Unlocking the Italian Doc's Heart
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Kate Hardy
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Chapter One
‘JENNA HARRIS—JUST the person I was looking for.’ Robert Jones, the head of paediatrics, walked over to Jenna with a man she’d never seen before. ‘Jenna, this is Lorenzo Conti, our new senior registrar. He’s rostered on to the Paediatric Assessment Unit with you today, so I wondered if you’d mind settling him in?’
‘Sure,’ Jenna said. She held out her hand to Lorenzo. ‘Welcome to the children’s department at Muswell Hill Memorial Hospital, Dr Conti.’
‘Thank you, Dr Harris,’ he said, smiling back. His handshake was firm without being over-pushy, Jenna noticed; she liked that. ‘Call me Renzo.’
His voice, with that slight Italian accent, was like melted chocolate. Add those expressive dark eyes, hair that flopped slightly over his forehead and that killer smile, and he’d have all the women in the hospital falling at his feet. And Jenna was horribly aware that her skin was tingling where he was touching her.
Oh, for pity’s sake. This was totally inappropriate. Lorenzo Conti was her new colleague. She’d only just met him and he might already be involved with someone. Even if he wasn’t, Jenna had promised herself that she was going to focus on her career and make up the ground she’d lost when she’d taken a year’s career break. Right now, she really wasn’t interested in starting a relationship with anyone; Danny’s refusal to support her decision and the ultimatum he’d given her had put her off the idea of sharing her life with anyone else. Ever.
Though she didn’t regret the choice she’d made. If she could go back to that moment, knowing what she did now, she’d still make exactly that same choice. The only thing she regretted was her poor judgement. How had she not seen Danny for what he was, earlier? How had she let herself be blinded by all that charm?
‘Renzo,’ she said, ignoring the fact she felt very slightly flustered. ‘I’m Jenna.’
‘Jenna,’ he said, inclining his head slightly.
She was pretty sure the temperature in the room hadn’t suddenly increased by five degrees, though it felt like it.
Oh, honestly. She needed to pull herself together. Now. Be professional, capable and polite, the way she’d normally be with a new member of the team. This pull of attraction towards Lorenzo Conti was something she’d just have to ignore, because it was going nowhere.
‘Shall we?’ She gestured to the door, and he released her hand.
‘In the PAU, we see children who’ve been referred to us by their family doctor or by the Emergency Department,’ she explained as she ushered him through to the assessment area.
‘We had a similar system when I worked at the London Victoria,’ he said.
‘So coming here to Muswell Hill is a promotion for you?’ she asked.
‘Something like that.’
Though that clearly wasn’t the whole story, because it was as if the shutters had just gone down behind his eyes. Whatever had just made him back away from her was none of her business. Time to back off. She smiled and said, ‘Let me introduce you to Laney, our triage nurse in the PAU this morning. Laney, this is Dr Conti, our new senior reg.’
‘Call me Renzo,’ he said, shaking Laney’s hand, and Jenna felt ever so slightly better that Laney seemed to be just as flustered by Lorenzo Conti as she’d been.
* * *
Their first case was a little girl who’d been eating an orange and stuffed a pip up her nose.
‘OK for me to take this one, Renzo?’ Jenna asked.
‘Sure.’
‘Mrs Peters, if you’d like to come this way, I’ll examine Callie,’ she said with a smile, and ushered the young woman and her daughter through to one of the cubicles.
Renzo could hear Jenna talking, all calm and reassuring with the mum; he liked her bedside manner very much. She was straightforward, explaining things easily in layman’s terms without frightening either the child or the parent, so she’d be good to work with. And he liked what he’d seen of the rest of the team so far. Making a fresh start here at Muswell Hill Memorial Hospital had definitely been a good idea.
‘We see lots of small children who’ve stuffed something they shouldn’t up their nose,’ Jenna said, ‘and I want to avoid putting Callie through a general anaesthetic and an operation if we can.’
Clearly she’d just looked up Callie’s nose with a penlight torch, because then Lorenzo heard her say, ‘I can see the pip very clearly, but because it’s hard and round I can’t put a crocodile clip up Callie’s nose to grab it. I can’t ask her to blow her nose, either, as she’s too little to be able to blow it with the force she’d need to get the pip out, so I’m going to need your help with this. Is that OK?’
‘Yes, of course. Just tell me what I need to do,’ Mrs Peters said.
‘I’m going to lay Callie down on the bed with her head on the pillow and block the nostril that hasn’t got the orange pip in it. Then I’m going to ask you to blow into her mouth, and it should make the pip pop straight out. It doesn’t always work, and I wouldn’t ever advise you to try doing this at home if she does this again,’ Jenna warned, ‘because it’s much safer to do it in hospital where we can act straight away if it doesn’t work. But if it does work, that means we don’t have to worry about an operation.’
There was a pause while Lorenzo assumed that Jenna was following through the actions she’d just described.
‘Yay, it’s out!’ Jenna said. ‘Well done for being so brave, Callie. And thank you, Mrs Peters.’
‘That pip’s got green bogeys on it,’ he heard a high-pitched voice say. ‘Yuck!’
Renzo didn’t hear the rest of the conversation as he was busy with his own first patient, but he was pretty sure it would involve a special sticker for her patient and a reassuring smile for the mum. Just as he would’ve done, had he been the doctor treating young Callie.
Professionally, on first impressions he liked Jenna a lot. But he wasn’t going to act on the pull of attraction he felt towards her. He’d learned the hard way not to risk his heart again. He’d lost too much, last time. His marriage, his daughter and his belief in love.
* * *
‘I need both of you for the next case,’ Laney said when Jenna and Lorenzo emerged from seeing their last patients. ‘Billy Jackson is three. He fell on the stairs an hour ago and cut his forehead.’
Badly enough to need stitches rather than glueing the cut together, Lorenzo assumed, or Laney wouldn’t have asked for them both to see the boy.
‘Let’s go and have a look at you and sort out that cut, Billy,’ Lorenzo said with a smile when they went out to see the little boy.
Billy looked anxious and shielded the cut with his hand. ‘I don’t want to. It hurts.’
‘I promise you we’ll try our best to stop it hurting,’ Lorenzo said, crouching down to the little boy’s level. ‘Do you like cars?’
Billy nodded solemnly and clutched his mother’s hand.
‘So do I. Tell you what, while I’m looking at your poorly head, do you want to look through all my pictures of cars and see which one is your favourite?’
Again, Billy nodded.
‘That’s great. I’m Dr Renzo, and this is Dr Jenna. And I promise we’re going to make your head feel much less sore.’ He took a pack of cards from his pocket and handed them to Billy, straightened up and looked at the little boy’s mum. ‘Are you OK, Mrs Jackson?’
She gave him a rueful smile. ‘Just about. There was an awful lot of blood. That’s why I brought him into the emergency department—and they sent us up to you.’
‘Head wounds always bleed a lot, and they always look much more scary than they really are,’ Lorenzo said, to reassure her.
‘Do you know how Billy banged his head?’ Jenna asked.
‘He tripped while he was going upstairs and he banged his head on one of the treads,’ Mrs Jackson said.
‘We see lots of children who’ve done exactly that,’ Jenna said reassuringly. ‘Was he unconscious at all after he banged his head, or has he seemed woozy since then or wanted to go to sleep?’
‘No. He started crying the moment it happened.’
‘Probably from the fright he gave himself, as well as the pain of the cut,’ Jenna said. ‘But it’s good that he wasn’t unconscious or woozy—that means he probably doesn’t have concussion. I know it must’ve been a real worry for you but, as Renzo said, it’s a lot less serious than it looks. Would you like to sit on the bed with Billy while we take a look at his cut and do a couple of tests?’
Between them, Lorenzo and Jenna took a closer look at the cut—a long gash, though thankfully it didn’t have jagged edges—and then they checked his pupils and his reaction to light.
‘I’m happy that we’re looking at a straightforward cut rather than concussion or anything to worry about,’ Lorenzo said. ‘It’s quite a big cut, so we’re going to need to put stitches in. But I promise it’s not going to hurt, Billy. I’m going to put some magic cream on your head so you won’t feel anything when I mend your cut, and before that I’m going to ask Dr Jenna to help you to breathe in some gas and air. It’s a bit like the stuff you get in a balloon when you’ve been to a party.’
‘A balloon?’ Billy’s eyes went round with amazement. ‘Will I go up in the air?’
Jenna clearly heard the slight panic in his voice because she said, ‘No, sweetie, I promise you won’t. You’ll still be sitting there right next to Mummy.’
‘And meanwhile you have a job to do,’ Lorenzo said, gesturing to the cards Billy was holding. ‘Have a look through these cars and tell me which one is your favourite.’
Jenna administered the gas and air, and Lorenzo put anaesthetic gel on the wound.
‘Can you feel me touching your head?’ Lorenzo asked.
‘No-o,’ Billy said, sounding surprised.
‘That’s good. Now, tell me about the cars you like best,’ Lorenzo said.
While Billy held his mum’s hand very tightly and looked through the car pictures, exclaiming every so often about one he liked, Lorenzo closed the wound with six neat, careful stitches.
‘The good news is that the stitches are dissolvable, so you won’t have to come and have them taken out again,’ Jenna said to Mrs Jackson. ‘I’ll run you through how to care for the wound and I’ll give you a leaflet as well, because obviously right now you’re worried sick about Billy and it’s hard to concentrate and remember things when you’re worried. Basically you need to keep the area dry for the next two days, but you can wash it quickly with soap and water and pat it dry after that. If the wound opens up or looks red and swollen, or there’s any kind of discharge, bring him straight back.’
‘Thank you. I will,’ Mrs Jackson said.
‘So which one’s your favourite out of the ones you liked, Billy?’ Lorenzo asked when he’d finished the last suture.
‘This one.’ Billy handed him a card with a picture of a red sports car.
‘Good choice. That’s my favourite, too.’
‘Because it’s red?’ the little boy guessed.
‘Because it’s Italian, like me,’ Lorenzo said with a smile.
Billy’s eyes widened. ‘Have you got a real car like that?’
Lorenzo chuckled. ‘I wish! Maybe one day.’
‘I want a car like that when I’m all growed up,’ Billy said.
‘That sounds like a good plan,’ Lorenzo said. He took a glittery sticker from his pocket with the words ‘I was THIS brave’ emblazoned across it. ‘And I’m giving you a special sticker so you can show everyone else how brave you were today.’
‘Thank you,’ Billy said. With a shy look at his mother first, he handed the rest of the cards back to Lorenzo.
‘Thank you,’ Lorenzo said. He smiled at Mrs Jackson. ‘Try not to worry. I know Jenna’s taken you through what to look out for, but if you’re concerned at all come back and see us.’
‘I will,’ she said. ‘Thank you so much for what you’ve done for Billy.’
‘Pleasure,’ Lorenzo said. ‘Take the stairs a bit more slowly from now on, Billy, OK?’
The little boy nodded.
‘Nice work,’ Jenna said when Billy and his mother had gone. ‘So you use car pictures to distract little boys?’
‘Not just boys. Girls like cars, too,’ Lorenzo said. ‘But I have a backup set of cards with puppies and kittens, to distract the kids who don’t like cars.’
‘Know your patient, hmm?’ Jenna asked.
‘Something like that.’
She glanced at her watch. ‘It’s almost lunchtime. Are you already spoken for?’
Lorenzo felt his eyes widen. Was she asking him out? He didn’t have a problem with a woman taking the lead and asking a man out—but, considering they’d only just met, this was too fast for his liking. And he wasn’t in the market for dating anyway.
‘For lunch, that is,’ she added swiftly. ‘As this is your first day, if you don’t already have plans, then you’re very welcome to come to the canteen with me if you’d like some company and someone to show you where things are.’
Not a date, then: a colleague simply being kind and offering to show him around his new place of work. He could manage that. ‘Thanks. That’d be nice.’
‘Don’t thank me just yet,’ she warned.
‘Why?’ he asked, confused. ‘Is the food not very nice here?’
‘It’s nothing to do with the food,’ she said. ‘Actually, I’ll buy your lunch as I have a proposition for you.’
Lorenzo was pretty sure that it was just a turn of phrase, but the word ‘proposition’ put all sorts of inappropriate ideas in his head. Jenna Harris was gorgeous as well as being bubbly, with her mop of blonde curls that she wore pulled back in a scrunchie on the ward, wide blue eyes and ready smile. He liked the way she’d been with their patients and their parents: kind, clear and sympathetic.
But, after what had happened with Georgia and Florence, he wasn’t up for falling in love again and getting his heart well and truly trampled on. This was his new start, and he intended to focus on his job, not his personal life.
‘Proposition,’ he said carefully.
‘I’ll explain over lunch. Meet you back here after your next patient?’ she asked.
‘OK,’ he said.
At the canteen, Lorenzo chose a sandwich, fruit and coffee, and Jenna did the same.
‘You really don’t have to buy me lunch,’ he said while they queued to pay.
‘Oh, but I do,’ she corrected, ‘because I want you to feel ever so slightly beholden to me.’
So she was being manipulative? That was pretty much how Georgia had been with him. Except Jenna was being up front about it instead of hiding secrets. Well, he’d try to keep an open mind and listen to what she had to say before he made any judgements.
Once they’d sat down, he asked, ‘So what’s the proposition?’
Her eyes widened. ‘Hang on, aren’t we supposed to be doing all the usual pleasantries first? Like, where did you train, what made you pick paediatrics, does your family live near, that sort of thing?’
He shrugged. ‘OK. I trained in London, I picked paediatrics because it was my favourite rotation when I was training; my parents, brother and sister all live in East London at the moment but my parents are thinking of moving back to their roots in Lake Garda when my father retires; and I’m single.’ Most importantly, he added, ‘And I’m not looking for a partner.’ He’d had completely the wrong idea about his marriage, thinking that he and Georgia were happy. But things hadn’t been what they’d seemed; he’d lived a lie for nearly two years before Georgia had finally cracked and told him the truth about Florence. Though he kept that particular black hole behind high walls and barbed wire. ‘You?’
‘I trained here in Muswell Hill, and I chose paediatrics for the same reason as you—I like kids and I really love making them better. My parents and my sister all live in London, about half an hour away from me; and I’m also single and not looking for a partner.’ She smiled. ‘Which means that you and I can be friends.’
‘Is this part of the proposition?’ he checked.
She laughed. ‘Absolutely not. But we’re a close-knit team on our ward and we do a lot of things together. Team nights out for pizza and ten-pin bowling, cinema, picnics on the beach in summer—that sort of thing. It’s kind of like having an extended family. Partners and kids come along to half the stuff and it’s lovely.’
A family. The thing he’d once had—and lost. And how he missed it. But he knew he was lucky to have what he had: a large extended Italian family who loved him. Wanting more was just greedy.
He shook himself. Jenna didn’t know about his past, and she didn’t need to know. Besides, she’d clearly meant to reassure him that he’d picked a really nice place to work. ‘Sounds good,’ he said, forcing himself to keep his tone light.
She raised her coffee mug at him. ‘Welcome to the team. I think you’re going to love it here as much as I do.’
He hoped so, too, but he’d reserve judgement until he’d been here a while. ‘And the proposition?’
‘I’m on the ward’s fundraising committee. A week on Saturday, we’re holding a six-hour danceathon to raise money for new toys for the ward,’ she explained. ‘People pay a fixed sum to enter, and they can be sponsored either for a flat fee or for each hour they stay on the dance floor.’
Now he understood what the proposition was. ‘You want me to be one of the dancers?’
‘If you’re not on duty, then yes, please.’
Which would be an easy let-out for him. Except she’d know pretty quickly that he wasn’t telling the truth, and he didn’t want to start his professional life here with a lie. He’d had enough of lies.
‘I’m off duty.’
‘Good.’ She smiled. ‘It should be easy for you. Aren’t all Italian men meant to be wonderful dancers?’
‘That,’ he said, ‘is a sweeping generalisation. And I’m afraid I’ll have to disappoint you, because I have two left feet.’
‘So do half the people who are coming along on the day. It really doesn’t matter what you look like or how badly you dance, as long as you raise some money for the toys. It’s going to be fun,’ she said. ‘And you’ll get to hear Maybe Baby play.’
‘Who are Maybe Baby?’ he asked.
‘They’re pretty much the hospital’s house band—they play at a lot of weddings and special occasions,’ Jenna explained. ‘Half of them are from the Maternity ward—Anton on guitar and Gilly on bass—and from our department there’s Keely on vocals and Martin on drums. They’re fantastic.’
‘They’re playing for the whole six hours?’
‘Probably for about half of it,’ she said. ‘Nathan, one of the porters in the Emergency Department, is a DJ when he’s not working here, so he’s doing the other half of the music for us. We’re holding the danceathon in the local high school’s sports hall; one of the local pubs is running a bar for us and donating the profits from the night, and a few of the parents of children we’ve treated heard what we’re doing and offered to sort out the food for us. Plus we’ve sweet-talked a few local businesses into donating raffle prizes, everything from nice toiletries to chocolates to vouchers towards a meal.’
Lorenzo had the strongest feeling that she was downplaying her own role in this. Clearly it was something she’d been deeply involved in, something close to her heart.
‘I’m more than happy to sponsor someone,’ he said, ‘and maybe take tickets on the door or help run your raffle stall. But I’m afraid it’s a no to the dancing.’
‘It’s a shame I can’t talk you into it, because it’ll be fun,’ she said, ‘but I’ll take the offer of manning a stall, for however much time you can spare. Thank you.’
‘Are you dancing?’ he asked, suddenly curious.
‘Absolutely. You’d never get me running or struggling to lift stuff in the gym, because that doesn’t appeal to me in the slightest,’ she said, ‘but I do a couple of dance classes a week and I walk my neighbour’s dog at weekends. That’s my preferred way of keeping fit.’
He should back off. It was none of his business. And he wasn’t supposed to start being interested in someone else. This was work. But he couldn’t stop the question coming out. ‘What sort of dance classes?’
‘Salsa on Tuesdays and Latin ballroom dancing on Thursdays. I’m not elegant enough to do the waltz or the foxtrot,’ she explained, ‘but I love dancing the samba and the cha-cha-cha.’
The fun and bouncy stuff. That didn’t surprise him. From what he’d seen of her so far, that summed up Jenna Harris very neatly. ‘So was the danceathon your idea?’
‘Guilty as charged.’ She raised an eyebrow. ‘But everyone else on the committee said it sounded like a lot of fun, or we wouldn’t have done it.’
‘OK. Count me in for helping on a stall,’ he said. And then his mouth ran away with him. He was supposed to be keeping things professional and slightly distant, not putting himself in a position where he’d see more of her. But the words came out anyway. ‘I can help set up, too, if you like.’
‘Thank you.’ She smiled at him. ‘And maybe I can talk you into just one dance.’
‘Maybe. No promises,’ he warned.
‘Sure.’ Her smile broadened, which told him she had every intention of breaking down his resistance.
Well, she had no chance there. His intentions were stronger still: to keep a professional distance between himself and Jenna. Yes, she was attractive and he liked her very much—but he wasn’t risking his heart again. As far as he was concerned, they were strictly colleagues.
‘I guess we ought to get back,’ he said. ‘Thank you for lunch.’
‘My pleasure. And thank you for agreeing to help with the danceathon.’
‘Prego,’ he said, inclining his head. ‘You’re welcome.’
‘If only you’d joined us a month ago. I bet you could’ve charmed a ton of money out of everyone who walked through the hospital doors by smiling at them and speaking in Italian. You would’ve been our secret weapon.’ She looked at him with narrowed eyes. ‘Would you be good at general knowledge, by any chance?’
‘I’m reasonable,’ he said.
‘You’re polite, so I’m guessing you’re understating your talents because you don’t want to boast about how good you are. Right. That settles it. I’m co-opting you onto our departmental quiz team, too.’
‘You,’ he said, ‘are scary. All that sweet, sweet smile, baby-blue eyes and butter-wouldn’t-melt expression—but you’ve got everyone organised and agreeing to things before they even have time to blink, haven’t you?’
‘Jenna the hustler—that’s me,’ she said, looking totally unrepentant. ‘If I could actually play pool, I’d make gazillions out of unwary punters and we’d have the best-equipped paediatric department in the country.’
He couldn’t help laughing. Even though he wanted to keep her at a distance, her warmth, her charm and her sheer chutzpah were irresistible. He would’ve liked to find something about her that wiped out that pull of attraction. But even her bossiness had a charm to it. She was nice. He’d have to rely on the determination that had got him through the miserable months when his marriage imploded, and keep things professional between them. ‘I have a feeling you’re going to get a ton of money out of your danceathon. And I bet you’ll drive a hard bargain with a toy shop afterwards.’
‘Cost price, that’s what I’m after,’ she said. ‘So if you know someone with contacts to a wholesaler or a toy shop, I’m all ears.’
‘Sorry. I can’t help with that one.’
‘That’s OK. You’re helping me set up, you’re manning a stall for a bit, and you agreed to one dance. That’ll do nicely.’
Lorenzo was pretty sure he hadn’t actually agreed to one dance. But he was equally sure that Jenna wasn’t going to let him get away with it. ‘Let’s get back to the ward,’ he said. Where he’d be able to focus on work, and have the space to damp down the unexpected feelings that were threatening to turn him upside down.
