Hot Single Docs: Waiting For You: St Piran's: Prince on the Children's Ward. Carol Marinelli
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stared like a rabbit at oncoming headlights.
Oh, dear...
‘Hi, Josh.’ Hands shaking, she finally managed to zip her jeans. She felt as mortified as she had when Josh had caught her kissing the captain of the football team when she was sixteen. ‘We weren’t expecting you.’ She tried to sound casual, as if dressing in Alessandro’s room was an everyday occurrence. With any luck Josh would decide to turn a blind eye.
But one look at the flat, disapproving line of her brother’s mouth told her this wasn’t going to be her lucky day.
‘What the hell are you doing?’ Josh’s voice was tight and the shock in his eyes turned dark as approaching storm clouds as he turned his gaze on Alessandro, who stared right back at him.
‘Seducing your sister. If you have a problem with that, take it out on me, not her.’
‘You—’ Josh was across the room in a flash and Tasha hastily planted herself in front of Alessandro.
‘No!’ Her legs were shaking and she was mortified at being caught kissing, but most of all she was mortified that she’d been kissing Alessandro in the first place.
That definitely hadn’t been part of the master plan.
‘Josh, calm down! It’s nothing to get into a sweat over.’ Actually, it was, but the sweating was going to have to wait for another time because at the moment her brother looked dangerous and she felt a twinge of real fear.
‘Calm down? Calm down?’ Josh closed his hands over her arms and moved her bodily to one side, his voice thick with anger as he confronted his friend. ‘I arrange for my sister to nurse you and this is how you repay me?’
Tasha bristled. ‘Excuse me! I do have a mind of my own, you know. You might have been the one who suggested it, but—’
‘Shut up, Tasha.’ Josh growled the words. ‘This isn’t your business.’
Alessandro shifted his leg. ‘It certainly isn’t yours, my friend.’
He should have looked vulnerable, but he didn’t. In fact, somehow he managed to look physically intimidating, even with broken bones and bruised ribs, Tasha thought absently. She wondered whether his natural air of command was something to do with being royalty or whether it was just the man.
Warrior Prince.
Josh was red in the face. ‘It has everything to do with me. She’s my sister!’
Tasha opened her mouth to protest again and realised that neither man was taking any notice of her.
Their eyes were fixed on each other in full combat mode. Alessandro stared Josh straight in the eye, the challenge blatant. ‘And this time she’s way above the age of consent. I repeat—it has nothing to do with you.’
This time? Tasha frowned at that remark but she didn’t have time to dwell on it because the two men were squaring up for a fight.
Josh stepped forward, his expression ugly, his hands clenched. ‘And that’s all it takes for you, is it? She’s old enough so that makes it OK? Well, I’ve got news for you, Alessandro, it doesn’t make it OK. And she’s leaving here right now.’ Without turning his head, Josh pointed his finger at the door. ‘Pack your bags, Tasha.’
Tasha raised her eyebrows, assuming he was joking. When she realised he wasn’t, she put her hands on her hips and threw her head back. ‘I will not pack my bags! Are you deranged? Listen to you!’ Her own temper spilled over. ‘I’m not six years old, Josh. I’m a grown woman, and if I want to kiss a man, I’ll kiss him and I don’t have to ask your permission first.’ She vented her anger on Josh, even though she knew deep down that most of it should be directed at herself.
She’d been stupid, stupid, stupid...
‘You’re my sister.’ His tone was raw and angry. ‘Don’t argue with me. Go and pack. This is between Allesandro and I.’
‘Oh, for God’s sake, will you listen to yourself? “This is between Allessandro and I,”’ Tasha mimicked his tone. ‘What are you going to do, Josh? Challenge him to a duel? Pistols at dawn? This is the twenty-first century. Get over yourself.’
‘This isn’t your business, Natasha.’
‘Well, excuse me—’ she emphasised each word ‘—but I was the one naked with him, not you. I think that makes it my business, not yours.’
Josh gave a low growl. ‘You were naked with him?’
Yes, and she had no idea how it had happened. Clearly at some point during the burn of chemistry, her brain had disconnected itself from her body. But she didn’t want to think about that right now. ‘So what if I was? What is your problem? You do not just barge in here and tell me what to do. Do I ask you what’s happening in your love life? Do I lecture you or ask you who you got naked with last night? When I saw you coming out of that on-call room a couple of weeks ago, having had a night of hot sex, did I demand to know who was in the room with you?’
Alessandro raised an eyebrow. ‘Hey, Josh, you had a night of hot sex? Good man.’
‘Shut up!’ Brother and sister spoke simultaneously and Tasha stabbed Josh in the chest with her finger.
‘I wanted to ask who she was, but I didn’t because I respect your privacy and your ability to make your own decisions. I understand that you’re an adult. If you want to have a one-night stand in the on-call room, that’s up to you.’
There was a tense, frozen silence.
Josh’s face had turned from scarlet to grey. ‘It wasn’t a one-night stand. And this isn’t about me, it’s about you.’
‘Precisely.’ Tasha folded her arms and pursed her lips. ‘Which makes it my business, not yours. If I want to sleep with a man, I’ll sleep with him. I don’t need your permission.’
Josh’s shoulders sagged and suddenly he looked exhausted. ‘Fine.’ His voice was brittle. ‘You’re right, of course. I apologise.’
Startled by the sudden change in him, Tasha frowned. One minute he was yelling at her and the next he looked as though his brain was on another planet. ‘So—when I need a knight in shining armour, I’ll text you.’
Alessandro started to laugh. ‘I hate to break it to you, Josh, but I think your baby sister is all grown up and slaying her own dragons.’
Josh was still looking at Tasha. A tiny muscle flickered in his cheek and he shook his head slightly, as if trying to focus. ‘Just as long as you know he will break your heart,’ he said shakily. ‘You’ll fall in love, because that’s what you do, and he’ll smash you to pieces. I don’t want that for you. I don’t want you loving someone you can’t be with. I wouldn’t wish that on anyone.’ There was an anguished note to his tone that killed Tasha’s anger like water on flame.
Instinct told her there was more to her brother’s words than a throw-away comment.
I don’t want you loving someone you can’t be with.
Suddenly she knew that his explosion of emotion was driven by something deeper than her own indiscretion. Something much more personal.
‘Josh...’ Her voice faltered. ‘I—’
‘I’m just telling you to be careful, that’s all.’ Cutting her dead, he blanked the emotion and walked to the door. ‘I’ll leave the two of you alone. I’m sorry I interrupted. And who am I to give advice on relationships? It’s a subject I know nothing about.’
His departure was more painful than his arrival.
Tasha felt her heart clench. Her brother was suffering and she sensed that his anguish went much deeper than concern about her.
Was this about the woman in the on-call room?
‘Wait!’ Tasha sprinted after