Italian Doctor, No Strings Attached

No Strings

Attached

Kate Hardy

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

For Michelle

CHAPTER ONE

FACE the fear.

Sydney faced the fear every single day of her life. Every day she made life-or-death decisions. Abseiling down the tower of the London Victoria hospital, to raise funds for specialist equipment for the emergency department, should be a breeze. She had a sheet full of sponsor signatures, with a large amount of money at stake. There was no question that she wouldn’t do it. How could she possibly back out now?

But then she looked down. Over the edge. There was a white stone cornice and then … nothing.

For two hundred and fifty feet.

Back in the department, two months ago, this had seemed like a brilliant idea. Right here and now, she knew it was the most stupid, ridiculous thing she’d ever done. She sneaked another look at the edge, hoping that her fairy godmother was passing with some sparkly dust and the drop would look a bit less scary.

It didn’t.

And there was no way that she could make herself walk backwards over the edge. OK, so she had a harness on, and a hard hat. The ropes were belayed, or whatever the technical term was, and the experts weren’t going to let her fall. She knew that. All she had to do was go backwards over the edge and walk down the building.

But she still couldn’t move her feet.

‘It’s OK, Sydney. You can do it. Just one tiny step back.’

One tiny step backwards. Over the edge. She couldn’t even reply to the man who’d just spoken to her: the instructor who’d explained carefully to her just what she had to do to get off the top of the tower and go all the way down to the bottom. Her brain was refusing to process his name. Refusing to do anything.

Oh, help.

She couldn’t step back. Couldn’t step forwards, either, and let the team down.

Why, why, why had she agreed to be the first person down? Whatever had possessed her? Why had she thought it would boost her confidence in herself? She must’ve been mad. No way could she do this. She was stuck.

Then another man joined the instructor at the edge. ‘Hi.’

She’d never seen him before. The part of her mind that wasn’t completely frozen in fear thought how gorgeous he was, with eyes colour of melted chocolate, dark hair, and an olive complexion. He reminded her a bit of an actor she had a huge crush on and her friends in the department were always teasing her about.

‘I’m Marco.’

And his voice was even more gorgeous than his face: just the hint of an accent, incredibly sexy.

He’d introduced himself to her. Now she was supposed to speak. But, just like her feet, her mouth was frozen and it wasn’t going to let any proper words out.

‘You’re Sydney, yes?’

‘Uh.’

Clearly he took the little squeak of fear as meaning yes. ‘OK. What we’re going to do now is sing together, Sydney.’

What? How on earth was singing going to help her frozen feet move?

‘How about Tom Petty’s “Free Falling”?’ he suggested.

Not funny. So not funny. And just what any of her colleagues would’ve suggested. Clearly climbing people shared the same kind of dark humour as medics. Falling. Uh. She gave him a look of pure loathing.

He grinned. ‘At least you’re not doing this face down, tesoro. That’s a bonus. And singing’s going to take your mind off it and help you down, I promise.’

He sounded a lot more confident than she felt.

‘If I start, will you join in?’

She managed a nod, and in return got a full-wattage smile. If her knees hadn’t been frozen, they would definitely have gone weak.

‘That’s great, tesoro. You’re going to sing with me. And you’re going to keep your right hand behind your back, holding the static line, and just take one tiny step back. You’ll feel yourself go down a little bit, but don’t worry, that’s fine—it’s just the tension in the ropes letting you move. The line’s going to take your weight. And then you move your right hand out to your side, and it’ll give you the slack to start walking down. If you need to stop, just move your hand behind your back again. Got it?’

She nodded again.

‘Excellent. Do you know the song “Walking on Sunshine”?’

She could almost hear it in her head, infectious and upbeat, a real summer anthem.

Another nod.

He smiled and began singing. To her amazement, he even hummed the intro, mimicking the tune of the brass section—and then she found herself joining in.

They got to the first chorus. ‘One step back,’ he encouraged during the bit where he was meant to sing the ‘woh-ohs’.

Somehow she did it. Took a step backwards.

Everything lurched, but then it was stable again.

And he was still singing. Still keeping her company. Still with her.

She could do this.

Her voice sounded thready, but she was singing back. And she was walking. Not on sunshine, but against brick.

How she actually got down the building was a blur, but at last she was at the bottom. Her legs were shaking, so were her hands, and she could barely unclip the harness and move out of the way so the next person could abseil down the building and land safely.

‘So are you going next?’ the instructor asked.

‘Me?’ It had been a while since Marco had abseiled. But a building in the middle of London was going to be a lot safer than the last abseil he’d done at home, down the cliffs in Capri. Apart from anything else, they didn’t have to worry about the tide coming in and causing problems with landing.

He glanced at his watch. Well, it’d be almost as quick as taking the lift. And nobody was going to notice any creases in his suit caused by the abseil harness once they were in the thick of things in the emergency department. ‘I’m not on your list,’ he warned, ‘so it’s going to put you off schedule.’