Taming the Notorious Sicilian

‘Me not kicking you in the ankle.’

‘I thought you didn’t believe in violence.’

‘So did I.’ A smile suddenly creased her face and she burst out laughing, her mirth increasing when he shoved her phone back into the pocket of her robe. ‘Now I get it—threats of violence really do work.’

He kissed her neck and flattened her onto her back. ‘The difference is I knew you didn’t mean it.’

Raking her fingers through his hair, she sighed. ‘I guess you’ll never know.’

‘Oh, I know.’ Hannah healed people. She didn’t hurt them.

But he didn’t want to think those thoughts. The time was fast approaching when he’d have to take her home, leaving him limited time left to worship her delectable body.

‘I’m going to be in London more frequently for a while,’ he mentioned casually, making his way down to a ripe breast. ‘I’ll give you a call when I’m over. Take you out for dinner.’ With all the evidence pointing to Luca Mastrangelo still sniffing around the Mayfair casino, Francesco needed to be on the ball. If that meant spending more time in London, then so be it. The casino would be his, however he had to achieve it. He would secure that deal and nothing would prevent it.

Hannah moaned as he circled his tongue around a puckered nipple.

At least being in London more often meant he could enjoy her for a little longer, too.

It never occurred to him that Hannah might have different ideas.

* * *

Hannah opened the curtains and stepped into the cubicle, pulling the curtains shut around her. She smiled at the small girl lying in the bed who’d been brought in a week ago with encephalitis, inflammation of the brain, then smiled at the anxious parents. ‘We have the lab results,’ she said, not wasting time with pleasantries, ‘and it’s good news.’

This was her favourite part of the job, she thought a few minutes later as she walked back to her small workspace—telling parents who’d lived through hell that their child would make it, that the worst was over.

Clicking the mouse to get her desktop working, she opened the young girl’s file, ready to write her notes up into the database. Her phone vibrated in her pocket.

She pulled it out, her heart skipping when Francesco’s name flashed up.

Time seemed to still as she stared at it, her hands frozen.

Should she answer?

Or not?

It went to voicemail before she could decide.

Closing her eyes, she tilted her head back and rolled her neck.

Why, oh, why had she agreed to see him again? Not that she had agreed. At the time she’d been too busy writhing in his arms to think coherently about anything other than the sensations he was inducing in her....

She squeezed her eyes even tighter.

Francesco, in all his arrogance, had simply assumed she’d want to see him again.

An almost hysterical burst of laughter threatened to escape from her throat.

There was no way she could see him again. She just couldn’t.

Their time together in Sicily had brought him, her dream man, to life—the good and the bad. Being with him had been the most wonderful, thrilling time imaginable. She had felt alive. She had felt so much.

She had felt too much.

All she wanted now was to focus on her job and leave Francesco as nothing but a beautiful memory.

She would carry on seeking out new experiences to share with Beth for when the time came that they were together again. But these experiences would be of an entirely different nature, more of a tick box—I’ve done that, I’ve parachuted out of an aeroplane—experience. Nothing that would clog her head. Nothing that would compromise everything she had spent the majority of her life working towards.

But, dear God, the hollowness that had lived in her chest for so long now felt so full, as if her shrivelled heart had been pumped back to life. And that scared her more than anything.

It was easier to shatter a full heart than a shrivelled one.

‘Hannah, you should go home,’ Alice, the ward sister said, startling her from her thoughts. Alice looked hard at her. ‘Are you okay?’

Hannah nodded. Alice was lovely, a woman whose compassion extended from the children to all the staff on the ward. ‘I’m fine,’ she said, forcing a smile. ‘I’ll be off as soon as I get these reports finished.’

‘It’ll be dark soon,’ Alice pointed out. ‘Anyway, I’m off now. I’ll see you in the morning.’

Alone again, Hannah rubbed her temples, willing away the tension headache that was forming.