Crouching on the floor, each with a hand to their forehead, they stared at one another as if waiting for the other to pounce.
By God, she is beautiful.
“You’ve grown your hair,” she said finally.
She was so close he could kiss her. Put his hand at the nape of her neck as he’d done so many times before, draw her to him and...
She was talking about haircuts.
A haircut had been the last thing on his mind when she’d left. Work. Work had been all he’d had and he’d thrown himself so far into the deep end he’d been blind to everything else. Got too involved. So close he’d literally drained the blood from his own body to help ease the pain of his patient.
Elisa.
That poor little girl. They’d shared a rare blood type. Foolishly he’d thought that if he saved her life he might be able to save himself. In the end his boss had made him choose. Take a step back or leave.
So here he was in Italy, just when he’d thought he was beginning to see straight again, eye to eye with the woman who had all but sucked the marrow from his bones.
“It looks nice,” Beatrice said, her finger indicating the hair he knew curled on and around his shirt collar. What was it she’d always called him? Hay head? Straw head? Something like that. Something that brought back too many memories of those perfect summer months they’d shared together.
He nodded his thanks. Blissful summers were a thing of the past. Now they were reduced to social niceties.
Fair enough. He glanced at his watch. The chopper would be leaving in five. He needed to press on.
“C’mon. Let’s get these picked up. Get you back to your patient.” No matter how deeply he’d been hurt, patients were the priority.
She reached forward, sucking in a sharp breath when their fingers brushed, each reaching for the same packet of dressings.
“I’m not made of poison, you know.”
Beatrice’s gaze shot up to meet his, those rich brown eyes of hers looking larger than ever. He couldn’t tell if it was because she’d lost weight or because they were punctuated by twilight-blue shadows. Either way, she didn’t look happy.
“No one knows who I am here,” she bit out, her voice low and urgent as she clutched the supplies to her chest. “I would appreciate it if you could keep it that way.”
A huff of disbelief emptied his chest of oxygen. Flaunting the family name was the reason she’d left him, and now she wanted to be anonymous?
She met his gaze as she finished scanning his uniform. “Since when do pediatricians wear high-octane rescue gear? I thought life in a children’s ward was all the excitement you needed?”
“Snide comments were never your thing.”
“Pushing boundaries was never yours.”
Jamie’s lungs strained against a deep breath, all the while keeping tight hold of the eye contact. He wanted her to see the man he’d become.
After a measured exhalation he let himself savor the pain of his teeth grating across his lower lip. He turned to leave, then changed his mind, throwing the words over his shoulder as if it were the most casual thing in the world to lacerate the woman he loved with words.
“People change, Dr. Jesolo. Some of us for the better.”
* * *
Ten minutes later and the sting of his comment still hadn’t worn off. Perhaps it never would.
And hiding in the staff room with her friendly Aussie colleague had only made things worse. He was a messenger with even more bad news.
Jamie Coutts was not just back in her life—he was her boss.
“Wait a minute, Teo.” Bea held up a hand, hardly believing what she was hearing. “He’s what?”
Teo Brandisi gave Bea a patient smile and handed her the cup of herbal tea he’d promised her hours earlier in the busy shift.
“The big boss man. The big kahuna. Mayor of medics.”
“But you hired me.”
“He was out in the field. He hands over the reins to me when he’s away.”
“But—”
“Quit trying to fight it, sweetheart. He’s le grand fromage—all right? I wouldn’t be working here without his approval, so if you’ve got a bone to pick with him, I’m recusing myself. He has my back. I have his. You got me?” Teo continued in his broad Australian accent.
Bea shook her head and waved her hands. “No, it’s not that. I’ve nothing against Dr. Coutts.”
Liar.
She cleared her throat, forcing herself to sound more neutral. “I just don’t understand why he had to approve appointing you but not me.”
“Foreign doctor.” Teo pointed at himself. “We can’t just swan in and take all the choice jobs. Even though he’s English, he’s been qualified to practice here for over a year.”
He’d been in Italy for a year and she hadn’t known.
Well...she’d done a whole lot of things he didn’t know about, so fair was fair.
“My advice?” Teo was on a roll. “You have to suck up to people like James Coutts.”
“James?”
“Yeah... Why?”
Teo scrunched up his nose and looked at her as if she was giving proof positive she was losing her marbles. Maybe she was. And if Jamie was James, and she’d shortened her name to Bea, then the only thing that was clear was that they were both trying to be someone new.
A reinvention game.
Only games were meant to be fun. And everything about seeing Jamie again was far from fun. Confronting what she’d done to him was going to be the hardest thing she’d ever done.
“Anyhoo...” Teo continued. “James has got the whole British-reserve thing going on big-time.” A glint of admiration brightened his blue eyes. “The man’s like an impenetrable fortress. Impossible to read. Well done!” He clapped her on the shoulder. “A gold star to Dr. Jesolo for getting under the Stone Man’s skin!”
“The Stone Man?”
“Yeah. We all take bets on how many facial expressions he actually has. I’m going with three. Contemplative. Not happy. And his usual go-to face—Mr. Neutral. No reading that face. No way, no how.”
Bea hid her face in the steam of her tea for a minute. Her kind, gentle Jamie was an impenetrable fortress? That wasn’t like him. Then again...she was hardly the same. Why should he be?
“It’s most likely a fluke. That or he doesn’t like blondes?”
Teo gave her a sidelong glance as if he already knew the whole story. Could tell she was just making things up. Covering a truth she wasn’t yet ready to divulge.
“Fair enough.”
They stood in an awkward silence until Bea launched into a sudden interest in removing her herbal tea bag from her mug.
If Teo had known she was pregnant, she could have just blown the whole thing off as a bout of pregnancy brain. Not that she even knew if pregnancy brain hit this early. Sharp bouts of fatigue certainly had. And morning sickness. She’d never look at a hamburger the same way again! At least when she’d been on her brother’s yacht she’d