Italian Doctor, Full-time Father

Italian Doctor, Full-time Father
Dianne Drake

Enter into the world of high-flying Doctors as they navigate the pressures of modern medicine and find escape, passion, comfort and love – in each other’s arms!Dante has never shied away from a challengeDr Catherine Brannon knows her cool reserve will be tested by her new patient, surgeon-turned-racing-driver Dante Baldassare – her ex-fiancé! Dante the sports star, reputed to enjoy fast cars and fast women, she’ll keep at arm’s length. But Dante the father, devoted to a small boy, is a different story indeed… Family means everything to Dante – which is why he lost Catherine and became a single dad to his orphaned nephew. Despite their past, passion sizzles between them, and Dante realises they have something too precious to lose again.If this is a second chance, he’ll stop at nothing to win Catherine’s love…Mediterranean Doctors – Passionate about life, love and medicine.

“We don’t do well together, do we?”

They should, because they had. But this time it was so different. Her stomach was in knots all the time now, over the prospect of a chance encounter in the hall, or a spur-of-the-moment meeting in the therapy room.

“I’m sorry about that too, Dante. It’s my fault. You’re my patient, and as your physician I should be doing better by you, but…”

“Then you’re fired,” he said, his voice totally void of emotion. In spite of his flat words, his eyes sparkled. That dark glint gave him away. Always had.

“Just why would you do that now?” she asked.

“Because it’s not professional.” He moved forward, causing her to step back enough so that her back was pressed firmly to the door.

“What’s not professional? My treating you now, with the relationship we’ve had in the past? Because that’s what I’ve been saying all along, and…”

“What’s not professional is what I’m about to do, Catherine. Unless you open that door and run away, what’s going to happen between us should never happen between doctor and patient…”

Now that her children have left home, Dianne Drake is finally finding the time to do some of the things she adores—gardening, cooking, reading, shopping for antiques. Her absolute passion in life, however, is adopting abandoned and abused animals. Right now Dianne and her husband Joel have a little menagerie of three dogs and two cats, but that’s always subject to change. A former symphony orchestra member, Dianne now attends the symphony as a spectator several times a month and, when time permits, takes in an occasional football, basketball or hockey game.

Recent titles by the same author:

A FAMILY FOR THE CHILDREN’S DOCTOR

THEIR VERY SPECIAL CHILD

THE RESCUE DOCTOR’S BABY MIRACLE

A CHILD TO CARE FOR

EMERGENCY IN ALASKA

ITALIAN DOCTOR, FULL-TIME FATHER

BY

DIANNE DRAKE

www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)

For Bobby M, an amazing race-car driver and the love of a very young life. You’re still sadly missed, Bobby.

CHAPTER ONE

CATHERINE stared at the admission slip, not sure what to do. Or say. A new patient was routine. But one with the name Dante Baldassare was not and, right now, her heart was doing more than skipping a beat or two. Of all the places in the world where he could have gone, why here? Did he know this is where she was working? Was he coming here to torment her, to remind her of things best left forgotten?

She’d read that he’d been injured several weeks ago. But hadn’t he gone to the clinic in London? That’s what the newspaper had said. They’d flown him there for his rehabilitation after his surgery. So how had he ended up here, in Bern, Switzerland? How had he ended up in the clinic where she was medical director?

Catherine took another look at the admission slip, in case her eyes were playing tricks on her. Dante Baldassare. There it was, his name scrawled on the papers. After all these years, she still recognized the signature. Dante Baldassare—a new admission by Dr Max Aeberhard. Even though Max was no longer administrator of the medical side of operations here, as owner of the clinic he did still have the right to approve admissions. According to what she was seeing, this was a rush admission. Max had been on call, she had not. His decision, and she wasn’t going to question it. After all, Max didn’t know their history.

But her decision, had she been the one on call, would have been to send Dante somewhere else.

There was no changing what was already done, though. Unfortunately. Dante was already here and in the process of being checked in as a patient. She’d have to have an awfully good reason to send him somewhere else and a love affair gone bad wasn’t good enough.

Catherine slumped down in her chair, trying to blot out the image of Dante already trying to creep into her deepest thoughts, the place to which he no longer had a right to be. She’d seen his photo in magazines or newspapers several times over the past five years, so she knew what he looked like. Better now than then, if that were possible. Rugged, chiseled, darkly Italian-handsome and, according to the photos, improving with age.

That was one thing she’d never deny about Dante—he had the good looks that made female knees go wobbly and turned the heads of both genders. That day in the hospital at their first meeting, when he’d come to her for a consultation on one of his patients, it had taken her heart a full two minutes to calm down, had taken the rush of blood to her face just as long to become normal, before she’d even got down to medical business with him. Then she’d slept with him that night and every night they’d had the chance after that for the next six months. Then…well, she didn’t want to think about that now. Not when she should be figuring out a way to avoid the man who was, at this very moment, settling into the Geneva Suite. The reason—rehab after a second repair to a shattered ankle.

A second repair? Had something gone wrong with the first? The medical side of her took over for a moment. She hadn’t read anything about that in the newspapers, hadn’t heard a word on any of the sports reports she tried so hard not to listen to. So, what was going on?

Quickly, Catherine scanned the medical notes sent in from Dante’s previous clinic, but there was nothing noted that indicated what had happened. Naturally, the first thing that came to mind was that surgical complications he might have had could lead to an extended stay here. Which she certainly didn’t want. A two- or three-week therapy course was long enough if all went well, but if something else was going on…

“Why are you doing this to me, Dante?” she whispered, as she shut the manila folder and laid it down on her desk.

Because he was Dante, that’s why. If ever there was a man who knew how to get to her, it was the one she was bound, by clinic protocol, to go greet in the next few minutes.

Sighing, Catherine placed two fingers to her left wrist to see if her heart was beating as fast as it felt. It wasn’t, of course. And the tightness overtaking her throat wasn’t really a physical symptom of anything either, unless a reaction coming from seeing an ex-fiancé after so many years had a medical name attached to it.

“Just being silly,” she whispered. “That was another life. He’s over you, you’re over him.” Empty words. They didn’t make the panic rising in her go away. If anything, her symptoms increased. Face flushed. Chest tightened. “It was a relationship that shouldn’t have been. Twenty-four weeks on the calendar that made me a wiser woman.” She’d lived two hundred and seventy-two weeks since the last time she’d laid eyes on Dante and had done quite nicely during all that time, thank you very much.

So why was she reacting to him this way now? Since they’d parted she’d been married, he’d been…well, she’d read what he’d been, which was very busy with the ladies. All over the world!

Trying not to conjure up that image, Catherine picked up her phone and dialed her secretary. “Is Dante Baldassare settled in?”

“Yes, doctor,” Marianne Hesse answered. “According to the floor supervisor, he’s settled in, and grumpy about being here.”

Dante grumpy? Now, that was something she’d never seen. “Page Dr Rilke to go greet him. He’s been assigned as Mr Baldassare’s doctor, so he can have the honor of welcoming him to Aeberhard.” While she made up more excuses to keep herself away for as long as possible.

“You’re not going?” Marianne asked, sounding surprised. If there was one thing that could be counted on at Aeberhard Clinic, it was that protocol didn’t change. They stood on tradition, and while the clinical concept was casual, the overall clinic tradition was rigid. Except this once. But she couldn’t help it. She just plain didn’t want to see the man, not until she’d girded herself a little better for it.

“In a while,” Catherine responded, hedging. “I have a few other patients I need to see first.” And supplies to order, and staff review reports to be filled out, and phone calls to return, and patient discharge recommendations to finalize. There were any number of excuses not to go, all of them quite legitimate. Not good, but definitely legitimate.

To be honest, though, she was curious. That annoying little part of her that knew she was about to do something she’d regret was pushing her into it regardless of what she wanted, positively fighting to burst through. Admittedly, she did want to know if Dante would be impressed by her achievement. After all, she’d gone from junior hospital staff to clinic medical director in five years—an accomplishment of which she was proud. But what would Dante think of it? Or would he even care? He was so long out of medicine now, maybe none of this world would matter to him any more.

Actually, she still wasn’t sure how he’d walked away from medicine and been so indifferent about it—a man with his passion and skill. Of course, she knew how he’d walked away from her. That was probably the easy part for him, considering how he’d walked straight into the arms of another woman, then another, and another after that. A whole string of others, to be frank.

But she’d done well for herself in spite of all that mess. Gotten on with her life, albeit with a little glitch on the marriage front a couple years ago. Three years after Dante and she’d finally connected with another man, so they’d had a brief try together. No children as a result, however, and no particularly lingering impact from one year spent with a man who, one week after their wedding, had declared it was time for his wife to stay home, cook dinner, do laundry and bear him lots and lots of children. Somehow Robert Wilder had missed the fact the she was a career-woman, and somehow she’d missed that fact that her husband’s views on the perfect marriage were anything but what she considered perfect. It hadn’t worked out, and there really wasn’t much to say about it. She’d made a mistake. Robert deserved a woman who could be everything he wanted and she deserved her freedom from a man who wasn’t anything she wanted. Which was what she’d got.

Still, the impact of being left out of the important decisions in her marriage, of having someone else make them and not include her in them…she cringed even now, thinking about it.

But the timing of that little detour in her life had worked out as one month after their divorce she’d found herself in a major career change, going from being a lower-end staff doctor in a rehab hospital in Boston to medical director of a rehab clinic in Bern. A sensible move that had made her divorce seem all the better. The only thing that had bothered her some had been keeping Robert Wilder’s name. She’d intended to go back to Dr Catherine Brannon, but the whole Aeberhard Clinic offer had come so quickly, and her move to Switzerland almost in a whirlwind, then the ensuing months had been so busy she’d barely had time to breathe. So all her legal papers were still in her married name, but getting everything changed back to her maiden name was definitely on her to-do list when she had time. Right above taking that long, uncomfortable walk to the Geneva Suite to greet their new patient.

The phone buzzed, and Catherine jumped like a skittish cat.

“Dr Rilke isn’t here yet,” Marianne informed her.

“Where is he?”