Free Italian Surgeon to the Stars by Melanie Milburne Page A

licking along my flesh with hot, fiery tongues. Why was he so determined to remind me of our past? Surely he realised by now that I was not interested in resuming it.
    Although I had to admit I’d been giving him mixed messages. Kissing him the way I had had hardly helped my cause. I’d come across as a wanton desperado. I mentally cringed. How could I have let my guard down like that?
    I pushed the toe of my shoe against a bit of broken plaster on the floor. ‘Do you really think you’ll have this place ready in a month? It looks like it could take six months—maybe even more. It must be costing you a veritable fortune.’
    ‘Money’s not an object for me when I have my heart set on something I want.’
    His statement had an element of ruthless determination about it that sent another frisson dancing down my spine. I didn’t have the courage to look at him. If I looked at him I would cave in and reveal how pathetically weak I was.
    I stared fixedly at the peeling paint on the skirting boards instead. ‘Clearly not.’
    He moved towards another door that led into an east-facing room. ‘This is the morning room,’ he said. ‘It has a nice view over the garden—well, it will once the gardeners get control of the weeding and pruning.’
    I looked out of the windows at the garden, where the weeds were almost waist-high. There was a yew hedge surrounding a fountain, but it looked like it hadn’t been pruned in years. There were roses in another section, their skeletons spindly and long-armed from lack of winter pruning. There were clusters of bulbs here and there—narcissus and jonquils, and an early daffodil or two offering the only bit of colour and cheer in the neglected landscape.
    I turned to look at Alessandro. ‘Who owned the house before you?’
    ‘An elderly man who had neither family nor funds nor the health to keep things in shape.’
    I thought of all the gorgeous properties in and surrounding Bath. With the sort of money he apparently had at his disposal he could have bought any of his choosing. Why choose a house that needed such a lot of work?
    ‘So why this house?’ I asked, voicing my thoughts out loud.
    He turned from looking out of the window, his eyes meeting mine. ‘It was where my mother grew up as a child.’
    I blinked at him in stunned surprise. My mother would be doing cartwheels at this. She would say there was some supernatural force at work that had led me to work and live in Bath because it was where Alessandro’s mother had lived as a child. I must admit it was a little freaky, even for a hardened sceptic like me.
    ‘This was her home?’
    ‘My grandparents’, actually,’ he said. ‘She was supposed to inherit it on their death.’
    Something about his tone alerted me to an undercurrent of bitterness. His jaw had a locked look about it, as if he were grinding his molars together.
    ‘So what happened?’ I said.
    A diamond-hard look came into his eyes. ‘She got swindled out of it by my father.’
    I frowned. ‘How did that happen?’
    His mouth had an embittered set to it. ‘When my grandparents died soon after each other, from cancer and a heart attack, my father tricked her into signing the house over to him. As soon as she signed he divorced her.’
    I gasped in disgust. ‘That’s despicable .’
    ‘Yes…he’s a class act, is my father.’
    ‘So he’s still alive?’
    ‘Not to me.’
    The implacable way in which he said the words and the black look on his face made a shiver pass over the back of my neck. ‘You really hate him,’ I said, rather unnecessarily.
    His coal-black eyes pulsated with it. ‘Six months after the divorce my mother had a fatal car accident. After the funeral Bianca and I went to live with our father and his new wife.’
    ‘How old were you?’
    ‘Ten. Bianca was seven.’
    I pictured him as a ten-year-old boy. Devastated by the divorce of his parents, shattered by the loss of his mother, traumatised by being forced to live with a