Tempted by Her Italian Surgeon

by Louisa George

  The doctor everyone’s talking about!

  When a deliciously naughty photo of pediatric transplant surgeon Matteo Finelli goes viral, social media expert Ivy Leigh is called in to discipline him. It will be a challenge…especially as Ivy is far from immune to Matteo’s charismatic charm herself!

  Dedicated doc Matteo doesn’t care about social media policy—he’s far more interested in uncovering the warm, vulnerable heart Ivy hides beneath her suit jacket. The chemistry between them is sizzling, but can he persuade ever-cautious Ivy to take a risk and give in to an irresistible temptation?

  Ivy could tell by the crinkles at his temples that he was smiling—but what kind of a smile it was, she didn’t know.

  She didn’t want to. Just one look at those eyes made her gut contract in a sizzling, heat-filled twist. She wondered what it would be like to wake up to those eyes, that skin…or what would have happened in that lift yesterday if she hadn’t pulled away.

  She was darned glad she had pulled away…frustrated, but glad.

  But what if she hadn’t? Would he have kissed her? And why? Why her when there were so many beautiful women for him to kiss?

  My God. Her mouth dried. She couldn’t be thinking like that. She couldn’t be imagining what it would be like to have Matteo touch her. To kiss him… Not when someone’s life was on the line—although, thank goodness, not in her hands.

  Not at all. She wasn’t the kind of girl to have flings, and she didn’t want anything else. Didn’t even want a fling… Unless…

  No. Not a fling. Not with Matteo Finelli.

  Dear Reader,

  Thank you so much for picking up Matteo and Ivy’s story.

  The idea for this book came from a news article I read about a doctor getting into trouble for commenting about a case on social media. The dos and don’ts of stepping into that very public place—the internet—as a professional person intrigued me. What if someone did something silly and inadvertently brought their place of work into the glare of the media? What would the ramifications be? How do medical providers deal with social media platforms? And, best of all, how would a very English uptight hospital lawyer deal with a supersexy, rule-breaking Italian man?

  These two professionals with very different approaches to life have no idea what’s about to hit them when Ivy summons Matteo to her office for a dressing-down!

  Both of them have been hurt before, and neither wants to trust anyone anytime soon—but having to live a little in each other’s world opens them up to the potential of letting their guards down and falling in love. And they fight it every step of the way.

  Matteo and Ivy were such fun to write about—possibly my favorite characters so far (although I always think that!). But what’s not to like about a handsome Italian surgeon and a good old feisty Yorkshire lass? (I’m slightly biased, I know…)

  For all my writing news and release dates, visit me at louisageorge.com.

  Happy reading!

  Louisa x

  TEMPTED BY

  HER ITALIAN SURGEON

  Louisa George

  Louisa George

  A lifelong reader of most genres, Louisa George discovered romance novels later than most, but immediately fell in love with the intensity of emotion, the high drama and the family focus of Harlequin® Medical™ Romance.

  With a bachelor’s degree in communication and a nursing qualification under her belt, writing medical romance seemed a natural progression, and the perfect combination of her two interests. And making things up is a great way to spend the day!

  An English ex-pat, Louisa now lives north of Auckland, New Zealand, with her husband, two teenage sons and two male cats. Writing romance is her opportunity to covertly inject a hefty dose of pink into her heavily testosterone-dominated household. When she’s not writing or researching, Louisa loves to spend time with her family and friends, enjoys traveling and adores great food. She’s also hopelessly addicted to Zumba®.

  Books by Louisa George

  Harlequin Medical Romance™

  One Month to Become a Mum

  Waking Up With His Runaway Bride

  The War Hero’s Locked-Away Heart

  The Last Doctor She Should Ever Date

  How to Resist a Heartbreaker

  200 Harley Street: The Shameless Maverick

  A Baby on Her Christmas List

  Visit the author profile page at Harlequin.com for more titles.

  Praise for

  Louisa George

  “How to Resist a Heartbreaker keeps you hooked from beginning to end, but make sure you have a tissue handy, for this one will break your heart only to heal it in the end.”

  —HarlequinJunkie

  “A moving, uplifting and feel-good romance, this is packed with witty dialogue, intense emotion and sizzling love scenes. Louisa George once again brings an emotional and poignant story of past hurts, dealing with grief and new beginnings, which will keep a reader turning pages with its captivating blend of medical drama, family dynamics and romance.”

  —GoodReads on How to Resist a Heartbreaker

  “Louisa George is a bright star at Harlequin, and I can highly recommend this book to those who believe romance rocks the world.”

  —GoodReads on How to Resist a Heartbreaker

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  CHAPTER ONE

  ‘WHAT ON EARTH…?’ Ivy Leigh blinked at the image downloading to her inbox, pixel by tiny pixel.

  A…bottom?

  A beautiful perfectly formed, tanned, bare bottom. Two toned thighs, a sculpted back…a naked male body, in what looked like a men’s locker room. A tagline next to the pert backside read: Dr Delicious. As perfect as a peach. Go on…take a bite.

  She swallowed. And again. Fanned her hot cheeks. She might have imposed a strict dating hiatus but she still had an appreciation of what was fine when she saw it. But why on earth would her work computer be the recipient of such a thing?

  Maybe the spam screens on the hospital intranet server weren’t up to scratch. Adding a new note to her smartphone to-do list—Call IT—she let out a heat-infused sigh that had nothing to do with sexual frustration and everything to do with this new job. Two weeks in and yet another department she needed to pull into order. Still, she’d been employed here to drag this hospital into the twenty-first century and that was what she was going to do, no matter how many toes she trod on.

  Twisting in her chair to hide the offending but not remotely offensive bottom from anyone who might walk past her open office door, she sneaked a closer look at the image, her gaze landing on a pile of what looked like discarded clothes on a bench. No, not clothes as such…

  Scrubs?

  Please, no.

  Dark green scrubs bearing the embroidered name of St Carmen’s Hospital. She gasped, and whatever vague interest she’d had dissolved into a puddle of professional anxiety…her bordering-on-average day was fast turning bad.

  So who? What? Why? Why me?

  She slammed her eyelids shut and refused to look at the accompanying email message.

  Okay, big girls’ pants.

  Opening one eye, she took a deep breath and read.

  From Albert Pinkney. St Carmen’s Hospital Chairman. His formidable perfectly English pronunciation shone through his words. ‘Miss Leigh, what in heaven’s name is this?
Our new marketing campaign? Since when did St Carmen’s turn into some sort of smutty cabaret show? This is all over the internet like a rash and is not synonymous with the image we want to present. The benefactors are baying for blood. We are a children’s hospital. You’re the lawyer—do something. Make it disappear. Fix it.’

  Because she was probably the only person who could solve this—when all else failed call in the lawyer to shut it down, or drag some antiquated law out and hit the offender with it.

  And, damn it, fix it she would. Although making it disappear would be a little harder. Didn’t Pinkney know that once something was out on the net, it was there for ever? Clearly he was another candidate to add to her social media awareness classes.

  First, find out who this…specimen belonged to. Now, that was going to be an interesting task. ‘Becca! Becca!’

  ‘Yes, Miss Leigh?’ Her legal assistant arrived in the doorway and flashed her usual over-enthusiastic grin. ‘What can I help you with?’

  ‘Delicate issue… You’ve been here a while and have your ear to the ground. You must know pretty much all of the staff by now. Have you any idea who this…might belong to?’ Ivy twisted away and made a ta-da motion with her hands towards her computer screen.

  ‘Oh, my…’ Becca fanned her face with the stack of manila folders in her hand. ‘Take a bite? I’m suddenly very hungry.’

  Me, too. ‘That is so not the point. Can you see our logo? Right there. We can’t have this sort of thing happening, it’s very bad for our reputation.’

  ‘Not unless we’re trying to attract a whole tranche of new nurses… No? Wrong response? Sorry.’ Becca gave a little shrug that said she wasn’t sorry at all and that, in fact, she was really quite impressed. ‘It’s very nice. It is kind of perfect. And it says it belongs to a doctor so we can narrow it down. We could do one of those police line-ups, get the main suspects against the wall and…’ She looked back at the picture, her voice breathy and high-pitched. ‘I’m happy to organise that.’

  ‘Get in line.’ But, seriously, how many years at law school? For this? This was what she’d studied so hard for? This was why she’d hibernated away from any kind of social life? Her plan had always been to get into a position where she could safeguard others from what she’d had to endure, to prevent mistakes that cost people their happiness. Not chastise a naked man about impropriety. Still, no one could say her job didn’t have variety. ‘I don’t want to narrow it down, Becca, I want it gone. We need to send out a stack of take-down notices, get the PR team onto damage limitation. And whoever put this out there is going to learn what it’s like to feel the wrath of Ivy Leigh.’

  * * *

  It was late. The cadaver transplant he’d just finished on a ten-year-old boy had been difficult and long, but successful, with a good prognosis. He had a planned surgery list lined up for tomorrow and a lot of prep to work up. A ward round. And now this—an urgent summons to a part of the hospital he had not even known existed. Or, for that matter, cared about. The legal team? At six-thirty in the evening? Wouldn’t all the pen-pushers have gone home? Matteo Finelli’s mood was fading fast. He rapped on the closed door. Didn’t wait to hear a response, and walked right in. ‘You wanted to see me?’

  ‘Yes.’ The woman in front of him sat up straight behind an expensive-looking wide mahogany desk that was flanked by two filing cabinets. Beyond that a large window gave a view over the busy central London street. It was sunny out there and he imagined sitting in a small bar or café with the sun on his back as he downed a cold beer. Instead of being in here, doing this.

  Apart from a calendar on the desk there was nothing else anywhere in the room. Nothing personalised, no photos, no pens, stapler…anything. She either had a bad case of OCD or had just moved in. Which would explain why he had not heard of her or seen her around. She ran a hand through short blonde hair that made her look younger than he’d imagined she must be to have achieved such a status and such a large office.

  Cool green eyes stared at him. The blouse she wore was a similar colour—and why he’d even noticed he couldn’t say. Her mouth, although some would say was pretty, was in a tight thin line. She looked buttoned-up and tautly wound and as if she had never had a moment of pleasure in her life. She met his anger with equal force. ‘Mr Finelli, I presume? Please, take a seat.’

  He didn’t. ‘I have not time. I was told you needed to see me immediately… What is the problem?’

  ‘Okay, no pleasantries. Fine by me. I’ll cut to the chase. Tell me…’ The eyes narrowed a little. Her throat jumped as she swallowed. Emerald-tipped fingers tapped on a keyboard and an image flickered onto the screen. ‘Is this you?’

  There was no point in concealing his laugh. Whoever had taken the photo had held the lens at a damned fine angle. He looked good. More than good. He whistled on an out breath. ‘You like it?’

  ‘That’s not the point.’ But her pupils flared and heat hit her cheeks.

  ‘You do like it? It is impressive, yes? And you summoned me all the way to the other side of the hospital for a slide show of naked bodies…interesting.’ He turned to go. ‘Now, I can leave? I have work to do.’

  ‘Not so fast, Mr Finelli.’

  Ma che diavolo? ‘Call me Matteo, please.’

  The woman blinked. ‘Mr Finelli, why did you post this picture on the internet? Were you hoping for it to go completely viral, because, congratulations, it did. It seems that cyberspace can’t get enough of your…assets. Have you any idea what damage you have caused the hospital by posing for this with the St Carmen’s logo available for the world to see?’

  ‘Everybody calls me Matteo, I do not answer to Mr Finelli—too formal. Too…English. I did not post that picture anywhere. And with all due respect, Miss…’ His eyes roved over her face—which was turning from a quite attractive pink to a dark shade of red—then to her name badge. Her left hand. No wedding band. Definitely Miss. ‘Miss Ivy Leigh. I was not posing.’

  ‘Do you deny this is your bott…er…gluteus maximus?’

  It wasn’t fair to smile again. But he did. ‘Of course I don’t deny it. I’ve already agreed that it is mine. But clearly I did not take the picture and I did not pose. It looks to me like I’d had a shower, I was stretching to get my clothes out of the locker, with my back to the lens, you cannot see my face. I can’t take a photo of the back of my head from that distance, can I? Besides which I am a very busy doctor and I do not have time to sit around playing on the internet like some people.’ Like you, he thought. But he let that accusation hover in the silence. ‘I don’t know for sure who took the picture, but I can guess.’

  ‘Oh? Who?’ She leant forward, her eyes fixed on his face, eyebrows arched. In another lifetime it might have been fun to play a little more with her. To see where her soft edges were, if she had any. But not in this life.

  ‘Ged Peterson.’ Touché, my man. You win this round. ‘My registrar, he loves playing pranks.’

  ‘Peterson. Peterson. Ged? Short for Gerard?’ Those green-tipped fingers tapped into some database on the computer. ‘He doesn’t work here.’

  ‘No. But he did. Until last month when he went to work in Australia. He said he was going to give me a leaving present. I didn’t realise it would be this.’ Matteo stepped back, primed to leave. ‘And now we have solved the mystery I must go.’

  ‘Absolutely not. Stay right there.’

  That got his attention. No woman had ever spoken to him like that before. It was…well, it was interesting. ‘Why?’

  ‘Again, I ask you; have you any idea of the damage you have caused? Lady Margaret has withdrawn her funding for the new family rooms in protest already. Parents are complaining that this is not what they expect from an institution responsible for their children’s lives. Surgeons who complain about being overworked and underpaid and yet have time to flaunt their bodies make us look ridiculous. It’s not professional.’

  ‘Everyone needs to stop overreacting. It is nothing.’

  Wi
th a disdainful look that suggested he was in way over his pretty little head, she shook hers. ‘Image is everything, Mr Finelli. In this technological age it’s all about the message we send out to gain trust and respect. We need people on side to volunteer, raise funds, hit targets. We do not need some jumped-up surgeon flashing his backside with our logo in the picture.’

  He strode forward and leaned towards her, pointing at the picture getting a nose full of honeysuckle scent in the process. Overly officious she might be, but she smelt damned good. He edged away from the perfume because it was strangely addictive and he didn’t need any more distractions today. This was enough and he still had a few hours’ work ahead of him. ‘If you are worried about funding I have an idea…why not take another eleven pictures of me and make some calendars you hospital administrators all seem to love so much? Sell me?’

  ‘I am a lawyer.’ As if that explained anything. Actually, it explained a lot. With one brother already qualified and another working his way through college, Matteo knew that law school was just as rigorous as med school. That those dark shadows under her eyes weren’t from late nights drinking in bars but from studying into the early hours. That this woman had worked diligently amidst strong competition. Along with her English-rose complexion and porcelain skin, it also explained that she’d probably spent the best part of her life cooped up indoors with her nose in a book, not exploring the world, not simply lying in the last rays of a relaxing afternoon letting the sun heat your skin. It explained why she was so damned coiled.

  She shook her head. ‘The money you’ve already lost us is in the thousands, possibly hundreds of thousands, Mr Finelli. Calendars only make a few pounds per copy.’

  ‘With my backside on them it would make a lot more.’

  ‘You really do have a high opinion of yourself, don’t you?’ Her voice had deepened and he got the feeling she was trying very hard to be calm.