Prognosis Baby Daddy - Amy Andrews Page 0,3

the words she had used when she’d first realised his family owned the world-renowned Clinic?

A place where rich vain people desperately trying to hold onto their youth were pandered to.

Or words to that effect anyway. He smiled to himself then risked a glance at her only to be caught out.

‘Shouldn’t you be watching where you’re going?’ she demanded piercing him with a disapproving glare.

Ben just smiled and returned his attention to the road.

Not even as the dense housing of Rome fell away and Italian countryside surrounded them could Katya ignore the weight of his frequent stare. She’d been hyper-aware of him the minute she had spotted him, half-hidden behind the largest bouquet she had ever seen. She had hoped that their time apart would have put her attraction into perspective but, if anything, it seemed to be stronger.

It was the clothes, she decided. Although he filled out a pair of scrubs magnificently, it was nothing to how he looked dressed as Italian nobility. Everything about him screamed money. The cut of his trousers. The way the fabric of his shirt draped across the breadth of his shoulders and moulded to his chest, emphasising his six-foot-plus frame. The soft leather of his expensive shoes.

Who had said clothes maketh the man had been right. In scrubs she’d been able to make believe he was just Ben. Gorgeous, flirtatious, persistent, annoying Ben. Ben the surgeon.

That Ben had been relatively easy to ignore.

But in his civvies he looked...regal. Aristocratic. Like Count Benedetto Medici. Rich as sin. Hotshot plastic surgeon.

Katya knew she would find this Ben far from easy to dismiss.

Knew she couldn’t afford to. Knew she had to get to know him. Get behind the façade, behind the clothes. Find the man she’d made love to three months ago, if indeed he actually existed, or whether he’d just been a temporary aberration in an extraordinary set of circumstances.

A car cut in front of them and then surged forward, swaying all over the autostrada, the white lines completely ignored. Katya swore in Russian, clutching the dashboard, her heart racing. ‘Idiot,’ she yelled in English at the car disappearing fast into the distance.

Ben chuckled. ‘You will have a hoarse voice by the end of the day if you yell at everyone who does that. We Italians drive as we live. Passionately.’

‘Bloody dangerously,’ Katya muttered, trying not to think about the passionate Italian in Ben.

Unfortunately, he was right and the next two hours Katya clung to the edge of her seat as his powerful Alfa ate up the miles. ‘Do you need to go so fast?’ she asked him as she glanced at his speedometer and noticed he was going 140.

He smiled at her. ‘This is not fast,’ he said. As if to emphasise his point, three cars swerved around them and sprinted ahead, leaving the sporty car eating their fumes.

‘Mad,’ she said, shaking her head.

‘This is nothing.’ He winked. ‘Wait till we get to the coast road.’

Katya wouldn’t have believed that the experience could get any more terrifying, but she was wrong. The coast road was exactly as Ben had warned. A sheer white-knuckled adrenaline rush. The scenery was breathtaking on a sunny autumn afternoon — the craggy cliffs towering above them on one side and the sparkling blue Mediterranean on the other — but it was impossible to properly admire the majesty from behind her hands.

Speed was no longer an issue, too many cars made it impossible to get above forty. Now it was just sheer bloody-minded insanity. Cars and mopeds and trucks and tourist buses all vied for room on the narrow twisting roads that clung to the cliff face and even tunnelled through in places.

Cars were parked crazily on either side and sometimes both sides of the road, crammed into any remotely accessible space, narrowing the available room considerably. Katya covered her eyes as Ben manoeuvred his car through and around the general mayhem.

‘It’s a beautiful sunny Sunday. Italians always head for the beach,’ he told her as he skilfully worked the gear lever.

She marvelled at how unruffled he appeared when her pulse was hammering madly in her neck. Mopeds darted around him like schools of fish, vehicles overtook them on blind corners and horns blared constantly. Some drivers even decided to pull up in the middle of the road and chat with pedestrians they apparently knew.

She had never seen such chaos in all her life. They traversed the narrow streets of villages, stopping for wandering dogs and groups of chatting locals. They