She smiled. ‘That’s good. Well, I’m due in Theatre, so I’ll let you get on. But give me a yell if there’s anything you need.’
‘Thanks. I will.’
* * *
Rosie spent her usual Friday lunchtime reading to Penny and talking about kittens and ballet. She knew Thomas had talked to Peter and Julia about putting their daughter on the transplant list, and gave Julia an extra hug at the door. ‘We’re all rooting for her, you know. We’re not supposed to have favourites but our Penny’s special.’
A tear trickled down Julia’s cheek and she clearly couldn’t speak.
‘It’s OK,’ Rosie said softly. ‘I’m a mum, too, so I know exactly how I’d feel in your shoes.’
‘We really appreciate you reading to her,’ Julia said.
Rosie smiled back. ‘No problem. My two are more into dinosaurs than anything else at the moment, but when Lexi’s older I’m sure she’d enjoy the kind of stories I’ve been reading to Penny.’
In the middle of the afternoon, she was at the nurses’ station, writing up notes, when Leo came over and handed her a paper cup of cappuccino. ‘Good afternoon. I brought you something to help you write up your notes,’ he said.
‘That’s really nice of you, Leo, and I love the coffee from Tony’s,’ she said, ‘but that’s the second time you’ve bought me coffee this week and now I feel in your debt. Which makes me feel uncomfortable.’
‘There’s no debt.’ He paused. ‘Or maybe you could buy me a coffee after work, if that would make you feel better.’
Buying him a coffee to make them even would make her feel better, but she absolutely couldn’t do anything after work. ‘Sorry. I can’t.’
‘Or come out with me for a pizza at the weekend,’ he suggested. ‘We can go halves and you can buy me a coffee then.’
How easy it would be to agree to have dinner with him.
And it worried Rosie just how much she was starting to like Leo Marchetti. He was kind, he was great with patients and parents and staff alike, and he was beautiful to look at with those dark, expressive eyes and a mouth that promised sin.
It would be so, so easy to say yes.
But how did she know that she wasn’t going to be repeating her past mistake and fall for someone who made her heart beat faster but would let her down when she needed him? Leo seemed a nice guy on the ward—but would he be different in a relationship that wasn’t strictly professional? Would he turn out to have feet of clay?
There was one way to find out. She could agree to one date. Then, if Leo took one look at the twins and ran for the hills, she’d know she’d been right about him all along. And she was pretty sure that he would leave her alone once he knew she was a single mum of three-year-old twins.
‘All right,’ she said. ‘But, as you’ve been buying me coffee, I’ll take you out for a pizza.’
He blinked, looking slightly shocked that she’d actually said yes. ‘When?’
‘Tomorrow night.’ Before her nerve broke.
‘OK. That’s good. I’ll pick you up,’ he said. ‘What time?’
She frowned. ‘Hang on. I thought I was taking you out for pizza? Shouldn’t I be the one picking you up?’
‘Change of plan. I’m taking you out for dinner,’ he said.
So once she’d agreed to something, then he changed the goalposts? Well, Leo would find out the hard way that her goalposts weren’t changeable. Her children came first. And that wasn’t negotiable.
‘Six o’clock, then,’ she said, and wrote down her address for him.
‘And your phone number? In case of emergencies and change of plans?’
She wrote that down, too.
‘Thanks. I’ll text you later so you have my number.’
‘OK.’
‘I’ll let you get on,’ he said. But before he walked away, he touched the back of his fingers briefly against her cheek—and every nerve-end sizzled at his touch. Just like Wednesday afternoon, when he’d hugged her and then he’d been at the point of actually kissing her. Worse still, she’d been thinking along the same lines.
This really wasn’t good.
Rosie had to force herself to concentrate on the paperwork until the end of her shift, and then she headed down to the hospital nursery school to pick up the twins. Right at that moment, she wasn’t sure if she’d just made a huge mistake in suggesting going out to dinner with Leo.
But it would settle things once and for all: she was pretty sure he’d look at the twins, make some charming excuse and scuttle off. And then he’d never ask her for another date. She’d be off the hook.
* * *
Leo could hardly believe that Rosie had actually agreed to a date.
Six o’clock seemed a little early for him to pick her up, but maybe they could go for a drink before they went out to dinner. He caught Robyn at the end of his shift. ‘Just the person I wanted to see.’
‘Something you need at work?’ she asked.
He smiled. ‘No—everything’s fine and I’m really enjoying working here. This is personal. I was wondering if you could recommend a nice restaurant locally.’
‘Oh, is your mother coming over to stay?’
He shook his head. ‘Right now Mamma’s a little frail, so I’d rather she stayed in Tuscany where she can be looked after properly.’ He squished the faint feeling of guilt that really he ought to be the one keeping an eye on his mother, as her only child and a qualified doctor. But he specialised in paediatrics, not geriatrics, so she was getting better care than he could give her. And he called her every day when he wasn’t in Tuscany; he wasn’t neglecting her completely.
‘So do you mean somewhere romantic?’ Robyn teased.
He actually felt himself blush. ‘Yes.’
She mentioned a couple of places and he made a note of them on his phone.
‘Dare I ask who the lucky woman is?’
He smiled at her. ‘Now, now. A gentleman doesn’t tell tales.’
She laughed. ‘Leo, you might be a gentleman, but you’ll date her twice and be utterly charming, and then you’ll end it before she has a chance to get close to you.’
‘I date women more than twice,’ he said. He knew she was teasing, but he also knew that she had a point. He never had let a woman close to him, since Emilia. Maybe he ought to leave Rosie well alone.
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