Fiero took the little boy from his mum, tousling his hair before placing him on the ground, walking him from the room with a doting look on his handsome features.
“So you’re a friend of Nico’s?” The brunette asked, smiling kindly and taking a seat across the room.
“I’m…” Woefully unprepared to answer questions about us, her brain supplied. “Yes.”
“Do you live here?” Elodie looked towards the view, a small sigh in her words.
“No,” Maddie rushed the word out. “I’m just here ‘til the end of the summer.” She felt Nico’s presence, just inside the door, and when she looked in that direction their eyes met and something sparked between them, something that pulled at Maddie’s stomach and scratched at her heart.
“How about you?” Maddie turned the question back on Elodie, more comfortable asking questions than answering them.
“We live in Rome.” There was happiness in that statement, a happiness that seemed to come right from the centre of the other woman’s being.
“But you’re from Australia?” Maddie prompted.
“Mmmm.” She grinned. “So I suppose I’m predisposed to adore the ocean.” She gestured towards the view. “We go to Villa Fortune most weeks, and I must admit, I find it hard to leave. Has Nico told you about it?”
Maddie frowned and Elodie apparently took that as confirmation that she hadn’t.
“It’s so beautiful. This big old Italian villa on the edge of the world. Views of the ocean in one direction, grape vines in another, the most stunning manicured gardens, as well as wild, sun-lit ones.”
“It sounds lovely,” Maddie said, silently thinking nowhere could be as beautiful as this place, here in Ondechiara where the ocean was like glass.
A moment later, a woman in a pair of skin-tight jeans and a flowing yellow top strolled into the room, a black leather bag on her shoulder, bright red lips smiling, eyes travelling around the space.
“Ciao,” she greeted the women, before moving towards Maddie. “I’m Dottore Verdi. You can call me Alessia.” She spoke English with an American accent, and she spoke it like a native, so despite her Italian name, Maddie wondered if she was actually from the States.
“Well, I hate to break it to you but I think you’ve wasted a visit up here. My ankle’s fine.”
“It’s never a wasted visit to see Nico,” she winked, and a firebug of jealousy burst through Maddie, filling her with such a rampant sense of possession that her breath was stolen for a moment. “And the view’s not too bad either, eh?” She gestured towards the sparkling ocean beyond them.
Maddie forced a smile, nodding her agreement.
Elodie moved to stand beside them.
“So what happened?”
“My son happened.” Elodie’s smile was rueful. “Hurricane Jack.”
“I fell,” Maddie grinned. “With a little help.”
Nico walked in then, his jeans low on his hips, his dark shirt doing little to disguise his rippling six pack of abs. Maddie’s mouth felt dry as she looked at him, though she was conscious of the doctor doing the same thing.
Another flare of jealousy, this one unmistakable.
“Ciao, Nico.” The blonde doctor moved to him, kissing him on one cheek, then the other, then the original cheek for good measure. It was a standard greeting in these parts but it did little to ease the green-eyed monster taking up space inside Maddie. In his hand, Nico held a tea towel which, she presumed, contained an ice-pack.
They spoke in rapid-fire Italian for a moment – too rapid-fire for Maddie to follow in her present state of mind – and then the doctor was crouching beside Maddie, a warm smile on her face. So the jealousy appeared to be one sided. Either she didn’t perceive Maddie as a threat or she didn’t realise that she and Nico were – what? Sleeping together? So what? By their own agreement,
the sex thing was casual and temporary. A permanent fixture in town such as Alessia would have no need to feel jealousy towards Maddie.
She was being ridiculous, and letting her over-active author’s imagination run wildly away from herself.
“Let’s have a look.” She lifted the ankle so Maddie winced. “Sorry. It will hurt a bit.” She moved the limb carefully, watchfully, back and forth, in small circles, and then nodded.
“Your patient is right.” She shot Nico a wink. “Just a sprain.”
“It’s so swollen,” he pointed out and Maddie’s heart throbbed, because his over the top concern was obvious and adorable. It had been a long time since anyone had taken that degree of care for her. Even her mother – who was a doctor – had failed to realise Maddie had broken her collarbone for four days as a child.