Italian Surgeon to the Stars (19 page)

I saw his nostrils dilate. ‘You’ve been baking?’

‘Guilty as charged.’ I took the flowers from him with a smile. ‘Claudia loved it. She was a great little assistant. I hardly needed to wash the beaters or the bowls after she’d been to work on them.’

His smile was warm, his dark brown eyes soft. ‘Is she asleep now?’

I gave him a rolled-eye look. ‘Yeah, well… Here’s the thing about baking with six-year-olds. She’s in sugar overload. I couldn’t get her to go to bed. She’s still up playing.’ I nodded my head in the direction of my room. ‘Go in and say hello to her. I’ll just find a jar or something to put these in.’

I sorted out the flowers and stepped back to inspect my handiwork. Yep. I was definitely improving in my flower-arranging skills.

I heard a sound behind me and turned from the flowers to see Claudia swishing into the room. I say ‘swishing’ because the voluminous folds of my wedding dress were swamping her tiny frame in spite of the pair of heels she’d put on.

She shuffled towards me with a big smile on her face. ‘Look what I found in your wardrobe!’ she crowed with excitement.

I didn’t have the heart to burst her bubble by giving her a stern lecture about rummaging in other people’s wardrobes without permission. Besides, her uncle was standing there with an unreadable expression on his face.

‘Well, look at you,’ I said. ‘Don’t you look gorgeous in my sister’s wedding dress?’

I know. Lying to a little kid. How low could I go?

‘Do you have a veil?’ Claudia asked.

‘No, I didn’t buy—’

I realised my mistake halfway through the sentence. Alessandro was now looking at me with a frown, but I soldiered on regardless.

‘I didn’t buy one for her.
For my sister.
Yet. But I intend to. It’s next on my list of things to do. We’ll do it when we sort out my bridesmaid dress. Did I tell you I’m going to be her bridesmaid? My dress is pink. Hot pink. Not a colour I would have chosen for myself, but it’s my sister’s special day and I wouldn’t want anything to spoil it.’

I was done.

I was out of breath, for one thing. My heart was hammering like a demented timepiece in my chest. I was sweating as if the temperature had risen forty degrees. I glanced again at Alessandro, but his expression was back to being indecipherable.

I gave Claudia a bright smile. ‘Well, young lady, I think it might be time to make your uncle a nice cup of tea and see if he’d like to sample some of our baking. What do you think?’

It was a strange little tea party. I was on
tenterhooks and overcompensating by talking too much. Bertie would have rolled about the floor laughing. Claudia had helped Alessandro to some lemon meringue pie and was chatting about how she had been allowed to whip up the egg whites for the meringue all by herself.

‘It’s delicious,’ he said, smiling at her.

After a while Claudia tried to disguise a huge yawn. I was all for ignoring it, as I dreaded being alone with Alessandro once she was safely tucked in bed. But he was clearly of the opinion that adults needed time alone without the presence of young children.
Oh, joy
.

I was still in clean-up mode in the kitchen when he came back. My kitchen was spotless, but that didn’t stop me. I was polishing every surface with an antibacterial spray like someone with severe OCD.

‘We need to talk.’

‘We do?’ I took one look at him and put my spray bottle down. ‘So, how was your research meeting? Did it all go to plan? Is your project secure? Do you have to ask for funding or is that already—?’

‘Jem.’

I pressed my lips together and gripped the
kitchen bench rather than face him. ‘It’s not what you think.’

‘I’ve given you no promises,’ he said. ‘No guarantees. I’ve spelled it out for you in the bluntest terms possible. I’m not offering marriage.’

I let go of the bench to look at him. ‘You think I bought that dress
recently
?’

His frown made his eyebrows meet over his eyes. ‘Didn’t you?’

I laughed.

I know. I sound like a complete nutcase. But I couldn’t help it. The irony of it was amusing even though it was also tragic.

I finally got control of myself enough to speak. ‘I bought it five years ago. Three days before we broke up, to be precise. I thought you were going to ask me to marry you. I was ridiculously naive, and I completely misread the signs because there was no way you were going—’

‘I was.’

I blinked. I swallowed what felt like a fishhook stuck in my throat. ‘You were?’

He scraped his hand through his hair. ‘I was going to ask you to marry me because back then I could think of no one I would rather spend my life with than you…’

I could sense a big
but
coming.

He drew in a breath and let it out in a rush. ‘But I realise I wasn’t ready for that level of commitment. I was too career-focused. I didn’t have the right priorities. Which was why all my other relationships had failed.’

‘So what about now?’

I shouldn’t have asked. I shouldn’t have revealed any sign of my yearnings. The yearnings I hadn’t even been able to admit to myself. Until now.

‘Marriage is out of the question now.’

‘Why?’

I couldn’t believe I was flogging such a lame horse. It was nothing short of cruel.

A flicker of pain passed over his features. ‘Don’t you see?’

All I was seeing was a life devoid of happiness, with no intimacy, spending my end days with a house full of cats or rats or…budgerigars. I figured at least they could talk.

‘What am I supposed to be seeing?’ I said.

He closed his eyes for a moment. Shook his head. Opened his eyes again and gave me a grimace of a smile.

‘You act so tough and street-wise and smart, but inside you’re still that sweet, innocent girl outside that Paris café.’

Was
I?

No-freaking-José-way!

‘I’m not after marriage,’ I said. ‘I’m happy with a fling. We can fling all we like. No one is going to stop us.’

He came over and took me by the shoulders. ‘You deserve more than a fling,
ma petite
. You deserve your day as a princess. You deserve to wear your pretty dress and dream of happy-ever-after. I can’t give you that.’

I frowned. ‘But you do care for me…don’t you?’

He gave me such a wistful look, my chest seized.

‘I have too many people in my life who need me right now. My sister. Claudia. My patients. I’m not capable of giving you what you need. I can’t juggle all of that
and
you.’

‘I don’t need to be juggled,’ I said. ‘I need to be loved. That’s all I’m asking for.’

I couldn’t believe I was asking. Make that
begging
.

His hands fell from my shoulders. His expression was painful to witness. He wore his determination, his sense of responsibility and his inner loneliness like scars carved deeply into his features.

‘Sometimes love isn’t enough.’

‘Is this about your father?’ I asked. ‘Are you worried about turning out like—?’

‘No.’

‘You’re nothing like him,’ I said. ‘You could
never
be like him.’

‘It’s not about my father. It’s about me. I can’t do it and fail. It would hurt too many people. I don’t want that on my conscience as well as everything else.’

‘Why do you think you’ll fail?’

I was all fired up. I had put my heart on the line. I had nothing to lose. Well, I had
everything
to lose—but I wasn’t able to stop myself from being honest and up-front.

‘You and I belong together. We’re a great team. Look at how well we handle little Claudia. Your sister would always have us at her back, to step in if she couldn’t cope. We could have our
own
children. We could build a life together. Can’t you see that?’

His face had that boxed-up look I dreaded. The drawbridge was up. The subject was closed. He had made up his mind.

‘I can’t marry you, Jem,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry. Any relationship between us has to be informal. Casual. That’s all I can offer.’

‘I want more.’

I was shocked at the way I was drawing a line in the sand. Not just a line, but a big deep trench. Seeing Claudia in my wedding dress had made me realise how much I wanted to be a bride. Not just any bride, but Alessandro’s bride. How could I settle for anyone else? How could I want anyone else when he was the only one who had ever made me feel alive?

‘Then maybe it’s best if we don’t see each other again,’ he said, with a note of finality that slammed into my heart like a wrecking ball.

‘How am I going to explain that to Claudia?’ I asked. ‘How are
you
going to explain it? She thinks we’re best friends.’

He let out a long, uneven breath. ‘I’ll enrol her in a different school.’

‘But she’s doing so
well
!’ I said. ‘She’s made friends. She’s secure—probably for the first time in her little life. How can you uproot her just because you can’t face a bit of commitment?’

His jaw locked and he snatched up his keys from where he’d left them on the kitchen bench. ‘I have to go. I’ll be back in the morning to pick up Claudia. It wouldn’t be fair to wake her up now.’

I folded my arms across my chest and jerked my chin towards the door. ‘That’s right. You go. Walk away when it all gets too difficult. That’s what I did. I didn’t stay around long enough to hear your explanation of why you hadn’t told me about your ex. It takes guts to stick around and hear the truth. It takes guts to step out of your comfort zone. To admit you need and love someone.’

Our gazes collided. Then meshed. My heart contracted. I could already read his mind. Apparently my mother isn’t the only one in our family with psychic abilities.

‘I wish I could give you what you want but I can’t,’ he said. ‘There’s too much at stake. I think it’s best if we end our…fling. It will be fairer on you. On me and on Claudia.’

‘Fine.’

I said it so matter-of-factly I almost believed it. Almost.

I was even brave enough to follow him to the door and wave him off, as if he was just another tea-party guest who had enjoyed the result of my labours in the kitchen.

It was only when the door had closed that I allowed myself to let a couple of tears squeeze past my eyelids. I blinked to stem the flow,
took a deep breath, and brushed my hand across my face.

It was only then that I saw Claudia standing in the doorway, with the bundle of her bedding and a woebegone look on her face.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said in a whisper-soft voice. ‘I had a bad d-d-dream and I wet the bed.’

CHAPTER TWELVE

I
T TOOK A WHILE
to sort out the bed, Claudia’s shower, and an explanation of why her uncle and I were apparently not best friends any more. I sat beside her as I tucked her in and tried my best to explain.

‘It’s not that we don’t love each other. It’s…complicated.’

‘Is it because you’re my teacher?’

‘No, nothing like that,’ I said, wishing it was that simple.

‘Then why c-c-can’t you be together?’

Good question.

‘Because there are other issues,’ I said.

‘Is it because of my mummy?’

I looked down at her earnest little face. How much did she know? How much had she guessed?

‘Your uncle is doing everything he can to help your mummy get better,’ I said.

Claudia’s little fingers plucked at the hem of the sheet. ‘My mummy might never get better.’

My chest tightened at the worldly pragmatism in her statement. She was six years old.
Six!
How had she become so jaded?

‘We should never give up hope,’ I said, hugging her close and resting my chin on her little head. ‘On anybody.’

Good advice, I thought.

If only I had the courage to believe it.

***

Once Claudia was asleep I went back to the sitting room. I glanced at my phone. Suddenly I could think of no viable excuse not to call my mother.

I reached for it just as it began to ring.

‘Mum?’ I said. ‘I was just about to call you. I’m sorry for what I said. It was so insensitive of me, given the circumstances, and I—’

‘Poppet, I’m the one who’s supposed to be apologising,’ my mother said. ‘I had no idea that horrible thing had happened to you.’

She began to cry, and the rest became a bit garbled as we swapped apologies and sorted out some stuff.

I hadn’t realised how terribly controlling my grandparents had been towards my
mother. They dictated everything to her. She’d felt like an item on an assembly line. By the age of five her whole life had been mapped out for her. What friends she would play with. What subjects she would study at school and at university. What career she would have. What man she would marry. Where she would live.

She wasn’t just a square peg in a round hole. She was a feather that needed to float free. My father had much the same kind of upbringing, which was why he had bonded with my mother. They weren’t perfect. But they were my parents and it was about time I accepted them for all their foibles.

We ended the call with a lot of ‘I love you’s and kissy smoochy noises.

Yes. Even some from me.

***

Alessandro arrived the next morning to pick up Claudia. We were so polite to each other it was nauseating. It was back to Dr Lucioni and Miss Clark.

I stood back as he led Claudia to his car, but just before he closed the car door she jumped back out and ran towards me. Her little body cannoned into mine and hugged me so tightly I couldn’t breathe. Or maybe
that was because my emotions had taken up all the space inside my chest.

‘I love you, Jem,’ she said.

I bent and hugged her back, and kissed the top of her head. ‘I love you too, sweetie. But you have to call me Miss Clark tomorrow, remember?’

She looked up at me with those big brown eyes that so reminded me of her uncle’s.

‘I want to live with you for ever and ever. I want to be with you instead of at the boarding house. C-c-c-can’t I stay with you?’

I glanced at Alessandro’s face. His jaw was tight, but I noticed his throat was moving up and down over a swallow. His eyes looked red and pained, as if the sunlight was too bright—even though there wasn’t any sunlight. Well, not much to speak of. It was a grey morning, with clouds that hung oppressively overhead in clotted knots of gloom.