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CAROL MARINELLI recently filled in a form where she was asked for her job title and was thrilled, after all these years, to be able to put down her answer as ‘writer’. Then it asked what Carol did for relaxation. After chewing her pen for a moment Carol put down the truth—’writing’. The third question asked: ‘What are your hobbies?’ Well, not wanting to look obsessed or, worse still, boring, she crossed the fingers on her free hand and answered ‘swimming and tennis’. But, given that the chlorine in the pool does terrible things to her highlights, and the closest she’s got to a tennis racket in the last couple of years is watching the Australian Open, I’m sure you can guess the real answer!
Baby Twins to Bind Them
Carol Marinelli
Sigh …
I completely loved writing this book. The only down side to loving my hero, Dr Guy Steele, so much is that he has spoiled any future relationships—because I will for ever be thinking Steele wouldn’t have said that … or Steele wouldn’t have done that … Yes, he’s really that delicious—just so assured and sexy, yet nice.
I’m actually jealous of my own heroine!
Happy reading!
Carol x
‘A compelling, sensual, sexy, emotionally packed, drama-filled read that will leave you begging for more!’
—Contemporary Romance Reviews on NYC Angels: Redeeming the Playboy
Table of Contents
Dear Reader
Praise for Carol Marinelli
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
EPILOGUE
Before
‘YOU PAGED ME to see a patient.’
‘No, I didn’t.’ Candy, holding an armful of sheets, smiled when it would have been far easier to stand there and gape. He was stunning—tall, slender, wearing a suit and a tie. His dark brown hair was cut short and his voice was so deep and commanding that it stopped Candy in her tracks. She met his chocolate-brown eyes fully and it took a moment to respond normally. ‘Who are you here to see?’
‘A Mr Thomas Heath.’
Candy walked over to the board. Emergency at the London Royal Hospital was quiet this afternoon but as she was in Resuscitation Candy didn’t know which patients were in the cubicles. After a quick scan of the board, she located Mr Heath. ‘He’s in cubicle seven. Trevor’s the nurse looking after him. He must be the one who paged you.’
‘Thanks for that. By the way I’m Steele.’
‘Steele?’
He watched as her very blue eyes moved to his name badge. ‘Well, Dr Guy Steele, if you’d prefer to be formal,’ he said.
‘Steele will do.’ She must look like a dental commercial, Candy thought, for she simply couldn’t stop smiling at him. He must be thirty or mid-thirties, which was a lot more than her twenty-four years, and he was also way older than anyone she had ever fancied, yet he had this impact, this presence, that had Candy’s heart galloping in her chest.
‘And you are?’ he asked.
‘Candy. Candy Anastasi.’ She watched a smile twitch on his lips as she said her name. ‘I know, I know, I should be tall, leggy and blonde to carry off a name like that!’ Instead, she was short and a bit round with long black ringlets and piercing blue eyes. ‘There’s a story there.’
‘I can’t wait to hear it, Nurse Candy.’
He had the deepest voice that she’d ever heard. Like a headmaster, he was stern and bossy, yet it was all somehow softened by a very beautiful mouth that she could barely drag her eyes from. ‘You’ll never hear the story of my name,’ Candy said.
‘Oh, we’ll have to see about that.’
Had they been flirting? Candy wondered as sexy-as-hell Steele walked off.
‘Who’s that?’ Kelly said as they started to strip one of the resuscitation beds.
‘Steele!’ Candy said in a deep low voice, making Kelly laugh. She continued speaking gruffly while they bent over and tucked the sheet in. ‘Or Dr Guy Steele if we want to be formal and, young lady, I’m going to make your eardrums reverberate with my deep—’
‘Nurse Candy?’
Candy froze when she realised that Steele was behind her.
‘Could I borrow your stethoscope?’ he asked.
She laughed at being caught impersonating him and turned around and took her stethoscope from her neck and held it out to him, yet pulled back as he went to take it. ‘You can,’ she said, the stethoscope hovering. ‘Just so long as you stop calling me Nurse Candy.’
He just took the stethoscope, smiled and walked off.
They made up all the beds and checked the crash trolleys and then gave up pretending to be busy, given that Lydia, the manager, was in her office. Instead, they took a jug of iced tea to the nurses’ station, where Steele was tapping away on the computer. It was a lovely early summer day but the air-conditioning was struggling and it was nice to sit on the bench and gossip, though Steele had a couple of questions for her.
‘How do you get into the pathology lab to check results?’ he asked, not looking around.
‘You’ve got your password?’ Candy checked.
‘I have and I’ve got into …’ He tapped again. ‘Got it.’
‘Have