a huge effort of will, he pushed it back.
Not now.
The nurse stood rigid, clearly overawed by her royal patient. ‘The Chief Executive of the hospital called while you were with the consultant and asked me to tell you that he’s increased security so that there’s no repeat of yesterday’s fiasco—he apologised profusely, Your Highness. We have no idea how that journalist managed to climb up the drainpipe to your room.’ She all but curtseyed but this time Alessandro kept his temper on a tight leash. It was obvious that she wasn’t going to be able to behave naturally with him, and he’d encountered that all too often in his life to be surprised. No one behaved naturally with him. Everyone had an agenda.
‘I’m used to journalists climbing drainpipes and crawling through the windows. It’s a fact of life.’ He reached for a glass of water, gritting his teeth against the agonising pain that shot through his body.
‘Let me help you, sir.’
‘I can manage.’ Alessandro growled the words just as his shaking hand deposited most of the water over his chest. He switched to Italian, his native tongue, and swore long and fluently while the flustered nurse quietly removed the glass from his white fingers, refilled it and handed it to him.
She stared at his T-shirt, now clinging to his chest. ‘Do you want me to—?’
‘No. I’m fine.’
Dragging her eyes away from his muscles, the girl swallowed. ‘Your senior adviser called, sir. He wanted you to call him urgently.’
Alessandro leaned his head back against the pillow and suppressed the urge to laugh out loud. That was the one good thing about this mess—his advisers were climbing the walls. The wicked side of him revelled in the chaos his accident had caused. ‘I can’t call him,’ he drawled. ‘You’ve just told me I’m not allowed to use my phone.’
‘There’s a phone by your bed, sir—Your Highness.’
For God’s sake— ‘You can call me Alessandro. And I think we’ve both just established that I can’t reach anything that’s by my bed.’
‘There were a few other calls, Your Highness.’ She gave him a nervous glance. ‘Five journalists and four—er—women. None of them left their names. And Her Highness Princess Eleanor called when you were in the bathroom. She said not to bother calling her back but she left you a message.’
‘Which was?’
‘She saw on the news that the hospital is besieged by journalists and she asked that you be discreet about what you say to them.’
Alessandro gave a humourless smile.
The dull ache inside him turned into a dark black hole that threatened to suck him down.
So his mother had finally called.
Not when his accident had been announced as a newsflash and no one had known his condition. Not out of concern when he’d been rushed into Theatre for emergency surgery. Not to ask how he was or send love. No, his mother had called because she was worried about his image. Or rather she was worried about her image.
You have to think about how you present yourself, Alessandro. It affects all of us.
Wiping the cold, disapproving tone from his head, Alessandro sought distraction. The nurse was pretty, he realised, and he hadn’t even noticed. Which said a great deal about his current state of mind. He had a wicked impulse to drag her to the window and kiss her senseless in front of the crowd of hopeful photographers.
But that wouldn’t be fair on the girl.
Or on Miranda.
Thinking of Miranda was enough to kill his mood.
He was going to have to make a decision. They couldn’t go on like this any longer. It wasn’t fair on either of them.
‘I don’t suppose I can bribe you to smuggle me out of here?’ He tried to look as non-threatening as possible. ‘I own a home up the coast. Incredible views from the master bedroom.’
The nurse flushed scarlet and her eyes met his. He saw the excitement there and the way her lips parted as she caught her breath. Unfortunately he could also read her mind, which was busy spinning dreams ending with ‘nurse marries Prince’.
Thinking of his parents’ dutiful, entirely loveless marriage, he felt suddenly cold.
He had no idea why marriage was the ultimate goal for so many people. To him it seemed like the road to hell. He’d rather be trampled by a whole herd of horses than commit to one woman for the rest of his life. Especially a woman whose only interest in him was the fact he had royal blood.
‘You understand that this is a purely indecent proposal.’ He shifted his leg, but it did nothing to ease the pain. ‘My house has amazing sea views from every room and a hot tub on the deck. You can scrub my back and give me a private physio session.’
‘This is Cornwall.’ A crisp female voice came from the doorway. ‘If she uses the hot tub in April, she’ll catch pneumonia. Hello, Alessandro. You look as though you’re in a filthy mood. Hope I’m not supposed to bow or curtsey.’
It was a voice he hadn’t heard for more than a decade, but the recognition was immediate and powerful. His body tightened in a reaction so basic, so elemental that he was relieved that he was confined to bed, with all the privacy that afforded. Temptation, he thought, wasn’t something a man easily forgot. And Natasha O’Hara had been temptation on legs. A girl, desperate to become a woman. At seventeen, she’d tried everything to get him to notice her.
And he’d noticed.
Oh, yes, he’d noticed.
Remembering, Alessandro felt his muscles tighten. Sweat dampened his brow. He wasn’t sure whether the pain in his chest was due to fractured ribs or guilt.
He’d treated her badly.
She strolled into the room with a confidence that told him the awkward teenager was long gone. There was no sign of the stiff formality that everyone else displayed around him. She didn’t blush, call him ‘Your Highness’, or look as though she was about to bow and scrape at his feet. Her gaze was direct and challenging and he would have laughed with relief if it hadn’t been for the uncomfortable feeling deep inside him. Tasha had always shown guts and intelligence. If someone had told her to bow or curtsey, her response would have been to ask why. One of the reasons he’d loved spending time with her was because she’d treated him as a normal human being.
And in return he’d broken her heart.
He shifted uncomfortably in the bed, but the guilt stayed with him.
Was she the sort of woman who bore grudges? Not for a moment did he think she would have forgotten that summer any more than he had.
‘Are you going to pretend you don’t recognise me?’ Her tone was light and friendly and if she was bearing a grudge there was no sign of it.
Alessandro relaxed slightly. Maybe the guilt was misplaced. She’d been very young, he reasoned. He’d probably barely featured on her adolescent landscape. Everything healed quickly in childhood—broken bones and broken hearts.
Still watching him, she paused beside the bed. Her top was a vivid scarlet and she wore it tucked into skinny jeans, her dark hair tumbling down her back in snaky black curls. She looked like a cross between a gypsy and a flamenco dancer and Alessandro felt his mouth dry and his body harden in an all-male reaction.
The wild child had grown up.
‘You’ve spilt water on your T-shirt.’ She eyed his damp chest and he felt something stir inside him.
‘It isn’t easy manoeuvring with a broken ankle and two broken ribs.’
‘Poor Alessandro.’ Her voice poured over him like honey, soft and sympathetic. ‘So that’s why you’re so cranky. It must be awful to feel so helpless.’