One Night, Twin Consequences. Annie O'Neil

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СКАЧАТЬ nightly over a naked flame. Without wearing a shirt. Just buckskins and a deep caramel tan illuminated by the flickering fire and a splash of starlight. At which point Matteo turned to her with a smile so warm she hardly knew what to do with herself.

      “I was expecting...” Matteo stopped to give a self-effacing laugh. “I am such an idiot. Sister Monticello! I’ve heard so much about you and I’m still not used to calling the nurses ‘Sister.’ I was expecting a nun!”

      “Aha-ha-ha!” Harriet could hear herself giving a weird, cackly, laugh-along laugh. The oh-ho-ho wasn’t that funny variety, but if there was anyone in the world who could bewitch the knickers off a nun she would bet her entire sensibly accrued pension Matteo could. Not that her knickers had fallen off or anything. Yet.

      He reached out and took her hand, his cheek moving towards hers faster than she could react. As their cheeks met, she inhaled a delicious waft of peppery gingerbread and heard a kissing noise, but didn’t feel the touch of his lips. Pity.

      “Encantada.”

      Oh, blimey. Had he just whispered a sweet nothing into her ear?

      “It’s nice to smell—I mean meet you!” she all but shouted.

      What was that? She didn’t even know this guy and she was falling to bits right in front of him. Sure, she’d been watching him from afar for the past fortnight. But afar was safe. And right here was...really, really close. He smelled distinctly delicious. So much so, she mused, he really should be a cologne. Eau de Argentine Doc. Man Scent by Matteo. The ad campaign would be a cinch.

      Why did her sister have to be eight blinking thousand miles away in Los Angeles just when she’d be incredibly handy? Claudia could dig her out of this socially awkward moment without breaking a sweat. Then again, Claudia was drop-dead gorgeous and if she met Matteo before Harriet did, it wouldn’t be very good, would it? Even heavily pregnant with twins, her sister was a knockout. She had the pictures to prove it. Harriet felt an unexpected attack of let-him-be mine come over her.

      She’d never really cared when the hot man in the room took a shine to her sister in lieu of her. That was how things had always been. But this time...

      Calm, calm, calm yourself, Harriet.

      It wasn’t like she stood even the slightest of chances in the universe of having a man like this one desiring, let alone falling completely and madly in love with her. Like she already virtually was with him. Just a few more minutes and she’d have their china pattern and curtains all picked out.

      She ran a hand through her blonde pixie cut, jutting out her lower lip as she did so to blow some air up into the fringe. Another sexy move she’d crafted in how-to-look-like-an-idiot class.

      “Nice to meet you, Sister.” Matteo held out his hand, which she took and pumped up and down too hard because she was already picturing her cobweb-laced spinsterhood spreading out before her now that she’d ruined any chance of marrying the man of her dreams.

      “Harriet’s fine—uh...” She made her, yeesh, I don’t know what to call you face.

      “Matteo works—or Dr. Torres if you prefer. I know how formal you Brits are.”

      “Yes, well...yes.”

      Was it too soon to dive into the nearest broom cupboard?

      “Harriet,” Dr. Bailey interjected. “Perhaps you’d like to show Dr. Torres around the hospital? Give him your perspective on how St. Nick’s works. He’s been trying to track you down for the past fortnight and for some peculiar reason has found it near impossible to find you.”

      “Excuse me?” Harriet tried her best to wipe the horrified expression off of her face, realizing in an instant she hadn’t been successful.

      “Seeing that you could be working together in the longer term, it’s probably a good idea to get to know each other.”

      Harriet’s jaw dropped again. Who’d stolen Dr. Bailey and replaced him with this man who was yanking away all her safety blankets?

      Matteo grinned, a glint in his eye betraying something akin to frustration. “Dr. Bailey didn’t tell you?”

      “Tell me what?” Her voice was so strangled she was pretty sure the dogs of London would be howling in unison if she continued.

      “This trip—my ‘visit’ here...” He left a small silence to see if she could fill in the air quotes, but there was nothing jostling away the question marks careening round her mind.

      Dr. Bailey jumped in. “Harriet, I was going to tell you all about this in good time, but—”

      “It looks like—in the hope of some funding—you might be coming to Buenos Aires,” Matteo finished for him, an appraising eyebrow arching upwards as he spoke. “To assess me.”

      His expression shifted into something strangely neutral. It was difficult to tell if he was pleased by the scenario or resentful. Something told her it was the latter. Great. Five seconds with Mr. Perfect and already he hated her.

      How did one respond to that? Her head swung from Dr. Bailey’s consternated face to Matteo’s unreadable smile. Funding was very dependent on conditions. Lots of i-dotting and t-crossing—

      Uh-oh. Wait a minute. She forced her brain to play catch-up.

      Was he saying she was the condition? She sought each of their faces for answers, feeling a bit like she was watching a tennis match at close range minus the tennis bits.

      “Buenos Aires?”

      She had been hoping to sound casually interested. Noncommittal. What came out instead was a high-pitched, dog whistle screechy thing. Not really what she’d been going for. Particularly since a trip to Buenos Aires would be about the scariest, most exciting, incredibly interesting, totally top of the list of things she’d never be brave enough to ever consider doing sort of trip. Which was why she had barely ever left the hallowed borders of London town.

      “Don’t worry.” Matteo waved away her response. “I know what it’s like to be handed something unwelcome when you least expect it.”

      “I didn’t even know I had been invited anywhere and now I’m unwelcome?” She didn’t mean to sound churlish, but c’mon! Every single speck of this was news to her.

      “No, no. It wasn’t meant like that—but don’t worry. It might not even happen. Nothing’s set in stone.”

      “What if I wanted to see the stone? Part of the stone even?” Harriet pinched her fingers into her best little-bit visual aid. Could you miss something you hadn’t even known was going to happen?

      * * *

      Matteo considered Harriet a moment before answering. Apart from looking entirely different from what he’d anticipated, she struck him as a woman who preferred facts over spin. Action over coddling. Someone he could, potentially, work with. Which made a change from most of the research-based medical personnel he came in contact with.

      “It’s all to do with a possible expansion. More of a new build, actually,” Matteo corrected himself. “A clinic. A proper one. And one that’s dependent, I am afraid, on charitable donations. Strangely, homes for pregnant СКАЧАТЬ