Jennifer Taylor – Dr Ferrero's Baby Secret (страница 1)
“Papa.”
Matteo’s voice cut through the maelstrom of emotions whirling around inside him, and Luca jumped.
Turning, Luca realized Kelly was standing, stock-still, in the middle of the driveway.
“Whose house is this?” Her voice was so low that it sounded as though all the life had seeped out of it, and his fear intensified.
“Mine,” he said simply. “This is where I live.”
Her eyes closed for a moment, before she opened them again and stared at him. “If this is your house, then who is Matteo? Where are his parents?”
Luca had promised Sophia that he would never tell anyone the truth about Matteo’s birth, and he never had. Matteo was his son, and that was what everyone must continue to believe. Including Kelly…especially Kelly.
“Matteo is my son, Kelly.”
My husband and I love to travel, so when I came up with the idea of writing two books about twin sisters, it seemed the perfect opportunity to use two of our very favorite places as settings for the stories. Bill and I spent our honeymoon in Sardinia, so that had to be one of the places I chose, and then last year we went to Cyprus for our wedding anniversary and had a wonderful time there, so I chose that as the second location. We’ve had great fun looking through all the photographs together.
Katie and Kelly Carlyon have a lot in common, along with being twins. They both work in the world of medicine, and they have both fallen in love with men who live in Mediterranean locales. While Katie flies to Cyprus to be with the man she loves, Kelly moves to Sardinia to forget about the man who has broken her heart. However, as they soon discover, life doesn’t always work out the way you hope it will!
I really enjoyed writing the two books in this miniseries, and hope that if you liked reading Katie’s story in DR. CONSTANTINE’S BRIDE, you will enjoy Kelly’s story here in DR. FERRERO’S BABY SECRET, too.
Love,
Jennifer
Dr. Ferrero’s Baby Secret
Jennifer Taylor
CONTENTS
SHE had made her decision. She would hand in her notice and leave at the end of the week. She had spent the night thinking about it and realised it was the only rational solution. Getting this job might have been the fulfilment of all her dreams, but no job was worth this amount of heartache.
Kelly Carlyon felt her heart start to pound whan she heard the office door open. She knew what she should do, yet the irrational part of her couldn’t bear to think that Luca might believe she was too scared to work with him. She had got over him a long time ago, as soon as she had found out that he was going to marry another woman, in fact.
Admittedly, it had been a shock when she had arrived at the hospital to take up the post of junior registrar and discovered that he was her new boss, but she had made up her mind that she would deal with the situation professionally. However, after the argument they’d had yesterday, she was less confident of that. Could she really work with Luca Ferrero when there was so much history between them?
‘Buongiorno, Kelly.’
Luca swept into the office and closed the door. Kelly felt a wave of resentment rise up inside her as she watched him walk over to his desk. There was no sign of discomfort on his handsome face, no hint at all that he found the situation as stressful as she did. Luca didn’t give a damn that he had turned her world upside down again. If he had cared then he would never have treated her the way he’d done two years ago.
Kelly’s mouth compressed as she recalled what had happened. Luca had spent six months as visiting consultant on the paediatric unit where she’d been working as a senior house officer and that was how they had met. The intensity of her feelings for him had taken her completely by surprise. She’d been too busy establishing her career to get romantically involved with anyone, yet within a week of them meeting she and Luca had been lovers.
She’d been devastated when he’d returned to Rome at the end of his tenure. Even though he had sworn that they would always be together, she’d been so afraid of losing him. When he had telephoned her a week later to say that he was back in England and needed to see her, she had been elated. She had rushed home after work, sure in her own mind that he was going to ask her to go back to Italy with him, but she’d been wrong.
When Luca had arrived, he had refused her invitation to sit down. He had stood in the middle of her living room and had told her simply that he was getting married. Oh, he had tried to break it to her gently, said that he had never meant to hurt her, but she had stopped listening. The truth was that she had served her purpose and he’d had no further use for her.
She had ordered him to leave and that had been the last she’d seen of him until she’d arrived in Sardinia. Now, as the newly appointed head of clinical care at the Santa Margherita Ospedale, a hospital devoted to the care of sick children on Sardinia’s northern coast, Luca must be more determined than ever that she wasn’t going to stand in his way.
‘So, Kelly, have you decided what you intend to do?’
Luca pulled out a chair and sat down. Kelly took a deep breath as she blanked out the unhappy memories. Luca had given her twenty-four hours to decide if she wanted to continue working at the hospital and he wouldn’t allow her a second more. She opened her mouth to tell him that she had decided to leave when he interrupted her.
‘Before you say anything, I believe I owe you an apology.’
‘An apology?’ she repeated uncertainly.
‘Si.’ He leant back in his chair and studied her across the width of the desk. ‘It was wrong of me to speak to you that way in front of the team. I apologise for it.’
‘Oh! I see.’
Kelly bit her lip, hoping he couldn’t tell how emotional she felt. She’d been bitterly upset by what had happened yesterday. Luca had been extremely abrupt with her when she had suggested a change of treatment for one of the children. It wouldn’t have been so bad if he had taken the time to consider her idea, but he had dismissed it out of hand. She had been furious about the way he had spoken to her and had told him so in no uncertain terms. If he hadn’t been called away, she knew that a full-scale row would have erupted and that would have been reprehensible. It was bad enough that Luca had felt it necessary to advise her to consider her position at the hospital before he had left. Maybe Luca wasn’t the only one who needed to apologise?
‘I think I owe you an apology too. I should have accepted what you said and not argued with you.’
‘Then we were both at fault, it seems.’
He shrugged, his broad shoulders moving lightly beneath his suit jacket. He was always impeccably dressed and the black suit he was wearing fitted him like a glove, moulding itself to the lean lines of his body. He had chosen a plain white shirt to go with it and the colour was the perfect foil for the olive tan of his skin. With those deep grey eyes and that lustrous black hair, he looked more like a film star than a doctor, yet it hadn’t just been his looks that had attracted her when they had met. It had been everything about him: his vitality; his commitment; his intelligence. Luca Ferrero had seemed like the embodiment of all her dreams and it was little wonder that she had fallen in love with him. The hardest thing of all had been discovering that her idol had clay feet.
It was painful to recall again what had happened so she pushed the memory to the back of her mind. It wasn’t relevant now, anyway. The days when she and Luca had been lovers were long gone and a lot had happened since, her move to Sardinia to work at the Santa Margherita hospital being one of the major events.
Moving abroad had been a big step for her and her twin sister, Katie. When she had moved to Sardinia, Katie had gone to live in Cyprus. Kelly had been worried in case things didn’t work out for her twin but, after speaking to Katie the previous night, and discovering that she was getting married, Kelly was confident the move had been a success for one of them at least. It was one less thing to worry about if she had to give up her job here.