Surgeon's Second Chance in Florence
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Kate Hardy
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CHAPTER ONE
‘SAMANTHA CLARKE! JUST the woman I wanted to see.’ Will Reynolds, the head of the department, smiled at Sam. ‘Can we have a quick word in my office?’
Sam, assuming that her boss wanted her to talk to her about a new case, smiled back and followed him to his office.
‘Have a seat,’ he said, perching on the edge of his desk. ‘First of all, I have some good news—that research grant we applied for has been confirmed, and we can start in three months’ time. I’m delighted to say it means we’ll be promoting you to consultant.’
Sam beamed at him. ‘Thank you, Will! That’s fantastic.’
‘I knew you’d be pleased,’ Will said. ‘And, secondly, I have an interesting case for you. Triplet pregnancy from IVF—twins and a singleton.’
That was unusual enough in itself, but Sam guessed there would also be a complication which might need surgery, or Will wouldn’t be talking to her about it.
‘And there’s suspected twin-to-twin transfusion syndrome,’ he said, confirming her thoughts.
‘What stage?’ she asked.
‘They’re doing another scan today at her hospital,’ he said. ‘If it’s still stage two—’ which Sam knew was when you couldn’t see the smaller baby’s bladder on the ultrasound, but it hadn’t progressed to abnormal blood flow in the vessels around the heart ‘—then obviously amnioreduction is a possibility.’
When babies were still mildly affected by TTTS, doctors could try draining the excess fluid from one amniotic sac to resolve the problem. ‘But you’re thinking it’s more likely to have progressed further and we’ll need to do endoscopic laser ablation?’ Sam had been working more intensively with foetal laser surgery over the last few months, so it sounded as if this was a mum and three babies who’d end up under her care.
‘Got it in one,’ he said.
‘OK. When are they coming in?’
‘That’s the catch,’ he said. ‘They’re not coming here.’
‘So you’re sending me to a different hospital in London?’
‘Nope.’ He wrinkled his nose. ‘You know that the Muswell Hill Memorial Hospital is twinned with the Michelangelo Hospital in Florence?’ At her nod, Will continued, ‘Ricardo Fanelli, who’s my equivalent in Florence, is setting up a new unit in foetal medicine. Professor Henri Lefevre from Paris is going to Florence for three months to oversee the unit and start training them, but Ric has asked for you to go over and treat this particular mum and her babies and work on secondment there until the research project starts.’
It was a fabulous opportunity, plus she’d always wanted to visit Florence.
Sam quickly suppressed the memory of the last time she’d visited Italy—and the last person she’d visited Italy with. That part of her life was over. Besides, as far as she knew, Angelo lived in Rome, so she was hardly likely to cross paths with him in Florence.
‘Sam?’
She shook herself. Angelo had nothing to do with this. This was work. ‘I’d love to do it, Will. When do they want me to start?’
‘That’s the other thing.’ He wrinkled his nose. ‘How’s your Italian?’
‘Conversational rather than medical,’ she said. ‘And it’s horribly rusty.’ She hadn’t spoken Italian in two years, since Angelo had dumped her.
‘They can probably help you with a translator, at least to start with,’ Will said. ‘But I’d advise you to get an app or something and start brushing it up again, and learning a few medical terms, because they want you to start on Thursday morning.’
‘Thursday?’ She felt her eyes widen. ‘As in three days from now?’
‘I know it’s practically no notice, but that’s when the mum’s coming in again for another review,’ he said.
‘Well, that flat I was buying fell through, so I’m still staying with my parents. As long as you can cover me here, and I can get a flight, and someone in Florence doesn’t mind helping me to find somewhere to stay, then...’ She shrugged. ‘I’m good to go.’
‘That’s great,’ Will said. ‘Though, as I said, I want you back for that research project. So no getting swept off your feet by a gorgeous Italian doctor, OK?’
Been there, done that, and won’t make the same mistake again, Sam thought. ‘No chance of that,’ she said with a smile. ‘If you don’t mind me taking my break early, I need to tell my mum and sort out my flight.’
‘Great. I’ll ring Ric and tell him the good news,’ Will said.
‘Stop worrying. I’m perfectly fine,’ Ruggiero Brunelli said.
Angelo wasn’t entirely sure his dad was telling the truth. A visit every other week and a video call every day didn’t feel like enough support. He loved living in Florence, but maybe he should move back to Rome to be closer to his dad?
‘Angelo. You’re the best son anyone could ask for,’ Ruggiero said gently. ‘And I’m not going to have a relapse. I’m eating properly, I go swimming three times a week, I see friends regularly, and I have Baffi to keep me company.’ He gestured to the black and white cat who was snoozing in a patch of sunlight.
‘I know.’ But Angelo still worried. His father’s addiction to painkillers had turned Angelo’s life upside down two years ago. Angelo had been in England at the time, and on the cusp of asking Sam to marry him. But when his Uncle Salvatore had called to put him in the picture, Angelo had known he needed to move back to Italy and concentrate on helping his dad. And there was no way he could’ve dragged Sam into it. Even if he’d ignored the potential scandal of a senior doctor self-prescribing narcotics—something that would’ve got Ruggiero struck off the register—there was the addiction side of things. Sam’s younger brother had been an addict, and he’d died from an accidental overdose; she’d still been grieving when Angelo had first met her. How could he have asked her to support him through his dad’s rehab, and bring all those painful memories back for her? Especially because he’d missed all the signs; how could he trust himself with her heart, when he’d let his dad down?
To protect her, he’d pushed her away—knowing that he was hurting her, but also knowing that if she stayed with him the situation would hurt her even more. And in a way, it had protected him as well; he’d felt helpless when he’d lost his mum, whereas ending it with Sam meant that at least he was in control. He’d done his best to minimise the potential hurt for both of them. Even though it had ripped his own heart out, lying to her and saying that he didn’t love her any more.
He’d spent a year in Rome, supporting his father through the miserable months of rehab and then he’d been offered the job in Florence. He hadn’t managed to persuade his dad to come with him and make a fresh start, but Ruggiero had encouraged him to take the job. And at least the hour and a half on the train between Florence and Rome was quicker and easier than doing the train-plane-train trek from London.
‘I still wish you’d move to Florence,’ he said. ‘We could get a house in the hills so you have a garden. And it’s probably the best place in Italy for art. You know how much you loved visiting the Uffizi with me.’
‘I was born in Rome and I’ll die in Rome,’ Ruggiero said.
Angelo thought of the car crash that had left his father hooked on heavy-duty painkillers. How easy it could’ve been for his dad to forget how much he’d taken, accidentally overdose and die, the way Sam’s brother had. Or was this his father’s way of telling Angelo he’d had enough of living on his own and wanted to be with Angelo’s mum? He winced. ‘Dad.’
‘I didn’t mean it like that.’ Ruggiero returned the wince. ‘Sorry. Let me make it clear. I’m absolutely not suicidal and I’m not going to take an overdose, accidental or otherwise. I simply meant I’m stubborn, I love my home city and I plan to stay right where I am. I’m fine, son. Really.’
Though Angelo couldn’t help running through a mental checklist: sweating, dilated or pinpoint pupils, co-ordination problems, itching...
His father was scratching his arm.
Ruggiero rolled his eyes as if he’d guessed what was going through Angelo’s head. ‘Pruritis has quite a few probable causes. Mine happens to be from an insect bite. See?’ He held his arm so Angelo could see the reddened lump. ‘Yes, I know scratching a bite is the quickest way to get it infected. I’m going to put a cold compress on it to stop the itching, after you’ve gone. And, no, I’m not going to take ibuprofen to reduce the swelling. I’ve got some antihistamine cream somewhere.’ He gave Angelo a gentle smile. ‘I might be ancient and two years out of practising medicine, but I can still just about remember my training.’
‘Sorry, Dad.’ Shame mingled with relief. ‘You’ve got thirty years more experience than I have in medicine.’
‘I made very a stupid mistake. I should’ve asked for help instead of thinking I could sort things out myself. And I’ve learned from that mistake,’ Ruggiero said. ‘When you come to see me, I really would like to see my son the man, rather than my son the doctor. I’d like to go out with you for good food and a glass of wine and tell you terrible jokes, and not have to worry that you’re worrying about me.’ He paused. ‘And I’d like you to come to spend time with your dad, not to visit a patient who might lapse back into his painkiller addiction and needs watching like a hawk.’
Guilt surged through Angelo. ‘I know. I want that, too.’
‘But you still worry about me, whatever I say.’ Ruggiero gave him a hug. ‘It’s supposed to be the other way round, you know, with the parent never stopping worrying about their child. You had the worry of your mum’s breast cancer through your student years, and now it’s me. Though, actually, I worry about you. I think you need someone in your life, Angelo: a partner, not a difficult parent.’
‘You’re not difficult,’ Angelo said.
‘If you weren’t worrying about me, you’d relax,’ Ruggiero pointed out. ‘You’d date someone for more than a couple of months before backing off. You’d let someone close.’
Except Angelo knew that whoever he dated would never measure up to Sam. And he’d left it way too late to fix things between them. He’d learned that the hard way when he’d gone back to London. ‘I’m fine,’ Angelo lied.
‘Hmm.’ Ruggiero looked at him. ‘If you’re worrying that I wouldn’t accept a male partner, then let me reassure you that I don’t care whether you’re gay, straight or somewhere in between. That doesn’t matter. I just want you to be happy—and to be loved.’
Angelo blinked back the tears that unexpectedly stung his eyes. ‘For the record, Dad, I’m straight. But I’m glad you’d accept me if I wasn’t. I’ve seen friends go through a rough time until their families accepted who they were—even now.’
‘Love is love,’ Ruggiero said. ‘Being a recovering addict has taught me a lot about acceptance. About not judging. And I want you to have a life, Angelo.’
‘I do have a life,’ Angelo protested. ‘I have a job I love, good friends, and a flat with an amazing view.’ Which was all true. Provided you didn’t look beyond the surface to see the empty spaces.
‘But you spend your time worrying about me instead of embracing life. You keep yourself at a distance from people,’ Ruggiero said. ‘So let’s do a deal. I promise that I’ll keep going to the addiction support group every week, and they have my full permission to contact you if they’re even the slightest bit worried about me. Your uncle keeps an eye on me, too. And you—you make sure you date someone before your next visit to Rome, and send me a selfie of you together. Agreed?’
Angelo was fairly sure he could talk one of his colleagues into posing for a photograph to make it look as if they were dating. If that would keep his dad happy, it’d be worth asking for a favour. ‘Deal.’
‘Good.’ His father gave him a hug. ‘Safe journey. Text me when you’re home.’
‘Of course I will. Have a good week, Dad.’ Angelo hugged him back.
But on the way back to Florence he picked up a message from his boss, Ric Fanelli.
Muswell Hill Memorial Hospital is sending one of their team to us for a three-month secondment in the new unit. She starts Thursday. Can I ask you to help her settle in and translate?
As Angelo was half-English and had trained in London, he wasn’t surprised by the request. But then he saw the name of their new doctor.
No.
It couldn’t be her.
Surely.
He clicked on the link to her profile on the hospital website, and the photograph took his breath away.
Sam Clarke. Two years older and two years more beautiful.
He’d had no idea that she’d moved into foetal surgery. He hadn’t seen her since he’d come back to Italy; their break-up had been by phone, because he hadn’t trusted himself to go through with it if he’d looked her in the eye. Though, a year ago—when his dad was stable enough for Angelo to be sure he wasn’t leaving Sam open to potential hurt—he’d gone back to London, ready to open his heart to her and apologise for the way he’d left. To tell her the truth about his dad’s addiction and the way he was still coming to terms with losing his mum, and ask her to forgive him. He’d turned up at their old department at lunchtime, hoping he might be able to find out when she was off duty. The receptionist was someone he didn’t know, so clearly she’d joined the department since he’d left.
‘I used to work here,’ he said, ‘and I wanted to look up some old friends while I’m in London. Would you be able to tell me what shift Sam Clarke is on, please?’
‘Oh, Sam’s not in today,’ the receptionist said. ‘She’s gone to Liverpool for the weekend with Greg.’
‘Greg?’ Who was Greg? Another new person in the department?
‘Her boyfriend.’ The receptionist smiled. ‘He’s so lovely. Swept her off her feet. I wouldn’t be surprised if he pops the question, this weekend.’
What?
Sam was dating someone else, and it was getting serious?
For a moment, he couldn’t quite piece it all together, and then the realisation slammed into him.
He’d left it too late.
But, if she was happy, it wouldn’t be fair to turn her life upside down again. He’d been miserable for the last year, feeling guilty that he’d missed all the signs with his dad and wishing that his mum had still been around to share his worries and help him work out a plan. What could he really offer Sam, except more of the uncertainty that came with addiction? And what if it was too much for her and she left him anyway?
All the pain and longing would’ve been for nothing.
So maybe it would be better to do the right thing and go back to Italy without seeing her.
‘Do you want to leave a message for her?’ the receptionist asked.
‘No, you’re all right,’ he said, forcing a smile he didn’t feel. ‘Thanks, anyway.’ He’d managed to square his shoulders and saunter away as if his heart wasn’t breaking into tiny pieces all over again.
And now it looked as if their paths were going to cross again for the next three months.
Had the woman been right and Greg had asked Sam to marry him, that weekend? Were they engaged, or even married?
Sam’s profile on the hospital website was focused on professional matters, and they weren’t friends on social media, so he had no idea. At least he had a couple of days to get used to the idea of seeing her again. But the prospect of having Sam back in his life, even temporarily, made him feel as if he was hurtling down from the top of a rollercoaster at full speed. Just how was he going to deal with this?
On Wednesday morning, Sam caught the plane to Pisa. When she’d collected her luggage, she checked the notes on her phone: next was the people-mover from the airport to the train station, and then the train to Florence.
She bought the tickets she needed, along with a sandwich and a bottle of water, took the people-mover to the train station, then found her seat on the train to Florence and enjoyed looking out at the scenery. Tuscany was such a pretty part of Italy, with its tall, narrow cypress trees and spreading vineyards; the river Arno ran alongside the train tracks, broadening into beautiful water meadows. Now, in the spring, everywhere was green, feeling fresh and new.
According to the map on her phone, her new flat was easily within walking distance from the station in Florence. And it turned out to be a gorgeous walk: narrow streets with flagstone paving, lined by four-storey buildings in tones of saffron and dark cream with shuttered windows. Everywhere she looked, there were ancient churches and towers; there were statues on corners and in niches, and stunning little details on every bit of ironwork she saw. No wonder Florence was a top destination for art-lovers.
Then she turned a corner and the famous cathedral was right in front of her, with the octagonal Duomo and its red-tiled roof. From photographs, she’d always thought the facade of the building was black and white, but up close she could see tones of dark green and cream and red. It was absolutely stunning. And to think she’d go past this every day on the way to work: how fantastic was that?
Smiling, she headed to the concierge’s office to pick up her keys. Her flat was in a sixteenth-century stone building; there was a huge wooden doorway with a lion’s head knocker. How many people had used that knocker and walked through that door, over the centuries?
Although there was no lift to the top floor, she didn’t mind. Taking the stairs would keep her fit. At the same time, she was glad she’d travelled relatively light and only had the one suitcase to haul up three flights of stairs.
She unlocked the door and left her case by the doorway while she explored inside.
Most of the walls in the living room had been painted white, but Sam was thrilled to see that the top of one wall actually had the remains of an ancient fresco. Compared with her very modern flat in London, this was incredible: a building with art that someone had made five hundred years ago.
There was a comfortable-looking sofa in the living room, with a stripped wooden floor and a rug in rich tones of blue; a small bistro table and two ladderback chairs stood next to an archway that led to a compact kitchen. The kitchen area, too, was decorated in neutral tones, with pale counters and light wood cupboard doors; here, the flooring was terracotta flagstone.
The marble-tiled bathroom had a good-sized shower. The last room was a bedroom, again with stripped wooden flooring and a rug; there was a wrought-iron double bedstead, a gilt-framed mirror and a large wardrobe. The window had wooden shutters; Sam opened them to see the view, and then realised with delight that she could actually see the Duomo above the terracotta rooftops.
She took a snap to send to her mum and her best friend, captioning it.
A room with a view—it doesn’t get more amazing than this!
It was still hard to believe that she was going to be living right in the historic centre of a city she’d always wanted to visit, doing a job that she loved.
And she couldn’t wait for the next three months to start.
The concierge had given her an envelope along with her keys. She opened it to discover a note written in perfect English from one of her colleagues, welcoming her to Florence. Lidia had left her some milk and fresh coffee in the fridge, a loaf of bread and a bag of delicious-looking cookies in the cupboard, directions to the supermarket and a note of the best places to buy bread, cheese, fruit and vegetables locally, as well as advice about a couple of good places to eat nearby.
Sam made herself a quick coffee to go with the cookies—which tasted even better than they looked—to restore some of her energy from travelling, then headed out to buy food, plus some flowers to say thank you to Lidia. And she was pleased to discover that her language skills, helped by the app she’d been using for the last few days, were starting to come back; the shopkeepers were more than happy to help remind her of some of the words she’d forgotten.
Words that Angelo had taught her, patiently guiding her initial stumbling efforts and rewarding her with kisses...
She shook herself. That part of her life was over and done with. What was the point of wishing for what might have been? Angelo had made it clear enough that he didn’t love her any more. He’d said he needed to go back to Italy to sort out some family stuff, and when she’d asked him what she could do to help he’d mumbled vague excuses. He’d barely answered the supportive texts she’d sent. And then he’d called her, out of the blue.
‘Sam, there isn’t a good way to say this, so I’m going to be honest with you. Things aren’t working out between us.’
She’d been so shocked that she hadn’t been able to say a word.
‘I’m staying in Italy,’ he’d continued.
‘But—I thought—’ She’d stumbled over the words. They’d been so good together.
‘I’m sorry. I realised when I was here, I don’t love you the way you deserve to be loved.’
‘But—’
‘Sorry. Be happy.’ And he’d ended the call.
She’d been devastated. Angelo had met her a few months after her brother’s death, when she’d been a walking shadow of guilt and misery, convinced that there must’ve been something she’d missed and she could’ve saved Dominic. They’d become friends and he’d made her realise that addiction was hard to help and nobody could’ve done more for her brother. And friendship had turned to love...or so she’d thought.
But Angelo hadn’t loved her, after all.
And she didn’t have a clue where it had gone wrong. It had taken her months to pick herself up and dust herself down again. Not that she’d made a huge success of it. Even though Greg from the Emergency Department was a lovely guy, she’d realised that she was dating him on the rebound and that wasn’t fair, so she’d told him as gently as she could that they needed to go back to being just good friends. She hadn’t dated since, burying herself in her work.
But maybe Florence would help her move away from the past. A summer in the Italian sunshine. And when she returned to London, after her secondment, she’d be ready to try again.
On the way back to her flat, Sam walked along the riverbank, enjoying the view of the bridges—and particularly the huge stone arch of the Ponte Vecchio, with its little shops and its perfect reflection in the River Arno. She took another snap to send home, then headed through a courtyard and found herself in front of a huge and very famous statue indeed: Michelangelo’s David. She knew it was a copy, with the original housed safely in a nearby museum, but it was still a surprise—and a joy—to see famous sights almost everywhere she turned.
She took yet another snap to send home, and then she headed back to her flat. Florence, she thought, was going to be an incredible experience.
The next morning, Sam went for a run before her shift; the artists were just setting up their stalls by the Duomo and getting ready to paint more small watercolours for the tourists, and she could hear the bustle of market stalls being set up nearby. Cafés were starting to open, and she could smell the scents of coffee and freshly baked bread. Late spring flowers were everywhere: climbing up walls, spilling over window boxes and blooming in the large terracotta pots she always associated with Italy. The streets here were cobbled, and somehow the city managed to look completely ancient and thoroughly modern all at the same time.
Endorphins from the run and pleasure from the views set her up for the day, and Sam was still smiling when she walked into the Michelangelo Hospital. At the reception area, she picked up the lanyard with her ID card, and asked for directions to Ricardo Fanelli’s office.
When she reached the maternity department and pressed her ID card to the reader, nothing happened; clearly her card hadn’t been activated yet. Not wanting to be late on her first day, she pressed the buzzer.
There was an answering buzz, and a few seconds later the door opened.
And her knees buckled for a moment when she saw who’d opened the door to her. She almost dropped the flowers she’d bought to thank Lidia.
It couldn’t be Angelo. How could he be working in Florence, when she knew he lived in Rome?
But the name on the lanyard round his neck was very clear: Dottore Angelo Brunelli.
The love of her life. The man who’d told her he didn’t love her any more.
