Just Friends?. Carol Marinelli

      Just Friends?

      Carol Marinelli

       www.millsandboon.co.uk

      Table of Contents

       Cover Page

       Title Page

Chapter One

       Chapter Two

       Chapter Three

       Copyright

       Chapter One

      DIEGO was not in the best of moods.

      Not that anyone would really know.

      Though laid back in character, he was always firm in the running of his unit. His babies came first and though friendly and open in communication, he kept a slight distance from his staff that was almost indefinable.

      Oh, he chatted. They knew he loved to swim in the Cornish sea, that he came from an affluent long line of doctors in Madrid, they even knew that he was somewhat estranged from his family due to his career choice, for Diego would roll his eyes if any of them rang him at work. His staff knew too about his rather pacy love life—the dark-eyed, good-looking Spaniard was never short of a date but, much to many a St Piran’s female staff member’s disgust, he never dated anyone from work.

      No, the stunning women who occasionally dropped in, waiting for him to finish his shift, or called him on the phone, had nothing to do with hospitals—not public ones anyway. Their hospital stays tended to be in private clinics for little procedures to enhance their already polished looks.

      There was just this certain aloofness to Diego—an independent thinker, he never engaged in gossip or mixed his private life with his work.

      So no one knew that, despite his zealous attention to detail with his precious charges that day, there was a part of Diego that was unusually distracted.

      Cross with himself even.

      Okay, his relations with women veered more towards sexual than emotional, and if his moral code appeared loose to some, it actually came with strict guidelines—it was always exclusive. And, a man of honour, he knew it was wrong to suddenly be taking his lunches in the canteen instead of on the ward and looking out for that fragile beauty who was clearly taken.

      Wrong, so very wrong to have been thinking of her late, very late, into the night.

      But why was she so stressed and unhappy?

      If she were his partner, he’d make damn sure…

      Diego blew out a breath, blocked that line of thought and carried on typing up the complicated handover sheet, filling in the updates on his charges, now that Rita the ward clerk had updated the admissions and discharges and changes of cots. It was Monday and there was always a lot to be updated. It was a job he loathed, but he did it quicker and more accurately than anyone else and it was a good way of keeping current with all the patients, even if he couldn’t be hands on with them all. So Diego spent a long time on the sheet—speaking with each staff member in turn, checking up on each baby in his care. The NICU handover sheet was a lesson in excellence.

      ‘I’m still trying to chase up some details for Baby Geller,’ Rita informed him as Diego typed in the three-days-old latest treatment regime. ‘Maternity hasn’t sent over forms.’

      ‘He came via Emergency.’ Diego didn’t look up. ‘After you left on Friday.’

      ‘That’s right—the emergency obstetric page that went out.’ Rita went through his paperwork. ‘Do you know the delivering doctor? I need to go to Maternity and get some forms then I can send it all down and he can fill it in.’

      ‘She.’ Diego tried to keep his deep voice nonchalant. ‘Izzy Bailey, and I think I’ve got some of the forms in my office. I can take them down.’

      ‘Is she back?’ Rita sounded shocked. ‘After all that’s happened you’d think she’d have stayed off till after the baby. Mind you, the insurance aren’t paying up, I’ve heard. They’re dragging their feet, saying it might be suicide—as if! No doubt the poor thing has to work.’

      Diego hated gossip and Rita was an expert in it. Nearing retirement, she had been there for ever and made everyone’s business her own. Rita’s latest favourite topic was Megan the paediatrician, who she watched like a hawk, or Brianna Flannigan, the most private of nurses, but today Rita clearly had another interest. Normally Diego would have carried on working or told her to be quiet, but curiosity had the better of him and, not proud of himself, Diego prolonged the unsavoury conversation.

      ‘Suicide?’ Diego turned around. ‘Are you talking about Izzy’s husband?’

      ‘Henry Bailey!’ Rita nodded. ‘It wasn’t suicide, of course; he just drove off in a blind rage. She’d left him, but he turned up at work, waited for her in the car park…’ She flushed a little, perhaps aware that she was being terribly indiscreet and that Diego was normally the one to halt her. ‘I’m not speaking out of turn; it was all over the newspapers and all over the CCTV, though of course it would have been before you arrived in St Piran’s.’

      No, it wasn’t his proudest morning, because once the handover sheet was complete, Diego headed for his office and closed the door. Feeling as if he was prying but wanting to know all the same, it didn’t take long to find out everything Rita had told him and more. Oh, he would never abuse his position and look up personal information, but it was there for everyone, splashed all over the internet, and as he read it he felt his stomach churn in unease for all she had been through.

      Pregnant, trying to leave an abusive marriage, real estate agent Henry Bailey had beaten his wife in the darkened hospital car park. Rita was right, the whole, shocking incident had been captured on CCTV and images of footage and the details were spelt out in the press.

      He felt sick.

      Reading it, he felt physically sick and also strangely proud.

      Her first day back.

      Mierda! He cursed himself as he remembered his throw-away comment about the car park. He replayed the conversation they had had over and over and wished he could start with her again.

      His door knocked and he quickly clicked away from the page he was viewing, before calling whoever it was to come in, but he felt a rare blush on his cheeks as the woman herself stood before him. Diego actually felt as if he’d been caught snooping as Izzy let herself in, a wide smile on her face, and he wondered how on earth she managed it.

      She had leggings on again and a bright red dress with bright red lipstick and, Diego noticed, bright red cheeks as he just continued to stare up at her.

      ‘You need me to sign off on the delivery?’ It was Izzy who broke the silence; Diego was momentarily lost for words. ‘Your ward clerk just rang…’

      ‘We would have sent them down to you.’

      ‘Oh!’ Izzy blushed a shade darker as she lied just a little. ‘I thought it sounded urgent.’

      ‘I should have some forms…’ He was unusually flustered as he rummaged