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Diego was working the floor today. Once a week he left his office and insisted on doing the job he adored. From nine a.m. he was working in Theatre with a multiple birth and a baby with a cardiac defect scheduled for delivery. The unit was expecting a lot of new arrivals, and it fell to him to tell the mother of a thriving thirty-five-weeker that her room would be needed in a couple of days.

He’d stretched it to the limit, of course.

Not just because it was Izzy, not just that she was a doctor at this hospital, but with all she had been through, he would have done his best for any woman in that situation—though he waited till he was working to tell her.

‘She won’t take it.’ Izzy was in the nursery, feeding her daughter, jiggling the teat in Tilia’s slack mouth. ‘She took the last one really well...’

He tickled her little feet and held his hand over Izzy’s and pushed the teat in a bit more firmly, tried to stimulate the baby to suck, but Tilia was having none of it, her little eyelids flickering as she drifted deeper into sleep. Izzy actually laughed as she gave in.

‘She’s not going to take it.’ There was no panic in her voice, Diego noted. Izzy was a pretty amazing mum. Often with doctors or nurses they were more anxious than most new parents and even though he’d expected that from Izzy, she’d surprised him. She revelled in her new motherhood role and was far more relaxed than most.

‘They’re like teenagers,’ Diego said, ‘party all night, and sleep all day. That last feed would have exhausted her.’

Chris, one of the nurses, came over and saw the full bottle, and because Tilia was so small and needed her calories, she suggested they tube-feed her, and Izzy went to stand to help.

‘Actually, Chris, I need a word with Izzy.’

‘Sure.’ Chris took Tilia and Izzy sat, frowning just a little, worried what was to come because Diego, when at work, never brought his problems to the shop floor.

‘Is she okay?’ Her first thought was something had been said on the ward round that morning and he was about to give her bad news.

‘She’s wonderful,’ Diego assured her. ‘So wonderful, in fact, that I need your room for some parents we are getting whose baby will not be doing so well.’

‘Oh.’

‘I know it seems pretty empty over in the parents’ wing at the moment, but I’m getting some transfers from other hospitals today, and I have some mothers in Maternity now needing accommodation too. You don’t need to leave today...’

‘But it would help?’

‘It would,’ Diego admitted. Normally they gave more notice, but Izzy had been told last week that if the room was needed, given her close proximity to the hospital and Tilia’s improving status, she was top of the list to leave if required. Izzy had been happy with that. Well, till the inevitable happened.

How could she tell Diego that she didn’t want to go home?

More than that, she had never wanted to bring her baby back to the home she had shared with Henry.

‘Izzy!’ Rita was at the nursery door. ‘You’ve got visitors. Mr and Mrs Bailey, Tilia’s grandparents...’

He saw her lips tense and then stretch out into a smile and he’d have given anything not to be on duty now, to just be here with her as she faced all this, but Diego knew it would surly only make things worse. So instead he stood, smiled as he would at any other relatives and said to Izzy, ‘I’ll leave you to it.’ Just as he would to any of the mums—except he knew so much more.

‘Could I have a word, Doctor?’ Mr. Bailey followed him out.

‘I’m not a doctor; I’m the nurse unit manager. Is there anything I can help you with?’

Up shot the eyebrows, just as Diego expected. ‘I’d prefer to speak to a doctor,’ Mr Bailey said. ‘You see, we’re not getting enough information from Izzy. She just says that Tilia is doing well and as her grandparents we have a right to know more.’

‘Tilia is doing well,’ Diego said. ‘We’re very pleased with her progress.’

‘I’m not sure if you’re aware of the circumstances. Our beloved son passed away and Izzy is doing her level best to keep us out of the picture. Tilia’s extremely precious to us and we will not be shut out.’

And at that moment all Diego felt was tired for Izzy.

‘I’d really prefer to speak with a doctor.’

Which suited Diego fine. ‘I’ll just check with Izzy and then I can page—’

‘Why would you check with her? I’ve already told you that she’s doing her level best to keep us misinformed. I know she seems quite pleasant, but she’s a manipulative—’

‘Mr Bailey.’ Diego halted him—oh, there were many things, so many things he would have loved to have said, but he was far better than that. ‘I will first speak to Tilia’s mother. Let’s see what she says and then we can take it from there.’

Of course she said yes.

Diego looked over when Richard agreed to speak to them and could see Izzy sitting by Tilia, looking bemused and bewildered, and if he’d done his level best to keep work and his private life separate, right now he didn’t care.

‘They don’t trust me to tell them everything!’ Izzy blew her fringe upwards. ‘They’re annoyed I waited two days to ring them after she was born...’

‘They’re just scared you’ll keep them from seeing her.’

‘Well, they’re going the right way about it!’ Izzy shot back, but Diego shook his head.

‘Don’t go there, Izzy.’

‘I won’t!’ Izzy said, but she was exasperated. ‘They’ve been in every day, I’ve dressed her in the outfits they’ve bought, I text them a photo of her each night. What more do they want?’

‘Time,’ Diego said. ‘And so do we.’ He glanced over to make sure no one was in earshot ‘Do you want to come to my place tonight?’ He saw her swallow. ‘I’m closer to the hospital. If it makes the transition easier...’

‘Just for tonight,’ Izzy said, because she didn’t want to foist herself on him, but she couldn’t stand to be alone at the house on her first night away from Tilia.

‘Sure.’

He got called away then, and Izzy sat there awash with relief, grateful for the reprieve, until it dawned on her.

She was staying the night with Diego.

How the hell could she have overlooked that?

CHAPTER TWELVE

SHE felt incredibly gauche, knocking at his door that evening. ‘Where did you disappear to?’ he asked as he let her in. ‘I wasn’t sure if you were coming.’

‘I got a taxi and took my stuff home,’ Izzy said airily, because she certainly wasn’t going to admit she’d spent the afternoon in the bathroom—trying and failing to whip her postnatal body into suitable shape for Diego’s eyes. ‘By the time I got back for her evening feed, your shift had ended.’

‘You’ve got hospital colour!’ Diego smiled as she stood in the lounge. ‘I never noticed it on the ward but now you are here in the real world, I can see it.’

There was a distinct lack of mirrors in Diego’s flat, so Izzy would just have to take his word for it, but she was quite sure he was right. Apart from an occasional walk around the hospital grounds, a few very brief trips home and one trip out with Megan, she’d been living under fluorescent lighting and breathing hospital air, and no doubt her skin had that sallow tinge that patients often had when they were discharged after a long stay.

‘Have a seat out on the balcony,’ Diego suggested. ‘Get some sun. I’ll join you in a minute.’

It was good to sit in the evening sun. Izzy could feel it warming her cheeks and she drank in the delicious view—the moored boats and a few making their way back in. There was no place nicer than St Piran on a rosy summer evening, made nicer when Diego pressed a nice cold glass of champagne in her hand.

‘One of the joys of bottle-feeding!’ Diego said, because Izzy’s milk supply had died out two weeks in.

And then he was back to his kitchen and Izzy could only sit and smile.

He was such a delicious mix.

So male, so sexy, yet there was this side to him that could address, without a hint of a blush or a bat of an eyelid, things that most men knew little about.

‘How does it feel to be free?’ Diego called from the kitchen as she picked a couple of tomatoes out of the pots that lined his balcony.

‘Strange,’ Izzy called, but he was already back. ‘I keep waiting for my little pager to go off to let me know she needs feeding. I feel guilty, actually.’

‘It’s good to have a break before you bring her home.’

‘Most new mums don’t get it.’

‘Most new mums have those extra weeks to prepare,’ Diego said, arranging some roasted Camembert cheese and breadsticks on the table, which Izzy fell on, scooping up the sticky warm goo with a large piece of bread.

‘I’ve been craving this,’ Izzy said. ‘How did you know?’

‘Tonight, you get everything that has been forbidden to you in pregnancy, well, almost everything. Some things can wait!’ Diego said, as Izzy’s toes curled in her sandals. His grin was lazy and slow and she hated how he never blushed, hated that her cheeks were surely scarlet. God, she’d forgotten how they sizzled, Izzy thought as he headed back to prepare dinner.

There were so many sides to Diego and recently she’d been grateful for the professional side to him and for the care he had shown off duty too, but she was in his territory now, not pregnant, not a patient, not a parent on the unit. Tonight she was just Izzy, whoever Izzy was.

And that night she started to remember.

‘You can cook!’ Izzy exclaimed as he brought a feast out to her—shellfish, mussels, oysters, prawns and cream cheese wrapped in roast peppers, and all the stuff she’d craved in the last few weeks of her pregnancy.

‘Not really. You could train a monkey to cook seafood.’ Diego shrugged. ‘And the antipasto is from our favourite café...’

She didn’t know if it was the champagne or the company, but talking to Diego was always easy so she figured it was the latter. They talked, and as the sky turned to navy they laughed and they talked, and more and more she came back.

Not even Izzy Bailey, but a younger Izzy, an Izzy Ross, who she had stifled and buried and forgotten.

Izzy Ross, who teased and joked and did things like lean back in her seat and put her feet up on his thighs, Izzy Ross, who expected a foot rub and Diego obliged.

But it was Izzy Bailey who was convinced things were all about to change.

‘So, what did the real estate agent say?’

‘That it’s a good offer!’ Izzy poked out her tongue. ‘It’s not, of course, but it’s better than the last one, though they want a quick settlement.’

‘Which is what you wanted?’

‘When I was pregnant and hoping to find somewhere before she was born.’ She looked at him. ‘In a few days she’ll be home,’ Izzy said, ‘and as well as having a baby home, I’m going to have to pack up a house and find a new one, and I’m going to have to find a babysitter just so we can date.’ Her voice wobbled. ‘We haven’t even slept together and we’re talking nappies and babysitters...’

He had the audacity to laugh.

‘It’s not funny, Diego.’

‘You’re making problems where there are none. Sex is hardly going to be a problem.’

God, he was so relaxed and assured about it, like it was a given it was going to be marvellous.

The icing on the cake.

‘Come on.’ He stood up.

‘Where are we going?’

‘The movies and then there’s a nice wine bar, they do music till late...’

‘I don’t want to go to the movies!’ Izzy couldn’t believe Mr Sensitive could get it so wrong. ‘And if you think I’ve got the energy to be sitting in a wine bar...’

‘I thought you wanted us to date!’

‘Ha, ha.’

‘Izzy, you need time with your baby and that’s the priority. I’ll slot in, and if it’s an issue that we haven’t slept together yet, well, we both know it’s going to be great.’

‘You don’t know that.’

‘Oh, I do.’ Diego grinned. ‘I’m looking forward to getting rid of your hang-ups.’

‘Can you get rid of them tonight?’

And suddenly he didn’t look so assured.

‘It’s too soon...’

‘No,’ Izzy said slowly. ‘No heavy lifting, no strenuous exercise...’

‘Do you want me, Izzy?’ He was always direct and now never more so. ‘Or do you just want it over?’

‘I don’t know,’ Izzy admitted, and there should have been a big horn to denote she was giving the wrong answer, but she was incapable of dishonesty with him—or rather she didn’t want to go down that route, saying the right thing just to keep him happy. She wanted the truth with Diego even if it wasn’t what he wanted to hear.

‘What are you scared of?’

‘That I’ll disappoint you,’ she admitted. ‘Because on so many levels I disappointed him.’ She snapped her mouth closed. Diego had made it very clear that he didn’t compare to Henry, which he didn’t, but... She looked over to where he stood, tried to choose words that could explain her insecurities, but there were none that could do them justice. ‘Things weren’t great in that department,’ she settled for, but

Diego’s frown just deepened. ‘I know I was pregnant and so there must have been a relationship...’ She swallowed. ‘His parents take it as proof that our marriage was healthy, that...’ She couldn’t explain further and thankfully she didn’t have to because Diego spoke.

‘It would be nice,’ Diego said slowly, ‘if babies were only conceived in love...’ There was silence that she didn’t break as he thought for a moment. ‘If there was some sort of...’ Again he paused, trying to find the English for a word he hadn’t used in his time in the country ‘Cósmico, contraception.’ It was Izzy who then frowned and she gave a small smile.

‘Cosmic.’

‘Cosmic contraception,’ Diego continued, ‘where no experimenting teenagers, no rape victims, no women in a terrible relationship who just go along with it to keep the peace...’ His strange logic soothed some of the jagged parts of her mind. She liked his vision and it made her smile. ‘Here’s a happy couple,’ Diego continued, ‘said the sperm to the egg. You know it doesn’t work like that.’

‘People think...’

‘People are stupid, then.’ Diego would not let her go there, would not let her care what others thought. ‘People choose to be ignorant rather than face unpleasant truths. You know what your marriage was like and you don’t have to live it again, explaining details to me, to justify why you’re pregnant. But I will say this.’ For the first time his voice bordered on angry. ‘If he expected a great sex life, if he was disappointed by your lack of enthusiasm in that department after the way he treated you, then he was the most stupid of them all.’

And he was so convincing that she was almost...convinced.

Almost.

But still the cloud of doubt hung over her and Diego could see it.

It had never been his intention to sleep with her tonight.

For her to stay was a hope, but sex—hell, wasn’t that supposed to be the last thing on her mind?

Wasn’t it too soon?

And he liked straightforward, only this was anything but.

But he looked over to where she sat, not in the least offended that she wanted it over with, another thing to tick off her list as she moved on with her life. And again it wasn’t a time for arrogance or feigned modesty. He knew he was good, knew he could make her happy—and wasn’t happy part of their deal?

‘I’ll sleep with you on one condition.’

Why did he always make her smile?

‘That you never fake it for me.’

‘Or you.’

‘Er, Izzy,’ he said, and that made her blush and give an embarrassed laugh.

‘I mean, don’t pretend afterwards that it’s okay, just so you don’t upset me.’

Diego rolled his eyes, but he was smiling now too. ‘The talking doesn’t stop when we get to the bedroom. I can do both!’

And he knew then that they could talk about it for ever, but words could only reassure so far. This was so not what he had imagined for tonight. There was something almost clinical about it and yet Diego had so much confidence in her, in them, in all they were going to be, that if this was a hurdle for her, perhaps it was better to jump it.

He pulled her onto his lap, but his kisses weren’t working. He could feel her trying, feel her doing her very best to relax, but he wouldn’t put her through it. He pulled back his lips, looked into her eyes and feigned a martyred sigh ‘Shall we just get this over with?’

She almost wept with relief.

‘Please.’

‘Ring the hospital.’

Which took away her little excuse to suddenly stop later. Diego was onto her, she realised.

So she rang and, no, Tilia didn’t need her to come in.

Oh, God, what was she doing?

She felt as if she was walking into Theatre for surgery as he took her hand and they headed for the bedroom. Izzy half expected him to tell her to get undressed and pop on a gown and that he’d be back in five minutes.

Couldn’t it happen more seamlessly?

Couldn’t they just have had a kiss on the balcony and somehow ended up naked on his massive bed without the awkward bit in the middle? But that hadn’t worked and Izzy realised she would have been faking it because she would know where it would lead, to this, the bit she was dreading, the part that was holding her back from moving on.

God, it was a room built for nothing but a bed. Izzy gulped.

Massive windows, floorboards and one very large, very low bed and not much else, bar a table that doubled as a washing basket.

‘Where are your things?’ Izzy would rather deal with basics than the bed.

‘What things?’

‘Alarm clock, books...’ Her hands flailed. ‘A mirror, a wardrobe...’

‘Here’s the wardrobe.’

Okay, there it was, hidden in the wall, but apart from that...

‘Curtains?’ Izzy begged.

‘It looks out to the ocean,’ Diego said, and to her horror he was stripping off. ‘And I don’t need an alarm clock—I wake at five.’ He was unbuckling his belt, his top already off, stripping off like a professional and chatting about nothing as Izzy stood, champagne in hand, wishing she‘d never started this.

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