The Italian's Secretary Bride by Kim Lawrence Page A

perhaps?’
    â€˜I’m not stressed—at least I wasn’t until this started happening. I’m not sleeping.’ She swallowed; the truth was she was afraid to sleep. ‘It has happened twice now when I’m at work. I’m not sure how long I can hide it,’ she admitted worriedly.
    â€˜And it’s necessary for you to hide it? Your employer would not be sympathetic?’ he probed.
    â€˜I don’t want his sympathy…’ Or, and which was more to the point, his guilt! It had been bad enough before. The way Roman had gone on after she’d come out of hospital, you’d have thought he had wielded the knife himself.
    If her boss, with his overdeveloped sense of responsibility, ever got a sniff of her new problem he’d go off on another mammoth guilt trip and that was something Alice wanted to avoid at all costs. The hair-shirt period, while it lasted, had been pretty wearing, being considerate and reasonable just wasn’t in Roman’s nature!
    â€˜And I really don’t want to involve anyone else,’ she announced firmly.
    â€˜You might have no choice,’ the doctor replied bluntly. ‘This could get worse before it gets better,’ he explained cheerily. He saw her expression. ‘Then again…’
    â€˜It might not,’ she finished heavily.
    He shrugged.
    â€˜So actually you have no idea.’
    The doctor continued to be frustratingly vague. ‘It’s not an exact science. The human mind is complex.’
    â€˜That doesn’t help me much.’
    â€˜I could arrange that referral for you now if you like?’ he suggested.
    Alice got to her feet. ‘Actually it might be better if I got back to you on that. I’ll be out of the country for the next few weeks and—’
    â€˜There is no stigma attached to having therapy, Miss Trevelyan.’
    Alice smiled. She had seen the address on the card; Harley Street did not come cheap. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll get back to you after I’ve checked my diary.’
    She didn’t. Even if she could have afforded it the idea of a stranger poking around in her subconscious did not appeal to Alice. Weren’t therapists for people who didn’t have friends to talk to?
    Alice had friends, but she didn’t burden them with her problem; instead she looked up post-traumatic stress on the internet. Armed with as much information as any ‘expert’, she felt sure she could cope without resorting to therapists.
    The turning point had been discovering what the trigger was. Sounds or even smells had been known to trigger attacks, this particular article had explained. In her case it had been an expensive bottle of perfume that she had received for her birthday…the same perfume Roman’s stalker had been doused in! The woman whom she had just collided with also wore it.
    If she had caught on sooner she could have saved herself weeks of the flashbacks and awful episodes of inescapable blind, brain-numbing panic when her heart pounded as though it would implode and her body was bathed in a cold sweat. But who could know that a bottle of perfume of all things could be the culprit?
    â€˜Can you walk?’
    She turned her head towards the voice; it came from some distant point above her head. ‘Maybe.’
    â€˜ Madre di Dio. I’m getting a doctor.’
    â€˜No…don’t.’ She took a deep breath. ‘Sorry. Yes…yes, I can walk. It’s passing.’
    Luca’s dark features clenched as he looked into the stricken, waxily pale face of the woman who stood swaying before him. She looked as though she was going to collapse.
    He shook his head. ‘I’m getting that doctor.’
    â€˜I don’t need a doctor.’ She gripped his arm tightly as the room tilted. ‘Please, Luca,’ she pleaded. ‘I just need some fresh air and I’ll be fine.’
    Her relief when he slipped an arm around her