster. Her own mother hadn’t been bothered enough to listen, to care, to fight.
‘But that’s why you’re here, doing this job.’
‘Yes.’ She twisted round and leant back on the arm of the sofa to get comfortable. As if having a man like Matteo touching her skin would ever be a comfortable experience. It was terrifying. It was lovely. ‘Sure, that’s my calling. Righting the wrongs. Capturing the evildoers and taking them to task. Saving the world. Maybe I should get a cape too. Super-Lawyer.’
‘Sure, you’d look cute in Lycra. We could be a dynamic duo. But now I understand a lot more about you.’ He paused, waited until the smile had faded. ‘And he apologised, this man?’
‘The surgeon? Never. But he was eventually struck off after he got caught doing a similar thing—maybe six years later. Turns out he was a serial drunk and had hurt a lot of people over the years.’
‘And the man who was swinging you round and round?’ His face darkened. ‘You went through too much because of him.’
She thought about how much to say. Did it matter? Was she breaking any of her own cardinal rules by just talking to Matteo? It was only words. She could do words easily. She just didn’t have such a great handle on emotions. Especially not these new ones—desire, lust, need.
‘My mum married him. They all said it was my fault for wriggling while he was swinging me. Said he thought my screams were because I was having fun, not because I was frightened. And Mum was so bowled over by him she believed anything he said. She wasn’t interested in my version of events, or in seeking any recompense from the surgeon, or to try make sure he didn’t maim anyone else’s kid.’ It was all too much trouble.
‘So that’s why you distrust people too. Ah, you are textbook.’ He raised his eyebrows and wagged a finger at her.
She grabbed it and twisted slightly. ‘Glad I’m so transparent when I thought I was much more complex.’
‘And twelve more surgeries?’
She shrugged, trying at the same time to shrug off the memory and the pain she’d endured time after time after time. And learning to walk. Over and over. ‘Yep. Internal fixations, pins, plates. Infected wound debriding … You could say I was more of an in-patient than an out-patient for a lot of my growing up. It got to the point that I used to take myself to my out-patient appointments on the bus on my own.’
‘As a child?’
‘As a young girl. A teenager. Mum wasn’t very good at the parenting details of being a mother. There were always too many other things for her to do …’ Or, rather, men to pursue. Relationships to sort out. Dramas. Lots and lots of dramas. Unfortunately, not one of them had involved looking after the only child she’d ever had. ‘It was just easier to do it on my own than try to rely on her. Although, obviously, she had to come to sign the consent forms for the surgeries, but she didn’t tend to hang around much.’
It had always felt as if it had been just too much of a hassle for her. That her needs had been a hindrance to her mother’s social life. Until, that was, every time her mother’s life had imploded, and then she’d clung to Ivy the way she’d clung to her husbands—with the desperate, all-consuming need that they all learned to despise in the end. The need that Ivy had seen once too often in her friends—the need for a man that overwhelmed them.
So she’d vowed never to be like that. Ever. Never to let a man take over, to take so much of her that there was too little left. But she didn’t feel in any danger of that happening with Dr Delicious here—she knew exactly the score with him. He was the kind of guy who didn’t offer any promises, and that was just fine, because she didn’t want any.
The stroking of his hands had become more intense, the sensation he instilled reaching more than just her leg. It was travelling through her, heating every part of her. He nodded. ‘So this is why you’re so independent and argumentative? Because you want justice. And because you need to be heard. Because your mum let you down.’
She thought about it, and, yes, he was probably right, but she didn’t want him to know that. Like a lot of things, it was easier to shove them deep down than face them. ‘I suppose you could say that my relationship with my mother is as broken as my foot.’ In fact, the thought of even discussing anything other than the weather with her mum brought Ivy out in hives. As far as she was concerned, it was better to be on her own than risk her heart again. A girl could only take so much emotional fallout.
‘Thanks for the psychology lecture. But I’m just who I am, Poison Ivy, who won’t tolerate defective people thinking they’re immune to the law or to recrimination. Or surgeons who think they’re God. Or people who don’t take me seriously. Okay, so I’ve learnt to be like this, but I’m not ashamed of it.’
‘You are Ivy. Yes. And you are stronger for your experiences.’
‘And do you know, I don’t think I’ve ever really talked about them before.’ Not in so much detail. So God only knew what the hell that meant. That she’d exposed her weakness, not only allowed him to see her scars but discussed them too.
Suddenly she felt a little vulnerable. She shrugged her foot from out of his hand and scuttled her feet under her bum as she sat up, inadvertently shuffling closer to him as she resettled herself. ‘So, please, please, don’t say anything to anyone, I don’t really want this to be hospital gossip. Every surgeon’s going to think I’m on some kind of witch hunt and I’m not at all. I just want to do my job to the best of my ability, and scuttling out dodgy surgeons is only a tiny part of it. The rest is to put systems in place to prevent these things happening again.’
He frowned. ‘Of course. But the scarring and the injury are hardly something you should be ashamed of.’
‘If you’d seen the cruel reaction of the kids I grew up with, and then the men I dated who wanted tabloid perfect, you wouldn’t be saying that.’
‘Then they are all idiots.’
Yes. Maybe they were. And so was she for being taken in by his words. By his touch. By the way he sounded so unlike every man she’d ever dated—his words like a salve to her wounds. By the little dimple in the cleft of his chin. And by that tiny frozen part of her that had started to thaw, just a little, leaving her open and vulnerable.
She did not want this. Did not have space in her life for this. And, really, she should have stood up and left, but she reached to him anyway, placed her hand over his. Because it seemed a perfectly natural thing to do. ‘Thank you. That was a nice thing to say.’
‘My pleasure.’ His hand cupped her face and he looked at her with such intensity that her heart beat a wild staccato against her ribcage. ‘So don’t be so hard on yourself.’
He was just being kind in that Italian way of his. He was being gallant and it was so nice to actually be on the receiving end of something like that. Just for once in her life. And he was so close. Looking down with a heated gaze that stoked something deep inside her. Something that answered the question in his eyes.
Then, unable to stop herself, she lifted her face and pressed her lips to his.
What kind of madness was this? Matteo mused in a barely coherent thought process as his hands curled around her, dragging her onto his lap and returning the kiss like a starving man. He was jaded and cynical and not able to offer anything more than this.
Her fingers spiked his hair and she moaned his name, her voice tinged with that cute accent that was so different and refreshing and intriguing and haughty. She tasted delicious. Of risk and freedom and the melting of barriers. Of layers and depth and heat. And wetness.
Her tongue slipped into his mouth and meshed with his, dancing an age-old dance that fired an intense need within him. He pulled her against him, relishing her soft body against his, and then, unable to wait any longer, he slipped his hand underneath the scrub top to her bra. With one easy flick of his fingers he’d undone it and palmed a hand over warm silken flesh and the tight bud of a nipple.
At his touch she moaned again, wriggling her backside against his erection, slowly gyrating on his lap. She was driving him crazy. Wild with desire. That clever mouth that kissed as well as it shot out smart retorts. This achingly sexy body with the softest skin and the scars of a history that made his gut clench. And that drive deep within her that had elevated her from her experiences and made her so much more. He wanted to do anything to erase that hurt.
But wait.
Taking her in the staffroom? That was not his plan. She was worth more than that, deserved more. What kind of madness indeed. But he wasn’t thinking straight. It had been a long, hard day and she was just so irresistible. Such a bundle of contrasts, and so damned hot. And he did not know what any of it meant, what this need that drove him was about, that he dreamt about her. But he knew it was intense. That it was something he should be afraid of, yet at the same time he was intrigued and, mio Dio, he just couldn’t keep away.
A vibrating whirr and a tinny sound had her jumping off him, swiping a hand across her mouth and straightening her top. She reached into her pocket, pulled out a phone and frowned. ‘Oh. Er … strange? I should probably get this.’
‘Sure.’ It would give him time to calm down a little and get things into perspective. Actually, to man up and put a stop to this fooling around in a public place. Said the guy with his ass hanging out over the internet. The more he thought about that, the more he realised what a stupid prank it had been. But he wasn’t about to admit that to Ivy.
She turned away from him, her shoulders rising up to her ears as she talked. ‘Oh. Okay. I see. When? Where?’
A silence stretched as she listened. The longer she stood there the more her body tensed, her hand slowly moving up to her mouth. And, as if in harmony with her, Matteo’s heart clutched too. Clearly there was a problem and it went deeper than a work issue.
‘Of course,’ she said finally, her voice weak and wobbly. ‘I’ll be there as soon as I can. Please, tell her to … I don’t know … Tell her to hold on.’
As she slung the phone back into her pocket she turned to him, her face pale now, all traces of their passion erased. ‘I have to go back to York. My mum’s sick. She’s had a heart attack … they think, they’re running tests as we speak. Er … she’s asking for me.’
‘Of course. You must go.’ But there was something about her hesitation that gave him pause too. After all, it hadn’t sounded like she had the best relationship with her mother. And he knew how being angry and disillusioned with family could affect someone. ‘You think that’s the right thing to do?’
She raised her head enough to hold his gaze, and in her darkened, hooded eyes he saw fear and sadness and determination. Her voice was calm. ‘Just because she’s a lousy mother, it doesn’t mean I have to be a lousy daughter. If she needs me, I’ll be there for her.’
‘Of course, and you shall go. Do you need help organising things?’
‘Oh. Well, I guess I need to either hire a car or get the train. Driving’s crap on a Friday, but it means I’ll be able to go see her straight away, and also pop home for things she might need. But I think the train might be quicker … but … I don’t know …’ She took a step forward, then back. Almost as if she didn’t know how or where to start. For the first time since he’d met her she seemed totally out of her depth. Blindsided.
And he needed to step up.
Didn’t want to—because that would make things infinitesimally more complicated. But it wasn’t about him. Or this. It was about her and healing things with her mamma. ‘I’ll take you.’
‘What? No. No. No, don’t be silly. It’s fine. I can drive. I just need …’ she fished her phone out again ‘… to call a decent car hire place … or something.’
Wrapping his arms around her, he took the phone from her hands, gave her a hug that she clearly didn’t know what to do with but accepted anyway. And he was probably doing this all wrong and sending the wrong message, but he couldn’t stand here and watch her sink. She was too proud for that. ‘You are upset. Look, you’re shaking. You shouldn’t drive. Let me take you?’
She shook her head vehemently. ‘No, it’s too much to ask anyone. This is my problem, not yours. Besides, it’s a hell of a long way, a good four hours’ drive on a Friday night—more, probably, the traffic’s usually a nightmare. You can’t do it there and back in one go, not after a long day. And don’t you have plans for tomorrow? A rugby game you sold your soul to the devil for or something?’
He hugged her to him, as he would have any friend who was suffering, trying through his actions to say what he wasn’t yet ready to say in words. Hell, he didn’t know what he was trying to say.
‘It’s rugby. We will win. It will be over in eighty minutes. This is more important.’ You are more important, was what he actually thought. The shock of that shuddered through him. He didn’t know her. He didn’t like her, goddamn. Okay. So he could probably admit to liking her when she wasn’t being a prim lawyer chasing his ass. Literally.
She spun out of his arms, looking embarrassed and flustered and about as far from a prim lawyer as anyone could get. ‘And what about Joey and your other patients? They need you here.’
‘I told you, the on-call team is fabulous—the best in the city. In fact, Dave Marshall taught me everything I know about renal surgery. So they’re all in the best hands. It is fine. Really. I’m not due at work until Monday as it is, and I’m only a phone call away.’ And he should have heeded the warning bells again then, but he didn’t. Should have remembered the last time he’d allowed a woman to invade his life and his heart—and then plundered it and smashed it into tiny pieces and thrown it into the trash. The betrayal. The double whammy of hurt.
But this was different. Ivy needed help and he could give it to her. What kind of a man did otherwise?
CHAPTER SEVEN (#u0400c727-bc8d-5c8b-a0d8-a279d8c5b44d)
IT WAS LATE and dark when they arrived at the hospital, after a long journey where Ivy had felt herself withdraw into her worries. But Matteo had kept a constant stream of trivial conversation to dredge an occasional smile and for that she was grateful.
Now she knew he liked rugby more than football. That he preferred bottled beer to wine. That he’d had his wisdom teeth removed when he was twenty. Nothing deeper than that. But it had been enough. More than enough to keep her from going out of her mind with concern.
He pulled up outside the entrance, a hand on her knee as he spoke. ‘I’ll find a parking spot. You go in, I’ll find you.’
‘She’ll be in the cardiac ward, I imagine. Or High Dependency or something … I’ll ask at Reception. Perhaps I should text you?’ She went for her phone in her bag. Did she have his number?
He put his hand on hers and gave her a smile that went bone deep. ‘Ivy, I know my way around a hospital. I’ll find you. Go.’
‘Of course. Yes. Yes.’ What was wrong with her? One stolen kiss and she’d been reduced to fluff. Her brain wasn’t functioning. Maybe it was the worry about her mum …
After she watched him pull away she went to find her mother, feeling empty and bewildered, her own heart bruised and broken enough too. There was so much between them that needed to be said, that she wanted to fix but wanted to avoid at all costs.
The hospital corridors were silent as she walked to the reception desk, a grey-haired lady pointing her in the direction of Cardiac Care. Darkness outside the windows penetrated her heart. She’d been talking about her mum and then something bad had happened. What did that mean?
She didn’t want to rail at her, to blame her for the crappy upbringing she’d had—it was too late for that. All Ivy had ever wanted was recognition that she was important in her mother’s life. But, in the end, she supposed, it didn’t matter a jot. Ivy’s mother was important to her and if love only went one way, then so be it. It was too late for recriminations.
One of the nurses greeted her and showed her to her mother’s bed with a stern warning to be quick and quiet.
‘Ivy.’ Her mum looked frail and old, lying on pale green sheets that leached colour from her cheeks. Tubes and wires stuck out from under the blanket, attached to a monitor that bleeped at reassuringly regular intervals. A tube piped oxygen into her nostrils, but she sucked in air too, pain etched across her features. ‘Thank you for coming, I said not to bother you. I know you’re busy—too busy to have to come all this way to see your old mum.’
‘Mum, you’ve had a heart attack—since when was that not enough to bring me to see you?’ Guilt ripped through Ivy, as she’d known it would. It was what happened every time she saw her mum—whatever Ivy had done it had never been enough to make her mother love her and she just didn’t know how to make things better. She gave her a hug, which was always difficult, and this time it was hindered by the tubes. Movement made her mother’s monitor beep, and consequently made Ivy’s heart pound—loudly—and so she quickly let go. The space between them seemed to stretch.
‘How are you feeling?’
‘Lousy.’ Breathless and wheezing, her mum settled back down and the beeping stopped. ‘I had … an angioplasty. They’ve cleared the occlusion … put in a stent … so I just need a short stay in here … then do some rehab … as an out-patient.’
It was fixable. Just faulty plumbing. Relief flooded through her as she held her mum’s hand. But once again she felt very much like their roles had been reversed, that she was the one taking the care, being the parent. ‘That’s great news. I was … I was worried about you.’
‘Thanks, love. I’m glad you came. You’re all I’ve got now. Can you stay … you know, a while?’
Responsibility tugged Ivy in every direction. Her job, everything, could be put on hold. Couldn’t it? She’d only been there a few weeks—but they’d understand. Wouldn’t they? She had a nagging sensation that things weren’t going to be easy, that she’d have to fight to take time off—time she hadn’t yet earned. And she had that upcoming sexual harassment case that was so important for everyone involved. She needed to be in London all clued up for that.
And she needed to be here with her mum. Someone who had never been there for her. Maybe she could trust the case to a junior? Maybe she could teleconference with them all. Maybe, surely, they’d understand? What would happen if they didn’t? She didn’t want to contemplate that. She’d finally got her dream job, and now … She looked at her mum, frail and anxious. ‘I’ll stay here with you as long as you need, Mum.’
‘I’d appreciate it. I don’t have anyone else.’
‘You have me.’ Even though it had never seemed enough. ‘Is there anything you need? Once they have you settled …’
