Baby Surprise For The Doctor Prince

The boy responded in quick Italian, gesturing wildly and looking panicked. Enzo placed his hand on the boy’s shoulder and led him to an examination room as the boy talked, his head tipped toward the child as he listened. Aubrey hurried to follow. Enzo might not want her here, but maybe she could prove he needed her anyway.

The boy stopped talking to take a breath, and Enzo took advantage of the brief break in his recitation. “Sit up here.” He swung the child up onto the exam table. “And speak English, please. I know your papà likes you to practice, and the nice nurse here is American. I’m going to take a look, okay?”

Benedetto nodded and sucked in a breath as Enzo leaned over to carefully roll back the boy’s ripped pants. The skin beneath sported a wide, bleeding abrasion. It was a nasty one, to be sure, but at first glance it didn’t look to be deep enough to require stitches. Not that his leg couldn’t still be fractured in some way.

Time to show how competent and vital to this clinic she could be, right? Before Enzo booted her out the door for having nice sex with him?

Aubrey shoved down the anger and worry and stab of hurt still burning in her chest and opened a few drawers. Pulled out the supplies she’d need to stop the bleeding, washed her hands, and snapped on gloves. “That’s an impressive scrape you’ve got there,” she said to the child, smiling to relax him. And herself, if she was honest. She was glad Enzo had asked the boy to speak English, because she hadn’t been able to understand a single word he’d said. “You’re obviously a very tough guy. Is your bike okay?”

“No.” The panicked look came back. “The wheel is bent, and the tire is flat. Papà is going to be angry.”

“Oh, surely he won’t be angry when he sees you were hurt,” Aubrey said.

“Yes, he will.” He licked his lips and turned his wide-eyed attention back to Enzo. “Nonna will be, too. I was supposed to be getting bread and seppioline, but I went to play with Lucio first. And then I fell off my bike near his house.”

“Let’s worry about that later.” Enzo straightened to send the boy another wide smile he should patent to relax a patient. Or kindle some other reaction, depending on the circumstances and who he was sending it to. “First, we’re going to stop the bleeding. Then we’ll take an X-ray to look inside your leg. Luckily your papà signed papers allowing me to treat you the last time you were here.”

“X-ray?” Tears sprang into the boy’s eyes. “You think my leg might be broken?”

“I don’t think so, no. But we’ll check just to be sure.” Enzo patted the child’s shoulder and glanced at Aubrey as she cleaned the wound. “Looks like you have that under control. I’m going to get the portable X-ray.”

“Yes, Doctor,” she said, oh, so coolly and professionally, staring at the boy’s leg because she didn’t want to look at Enzo’s wickedly handsome face. Be distracted by all his undeniable beauty, and get mad at him all over again.

He returned just minutes later, rolling the cart to the table. “Between the blood and rips, I’m afraid these pants are ruined, Benedetto. I’m going to cut them off so we don’t have to slide them down over your leg.”

“What? How will I get home without pants?”

“We keep spare clothes here for things just like this. No worries, okay? Nurse Aubrey here will find you something. Now, this won’t hurt at all, and you’ll get to see a picture of your bones afterward, which I think you’ll like.”

Enzo was so incredibly gentle as he lifted the child’s leg to place the X-ray plate under his calf, her vexation with the man softened slightly. The steady stream of calm, amusing conversation he kept up with the boy actually had the child laughing, which was a dramatic difference from the scared tears of earlier. She had to grudgingly admit that the man had a wonderful bedside manner. In more ways than one, darn it.

Enzo straightened, and his dark eyes lifted to hers. “This will take just a short time to develop.”

“I’ll wait to dress the wound until you’ve taken a look. Then find those pants you talked about. Unless you want to wear the ones I brought, Benedetto? They have little flowers on them—quite pretty.”

“Eww, no!” He obviously knew she was kidding, because he laughed, and the impish smile she’d so enjoyed on Enzo’s face the first moment she’d met him returned as he winked at her.

“Benedetto wearing flowered pants to the fish market just might make the fishermen’s day, don’t you think, Aubrey?”

“I don’t want to wear them, but I want to see you in them, Nurse Aubrey! I like flowers on girls’ clothes.”

A laugh left Enzo’s annoyingly sexy lips, and the eyes that met hers held a hint of the amused look she remembered too well. “You’re smart for being so young. Very, very smart. I’ll be right back.”

Hopefully this proved they could take care of patients and interact just fine, and the weight in Aubrey’s chest lifted a little. She absolutely did not want to have to leave Venice before she’d learned more about how her mother’s foundation could help restoration projects there. Before she’d barely had a chance to explore this unique city. Enzo Affini might be superficially charming and very irksome, but she was confident she could look past all that and think about him in a strictly professional way while she worked here.

She could and she would.

Aubrey chatted with the child until Enzo returned, and she quickly looked away from him, because every time she let her gaze run over his dress shirt and doctor coat she remembered the strong body, smooth, tanned skin, and soft dark hair on the muscular chest beneath it all. Which made her feel a little warm, and while she wanted to think it was her anger bubbling up again, she knew the ridiculous truth.

Mad at him and hurt by him and needing to keep her distance from him didn’t seem to affect being attracted to him one bit. What in the world was wrong with her?

“Good news, Benedetto. No fracture.” Enzo’s voice warmed the whole sparse room. “So Nurse Aubrey is going to get you bandaged up while I go take a look at your bike. See if I can fix it so it’s good as new. Is it outside?”

“Sì.” The boy’s eyes lit in surprised excitement. “Can you do that?”

“I’m going to give it a try. Aubrey, when you’re done, please get a tube of topical antibiotic from the drawer for his papà to pick up later when he comes back for us to change the dressing. And will you look in the cupboard next to yours to see if there are any pants that would work for him?”

“Of course.” She watched his tall frame leave the room, completely failing in her determination to not admire that beautiful dark hair and his broad shoulders and the elegant way he moved.

Ugh. She quickly turned back to Benedetto. Being sweet to this child and fixing his bike didn’t erase the reality that the man had virtually accused her of hunting him down just moments ago. A Jekyll and Hyde type, to be sure.

When she had the boy’s leg securely bandaged, she stood and smiled. “I’m going to look for those pants. Be right back.”

The first cupboard had a neatly stacked pile of all kinds of clothes, but after fishing through them she couldn’t find a single pair of pants. The one next to it had what looked like running shorts and a few T-shirts, and a lone pair of gray sweatpants. More searching proved there was nothing else around, so she took the sweatpants back to the exam room, dug into her purse for her sewing kit, and showed the child the pants. “This is the best I can do, I’m afraid. They’re way too big for you, but I’m going to make them fit as best I can. Okay?”

“Okay.” He eyed them doubtfully. “How can you make them fit? They are huge.”

“Ah, I have many talents, young man. You just wait. Can you stand up without it hurting too much?”

She helped him from the table and held the pants up to his waist. They draped a good foot and a half onto the floor, and she made a pencil mark. Then she took scissors from the drawer, cut off the bottom half of the legs, then cut into the elastic waistband. Removing a big chunk of fabric, she then stitched it back together as the boy patiently watched.

“Eccoli!” she said, feeling pretty satisfied with her work and her ability to come up with a good Italian word to boot. “Step into them and see if they’ll stay on you now.”

Once he’d pulled them on, he stared down at the pants, then up at her with a big smile. “They are okay! I didn’t think you could. Thank you very much.”

“You’re welcome. Here’s that tube of antibiotic Dr. Affini wants put at the front desk for your dad or your nonna to pick up. Now, let’s go see how he’s doing with your bike.”

She tried hard to ratchet back the way her heart squished as they stepped out to the piazza, trying to shore up her negative feelings about the man currently crouched on the stone pavement. His head was bent over the bicycle wheel as he used some kind of wrench on it. He’d taken off his lab coat, and his necktie was askew and tucked inside the buttons of his shirt. Midmorning sunshine gleamed in his hair, and his eyes were narrowed as he concentrated on his task.

“Can you fix it, Dr. Affini?” Benedetto sounded both worried and hopeful.

“Good...as...new. You’re going to ride like the wind.” One last turn of the wrench, then he stood to pump a little more air into the tire. Obviously pleased, he brushed his hands together, beaming a smile at the boy. “How’s your leg feel?”

“Okay. Thank you so much. I’m going to get the things my nonna wanted, then go straight home.”

“Here are the instructions for your nonna and papà on when to come back, and later, for changing the bandage again and using the antibiotic ointment.” He pulled a folded paper from his pocket, and his eyes met Aubrey’s. “You did put the ointment at the desk?”

“I gave it to Nora after we set him up with new pants.”

“Bene. They—” He stopped short as he looked at the child’s pants, then, after a long pause, laughed out loud.

“What?” she asked, bristling that he obviously thought her sewing job was amusing. Or bad. Or something. “There wasn’t anything that would fit, so I made a bigger pair fit at least a little.”

“I see that. They look very good on you, Benedetto. Very good.” He reached to give the child a quick hug. “Now you go run your errands. Come back tomorrow to let us take another look and change the dressing, and ask your nonna or papà to call me before that if they have questions.”

“Okay. I don’t think Papà will be as mad now that my bike is fixed. Thank you again!”

Aubrey watched the boy mount the bike and ride it slowly and carefully away, and she smiled. “He’s being very cautious now, I see.”