Mummy, Nurse...Duchess?

The problem was, he didn’t want to. She drew him, with that odd mixture of warmth and wariness. He wanted to get to know her better and understand why she drew him like this. And, if he was honest with himself, she was the first woman since Emilia who’d made him feel this way. Which was another reason why he should just drop this: the last time he’d felt that incredible pull towards someone, it had gone badly wrong.

When he got home, he booked the table at one of the restaurants Robyn had suggested. But, the next day, he couldn’t settle to much; he was too filled with anticipation. It made him feel a bit like a teenager again, though the teenage Leo Marchetti had ended up with a heart so broken that he’d had to escape from Rome to London before he could mend himself. He’d never want to go through his teens again, with all that uncertainty and that desperation to please someone who constantly changed the goalposts and made the young Leo feel that he’d never be able to match up to expectations. And he didn’t have to ask anyone’s permission to date someone.

He shook himself. His father was dead and Leo was comfortable in his own skin now. He knew who he was and what he was good at—and he didn’t have to please anyone but himself.

Late that afternoon, he drove to Rosie’s and parked his low-slung two-seater convertible on the road outside her house.

She answered the door wearing understated make-up and a little black dress: very different from how she usually was at work, with no make-up and a uniform.

‘You look lovely,’ he said, and then felt like a fool when she raised one eyebrow.

‘Not that you don’t usually look lovely,’ he said, feeling even more gauche. Which was weird, because normally he was relaxed with women. He liked their company. Why was he so awkward with Rosie?

She smiled. ‘Thank you for the compliment. Come in.’

He stopped dead in the doorway when she ushered him into the living room and he saw two small children playing with a train set on the floor. The brown-haired boy and golden-haired girl were clearly Rosie’s children, as they had her bright blue eyes and her smile. And they looked to be around the same age, so he guessed that they were twins.

He couldn’t see a babysitter anywhere, unless maybe someone was in the kitchen or something.

And the penny dropped when he looked at Rosie’s face.

She’d invited him to pick her up here, expecting him to take one look at the children and make a run for it.

That really smarted. Had his reputation already spread through the hospital, if she thought he was that shallow?

Then again, maybe she’d been badly hurt by the twins’ father. Until he knew the full story, he shouldn’t judge her the way she’d obviously misjudged him.

‘So that’s dinner for four?’ he asked.

She shrugged, and lowered her voice so the children couldn’t hear. ‘I come as a package, Leo.’

‘It would’ve been useful to know that.’

‘So you could back off earlier?’

She was really that sure he was so unreliable? Or had someone made her believe that about all men? ‘No,’ he said. ‘So I could’ve brought a four-seater car with me instead of a two-seater.’

Colour flooded into her face. ‘Oh.’

‘I would be delighted to take you all out,’ he said, keeping his voice as low as hers, ‘but either we need to use a taxi or—if you have appropriate seats—your car. Is there any particular place the children like eating out?’

* * *

Leo wasn’t running away.

And he’d asked where the twins liked eating out, not where she liked eating out.