Sydney Harbour Hospital: Luca's Bad Girl

‘It’s fine, just superficial,’ she said dismissively.

Luca pointed. ‘Blood is running down your arm.’

Mia looked down at the thick trickle, surprised to see it. ‘I’ll get Evie to look at it.’

‘I sent her home.’

‘Dr di Angelo?’ Caroline interrupted them. ‘The psych reg is on the phone. He wants to speak with you.’

Luca quirked an eyebrow at her. ‘I can’t have one of my staff expiring from blood loss. It wouldn’t look very good. Minor ops. Now. I’ll be along after the call.’

Mia watched him go, a well of resentment rising in her. She’d been looking after herself for a lot of years, she didn’t need Mr Tall Dark and Handsome pulling the boss card and she certainly didn’t need him fussing over her.

No one had ever fussed over her. And that was just the way she liked it.

A couple of steri-strips and she’d be fine.

A few minutes later, Mia pushed into the on-call room and plonked herself down at the table in the kitchen area, spilling her supplies on the cluttered top. Her arm hurt like hell and all she wanted to do was crawl into one of the private rooms off to her left and collapse on one of the pull-out beds.

The adrenaline had worn off and her earlier tiredness had taken hold and intensified.

And if she was asleep, the memories that Stan’s actions had unleashed tonight couldn’t bother her.

It was quiet in the room as she fumbled one-handed with the buttons of her blouse. The sleeves had a firm cuff that sat snugly around her biceps and couldn’t be rolled up enough to gain a good visual of the damage. She winced as she slipped the blouse off, every movement jarring though her lacerated deltoid.

She tossed it on the floor—that was going straight in the bin.

She inspected her spaghetti-strapped top, pleased to see that no blood had seeped into it. This kind of undergarment was a permanent fixture beneath whatever shirt she was wore on a night shift. The hospital air-conditioning seemed to reach freezing point at around four in the morning and, even in summer, the extra layer helped.

Mia was especially grateful for it tonight.

She looked down at the wound on her upper arm. The blood had dried and crusted, making it difficult to tell the extent of the laceration. It looked ugly, though, as she gently probed it with her index finger. It was quite long and for a moment she let herself think about what could have happened had Luca not pulled her out of the way.

She noticed her hand was trembling and she dropped it from the wound, clamping down on her thoughts.

She hadn’t been stabbed in the chest. She hadn’t died.

Luca had pulled her out of the way.

But it didn’t stop the trembling from spreading to all her limbs and then to her insides. She took a couple of deep breaths, desperately trying to quell the outbreak.

It was a reaction, that was all. It would settle.

But the longer she sat, trying to get control of her breathing and the shaking, the more vulnerable she was to her emotions and thoughts. And she hated that—she’d learned long ago they didn’t get you anywhere.

But tonight she didn’t seem to be able to stop them.

Was that how her own father had felt when he’d found out about the paternity of her stillborn sister? Like Stan? Desperate and enraged? If there’d been a knife or a gun handy, would he have used it on her mother?

He’d walked away from them that day but she hadn’t known why until years later. Years of blaming him for abandoning them, years of hating him, only to find out that it had been her mother’s infidelities that had driven her father away.

Mia shook her head. Stop it. Stop it!

This situation tonight had come too close to home but there was no need to fall apart. She wasn’t ten years old any more. She was an adult.

Clean yourself up and get back out there again!

Mia forced herself to action. To tend to the wound. Open the dressing pack, pour in some antiseptic lotion, pick up the gauze, work away at the dried blood.

It was awkward and hurt like the blazes but she welcomed the distraction from her thoughts and her shaking hands settled with a familiar routine.

Two minutes later Luca strode through the door. Mia glanced up at him, feeling strangely naked with her blouse discarded. Which was ridiculous—she was more than adequately covered. She ignored him, returning to the task at hand.

Luca lounged against the table and smiled to himself as Mia barely acknowledged his arrival. ‘You’re making a mess of that,’ he mused.

Mia glared at him. ‘It’s a little difficult.’

‘I do believe I told you I would attend to your wound.’ He folded his arms across his chest. ‘But you don’t like asking for help, do you, little Mia?’

His slight accent gave his deep baritone a very sexy edge as it rolled over her. ‘It’s Mia, or Dr McKenzie. Please refrain from addressing me any other way.’

Luca chuckled as he pushed off the bench. ‘Okay, Mia.’ He sat on the chair next to her. ‘Allow me,’ he said as he picked up some gauze and dabbed at the wound.

Mia didn’t protest—she was making a hash of it anyway. His touch was gentle as he coaxed the dried blood from the cut and she shivered. His fingers were dark against her paler skin and long.

Her father had long fingers. A pianist’s hands. He was tall too, like Luca. He’d told her he was her prince and she was his princess and they’d be together for ever.

And then he’d left.

She squeezed her eyes shut. Stop it. Stop it.

Luca watched her. It was the first time he’d spent any length of time in her company and he was curious. He’d already noticed on their brief acquaintance she was a good-looking woman with a cute mouth and a sassy swagger.

But up close she was really quite exquisite.

Her face was long, as were her eyelashes. A frown appeared between her brows and her lips parted. She looked in pain.

‘Am I hurting you?’ he murmured.

Mia’s eyes fluttered open. How had he got that close? She could see the individual whiskers making up the smooth blue-black of his jaw and just make out the black pupil in the middle of his bottomless brown eyes. His hair, as dark as his eyes, was thick with a slight wave that brushed his forehead and the tops of his ears.

And his mouth. The full curve to that bottom lip was wicked.

His fingers stroked gently over her skin as he cleaned the wound and it reminded her it had been a while since a man had touched her.

She lowered her gaze to the column of his throat. ‘No.’

Luca was captivated by the slide show of emotions in her large blue eyes as magnificent and as transparent as a stained-glass window. The husky timbre of her voice wove between the bands of steel around his heart. ‘Are you okay?’