The Valtieri Marriage Deal

Oh, well. She’d get over it. She had before. It wasn’t the first time her heart had been broken, although that time, of course, she’d been betrayed. Idly she wondered how she would have felt about Luca if she’d been able to trust him with her heart, but she couldn’t turn the clock back and she had no idea how it would feel to have that much faith in a man.

Impossible. And if she’d allowed herself to fall for Luca, how much more would it have hurt when it all went wrong?

She swallowed hard. At least she’d had the sense to withhold her number, so he wouldn’t be able to contact her.

And, besides, there wasn’t time in her life to mope. Until her hospital’s maternity unit refurb was completed she was working in another unit not nearly so easy to get to, so it was just as well Luca was out of her life because, frankly, with the extra travelling, she wouldn’t have time for a relationship at the moment.

And if she told herself that often enough, maybe she’d believe it…

He’d missed her call.

He swore softly and dropped into a chair, resting his head in his hands. Damn. Of all the stupid, stupid things, to forget to put his phone on charge when he’d got back to the flat. But maybe…

He scrolled through to his incoming calls, and the hope died. ‘Withheld. Damn.’

‘Maybe she’ll ring again,’ his brother suggested.

He shook his head and swallowed hard. ‘No—no, she won’t. It doesn’t matter. She didn’t want to see me again anyway. I just wanted to—’

‘Talk to her?’ Gio finished softly for him when he broke off, and he nodded, his throat curiously tight. ‘So are you going to go and find her?’

He shook his head. ‘No. We agreed it was only for one night. I’ll just have to live with it.’ But hell, he didn’t want to. He hadn’t realised how much he was looking forward to speaking to her again—maybe talking her into letting him see her when he was back in London.

‘So—what next?’

He let the air out of his lungs on a long, slow breath and met his brother’s eyes. ‘I don’t know. Maybe I’ll go back to London and finish off my research.’

‘You could look her up—it’s time you had a bit of fun. Where does she live?’

‘Herne Hill, but I have no idea where or I’d go and try to talk her into seeing me again.’

‘You must be slipping. It’s not like you to have to chase after a woman. Did you disappoint her last night?’

He met his brother’s mocking eyes with disgust. ‘No, I did not—not that it’s your damn business.’

Gio shrugged. ‘So—what about the job? Mama will be disappointed if you go back to London. She was looking forward to having you closer to home.’

‘She’d cope.’

‘Of course—and who knows? You may even bring home a bride. Now, that would make her happy.’

He grunted and stifled the little leap in his chest that felt remarkably like hope. ‘Unlikely. I have to convince her first—and, anyway, aren’t you jumping the gun a bit? It was only one night.’

‘Of course it was,’ Gio said soothingly, and smiled. ‘Just promise me one thing—let me draw up the pre-nup. And don’t even contemplate getting hitched without one.’

He laughed. ‘Relax, Gio. I’m not going to marry her. It’s not on my agenda.’

‘We’ll see. Coffee?’

Luca gave his phone one last regretful look and slid it into his pocket. ‘Why not?’

‘What’s going on?’

The group of women around the central nursing station didn’t take their eyes off the office door.

‘Richard Crossland’s got someone with him. And he’s a hunk,’ her friend Sarah said in a stage whisper. ‘He’s been in there ages—they must be about to come out. I swear he’s the most beautiful man I’ve ever seen.’

‘Really.’

‘Really. Really really really. Even you’d think so, Little Miss Fussy-Pants.’

Not fussy enough, apparently, or she wouldn’t be moping about now with a broken heart six weeks down the line, Isabelle thought, and walked away towards the staff room to dump her bag. The Tube had been delayed and she didn’t even have time for a cup of tea now. She certainly didn’t have time to stand and ogle some stud who the girls thought was so damn marvelous.

There was a little commotion behind her, a sudden burst of activity that could only mean the office door had opened and they’d been caught staring. Well, serve them right, she thought, and glanced over her shoulder.

And stopped dead in her tracks.

‘Luca?’

The word was soundless, hardly even a breath, but he turned his head and met her eyes, and the bottom dropped out of her world.

‘Isabella.’

He crossed the ward in two strides, his warm hands cupping her shoulders, sending a shock wave through her body. She eased herself away from his grasp, horribly conscious of their rapt audience, her heart drumming against her ribs like a wild thing.

‘What are you doing here?’ she asked, choked by a flood of emotion that was threatening to unravel her.

‘I could ask you the same thing. Your hospital’s miles away.’

‘Not nearly as far as Florence. Anyway, the unit’s—’

‘Shut for a refurb. I know that, you told me. They wouldn’t tell me where you’d been relocated to, though. They were—well, let’s say they were profoundly unhelpful. It didn’t make it any easier to find you. So—how are you?’

She ignored that, her heart pounding as she took in his words. ‘You were looking for me?’

‘Si—for the last six weeks. I’d given up.’

Six weeks? Ever since…

‘We weren’t going to see each other again,’ she pointed out, trying to sound composed while her heart was busy breaking all over again just at the sight of him.

‘No. You didn’t want me.’ His mouth twisted into a wry smile, and her heart flip-flopped again and then contracted. Want him? She’d never stopped wanting him, not for a moment.

Whatever, it didn’t alter the facts.

‘It doesn’t matter anyway, does it?’ she said quietly, conscious of the stares of the other midwives still clustered round the nursing station with their mouths hanging open. ‘What I want. I mean, you’re here anyway, regardless of my feelings.’

‘What?’ He gave a startled cough of laughter and shook his head. ‘Of course it matters. I’m not here to see you—I didn’t know you worked here.’

‘So why are you here?’

‘I’m an old friend of Richard’s. He heard I was back in London and asked me if I could help out. I owed him a favour—so I’m here. I swear, I had no idea you’d be here or I would have spoken to you first. Is it going to be a problem?’

She shook her head, feeling incredibly foolish and naïve. ‘No. Of course not. Sorry, I misunderstood.’ Of course he wasn’t here for her. She was being ridiculous. Neurotic.

‘So—why are you in London anyway?’

He smiled wryly. ‘Finishing off some research—and I wanted to see you again if I could find you.’

No. She felt a flicker of panic. She didn’t want this—didn’t want to see him again. It was too much.

Her body was calling her a liar, and her heart was racing, but her mind was in panic mode and she shook her head and backed away.

‘Luca, I can’t talk about this here. I have to work.’

‘So do I, now. But later—’

‘No, Luca,’ she said firmly, shaking her head and hanging on to the last shreds of her dignity. ‘I told you I didn’t want to see you again, and I meant it. I’m sorry, I don’t want to talk to you, either now or later. Please—just leave me alone.’

‘Isabelle, please, give me a few minutes—’

‘No. Go away, Luca. Please.’

Turning on her heel, she ignored his protest, walked into the staff room, closed the door behind her and burst into tears.

‘Izzie?’

‘Go away, Sarah,’ she mumbled, her hands pressed hard over her mouth to keep in the sobs that were tearing her apart.

‘No. Oh, sweetheart, what’s happened? Who is he? What did he say to you?’

She dragged herself together, sniffing hard and lifting her chin firmly. ‘Nothing. Really—please—I’ll be fine. I have to go to handover. I—I can’t—’

‘Rubbish. Here, you need a tissue and a cup of tea.’

‘No. Well, yes, the tissue,’ she said with a fractured laugh, ‘but I haven’t got time for tea. I’ve just got to get on.’

‘So who is he?’

‘Luca? He’s a guy I met in Florence.’

Sarah’s eyes widened. ‘Really? Oh, my God—why ever did you come back?’

She laughed a little crazily. ‘Because it was just one day? Because I have a life here, and he lives in Italy?’

‘Well, it doesn’t look like it. He’s Richard’s new locum, covering the maternity leave post.’

‘What?’ Shock nearly took the legs out from under her, and Sarah hugged her hard and steered her to a chair. ‘Sarah, you’re joking. He said he was doing Richard a favour, helping him out. I assumed he meant some research or something.’

Sarah shook her head. ‘Sorry, Izzie, he’s here, and he’s working in the unit, and you’re going to have to see him every day.’

‘Every…’ She dragged in a lungful of air. ‘Oh, God, no! I’m going on holiday. How long’s he here for?’

‘I don’t know. Weeks, I suppose. Months, maybe.’

Months?

‘Will you be OK with that? Can you do it? Because I don’t think you’ve got that much holiday,’ Sarah said with a vain attempt at a smile.

Probably not, but—work with him? For months? Oh, lord. Maybe she could get a transfer? Or maybe she should just get a grip.

‘Of course I can,’ she lied, straightening her spine and blowing her nose hard. ‘I’ll have to. Just keep him away from me, and I’ll be fine.’

And without giving Luca another thought—well, that was a lie, but she had to pretend—she threw herself into her work. Which would have been fine, of course, if it hadn’t been for the first labouring woman she checked.

Superficially, there was nothing wrong, but it was her third baby and third babies could often be a bit different. The notes contained no special warnings, the last ultrasound scan had been fine and there was technically nothing to worry about. Certainly nothing had been mentioned at handover, but the moment she went into the woman’s room, she just felt a little tingle of suspicion.

‘Hi, Julie, I’m Isabelle, I’m going to be looking after you now during your labour,’ she said with a smile as she ran her eyes over her patient and skimmed the notes. ‘How are you feeling?’

‘Oh, I love the epidural,’ she said with a heartfelt chuckle. ‘It’s marvellous. Just like going to the dentist, only I’m going to have a baby, not a filling!’

Isabelle smiled and checked her over, listening to the baby’s heart with the foetal stethoscope. Was that a little hitch?

‘Can I just turn you on your side, Julie? I can’t quite hear.’ She helped the woman adjust her position, checked again, then shook her head. ‘I still can’t hear enough. I’d like to put the monitor on you to get a better feel for what’s going on.’

‘Sure. It does seem awfully slow, this labour.’

‘Well, that can be the epidural. Because you’re lying down, you aren’t getting any help from gravity, but I think it’s just as well to check, don’t you?’

She was setting up the machine as she worked, explaining to Julie how the cardiotocograph would give her the baby’s heart rate and the pressure of the uterus, and also, most importantly, the correlation of the heart rate to the contractions.

And, sure enough, every time Julie had a contraction, the baby’s heart rate dipped.

‘So is there a problem?’ she asked, looking more worried now.

‘I’m not sure. Probably not, but it is dragging on a bit and I don’t think your baby’s very happy at the moment, so I’ll get a doctor to take a look at you to be on the safe side,’ she said with a reassuring smile. ‘We might need to hurry things along a little.’

She stuck her head out of the door and looked around, just as Sarah came out of the sluice. ‘You couldn’t page the on-call register for me, could you? I’ve got a query with Mrs Marchant.’

‘Sure—oh, there he is. Luca, Izzie wants you.’

Oh, perfect. Luca—of course, looking more gorgeous than a man had any right to look in shapeless scrubs. And Sarah’s phrasing left a lot to be desired, as well! Oh, hell.

She straightened her shoulders and tried to find a professional face. She could do this. She could…

Luca walked towards her, wishing he hadn’t taken this locum job to help his old friend out, wishing he’d just found Isabelle and spoken to her, but when he’d walked out of Richard’s office this morning and seen her again, it had seemed like the answer to his prayers.

Now he wasn’t at all sure. Ever since he’d set eyes on her again he’d been hoping that being forced to work together might give them a chance to get to know each other, find out if they had anything worth pursuing, but her face was closed, her lips pressed tightly together, and he realised that working with her could be a nightmare. She’d got issues of some sort. God knows what, but, given time, he was sure he’d be able to break through them. He had before—and how. He only hoped that he’d be able to remain professional until then, because all he wanted to do right now was wrap his arms around her and tell her it was all right—and if he tried it, she’d probably kill him. Thank God there was a patient in the way!

‘Problems?’ he mouthed as he reached her, and she nodded.

‘Maybe,’ she murmured quietly, and he realised with relief that she was going to behave as if nothing had happened—for now, at least. ‘Julie Marchant, third pregnancy, straightforward previous history, admitted late last night in early labour. She had an epidural at five a.m.—so that’s three hours ago, she’s had two top-ups, but progress has slowed right down even though she’s virtually fully dilated, and there’s a dipping foetal heart rate—nothing much, but I’m just…’

She ground to a halt with a little shrug and bit her lip, and he dragged his eyes off it and made himself concentrate.

‘Is the head high?’ he asked.

‘A little. It’s probably nothing, just the mother’s position…’

But she looked troubled, and he knew better than to ignore a troubled midwife. He gave a terse nod. ‘Give me ten seconds, I have to make a note of something and I’ll be with you.’

Isabelle went back to her patient, and moments later he joined her, squirting gel onto his hands and rubbing it in as he smiled at their patient and tried to focus on her.

‘Hi, Mrs Marchant, I’m Luca. May I call you Julie? Tell me, how are you feeling?’ he asked, but as she talked and he probed gently with his questions, he was checking the CTG, watching their patient carefully, his eyes flicking to Isabelle’s from time to time for confirmation of Julie’s words.

And then, as much to hear her voice as for the information she’d give him, he said, ‘Isabelle, could you run over the notes with me?’

Isabelle, she thought with a stupid tinge of regret, not Isabella, with that wonderful, slow roll of her name over his tongue, tasting every syllable. Damn. And she needed to concentrate.

So she filled him in again, showed him the charts and pointed out her concerns without alarming the patient, although there was nothing much to alarm her, anyway—nothing very untoward, nothing drastic, really, at all, and as she was telling him about it she thought, Oh, lord, he thinks I’m overreacting, because the baby’s heart rate was only dropping a tiny bit—but…

‘She’s contracting,’ she said, forgetting the charts for a moment, and he looked back at their patient with a smile that should have melted her bones, murmured, ‘May I?’ and laid his hands over her abdomen, the fingers of one splayed over the baby’s head to feel for its descent, watching the monitor as the contraction progressed. This time, she was both pleased and concerned to see that the dip in heart rate was more noticeable. So she hadn’t imagined it—and it was a worry.

He made a small, thoughtful sound and his eyes flicked to Isabelle’s. ‘She’s fully dilated?’

‘Yes, except for an anterior lip,’ she told him, hoping that he was going to believe her and not give Julie an unnecessary internal examination, ‘and she’s been in established labour for four hours.’ So the head should be lower, and coming down with every contraction, not staying stubbornly high as if something—the cord?—was preventing its descent.

‘Hmm,’ he said again, then looked back at Julie. ‘I think your baby might be a bit of an acrobat,’ he said with another of those smiles. ‘The cord could be a bit tangled, and if that’s the case, we need to untangle it for him. Unfortunately this means a C-section, but it’s nothing to worry about and you have an epidural already, so you’re all set. We’ll take you up now, there’s a theatre free. Is there anyone here with you?’

‘No, my husband’s taking the children to school and getting some food in. I was taking so long—oh, damn! Can we wait for him?’

He shook his head, busily disconnecting her from the machines and kicking the brakes off the bed. ‘No, your baby’s not comfy so I’m not happy to wait, but we’ll look after you, you don’t need to be afraid. Isabelle will stay with you. I’ll get someone to contact your husband—do we have a mobile number for him?’

‘Um—I think so.’

‘OK. Don’t worry, we’ll deal with it. Isabelle, could you come to Theatre with Mrs Marchant?’

‘Sure. I’ll just hand over my other patients to Sarah—’

‘She’ll understand. Come on, let’s go—we can’t miss the theatre slot!’ he said with a grin at their patient, but Isabelle picked up the hidden meaning and pulled the bed out from the wall, relieved not only for Julie but for herself that he’d taken her concern so seriously.

Sarah must have seen them go, because they were ready and waiting in Theatre, and Julie was on the table and draped in moments.

‘OK, time to meet your baby,’ he said the second he was scrubbed, and Isabelle ran in after him, her gown still trailing, and watched him do the fastest section she’d ever seen.

‘Good call,’ he murmured to Isabelle, clamping and cutting the cord which was wrapped several times round the baby’s neck, and with a smile for the mother, he eased the tiny girl out and handed her instantly to the waiting neonatal team while Isabelle wondered what it was about him that his praise could mean quite so much to her. But then she stopped thinking about that, because the baby was silent, and in the normally noisy theatre they could have heard a pin drop.

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