Sydney Harbour Hospital: Luca's Bad Girl

Finn snorted. ‘You? You diagnosed a complex heart condition through a breast ultrasound?’

Evie crossed her arms too. ‘Yes.’

‘That’s not even remotely possible,’ he snapped.

Until right now, Evie would have agreed. ‘It is if the woman in question has very small breasts.’

Finn glared at her. Princess Evie—her place at the prestigious SHH emergency department no doubt paid for by her father’s huge donations—wasting his time. ‘Where’s the patient?’

‘Cubicle fifteen,’ she said calmly.

‘What have you told her that I’m going to have to untell her?’ he asked silkily.

‘I told her I couldn’t get a good enough angle and I was going to call for someone more experienced,’ Evie bristled. ‘I did go to medical school, Dr Kennedy,’ she said frostily.

‘Really? Daddy couldn’t fast-track you, then?’

Evie ignored the dig. ‘I graduated top of my year.’

‘He gives to the university too, then?’ Finn retorted, before turning on his heel and heading for the indicated cubicle.

Evie’s heart tripped in her chest as she struggled to keep up with his long-legged stride. But even falling flat on her face would be worth it just to see the look on Finn’s when her diagnosis was confirmed.

Finn snapped back the curtain and introduced himself to a petite young woman in a hospital gown who was chewing on her bottom lip. He smiled at her. ‘Hello. Bethany, is it?’ he asked, consulting her chart. ‘I’m Dr Kennedy. Dr Lockheart’s asked me to have a look at you.’

‘Is something wrong?’ Bethany asked, looking from one doctor to the other.

Finn patted her hand. ‘Give me one minute and I’ll be able to tell you.’

He turned away to the compact mobile ultrasound machine and shot Evie an exasperated look. It was hardly the most sophisticated machine in their radiology arsenal. He found it hard to believe anyone could diagnose a potentially fatal heart problem on something so basic.

He picked up the transducer from its cradle fiddled with the pulse settings and the screen brightness and turned to back to Bethany, who’d already opened her gown and put her arm above her head.

Finn squeezed a blob of warmed gel on Bethany’s chest, noting that she did indeed have practically nonexistent breast tissue. ‘Okay, here goes,’ he murmured as he ploughed the transducer through the middle of the gel.

He ignored Evie, who was standing at his elbow, and concentrated on the small screen as the grainy grey and black image of Bethany’s pumping heart came into view. It took him less than a minute to concur with Evie’s very impressive diagnosis.

He flicked a glance at her and met her unwavering hazel gaze. There was no triumph or smugness there, just complete confidence in her diagnosis, and he felt a rather foreign feeling of grudging respect.

Maybe there was more to her than the Lockheart name.

‘Is everything okay?’ Bethany asked.

Finn shook his head. ‘No. There’s a problem,’ he admitted. ‘But it’s okay,’ he added quickly. ‘I can fix it.’

Evie listened in awe while Finn sat with Bethany and explained how the small benign-looking cyst in her breast was nothing compared to the real problem, and what he could do about it. For such an arrogant, rude, human being he had amazing rapport with patients.

When they walked out of the curtain thirty minutes later Evie had seen an entirely different side to the infamous Dr Finn Kennedy. She’d known he must have had a heart in there somewhere but it was the first time she’d ever seen any evidence of it.

‘Organise a bed for her in CCU,’ Finn said briskly, handing Bethany’s chart to her.

Evie nodded as she accepted it, trying not to feel discouraged. She hadn’t really thought he’d congratulate her, had she?

‘Good catch, Dr Lockheart,’ he murmured. ‘Maybe you’re not Daddy’s little girl after all.’

And then he turned in the opposite direction and strode away.

Evie blinked as the back-handed compliment sank in.

High praise indeed!

CHAPTER THREE

WHEN Mia came on duty later that afternoon the first person she spied was Luca. Which wasn’t difficult, given that his very presence seemed to attract attention. She’d bet whoever had invented the term chick magnet had met Luca di Angelo.

Of course, she could also just have conjured him up—she couldn’t deny she’d been thinking about him and their illicit liaison in the on-call room a little too often on her days off.

She squeezed her eyes shut tight for a few seconds then opened them again. Nope—still there.

And looking right at her.

Smiling at her, actually. Like he knew all her dirty secrets. And that he was one of them.

She graced him with an indifferent glare and a cool nod of the head as she slung her stethoscope around her neck and deliberately walked in the opposite direction.

Luca chuckled to himself as he watched the hypnotic swish of her blonde ponytail. She seemed all prim and neat, her dark grey tailored trousers classically elegant, her high-necked, capped-sleeve blouse in sapphire blue crisp and stylish.

Not a wrinkle. Or a hair out of place.

Very different from the Mia of the other night. Who had looked rumpled and disturbed and hadn’t cared about either.

A hum coursed through his blood at the mere thought. It certainly hadn’t been the way he had envisaged that night would turn out. In fact, if someone had asked him who’d be the woman least likely to sleep with him, he would have said Mia McKenzie.

But it had been pretty damn amazing. Once she’d made up her mind she hadn’t held back. She hadn’t done that irritating talking/fishing-for-compliments thing that a surprising amount of women did during sex. Or tried to twist herself into some uncomfortable position because she knew it was her best angle.

She hadn’t even asked him what he liked in an effort to make it all about him.

No. She’d known exactly what she’d wanted and she’d taken it. But she’d given, too. She’d been confident and assured and had met him as an equal.

It was the most uncomplicated one-off he’d ever had.

Now, if he could just stop thinking about it …

Mia moved through the shift with her senses on high alert. Her skin prickled when he was near. The hairs on her nape stood to attention. Her nipples seemed to stay in a state of permanent erection. It seemed every cell in her body was well and truly tuned in to Luca.

And it didn’t help that they kept running into each other.

The first time had been in the lift after she’d been on for half an hour. She’d just caught it before the doors had shut and squeezed in with several other people sharing the space with a transport bed. The patient had been almost lost amidst the equipment on the bed and the stuff hanging off the rails had made it an even tighter fit.