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An Enticing Proposal
Meredith Webber
When nurse Paige Warren rescues a young pregnant Italian woman, she doesn't expect her impulsive act to bring a prince into her life. Paige phones Italy, leaving a message for "Marco," but Dr. Marco Alberici–who won't use his royal title–arrives in person!He disrupts her surgery and her hormones–not good, when she think thinks he's Lucia husband! Finding out he's her brother is a relief, but should Paige really accept his invitation to return to Italy with them?
“Marco always gets his own way, Lucia told me.”
“Not always,” he said in a husky voice.
“No?” The word squeaked out, betraying her agitation, although Paige was sure he could also hear her erratic heartbeats and feel the nerves jumping in her skin.
“No!” he whispered. “Because right now Marco has an almost uncontrollable urge to kiss your lips—to see if they taste as sweet as they look. Of course, he would pretend it was a thank-you for caring for his sister Lucia—a casual salute. But he was brought up to treat a woman with respect, so he won’t do it, but it’s proof—no?—that Marco doesn’t always get his way.”
As a person who lists her hobbies as reading, reading and reading, it was hardly surprising that Meredith Webber fell into writing when she needed a job she could do at home. Not that anyone in the family considers it a “real job”! She is fortunate enough to live on the Gold Coast in Queensland, Australia, as this gives her the opportunity to catch up with many other people with the same “unreal” job when they visit the popular tourist area.
An Enticing Proposal
Meredith Webber
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE (#u5b7d2a59-f102-596d-bb33-f33e030f6c7c)
CHAPTER TWO (#ud7e64d63-2b9e-5929-bce0-f9e66ac95b84)
CHAPTER THREE (#uac3d4935-2ca6-53b2-9d88-82e4e57148be)
CHAPTER FOUR (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ONE
‘I CAN arrange for Dougal to see Dr Barclay this afternoon, Mrs Dean, but I know he won’t prescribe antibiotics for Dougal’s cold so it would be a waste of your time, coming back again.’
Paige sighed inwardly, wondering why she bothered to waste breath in an argument she was certain to lose.
‘All I want is some more of the pink medicine,’ Mrs Dean whined. ‘Dr Graham let me have some and it fixed Darryl’s nose so why can’t I have the same for Dougal?’
Forcing back the urge to scream and rant and rave at the woman, Paige explained, for the fourth time in ten minutes, the difference between sinusitis and the common cold, pointed out that the viruses causing the cold would be unaffected by the pink medicine and tried to convince Mrs Dean that rest and a diet including plenty of fluids would soon have young Dougal on the mend.
Young Dougal in the meantime, bored with the conversation, had hooked his thumbs into the corners of his mouth, set his forefingers against his temples and was now contorting his face into various gargoyle shapes which he directed at Paige. If anything, she decided as she listened to Mrs Dean’s praise for pink medicine, it improved the looks of a child with a white pudgy face and small raisin eyes, liberally decorated at the moment with the inevitable nasal effusion of the so-called ‘common’ cold.
A commotion in the waiting room beyond her door suggested restlessness among the natives, so she turned her attention from Dougal’s antics and tried once again to prevent an incursion into Ken Barclay’s freely given but limited time.
‘Look, Mrs Dean, you can ask Carole if Dr Barclay has an appointment available this afternoon, but, believe me, Dougal’s cold will run its course and he’s better off without unnecessary antibiotics.’
The ‘noises off’, as script writers might describe the raised voices outside, were increasing so Paige, with a final smile of appreciation for Dougal’s facial contortions, stood up to show the visit was at an end. Mrs Dean took the hint, rising laboriously to her feet, grumbling under her breath about no-good nurses and services that were supposed to help the needy, not send them away empty handed.
Having heard it all before, Paige ignored the barbed comments, holding out her hand to offer support to the hugely pregnant woman, wondering idly what the Deans would call the new baby, should it be a girl. Darlene? Dorothy? Diana? After Darryl, Denzil, David, Dennis and Dougal, maybe they would change the initial letter.
‘And by the sound of things you’ve got men in the place.’ The grumbling became audible and Paige realised her patient was right. There was at least one man in the waiting room—and not a very happy man at that, if his tone of voice was any indication.
‘Supposed to be for women, Tuesdays!’ Mrs Dean griped, resisting Paige’s attempts to hustle her out the door and calmly rearranging multitudinous layers of clothes around her bulk.
Paige opened the door, more anxious now to discover what was going on than to be free of Mrs Dean. The waiting room was in its usual state of chaos. Children crawled around the floor or fought over the small collection of toys and books she’d managed to accumulate. Their mothers sat on hard plastic chairs, exchanging news and gossip in a desultory fashion, their attention focussed on the confrontation taking place at the reception desk. Some were waiting to see her, but others would have appointments with Sue Chalmers, an occupational therapist who volunteered her time on Tuesday mornings to run a small toy library.
Carole Benn, the community service’s receptionist, was in place behind the high counter, which provided her with little protection from the man who was leaning across it, waggling his finger in her face and growling threateningly at her.
A second man stood slightly behind this aggressive type, looking remote and disinterested, seemingly oblivious to the noise and activity all around him. His colour was bad—olive overlaid with grey. An illness perhaps. Had the pair strayed in here, thinking it was a medical practice? She studied the silent man covertly—from a female not a nursing point of view this time. Bad colour did little to diminish the magnetism of a face which could have been carved from mountain rock—like the heads of presidents somewhere in the United States.
The wayward thought flitted through Paige’s mind as she ushered Mrs Dean towards the counter and raised her eyebrows at Carole. Carole lifted one hand and made an almost imperceptible shooing movement with her fingers but the irate man observed the motion and spun immediately towards Paige.
‘So you are Paige Morgan!’ he said in accusatory tones. ‘This woman tries to tell me you are not available. I am Benelli and this is Prince Alessandro Francesco Marcus Alberici.’
To the astonishment of Paige, and all the occupants of the waiting room, the younger man came to attention and all but clicked his heels together as he indicated the second man with a wild flourish of one hand and a movement of his body that suggested obeisance.
‘Ah, at last my prince has come.’ Paige clasped her hands theatrically in front of her chest and raised her eyes to the ceiling. Then she grinned at Carole. ‘Wouldn’t you know he’d arrive on a Tuesday when I’m too busy for a coronation.’
Inside, she wasn’t quite so light-hearted as bits of her fizzed and squished in a most unseemly manner—the result of another quick appraisal of the second man’s bone structure.
Lust at first sight?
With a determined effort, she turned away, concentrating on the underling, hoping to surprise a smile in his eyes, some confirmation he wasn’t serious.
‘Am I supposed to guess something—or answer a question and get a prize?’ she hazarded. ‘Is it a joke of some kind, or a new form of fund-raising? I’m afraid my sense of humour’s a bit dulled this morning and, as for money, this place takes every penny I can scrounge up.’
Mr Benelli turned an unattractive shade of puce—now she had two bad-complexioned strangers in her waiting room! He jumped up and down—or rose on his toes to give that impression—and began waggling his forefinger at her.
‘This is no joke! He is a prince, a real prince, and he does not want money.’
‘Well, that’s a change,’ Paige replied, risking a swift glance towards the ‘real prince’ and catching what appeared to be a glint of humour in his black eyes. Black eyes? Did eyes come in black? Not that she could see them closely enough to judge eye colour accurately. ‘What does he want?’
She shook her head as she heard her own question. Why the hell was she carrying on this conversation through an intermediary?
‘He wishes to speak with you on a matter of extreme urgency,’ Mr Benelli informed her, and for the first time Paige caught the hint of a foreign accent in his properly worded and pronounced English and realised that he, too, had the dark hair and olive complexion of his companion, a colouring she associated with Mediterranean origins.
Surely it couldn’t be…Her heart skittered at the half-formed thought.
‘I’ll be free at twelve,’ she said crisply, hoping her rising anxiety wasn’t apparent in the words. ‘Perhaps you could both come back then.’ She glanced again towards the second man, realised the grey colour was probably fatigue and added, ‘Or you could wait here if you prefer.’
The offer failed to please Benelli, who all but exploded on the spot as he poured out his indignation.
‘This is urgent, he must see you now. The car waits outside to drive him back to Sydney. He is busy man. Important. Not to be—’
Paige missed the end of the sentence, too intent on trying to settle the new upheaval within her—one that had nothing to do with lust. Perhaps it was a joke, she hoped desperately. Hadn’t she glimpsed a gleam of humour in the dark eyes? And why didn’t the second man speak if it was his errand—his urgency?
He answered the second question almost as she thought it.
‘We will wait, Benelli,’ he said, in a voice that vibrated across Paige’s skin like a bow drawn across violin strings.
Shivering at the effect, she pulled a file from the holder on her office door and called the name of the next patient, seeing Benelli offer the newly vacated chair to the ‘prince’, the man refusing it and propping himself on the window-ledge as her father had done during her childhood when this had been their living room, not a place for those who could not afford other services to wait—and hope.
Her father had been a tall man—a little over six feet—and the window-ledge had been comfortable for him. But she’d never found it anything but awkward to perch there, although at five feet eight she wasn’t a short woman.
And why you’re thinking about how tall you are is beyond me, she admonished herself silently, leading Mabel Kruger into the room, then closing the door firmly on the unwelcome visitors.
‘’Andsome enough to be a prince,’ Mabel remarked, settling into the visitor’s chair and lifting her leg onto the stool Paige had pulled towards her.
‘Why should we expect princes to be handsomer than ordinary mortals?’ she asked crossly, peeling dressings off Mabel’s ulcer as gently and carefully as she could.
‘They are in books,’ Mabel pointed out. ‘And, apart from that Charles, the Queen’s lads are good-looking.’
‘Well, I’m sure she’d be pleased to hear you say so,’ Paige responded, talking to distract Mabel’s attention as she debrided dead tissue, cleaning out the gaping hole and wondering if a skin graft might eventually be necessary or if they were winning the battle against infection. ‘Though I think I prefer blond men. Why are princes always depicted as dark?’
They chatted on, and she knew she was diverting herself as well as Mabel. Not wanting to think about the phone call she’d made, about betrayal—and being caught out. No, the two couldn’t be connected. A simple phone call in return was all she’d expected—wanted.
So why did she feel sick with apprehension? Why was she harbouring a grim foreknowledge that the strangers in her waiting room were connected with Lucia?
She set aside unanswerable questions. Mabel was explaining, with minimal use of the letter ‘h’, about the beauty of the princes she’d encountered in the fairytale books of her youth. She then moved on to wonder about the reliability or otherwise of princes, given the unreliability of men in general. Paige let her talk and concentrated all her attention on her task, peeling the protective backing off the new dressing, then pressing it firmly in place.
‘Now, leave it there all week unless your leg swells or you notice any unusual redness or feel extra pain,’ she told her patient. ‘And rest with your leg up whenever you can—’
‘So I don’t ’ave to go to ’ospital and get a graft!’
Mabel repeated the usual ending to this warning, then she patted Paige—who was still kneeling on the floor, pulling Mabel’s sock up over the dressing—on the head and said, ‘Not that you don’t deserve a prince, girl.’
Paige looked up at her and smiled.
‘Don’t wish that on me. I don’t want any man—let alone a princely one,’ she teased, using the back of Mabel’s chair to lever herself up to her feet.
‘You mightn’t want one,’ Mabel argued, ‘but you’re the kind of girl as needs a man about the place—well, not needs, maybe, but should ’ave. I see your eyes when you look at those kids sometimes, and the babies. That fancy doctor did you no favour, getting you all interested in things like marriage then taking off with that floozy.’
Well, that’s a different take on my break-up with James, Paige thought as she helped Mabel to her feet. Was that how all her patients viewed the nine-day wonder of it all? How her friends saw it?
‘Not all men are the same,’ Mabel declared with as much authority as if she’d made that notable discovery herself.
Paige grinned at the pronouncement. She walked the elderly woman to the door and saw her out, her eyes going immediately to the man framed in the window embrasure. No, all men were not the same, she admitted silently, then trembled as if a draught had brushed across her neck.
Calling for the next patient, she turned back inside so she didn’t have to look at the stranger in their midst.
Well, you mightn’t have to look at him, but you’ll have to think about him some time soon, she reminded herself, grabbing the chubby two-year-old who’d scampered through the door ahead of her mother, intent on climbing onto Paige’s desk and creating as much havoc as she could.
‘Not today, Josephine,’ she murmured as she swung the child into her arms and gave her a quick hug. ‘Is she any calmer on the Effilix?’ she asked, turning to the young woman who’d followed them into the room and settled into the chair with a tired sigh.
Yes, she had more to worry about than princes—or men either—at the moment, she reminded herself, watching Debbie and wondering how she juggled her studies and motherhood.
‘I suppose it depends on your definition of calmer,’ Debbie Palmer replied with a wry grin that told Paige no miracle cure had been effected by the natural therapy. ‘But Susie’s been giving her massages every second day and that seems to have a good effect on her, and the other mothers at playgroup feel she’s interacting much better with their kids.’
‘Well, that’s something,’ Paige said in her most encouraging voice, setting Josie back on her feet and handing her a small bright top, demonstrating how it spun, then watching as the little hands tried to duplicate the action. In her opinion, Josephine was a very bright child with an active, enquiring mind, but too many people had muttered ‘hyperactive’ to Debbie, and the young single mother now feared a diagnosis of ADD—the attention deficit disorder—which was the popular label for behavioural problems used among parents and school teachers at the moment.
Debbie was ambivalent about the drugs used to treat the disorder—some days determined to keep Josie off medication, while on others wanting the relief she imagined they might bring. Paige had come down on the side of a drug-free life for the child and pressed this point of view whenever possible, although at times she wondered how she would feel in a similar situation.
‘I’ve arranged for a paediatrician to see Josie next month,’ she said. ‘It’s a Dr Kerr, and he’s agreed to meet you here so she’s in familiar territory. But as I’ve said before, Deb, there’s no guarantee he’ll come up with anything. It’s very difficult to pin a label on so young a child.’
Debbie looked at her without answering, then she shrugged and grinned.
‘Seems a little unfair, doesn’t it? You get a prince and I get a paediatrician!’
‘I can’t imagine he’s really a prince,’ Paige retorted. ‘And, even if he is, what would I want with one?’
‘Well, he’s decorative for a start,’ Debbie pointed out. ‘And he oozes that magnetic kind of sex appeal only some men have, in case you’re too old to remember what sex appeal is.’
Paige chuckled in spite of the worry Debbie’s conversation had regenerated.
‘Am I walking around looking jaded and depressed? Or like someone gnawing at her bones with frustration?’ she said. ‘Mabel’s just told me I need a man and now you’re here offering me good-looking sex.’
‘Oh, he’s beyond good-looking,’ Debbie argued, taking the top from her daughter before it could be hurled across the room. She leaned forward and demonstrated its action once more, then smiled as she watched the little figure squat down on the floor and try again.
Paige watched the interaction of mother and child, saw Debbie’s smile, so full of love for this difficult little mortal she’d conceived by accident, and felt the tug of envious longing which told her Mabel was right.
But the prince, if prince he was and her assumptions were correct, had come to reclaim his wife, not carry a tired community nurse off into some fabled distance on his shining white charger.
She sighed.
‘Sighing’s usually my line, not yours,’ Debbie told her. ‘Are you OK?’
‘A bit tired,’ Paige explained, not untruthfully. The problem of what to do with her uninvited house guest had been keeping her awake at night for the last month.
‘That’s why you need a change—a holiday,’ Debbie reminded her. ‘You’ve been working for what…four years without a break. You deserve a bit of time to yourself.’
To do what? Paige thought, but she didn’t say it. She did need a break, needed to get right away somewhere so she wouldn’t be tempted to step in if things went wrong at the service, answer calls at night which someone else should take.
But with Lucia?
She sighed again.
‘OK, OK, I get the message,’ Debbie said. ‘I won’t keep you. I brought back the library toys and Sue chose some new ones for Josie, so all I need is a time for Dr Kerr’s appointment and I’m out of here.’ She grinned cheekily at Paige. ‘Leaving you with only one patient to go before the prince!’
