long have you been my grandmother’s doctor?’ The casual question, asked in a conversational tone, was at odds with the tension hovering across his shoulders and narrowing his eyes.
She thought about how long she’d actually known Maria and the time it had taken to convince her to accept an examination. ‘A few weeks–’
‘And you saw her yesterday?’ The conversational tone slipped slightly.
Abbie nodded. ‘I did. She was trying to teach me how to bake bread but–’
‘A sick woman was teaching you to bake bread at a time when you should have been admitting her to hospital.’
His words were a shot across the bow, in stark contrast to the captivating smile. Warning bells rang loud in her head. ‘I beg your pardon?’
He spoke quietly but every word reverberated like the strike against a bell. ‘If you’d admitted my grandmother to hospital yesterday and monitored her more closely, she wouldn’t have had a stroke.’
She sucked in a breath, hearing it whistle between her teeth. Stay calm. ‘Mr Costa, I understand you’re upset, as am I. Your grandmother is a very special woman but she didn’t have malignant hypertension, which is extremely high blood pressure. Although her blood pressure was elevated, based on her observations yesterday, there was no need to admit her.’
He casually crossed his arms over his chest but she caught a silver flash of steel in his black eyes. ‘You prescribed medication?’
She pursed her lips. ‘Yes, she was commenced on medication to lower her blood pressure and she was instructed to rest.’
The corner of his mouth seemed at war with the twitching muscle in his jaw but the attempted smile lost out and the charm he’d used with Erin, and half-tried with her, totally vanished. ‘And I put it to you that the medication was too strong and brought her BP down too fast, causing a focal cerebral ischemia.’
Focal cerebral ischemia? O-K. Maria’s grandson definitely wasn’t an accountant. His commanding control of the room suddenly made sense, although it struck her as odd that Maria hadn’t mentioned her grandson was a doctor. That aside, his grandmother was her patient, not his and Maria’s medical care had been textbook.
‘Mr Costa—’ she emphasised his title ‘—I’m assuming your expertise is in a branch of surgery not geriatrics.’
Dark eyes flashed before a tight smile stretched his mouth. ‘I’m a trauma surgeon at Melbourne City with a private practice of general surgery. I don’t believe you’re a geriatrician either.’
Touché. The bald statement carried power and credence and told of a man used to getting his own way. She had a pretty good idea how he usually got what he wanted—with effortless charm and good looks—and, if that failed, he used a bulldozer.
Well, she wasn’t about to be bulldozed. Not this time.
‘Your grandmother hasn’t seen a doctor in over two years and it took me a few weeks to convince her to let me examine her. I diagnosed her hypertension a few days ago. Although there’s a slight chance that perhaps the medication lowered her blood pressure too quickly, it’s far more probable that the stroke was caused by longstanding hypertension. She has a slight weakness on her right side but I’m very confident that with rehabilitation and time, it will resolve.’
‘I’m glad you’re confident.’
The disapproval in the quietly spoken words plunged deep like the cut of cold steel. She matched his black gaze. ‘I’m very confident.’
He shrugged his broad shoulders and stared down at her, his eyes filled with condescension and backlit with righteous resolve. ‘Look, I’m sure you’ve done your best but I know you’ll understand when I say I want my nonna’s care transferred to another doctor.’
I know you’ll understand. Outrage poured through Abbie and she clenched her hands by her sides to stop herself from lunging at his gorgeous but arrogant throat. Greg had used the very same words. So had her father just before he’d left. Somehow through clenched teeth she managed to speak. ‘That’s surely up to Maria.’
His head moved almost imperceptibly, the light catching his hair, the sheen so bright it dazzled. ‘Nonna usually takes my advice.’
It was a statement of fact spoken by a successful man. A man raised in the heart of a loving Italian family where education and experience were honoured and family was everything. The polar opposite of her own family.
She’d been left with no doubt that Leo Costa would advise his grandmother against her and she knew she had scant chance against the power of his recommendation, no matter how wrong she believed it to be. He had both the money and contacts to pull strings. ‘Perhaps she might surprise you.’
Unfathomable dark eyes stared at her. ‘I doubt that.’
Abbie forced herself to smile and to behave in the proper way a doctor should—putting her patient’s needs first, irrespective of her own feelings. ‘As Maria’s asleep and her health and welfare are my paramount concerns, the decision will rest until morning.’ She extended her arm towards the exit with an in-charge sweep. ‘Good night, Mr Costa.’
He gave her a slight nod of acquiescence along with a wry smile, as if he’d just glimpsed something completely unexpected. ‘Until the morning then, Abbie.’
He turned on his heel and somehow she forced her wobbly legs to hold her up until the doors opened and he was swallowed up by the night. She sank against the wall, hating the butterflies in her stomach that floated on a current of heat, trailing through her and upending every resolution she’d made three years ago.
Leo Costa with his effortless charm, devastating good looks and single-minded purpose was her worst nightmare and she was determined not to relive bad dreams. She gulped in air and her tattered resolve slowly wove itself back together. Warrior Abbie stood firm and spoke sternly. You’ll miss Maria but you don’t need him anywhere near you.
And she couldn’t argue with that.
Chapter Two
‘HAVE you lost your mind?’Anna slid a hot and frothy breakfast cappuccino towards Leo across the large wooden kitchen table.
‘It was an unwise thing for you to do.’ Rosa, his mother, quietly rebuked him as she passed a plate of fluffy light pastries and pushed two onto his plate.
Leo clung to his temper by a thread. Coming back to Bandarra always set him on edge but if he just breathed slowly, let them have their say, then he could move forward with the day doing things his way. He’d organise Nonna’s care and then catch the afternoon flight back to the sanctuary of Melbourne. Breaking open the brioche, he slathered it with home-made raspberry jam, the sweet breakfast in stark contrast to the muesli he always ate in his Melbourne apartment. But the kitchen in Bandarra was a world away from Melbourne, despite the fact there was only a six-hundred-kilo-metre distance between the two places.
Rosa carefully stirred sugar into her coffee. ‘I wish you’d come home rather than going direct from the airport to the hospital, and then all this could have been avoided.’
For the second time in twenty-four hours his usual sanguine approach slipped and his voice rose sharply. ‘This is Nonna we’re talking about! Of course I went straight to the hospital, especially as I’d had both you and Anna sobbing on the phone, not to mention Bianca and Chiara’s texts.’
His gut clenched as a ripple of fear spread its dread again, just as it had last night when he’d stood at the end of the narrow hospital bed watching his amazing Nonna, always such a powerhouse of energy, looking so frail and tiny under crisp white sheets. He hated that feeling, that powerlessness and the way it dragged him back into the past. Back to the waterhole, back to failing Dom so badly. He abruptly rubbed his chin. ‘I wasn’t leaving until I’d spoken with her