Luca's Bad Girl - By Amy Andrews Page 0,21

to see a name. ‘Gosh, that’s dedication.’ She smiled.

Rupert shrugged. ‘It was a favour.’ He nodded at the package in her hand. ‘What about you? Those chocolates for me?’

She laughed. ‘Oh, no, these are major sucking-up chocolates for Enid.’

Rupert laughed back. ‘You’re coming to Luca’s party in a couple of weeks?’ she asked.

Rupert nodded. ‘Wouldn’t miss it for the world.’

‘Great,’ she said as she backed out the door, her head still swimming with what she’d just witnessed.

What in the hell was wrong with Finn Kennedy?

CHAPTER FIVE

TWO weeks later Mia was watching the clock, thinking that for once in her working life she might actually get off on time. Her shift, one of those rare short shifts, was due to finish at two and things were looking good. With Evie going off to Luca’s party tonight—the one she was not going to attend, no matter how much Evie begged—she had a quiet night of reading planned.

The latest blockbuster novel had been sitting on her bedside table, gathering dust, for too long.

She glanced nervously over at the man in question as he spoke on the phone at the other end of the central monitoring station. She’d managed to keep her attraction at bay this past fortnight—until last night. A cluttered, semi-dark storeroom had seriously tried her resolve to keep away when they’d both ended up inside. His body had been big and close, his lips had kicked up into a frank smile, his gaze firmly fixed on her mouth.

How she hadn’t pushed him against the wall and ravaged him she still wasn’t sure.

But she hadn’t. She’d caught herself at the last second. Remembered that she’d already broken her golden rule once and she wasn’t going to do it again. Even if he was the most skilled, most exciting lover she’d ever known.

Unfortunately, the buzz from last night’s near kiss was still vibrating through her system and they’d been trading furtive glances all morning. He’d looked at her with undiluted lust half an hour ago and she still could barely see straight.

His gaze met hers again, his brown eyes knowing, and her pulse picked up a notch.

‘Ambulance two minutes out.’

The urgent note in Nola’s voice dragged her attention back to reality and Mia looked down to where the efficient triage nurse sat, the red emergency phone to her ear, speaking out loud as she wrote the details down from the ambulance coms centre.

‘Thirty-year-old male. Jumper. Two storeys. Bilateral comminuted fractured tib and fibs, right compound fractured femur, query fractured pelvis, query spinal injuries, fractured right ribs, GCS twelve, major internal injuries, query ruptured spleen, hypotensive and tachycardic.’

Luca joined them, all business now as he read the details again over Nola’s shoulder.

‘I’ll page Ortho and General Surgery,’ Mia said, grabbing the phone nearest her as the distant wail of a siren permeated the thick walls of the hospital.

Luca also picked up a phone. ‘I’ll alert blood bank that we might need to initiate the massive transfusion protocol.’

By the time the ambulance pulled up a minute later, everything was prepped and Luca and Mia were standing outside, ready to receive the patient.

Luca grabbed the ambulance doorhandle and pulled it open as the paramedic driving the vehicle joined them, launching into a rapid-fire handover of injuries, actual and suspected.

He and the treating paramedic pulled the gurney out of the back of the ambulance. The patient was moaning, his face covered by an oxygen mask.

‘Pupils equal and reacting,’ the paramedica continued as they pushed the gurney towards the entrance, Mia and Luca keeping pace. ‘BP ninety over sixty, pulse one hundred and forty, resps fifty and shallow. Right chest tube inserted on scene, two IV cannulae wide open.’

‘Do we know what happened?’ Mia asked, clinging to the gurney rail as they practically flew inside to the prepared trauma cubicle.

‘Paternity test showed he wasn’t the baby’s daddy,’ the paramedic stated dispassionately.

Mia felt a prickle up her spine as she and Luca shared a look. ‘Is his name Stan?’ she asked.

The paramedic nodded. ‘Stanley James.’

Repeat customers—especially suicides attempts—were reasonably common in the department. As were frequent-flyer drug addicts and patients with chronic conditions. Mia treated them all with courtesy and professionalism, careful not to get emotionally invested in them.

But this man had held her at knifepoint. Had yanked her back into the convoluted emotions of her childhood. Had been the catalyst for what had happened later that night with Luca.

Mia felt sick as two nurses descended and between the four of them they quickly transferred Stan to the hospital