Tempted by the Bridesmaid

by Annie O'Neil

  Hormones or history. It was always a toss-up as to which would unleash the next flood.

  You can do this. You’re a princess! Trained in the art of...of artifice.

  At least work would give her poor over-wrung tear ducts a break.

  The Clinica Torpisi catered to the needs of international tourists. Ones who didn’t read the gossip rags. Adrenaline junkies, fun seekers and good old-fashioned holidaymakers kept the clinica operating on full steam over the summer—and probably more so in the winter, when the skiing crowd came in. It was the perfect place to hide in plain sight. And to create some much-needed distraction from her real-life problems.

  Zurich, Lyon, Salzburg and even Milan were only a couple of hours’ drive away, but the press still hadn’t caught wind of the fact that she was up here in this magical Italian mountain hideaway.

  Ha! Foiled again. Just the way she liked it. They’d had their pound of flesh after the wedding nightmare. Painting a picture of her as if she’d been abandoned at the altar... The cheek! She’d been made of fool of, perhaps, but she’d been the one to pull off her ring and walk away.

  The press might have stolen what little dignity Bea had left, but she wouldn’t let them take away her precious Italy. Especially now that returning to England was out of the question.

  Her fingers pressed against her lips as the strong sting of emotion teased the back of her nose again.

  Ugh. She’d tried her best to shake off those memories. The ones she’d kept locked away the day since she’d agreed to her mother’s harebrained plan. What a fool she’d been!

  She’d had a shot of living the perfect life and had ruined it in a vainglorious attempt to please her blue-blooded family. Power and position. It was all they’d wanted.

  Well...they’d hit the tabloids, all right, just not in the way anyone had anticipated.

  Hopefully the paparazzi were now too busy jetting around the globe trying to find “Italy’s favorite playboy prince” to worry about her any longer.

  Bea pulled the used paper off the exam table and stuffed it in the bin. It was her own fault this mess had blown up in her face. If she’d stayed strong, told her parents she was in love with someone else...

  Inhale. Exhale.

  That was in the past now. She’d made the wrong decision and now she was paying for it.

  Bea took a quick scan of the room, then glanced in the mirror before heading out for her next patient, smiling ruefully as she went. Trust an Italian clinic in the middle of nowhere to have mirrors everywhere! She was willing to bet the hospital on the Austrian side of town didn’t have a single one. Practical. Sensible. More her style. Maybe she should have tried to get a job there...

  Her eyes flicked up to the heavens, then down again.

  Quit second-guessing yourself! It’s day one, and so far so good.

  She forced herself to look square into the mirror at the “new” Bea.

  No more Principessa Beatrice Vittoria di Jesolo, fiancée of Italy’s favorite “Scoundrel Prince.”

  Her eyes narrowed as she recataloged those memories. Everything happened for a reason, and deep in her heart she knew marrying for tradition rather than for love would have been a huge mistake. Even if it would have made her mother happy.

  A mirthless laugh leapt from her chest.

  She was well and truly written out of the will now!

  She shrugged her shoulders up and down, then gave her cheeks a quick pinch.

  Saying goodbye to that life had been easy.

  The hard part was living with herself after having let things go as far as they had.

  “Dr. Jesolo?”

  Bea started, and wagged her finger at herself in the mirror.

  Self-pity wasn’t going to help either. Work would.

  “Si, sto arrivando!”

  From today she was simply Dr. Bea Jesolo, trauma doctor to the fun-loving thrill seekers up here in Italy’s beautiful Alpine region.

  She tipped her head to the side. Now that she was a bit more used to it, she liked the pixie haircut. The gloss of platinum blond. It still caught her by surprise when she passed shop windows, but there were unexpected perks. It made her brown eyes look more like liquid shots of espresso than ever before. Not that she was on the market or anything. Just get up, work, go to bed and repeat. Which made the short, easy-to-style cut practical. Much better than the long tresses she’d grown especially for the wedding.

  She gave a wayward strand a tweak, then made a silly face at herself when it bounced back out of place.

  Undercover Princess.

  That was this morning’s newspaper headline. She’d seen it on the newsstand when she’d walked into work. There had been a picture of heaven knew who on the front page of Italy’s most popular gossip magazine. A shadowy photo showing someone—no doubt a model wearing a wig—looking furtively over her shoulder as she was swept through airport security in Germany. Or was it Holland? Utrecht? Somewhere she wasn’t.

  Undercover Princess, indeed.

  She pulled her stethoscope back into place around her neck and shrugged the headline away.

  It was a damn sight better than the handful she’d seen before sneaking away to lick her wounds on her brother’s ridiculous superyacht for six weeks, ducking and dodging the press among the Greek islands.

  There were perks to having a privileged family. And, of course, pitfalls.

  Abandoned by the Wolf!

  Prince Picks Fair Maid over Princess!

  Altar-cation for Italy’s Heartbroken Princess.

  Heartbroken? Ha! Hardly.

  Love-Rat Prince Crumbles at the First Hurdle

  That was getting closer. Or maybe:

  Pregnant Principessa Prepares for First Solo as Mama.

  Not that anyone knew that little bit of tabloid gold.

  Doctor by day...

  Her hand crept to her belly. Though she wasn’t showing yet, she knew the little tiny bud of a baby was in there...just the size of an apple seed. Maybe a little more? Bigger, smaller... Either way she’d protect that blossoming life with every ounce of power she possessed. Hers and hers alone. How she’d go about living the rest of her life once the baby was born was a problem she hadn’t yet sorted, but she’d get there. Because she didn’t have much of a choice.

  Bea swiped at her eyes, forced on a smile, then pulled open the curtain. Nothing like a patient to realign her focus.

  “Leah Stokes?”

  She scanned the room, bracing herself against the moment that someone recognized her, air straining against her lungs. Her shoulders dropped and she blew a breath slowly past her lips as all the patients looked up, shook their heads, then went back to their magazines and conversations. All except a young twentysomething woman, who was pushing herself up from her chair. She was kitted out in cycling gear and... Oh. Ouch!

  “Looks like some serious road rash there.” Bea’s brow furrowed in sympathy and she quickly walked over to the woman and put her arm around her waist. “Lean on me. That’s right. Just put your arm around my shoulder and let me take some of the weight.”

  “I don’t think I can make it all the way.” Leah drew in a sharp breath, tears beginning to trickle down her cheeks now that help was here.

  “Can I get a hand?” Bea called out.

  There were a couple of guys in rescue uniforms at the front desk. She called again to get their attention. When the closest one looked up, the blond...

  Her breath caught in her throat.

  He wasn’t blond. His hair was hay colored—that was how she’d always remembered it... The color of British summertime.

  A perfect complement to startling green eyes.

  As their gazes grazed, then caught, Bea’s heart stopped beating. Just...froze.

  She’d know
that face anywhere. It had been two long years. Two painfully long years of trying to convince herself she’d done the right thing, all the while knowing she hadn’t.

  Fate had intervened in saving her from a loveless marriage, but what was it doing now?

  Taunting her with what she could never have?

  She blinked and looked again.

  Those green eyes would haunt her until the end of time.

  Before she could stop herself she spoke the name she’d thought she’d never utter again.

  “Jamie?”

  * * *

  For a moment Jamie thought he was hallucinating. It couldn’t be her. Beatrice was meant to be on her honeymoon right now. That and no one called him Jamie.

  He’d gone back to James the day she’d left. He’d changed a lot of things since then.

  “Jamie, is that you?”

  For a moment everything blurred into the background as he looked straight into the eyes of the woman he had once thought he would spend his life with.

  Still the same dark, get-lost-in-them irises, but there was something new in them. Something...wary. No, that wasn’t right. Something...fragile. Unsure. Things he’d never seen in them before.

  Her hair was different. Still short, but... Why had she gone platinum? Her formerly chestnut-brown hair, silky soft, particularly when it brushed against... A shot of heat shunted through him as powerfully as it had the first time he’d touched it. Touched her.

  Instinct took over. She was struggling with a patient. Before he could think better of it, he was on the other side of her, calling to his colleague to find a wheelchair.

  “What’s your name, love?” he asked the girl, who was whispering words of encouragement to herself in English.

  “Leah,” Beatrice answered for her. “Leah Stokes.”

  Jamie hid a flinch as the sound of Beatrice’s voice lanced another memory he’d sealed tight. If he’d doubted for a second that this transformed woman—the blond hair, the uncharacteristically plain clothing, the slight shadows hinting at sleepless nights—was the love of his life, he knew it now. She had a husky, made-for-late-night-radio voice that was perfect for a doctor offering words as an immediate antidote for pain. Even better for a lover whispering sweet nothings in your ear.

  “The exam table isn’t far away. Instead of waiting shall we—” Beatrice began.

  He nodded before she’d finished. Once-familiar routines returned to him with an ease he hadn’t expected. The looks that made language unnecessary. The gestures the said everything. They’d done this particular move when he’d “popped in” accidentally on purpose to help out with her trauma training. Carried patients here and there. Practiced the weave of wrists and hands. Supported each other.

  “On three?” The rush of memory and emotion almost blindsided him. He’d been a fool to let her go. Not to fight harder.

  But a modern-day commoner versus a latter-day prince?

  There’d been no contest. He’d seen it in her eyes.

  Like a fool, he looked up.

  “One...two...”

  He saw the words appear on her lips but could hardly hear them, such was the rush of blood charging around his head.

  Never again.

  That was what he’d told himself.

  Never again would he let himself be so naive. So vulnerable. So in love.

  As one they dipped, eyes glued to each other’s, clasped one another’s wrists and scooped up the patient between them, hardly feeling Leah’s fingers as they pressed into their shoulders once she’d been lifted off the ground.

  It definitely wasn’t the way he’d imagined seeing Beatrice again. If ever.

  “Just here on the exam table, per favore.” Beatrice had shifted her gaze to her patient, her hands slipping to Leah’s leg to ensure the abraded skin was kept clear of rubbing against the paper covering the table. “Thank you, Dr. Coutts.”

  Her dark brown eyes flitted back toward him before she returned her full attention to her patient, but in that micromoment he saw all that he needed to know. Seeing him had thrown her as off-kilter as it had him.

  Whether it was a good thing or a bad thing was impossible to ascertain. At least he hadn’t seen the thing he feared most: indifference. He would have packed his bags and left then and there. But something—the tiniest glimmer of something bright flickering in those espresso-rich eyes of hers—said it would be worth his while to stay.

  Answers were answers, after all.

  “I’ll leave you to it, then,” he said, tugging the curtain around the exam table, his eyes taking just a fraction of a second longer than necessary to search her hand for the ring. Jewelry had never been his thing, but that ridiculously huge, pink cushion-cut diamond ring—a family heirloom, she’d said—was etched in his mind’s eye as clearly as the day she’d told him she was moving back to Italy. Family, she’d said. Obligations. Tradition.

  He yanked the curtain shut, unable to move as he processed what he’d seen. Pleasure? Pain? Satisfaction that neither of them had succeeded in gaining what they’d sought?

  A chilling numbness began to creep through his veins.

  No sign of a ring.

  Nothing.

  Each and every one of her fingers was bare.

  * * *

  Bea’s heart was thumping so hard behind her simple cotton top she was sure her patient could see it.

  Even though she had taken longer than normal to put on her hygienic gloves, Leah would have had to be blind not to notice her fingers shaking.

  Jamie Coutts.

  The only man who’d laid full claim to her heart.

  Why wasn’t he in England?

  Leaving Jamie had been the most painful thing she’d ever done. The betrayal she’d seen in his eyes would stay with her forever. Having to live with it was so much worse.

  “Is everything all right?” Leah asked.

  “Si, va bene.” Bea gave her head a quick shake, pushed her hands between her knees to steady them and reminded herself to speak English. She had a patient. Rehashing the day she’d told the man she loved she was going to marry another would have to wait.

  “Let’s take a look at this leg of yours.” Bea gave her hands a quick check. Jitter-free. Good. “Cycling, was it?”

  “We were coming down one of the passes,” Leah confirmed, her wince deepening as Bea began gently to press the blue pads of her gloved hands along the injury. “A car came up alongside me. I panicked and hit the verge too fast.”

  “A fall when you’re wearing these clip shoes can be tough. It looks largely superficial. Not too much bleeding. But from the swelling on your knee it looks like you took quite a blow.” Bea glanced up at her, “I’m just going to take your shoes off, all right? Do you feel like anything might be broken? Sprained?”

  Leah shook her head. “It’s hard to say. I think it’s the road rash that hurts the most, but my knee is throbbing!”

  “Did you get any ice on it straight after you fell? A cool pack?”

  “No...” Leah tugged her fingers through her short tangle of hazel curls, loosening some meadow grass as she did so, before swiping at a few more tears. “The guys had all ridden ahead. Downhill pelotons freak me out—and I wasn’t carrying a first-aid kit with me. A local couple saw me fall and brought me here.”

  Poor thing. Left to fend for herself.

  It’s not any fun, is it, amore?

  Bea gave her a smile. “Trying to keep up with a peloton of adrenaline junkies is tough.” She pushed herself back on the wheelie stool and looked in the supplies cart for the best dressings. “I don’t think you’ve broken anything, but it’s probably worth getting some X-rays just in case.”

  “But we’ve still got four more days of riding!” Leah protested, the streaks of dirt on her face dis
appearing in dark trickles as her tears increased. “Richard’s going to think I’m such a weakling. This was meant to be the time I showed him I could keep up with the boys.”

  Bea took a quick glance at Leah’s fingers. Bare, just like hers. “Boyfriend?” she chanced.

  “Probably not for long. He’s going to think I’m such a wimp!”

  “With a road rash like that?” Bea protested with a smile. “This shows exactly how tough you are. I’ve had men in here with half the scraping your thigh has taken, howling like babies.”

  “Howling?” A smile teased at Leah’s lips.

  “Howling,” Bea confirmed with a definitive nod.

  She wouldn’t mind tipping back her head and letting out a full-pelt she-wolf howl herself right now, but instead she told herself off in her mother’s exacting tones. Princesses don’t howl. Princesses set an example.

  She screwed her lips to the right as she forced her attention back to Leah’s leg. “Mi scusi, I can’t see what I need to dress this leg of yours in here. I want to get some alginate and silver dressings for you.”

  “What are those?”

  “They’re both pretty amazing, actually. You should get some dressings to carry in your pack. There are derivatives from algae in one of them—really good for wounds like this. Ones that ooze.”

  Leah sucked in her breath after touching a spot on her thigh. “It’s so disgusting.”

  “It’s not pretty now, but it will definitely heal well. Once the dressing gets wet, it will begin to form a gel and absorb any liquid from the abrasion.” She pressed her hands into her knees and put on her best I-know-it-stinks face. “Keeping the wound moist is essential to preventing scarring. The dressing I’m hoping to use contains silver. It’s antibacterial, so it will keep the wound clean of infection.” Bea tipped her head to catch Leah’s eye before she rose. “Are you going to be all right for a few minutes while I get the supplies?”

  Leah half nodded, her interest already diverted as she pulled her phone out of her bag and flicked on the camera app. “I’m going to send the guys some pictures. Give them a proper guilt trip for abandoning me.”

  “Back in a minute,” Bea said unnecessarily as Leah snapped away.