Dr. Giulietta Harrington (The Harrington Surgeons #5)

Prologue

The Protestant Cemetery in Rome was known for its quiet beauty, a place where sunlight brushed the marble statues and ancient cypress trees stood guard over secrets whispered into the wind.

It was a peaceful space, heavy with history and the weight of endings, where poets and expatriates had been laid to rest beneath the kind of sky that could make mourning feel more dignified than devastating.

Giulietta Romano stood slightly apart from the others, shoulders squared beneath a tailored black wool coat that felt too warm for the mild day.

Yet she kept it buttoned, a shield that both contained and concealed.

She wore sunglasses even as the sun sank low on the horizon, tinting the sky a muted amber shot through with streaks of bruised purple.

The glasses weren’t for privacy but for armor, a barrier between her grief and the prying eyes that wondered why she hadn't shed a single tear.

She held a small funeral card in one hand, her fingers tracing its edges methodically.

Her father's name, Angelo Romano, was printed on it in black type. Underneath was her own. The absence of another name beneath hers was starkly visible in its silence, a declaration more powerful than any words could have been. No mother had ever been listed beside Angelo’s name, and no mother stood beside her now.

Giulietta felt that absence like a cold draft through a cracked window, subtle but impossible to ignore.

Mourners spoke quietly, hushed condolences drifting around her in low, murmured Italian, like background music in a scene she didn’t want to be part of.

Her father had been respected, a gentle man who had loved good wine, late-night conversations, and her, unconditionally, but he'd never been one to fill rooms or command crowds.

His funeral reflected the life he'd chosen: modest, genuine, discreet.

A distant cousin approached Giulietta cautiously, a woman whose name Giulietta could barely recall.

Her expression was a cautious mixture of sympathy and curiosity.

“Giulietta,” the woman murmured, touching Giulietta’s elbow softly, as if trying to anchor her.

“Tua madre…verrà?” (Your mother…will she come?)

The question was a polite one, carefully phrased, but Giulietta felt the sting beneath its surface.

This was Rome, after all; lineage mattered, even if quietly so.

She drew in a slow breath through her nose, her voice controlled and clipped as she responded, “Mia madre non ha mai partecipato.” (My mother never participated.)

The woman nodded awkwardly, retreating into the anonymity of the small crowd, and Giulietta turned away sharply, her gaze lingering on the fresh earth beneath which her father now lay.

Her chest felt heavy, each breath drawn tightly into lungs that seemed to resist expanding fully.

She hadn’t cried when they lowered him into the ground; she hadn’t even flinched.

Instead, she’d held herself rigid, distant, composed—not because she felt nothing, but precisely because she felt everything too deeply.

It was not grief that numbed her now, but the enormous weight of loneliness settling into the space her father had once occupied in her life.

Giulietta’s world had always revolved quietly around him.

He’d been her protector and her confidant, the single constant in a life shaped by shadows and half-truths.

Now he was gone, and the quiet around her felt deafening.

The funeral slowly dispersed around her, each mourner offering one last whispered condolence before fading into the twilight. The cemetery began to grow quiet again, returning to its natural state of timeless solitude, as though the day’s intrusion had never happened at all.

Giulietta remained motionless until she stood entirely alone, her body outlined by the dying sunlight, shadows lengthening at her feet. She removed her sunglasses finally, folding them carefully into her pocket. Her eyes burned, dry and tired, as she lifted her face to the darkening sky.

“Non ti perdonerò mai per questo,” she whispered, uncertain whether the words were meant for her father, for the mother who’d never shown her face, or perhaps simply for herself. (I will never forgive you for this.)

She tucked the funeral card gently into the interior pocket of her coat, pressing it to the place above her heart. It felt like a promise or maybe a threat, a vow that she would carry forward as she stepped from this place and into whatever lay beyond.

Then, drawing a slow, intentional breath, she turned her back to the grave and began walking toward the gates, leaving behind the only person who had ever truly loved her, and stepping into a future she hadn’t yet allowed herself to consider.

The apartment felt achingly quiet when Giulietta returned, the air still carrying the faint fragrance of cologne and espresso, as if her father might emerge from the next room, smiling softly, asking her about her day.

The stillness was a deception, a cruel trick played by memory.

She set her keys carefully onto the antique side table, her movements precise, each gesture a fragile attempt at normalcy.

She wandered into the kitchen, drawn by something deeper than hunger or thirst, needing comfort in familiar spaces.

Copper pots hung meticulously above the stove, catching the fading sunlight in warm, polished gleams. A wooden spoon rested beside the sink, its handle worn smooth from countless evenings of stirring risotto, sauce, and soup.

Giulietta reached for it instinctively, running her thumb over its smooth edge, the memory rising unbidden.

“No, Giulietta, pazienza,” her father’s voice echoed gently from the past, laced with patient amusement. “Il risotto non perdona chi ha fretta.” (Risotto doesn’t forgive impatience.)

She closed her eyes, breathing deeply, her mind tumbling backward into a soft-edged memory from years before.

She’d been newly minted as a surgeon, confidence worn like an ill-fitting coat.

One evening, she’d stood exactly here, head bowed, silent tears running hot down her cheeks as her father’s hands brushed them away.

“I lost him,” she’d whispered, voice broken, raw with fresh failure. “I did everything right, Papa, and still…”

He hadn’t interrupted. Instead, he’d wrapped his arms around her, the warmth of him steadying her trembling body, his voice a balm against her fractured sense of worth.

“Siamo umani, Giulietta. Perdiamo. è quello che facciamo dopo che definisce chi siamo.” (We’re human, Giulietta.

We lose. It's what we do afterward that defines who we are.)

She remembered how carefully he’d guided her to the stove, taking the wooden spoon and pressing it gently into her hand, his fingers folding hers around the familiar shape. He’d spoken then, voice firm yet kind, the words holding more weight than she'd understood at the time.

“Non ereditare la sua freddezza.” (Don’t inherit her coldness.)

He’d never spoken harshly of her mother, never mentioned her by name, but that single phrase had lodged itself into Giulietta’s consciousness, a warning as much as a plea.

He knew who Evelyn Harrington was—her reputation, her ambition, her indifference—and he’d fought tirelessly to prevent Giulietta from becoming someone who measured her worth by success alone.

That evening had been about far more than risotto; it had been about choosing humanity over hardness, love over detachment, life over legacy.

Giulietta sighed, opening her eyes and setting the wooden spoon down carefully, feeling suddenly exhausted by the weight of memory.

She turned toward the small writing desk tucked neatly against the kitchen wall, its drawers filled with stationery and her father’s worn books.

From beneath a volume of poetry, she withdrew a simple, leather-bound journal, the edges frayed from handling, pages worn from the pressure of a pen driven by things left unsaid.

The journal fell open naturally to a well-read page, the words etched deeply in looping cursive:

Cara M.,

You haunt me like a ghost I never invited.

I’ve never heard your voice, never felt your touch, but every time I stand before a mirror, I see the echo of your indifference in my eyes.

Do you ever wonder about me as I wonder about you?

Do you ever feel regret or am I merely a forgotten note in your flawless life?

Giulietta.

She flipped through more pages, some filled with angry accusations, others poetry or fragments of thought, but each addressed to the same initial: M. A name she had never been allowed to speak, a shadow she had never been permitted to know.

Giulietta shut the journal abruptly, her chest tight.

The silence around her was deafening now, punctuated only by the soft ticking of an antique clock from the living room.

Carefully, she slid the book back into the desk drawer, as if it were able to seal away all those unsent pleas and unspoken truths.

Crossing back to the kitchen, she pulled ingredients from the refrigerator without thinking: butter, white wine, arborio rice, and fragrant porcini mushrooms. She moved through the recipe mechanically, her hands performing actions that had been ingrained in her through years of repetition, an act of comfort and ritual more than hunger.

Giulietta stirred slowly, her eyes on the simmering broth. Cooking had always been an act of love for her father, the kitchen a space where nothing needed justification, where simply existing had been enough. But tonight, every action felt hollow, a performance enacted before an empty audience.