The Rebel Doc: Tempted by Her Italian Surgeon / The Doctor's Redemption / Resisting Her Rebel Doc

‘Where the hell is this lift?’ Jab-jab on the button with those emerald fingernails. ‘I don’t think about the time I put in. I just do what’s needed, and if that keeps me here all hours then so be it. Like most lawyers, I expect to work hard.’

‘Then you’d make a fine doctor too.’

‘Believe me, I wouldn’t.’ She gave a visible shudder and he wondered whether she’d been hurt at some point. Maybe a doctor had broken that well-protected heart of hers. And, again, why that was remotely relevant to anything, he didn’t know.

‘You don’t like doctors? A hospital is a strange place to work, then.’

‘Most doctors are fine. In fact, my mum’s one.’ Finally the lift arrived with a jolt and the doors swished open. Taking the folders from his hand, she fixed her gaze on him. ‘Only a few of them ruin the reputation for the majority …’

What? As she stepped into the lift he put a hand out to stop the doors from closing. ‘You mean me? I have a reputation?’ He laughed. ‘Good to know. Let me guess how that goes … I am too outspoken. I am a maverick. I am too committed to my job. Worse, I leave broken hearts in my wake …’

‘Apparently so.’ Her fingers tapped against the cold steel of the wall panel. ‘And a lot more that I couldn’t possibly say …’

‘I am also very attentive to detail. Some would say passionate. I have a sense of humour. I play very hard indeed …’ His gaze drifted over her face. The detail there was stunning. The eyes that gave away her emotions regardless of how hard she tried to keep them locked away. That mouth, the keeper of barbs and insults and a perfect smile. Those lips … How would it feel if he were to kiss her? How would Miss Prim and Proper react then? Would she let him see a little of what was under that hard surface? Because, dammit, he knew there was more to her. A softer side—a passionate side. Just waiting to be set free. Lucky man who ever achieved that.

The door jolted against his back, reminding him that this was neither the time nor the place to be kissing Ivy Leigh. And yet … he reached a hand to her cheek and he could have sworn he saw heat flicker across her eyes, just enough to mist them and to tell him that he was not the only one struggling with this wildly strange scenario. Her mouth opened a little, he could see her breathing had quickened, and her eyes fluttered closed for a microsecond. Enough to show he had an effect on her … and she liked it. Didn’t want it, not at all, but she liked it.

She pulled away. ‘So. I’ll see you tomorrow. Show me what you’ve got, Mr Finelli, I’m expecting to be very impressed.’

He felt strongly that he could show Miss Leigh a thing or two and she’d be very impressed indeed. Work. Work. Reminding himself of what was truly the most important thing in his life, he took a step back too. Che stupido. ‘Do not bring me back to that issue again. Those damned workshops. This social media thing. Miss Leigh, you make my blood boil sometimes.’

‘I try my best. All part of the service.’

With that she gave him a very satisfied smile that he imagined would grace her lips at the end of a particularly heavy lovemaking session. For a fleeting second he imagined her naked and on his sheets. Spent and glowing.

‘Goodbye, Mr Finelli.’

He watched the lift door swish closed, thanking the god of good timing that she’d had the good sense to put a stop to whatever dangerous game had been about to play out. She made his blood boil indeed, the heat between them had been off the scale. No woman had made him so infuriated and so turned on at the same time. He spoke to the metal doors as the lift lurched upwards. ‘Goodbye, Ivy.’

Then he turned to walk up the stairs and back to the surgical suite. A ward round beckoned, then some prep, allaying the fears of his patients and their parents … then a quick gym session, a decent meal, some sleep.

He needed to be ready for tomorrow, for Ivy and for round two.

CHAPTER THREE (#u0400c727-bc8d-5c8b-a0d8-a279d8c5b44d)

THIS IS YOUR JOB, for goodness’ sake. Pull yourself together.

As long as Ivy focused on that she’d be fine. She’d put everything on the line for her job her whole adult life and had got exactly where she wanted to be: Director of Legal at a fabulous, age-old and well-respected institution. So this was just another hurdle. Just an incy-wincy hurdle that she would jump with ease.

If only for two little things …

Shut up. Blood and a bloody-minded man would not get to her. She dragged the scrubs top over her head and straightened it, leaned in to the mirror and watched her hands shake as she slid the paper hairnet hat thing over her hair, squashing her fringe in the process. Great look, girlfriend.

Then she took a little more notice of her surroundings. The scrubs with the St Carmen’s logo and the locker room reminded her of the photo … Would she be for ever condemned to remember that image for as long as she lived?

Half of her hoped so. The other half tried to blot it from her mind.

‘Hey, Miss Leigh, are you ready?’ Nancy, the OR assistant, called through the door. ‘We’re going in now, the surgeon’s here.’

And she so hadn’t needed to hear that. ‘Just a second, I’m almost there.’ Okay. Breathe. Deeply. In. Out. In. Out. You can do this. It was just a case of mind over matter. She was in control of this.

She didn’t know what she was dreading most: the red stuff or the man she’d had the dirtiest dream about last night. The man she’d almost grabbed in the lift and planted a kiss on those too smug lips of his. Who she’d spent an hour trying to describe to her flatmate and had ended up with annoyingly sexy.

So, yes, she thought he was sexy. Just as Becca did, and, frankly, the same as all the women in the hospital did. So she was just proving she had working hormones—nothing else to see here, move right along. The man who was out to make her look a fool but, God knew, he might not need to try too hard, because if things didn’t go as planned she’d be managing that quite well all on her own.

Popping two more herbal rescue sweets into her mouth and sucking for all she was worth, she took a couple of extra-long deep breaths and steadied her rampaging heart. Give her a sticky mediation case, two ornery barristers and an angry, justice-seeking client any day. Words … that was her thing. Words, debate, the power of vocabulary. Not medicine. Not blood. Not internal stuff. Exactly why she hadn’t followed in her mother’s footsteps.

Here we go.

The smell hit her first. Sharp, tangy and clinical, filling her nostrils, and she thought it might have something to do with the brown stuff a man in scrubs and face mask was painting onto the abdomen of an anaesthetised woman. Then the bright white light of the room hit her, the noise. She’d thought it would be silent—remembered only a quiet efficiency from those endless surgeries, but someone had put classical music on the speakers. It was the only soothing thing in the place.

So much for the rescue sweets. Her heart bumped along, merrily oblivious to the discomfort it was causing her, and now her hands were starting to sweat too. Someone sat at the head of the woman and fiddled with tubes. The anaesthetist, Ivy knew. She had enough experience to be able to identify most of the people in here. Another woman smiled at her and bustled past with a tray of instruments that looked like torture devices … hooks and clamps. Ivy shuddered and hovered on the periphery, not knowing what to do and feeling more and more like a spare part. Should she stand closer? But that would mean she’d get a bird’s-eye view of the action.

The man painting the brown stuff raised his head and she realised it was Matteo. Matteo—she’d got to thinking of him like that. Not Mr Finelli. Not something over there and out of reach. But someone here … someone personal. Matteo. Someone she’d almost kissed, for the first time in what felt like a thousand years. All she could see of his face were those eyes, piercing, dark and direct as he looked at her. ‘Ah. Miss Leigh. You’re here. Come closer, please. Glad you could tear yourself away from your paper pushing.’

‘Good to be here.’ Liar.

‘Nancy got you some scrubs. Good. We don’t want to get your lovely office suits messed up with bodily fluids. Do come and get a better view of the procedure, my team will make space for you. I’m sorry we didn’t reserve the gold-tier seating. And it’s a little crowded as I need to teach as well as operate. Perhaps one day you’ll be able to help us raise money for a decent viewing room? That would make all of our lives easier.’

She gave him a sarcastic smile, which she knew he couldn’t see behind her mask so she stuck her tongue out instead. Then levelled her voice. ‘You know very well that I’m a lawyer, not a fundraiser. However, I’ll add it to your wish-list. Which is getting longer by the day.’

‘I know. We surgeons are so demanding, yes? You’d think we were wanting to save lives or something.’ For a moment he regarded her with humour, but it was gentle and not rude, and then he became very focused and professional. ‘Okay. This patient is Emily. She’s donating her left kidney to her daughter, who is twelve years old and suffers from polycystic kidney disease. Emily is a perfect match in tissue type and blood type. She’s a very active lady with no medical history of any note. With one kidney she is giving her daughter the chance to have a normal life. That is, of course, as long as her body doesn’t reject it, although live donors are generally better tolerated than cadaver ones. Once the kidney has been removed, I, and a team of other surgeons, will …’ He paused and looked over at Ivy. ‘Are you okay, standing there?’

‘Yes, thanks. I’m fine.’ Shifting the weight from her left foot, she eased more heavily onto her right. And then realised he was still watching her.

His eyes flicked to her feet and then back to her face. ‘This is a long procedure—in fact, it’s going to be a long day. Would … er … anyone like a seat?’ His voice, she noted, had softened, the jokey teasing quite gone. Which was not what she wanted or expected from him. He must have noticed her limp. Goddamn. When had that been? She didn’t want anyone’s pity; she could hold her own as well as the next person. He called out to the orderly, ‘Eric …? Do we have any chairs?’

And look weak in front of all these people. In front of her colleagues? Him? No way. She shook her head vehemently.

Matteo paused with a large green sheet in his hand. ‘If you’re sure? Everyone?’ But she knew he meant just her. ‘This is your last chance. We’re going to start imminently and then we all need to concentrate.’

Oh, God. Objection! she wanted to shout. Stop! But instead she fisted her fingers into her palms, dug deep to distract herself from her raging heartbeat. ‘I’m fine. Please, just do the operation.’

‘As you like.’ He nodded to her, the scalpel now in his hand catching the light and glinting ominously. ‘Here we go, everyone. One laparoscopic donor nephrectomy begins.’

An hour later and Ivy had run out of places to look other than at the patient and risk the chance of seeing blood. She knew the right-hand corner of the room intimately now and could have recited the words on the warning sign above the electrical sockets blindfolded. The ECG monitoring machine bleeped and she focused once again on the LED display. Lots of squiggly lines and numbers. A niggly pain lodged in her lower back and her legs were starting to ache. She didn’t even have anything to lean against—that would have been helpful. So she stood rooted to the spot, trying to blot out the chatter, the music, the smell. Words like tubular … renal ligament … haemo … blood. She knew that. And sorely wished she didn’t.

But while her heartbeat was jigging off the scale it was clear that Matteo’s wasn’t. As he worked three probes jutting out from the woman’s abdomen while watching his handiwork on a large TV screen, his voice was measured and calm. For all his macho Italian remonstrating, the man was a damned fine surgeon, she’d give him that. He was also a decent teacher, taking time to explain to everyone exactly what he was doing—which really was amazing. Keyhole surgery was detailed, precise and very, very clever.

Okay, so she’d misjudged him. He was not narcissistic when it mattered, he was giving of himself to his patients and to the assistants. But he was still annoying. And sexy. And had she mentioned annoying? ‘We need to divide the adrenal vein so it is the optimal length for transplantation …’

She focused on the music because his running commentary was making her feel slightly woozy. Or maybe it was the heat in the room. Her gaze drifted over to him again, down his mask-covered face to his throat. The V of skin visible on his broad chest was suntanned, his forearm muscles contracting and stretching as he worked.

He stopped and arched his back, checked the screen, and, as he dipped his head to resume his work, he caught her eye. She could tell by the crinkles at his temples that he was smiling—what kind of a smile it was, she didn’t know. She didn’t want to. Just one look at those eyes made her gut contract in a sizzling, heat-filled clutch. She wondered what it would be like to wake up to those eyes, that skin … Or what would have happened in that lift yesterday if she hadn’t pulled away.

She was darned glad she had pulled away … frustrated, but glad.

But what if she hadn’t? Would he have kissed her? And why? Why her when there were so many beautiful women for him to kiss?