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AN ITALIAN AFFAIR

Margaret McDonagh

Strachlochan Hospital – Book 6

Sun, sand … and a sexy Italian!
Irresistibly gorgeous plastic surgeon Dr Sebastiano Adriani has riches and fame, yet an act of heroism has cut short his glittering medical career. Struggling to come to terms with his uncertain future, Seb retreats to the beautiful island of Elba. He thinks he wants solitude … until pretty, caring Gina McNaught trespasses onto his private beach!
Gina has sworn off men, but the desire Seb awakens in her is overwhelming. Now that she's risked her heart for love, how will she ever recover when their holiday romance ends?
Perhaps the only way to heal them both is to stake everything on being together forever!

To my very special editor, Joanne...

Thank you so much for believing in me

and for giving me the chance

to fulfil my dreams.

To Fiona J...

Thank you for your support

and for all your kindness and care.

And Happy Centenary to Harlequin Mills & Boon...

Thanks for the enjoyment and opportunities

offered to readers and writers

around the world.

Here's to the next 100 years!

A
woman's
scream—high-pitched and fearful—shattered the silence.

Sebastiano Adriani paused, his purposeful stride faltering, his gaze scanning the dark, narrow streets for the source of the sound. Concerned, he changed direction, heading further away from home to investigate. He could spare a few moments to ensure no one was in serious trouble.

In the early hours of the morning, Florence was quiet. Only a few street cleaners were in evidence, along with an occasional couple who lingered to embrace as they made their way home after a romantic night out. The July air was laden with sultry summer heat, so Seb had removed his tie, unfastened the top button of his shirt, and slung the jacket of his Armani suit over one arm. Despite the lateness of the hour, he had chosen to walk back to his expensive but impersonal apartment not far from the hospital. Both the exercise and the solitude appealed to him.

He had spent a pleasant enough evening escorting Lidia di Napoli, first to dinner at one of the city's finest restaurants, which boasted three Michelin rosettes, and then to an open-air classical concert. Not his normal taste in music, but Lidia, an attractive young actress, had pouted prettily and begged him to accompany her. Her pout had been less appealing later in the evening, when he had been called back to the hospital. A
pro bono
patient he had operated on that morning—a young man who had needed major and intricate facial reconstruction following a traffic accident—had taken a sudden and unexpected turn for the worse. Seb's presence had been needed urgently. To the relief of the medical team, the young man was now stable but under constant observation in intensive care.

Lidia had been vocally displeased at the abrupt end to the evening, and had still been complaining as he had paid a taxi to take her home...alone. If she hoped to see him again, she would need to learn that nothing and no one came before his work. Not that he would have stayed with her, regardless of the unsubtle inducements she had been offering since he had collected her from the theatre at the end of rehearsals for her new play. He never spent the night in any woman's bed—and never allowed a woman in his.

Thankfully, due to the latest political scandal to take Florence by storm, the paparazzi had been absent from the restaurant, tracking down more lucrative prey elsewhere. For once his evening, and his companion, had failed to attract media attention, and he had been able to eat dinner and attend the concert without being bothered. He was grateful. Unlike the women who tried to be seen on his arm, who sought to use his name to further their own, he had no desire to feature in the gossip columns.

Hearing raised voices, Seb increased his pace, cutting through a nearby
piazza
into a warren of narrow streets just as another scream alerted him to the panicked woman's location. Rounding a corner, he saw a man, dressed all in black, hit his victim in the face and begin dragging her struggling form towards a recessed doorway.

'Arresto!
' Shouting at the man to stop, to leave her alone, Seb ran to the woman's aid.
'Lasci il sua solo!'

Pushing the sobbing woman roughly aside, the assailant refocused his attention. Cautious, but unafraid, Seb faced the man. He knew how to look after himself. The outward veneer of polish and sophistication he now wore with ease, as one of Europe's most successful reconstructive plastic surgeons to the rich and famous, failed to mask his origins. The boy from the streets, who had survived on his charm and his wits, had never been entirely banished.

Jockeying for position, Seb placed himself between the attacker and the distressed woman, keeping her safe in the doorway behind him. Despite the paucity of light, Seb scanned the man's build and face, memorising every detail and distinguishing feature he could for later identification: the scar bisecting his chin, the letters tattooed in red across the knuckles of each hand, the row of gold studs outlining one ear. Never taking his attention from his opponent, Seb tossed the woman his mobile phone and instructed her to call the police. He had hoped the man would back down, but he appeared undaunted, moving swiftly, the sudden flash of a knifeblade a silvery menace in the shadows.

Adrenalin pumped through Seb's veins. Watchful and wary, he dodged to the side as the man lunged towards him, the knife extended. With his jacket wrapped around his right arm, Seb used the padding to deflect the next attack as the knife slashed sideways through the air. The fabric ripped. But not his skin. Yet. His heart was thudding under his ribs. Dimly, he was aware of the woman crying on the phone, giving their location, begging for help, but his sole focus was on the knife. Again the man came towards him. Again Seb attempted to deflect the blow. The material afforded scant protection, and he winced as the knife sliced across his wrist and bit into the heel of his right hand. He could feel the blood welling from the wounds, flowing hot and sticky down his palm and between his fingers.

In the distance came the wail of a siren, but the man refused to retreat, feinting one way and then the other in an attempt to get past Seb and reach the woman. She screamed again, pressing back into the corner of the doorway. Thinking only of protecting her, Seb stepped in front of the man once more. Keeping his voice calm, he told him to give up, reminding him the police were coming. The sirens were ever louder.

'Rinunziare. La polizia sta venendo.'

Swearing profusely, the man lunged forward a final time. As the knife came towards his face, Seb instinctively raised both arms to shield himself, the razor-sharp blade cutting through his left forearm near the inner elbow before slashing across his right wrist and palm. Seb kicked out, catching the man off balance. The attacker staggered back, cursing violently before he regained his footing. Then, with the police closing in, he ran from the scene, disappearing into the darkness.

Ignoring his own problems, Seb turned to check that the woman was all right. '
Signora, come sta?'

'Bene. Grazie, Signor, mille grazie.'
The woman sobbed her thanks.
'Dio! Siete sanguinando!'

Seb already knew he was bleeding. Assure^ that the woman was physically unharmed, he dropped to his knees, anxious to attend to his wounds, to stem the blood and keep his hands—the tools of his trade—elevated to reduce any swelling. His injuries produced a worrying mix of pain and numbness. And he couldn't perform the actions he intended. His left arm felt heavy and sluggish, refusing to transmit his commands to his hand. His right wrist was slack, and the thumb and index finger of his right hand wouldn't move, couldn't grasp the tissues the woman handed him.

He had not been scared before.

Now he was.

'I
am
sure we found the right place, Gina. The special place I shared with my Matteo.'

Gina McNaught heard the emotion in her grandmother's familiar accented voice. A mixture of wistfulness, anxiety and longing brought a gleam to faded hazel eyes, while a fierce determination radiated from the elderly lady's increasingly frail frame. Once long ebony hair was now short and grey—more evidence of the relentless march of time. Smiling against the melancholy realisation that there might not be many more years, Gina took one work-roughened hand in hers and gave a gentle squeeze. She knew what this journey meant to her grandmother.. .knew how important it was that they located the exact spot depicted in the faded black and white photograph now resting on the table in front of them.

The photograph, and the story accompanying it, had intrigued and enchanted Gina since she had been a young child. She never tired of hearing how fate had brought her Italian grandmother and her Scottish grandfather together, how Maria Tesotto and Matthew McNaught had met on a deserted beach...and had fallen in love.

'There was no villa there in those days,' her grandmother continued, lost in her memories. 'But it is still secluded, unspoilt...and the name gives it away, no? Back then, people referred to the rock in the sea as Lancia del Nettuno—Neptune's Spear. You can just see it in the picture. And now we find Villa alia Roccia del Nettuno. The Villa at Neptune's rock. Gina, it
has
to be right.'

'I'll find out, Nonna. I promise.'

'You do so much for me,
ragazza mia.
Maybe too much, no?' she asked with a sad smile.

'Of course not,' Gina reassured her. 'You mean the world to me.'

One increasingly arthritic hand cupped her cheek. 'And you to me. But I worry that you have given up so much of your own life for me...and for your grandfather. Since we left that damp old council house in Glasgow and came to live with you in your lovely cottage in Strathlochan you have spent all your time caring for us and making our lives comfortable when you are not working at the hospital.'

'Nonna—'

'I know.' Her grandmother forestalled the interruption. 'You see your friends. You love your job. But there is more to life, Gina. We never wanted you to end your relationship with Malcolm because of us.'

Gina ducked her head to hide her gaze. No way would she ever tell her grandmother the vicious, hurtful things Malcolm had said. 'It wasn't like that, Nonna. Things had run their course.' They had certainly been over when she had discovered that Malcolm's understanding of family and her own were so widely divergent.

'But it's four years, and you've not dated at all! I want you to be happy—as happy as I was for all those years with my Matteo. I want you to find that special man who is right for you. You should be meeting men, having fun, thinking of your own needs.'

Perhaps it was being back on Elba, where her own happiness had begun, that had put these ideas into her grandmother's head. 'I'm fine, Nonna.'

It was a long time since she had allowed herself to have needs, or to indulge in dreams of her own. Real life hadn't worked out that way. Not for her. And maybe, having grown up with the fairytale, she couldn't bring herself to settle for anything less. She had made her choices and she had no regrets.. .even if she could scarcely remember how it felt to be a desirable woman.

'Now you give up your holiday time and organise this trip, obliging the whim of an old woman.'

The words pulled Gina from her reverie. 'That's nonsense and you know it,' she rebuked softly. 'Besides, I have always longed to see Elba. What better place could we come together?' She smiled, but the reason for their visit here took the gloss off her pleasure, as did the sadness that dulled the light in her grandmother's eyes.

'That is true. And you would have found a way to bring me here no matter what, keeping the promise you made to me and your grandfather. This means so much to me.'

'I know, Nonna.' Gina hid her worry about the toll this trip might take on a woman troubled by her aging, arthritic body, not to mention the emotions involved by returning to the place she held so dear while bearing the loss of the man who had been her world for fifty years. 'Will you be all right resting here on your own if I go back and see if someone has returned to the villa?'