The Valtieri Marriage Deal

by Caroline Anderson

  She yanked her thoughts back in line. ‘But, anyway, that’s all beside the point, Luca. I had reasons for not wanting to see you again, that’s why I didn’t give you my number.’

  ‘What reasons? Is there another man in your life? This guy that hurt you? Or is it all in the past?’

  ‘Is it any of your business?’ she asked a little desperately, and he shrugged.

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe. If it affects the way you relate to me—and certainly if there’s someone else. I don’t poach from another man’s territory, and I don’t do infidelity, mine or anyone else’s. Ever—at least, not knowingly, so if there is someone…’

  ‘There isn’t. Well, at least, not for me. I told you, I don’t—’

  ‘—do relationships. I know. I don’t either, not recently. But you—you got under my skin, Isabelle. I’ve had affairs, but they don’t last. They leave me cold—well, not cold, but certainly not hot,’ he added, his voice dropping sensually, his accent more pronounced, ‘not so hot I thought my clothes would catch fire, so hot I thought I’d die if I didn’t have you right then, right there on the walkway above the Duomo in front of the entire city. Not so hot I could hardly get you through the bedroom door before I tore your clothes off so I could feel your skin against mine.’

  ‘Stop! Stop it!’ she begged, her hands shaking so much she slopped her tea over her legs. ‘It was just craziness.’

  ‘Si, I know. But I’ve never felt like that before. It was the first time in my life I’d lost control, and the first time in my life I felt really, truly alive. And I realised that, after feeling like that, despite whatever might or might not happen with us in the future, I could never settle for less. That’s why I wanted to find you—to know if it was real, because it felt real, cara. It felt more real than anything ever has before, and I wasn’t ready to let it go.’

  She didn’t know what to say, so she said nothing for a while, just stared into her tea while he ate toast and sipped his tea and his words went round and round in her head.

  ‘Isabella?’

  She looked up at him, shocked by his honesty and the strength of his reaction. And her own. ‘Luca, I don’t know what you want me to say.’

  ‘I don’t want you to say anything particularly. I want you to keep an open mind. I have no idea if this could last, but I want to find out. I want to get to know you, give you a chance to get to know me. Give us a chance.’

  ‘You want to have an affair?’

  He gave a soft grunt. ‘Perhaps? Maybe not, not yet. But I feel as if I’ve lost my mind, having a crazy, white-hot fling with a beautiful Englishwoman who’s bewitched me and turned my brain to mush. That why I tried to find you, and why I decided to come stay in London for a while longer.’

  She frowned and ignored the crazy white-hot nonsense because she didn’t dare think about it, and focussed instead on the one fact she hadn’t registered. ‘Longer? What do you mean, stay longer?’

  ‘I’ve worked here off and on for years. I was doing some research here from October, then I went home for Christmas and someone told me about the job in Florence. I’d nearly finished my research, I was ready for the next step in my career, and I went for an interview. They offered me the job, I walked out of the hospital—and then I met you.’

  ‘So—what happened with the job? Didn’t they mind delaying your start?’ she asked, irrationally disappointed at the thought that he’d be going back to Italy soon, but he shook his head.

  ‘It’s irrelevant. I turned it down. I wanted to find you.’

  ‘But—why, Luca?’ she asked, stunned. ‘Why throw away your job in Florence for someone you didn’t even know? It was only one night. How could you have let it change your whole life?’

  He laughed softly. ‘Because it did. Because I can’t get you out of my head, cara. You’ve bewitched me. I had to find you, but I couldn’t bring myself to have you hunted down by an investigator—or maybe it was that I was too proud to admit that you’d walked away from me, so I left it to the gods. I thought maybe if I hung around long enough, I might run into you. Which I did.’

  By accident, if she could believe that. She still wasn’t sure she could. Whatever, he was now working alongside her—potentially for months, she realised—with nothing to stop them from exploring this relationship. Except her fear and lack of trust—and she still wasn’t really sure she could believe his story about how he’d found her. It all sounded too innocent to be plausible.

  ‘So—having found me, what do you think happens next?’ she asked, her heart pounding with a mixture of anticipation and dread, and he shrugged, his eyes curiously veiled.

  ‘We see where it goes.’

  Her heart stalled. ‘Where what goes?’

  His voice was soft and low, teasing her senses and sending a shiver through her. ‘Whatever it is, this feeling between us that won’t seem to go away.’

  Her heart started again, and she swallowed hard, refusing to allow herself to be tempted by the serpent, no matter how sweet and juicy the apple.

  ‘Why, Luca?’ she asked with a touch of desperation. ‘Why me?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said softly. ‘Why me? I have no idea why it happened, but it did—and we both felt it that night. I wasn’t alone, Isabella. You felt it, too, and I won’t let you deny it.’

  She couldn’t, but she didn’t want to think about that night. She sucked in a breath. ‘I acted out of character. I don’t do that—don’t have relationships and certainly not one-night stands.’

  ‘Perhaps because there’s never before been that much temptation,’ he suggested quietly, and she swallowed hard.

  ‘God, you’ve got some ego there, Luca.’

  ‘It’s not ego. It’s the truth. We couldn’t help ourselves, cara. Either of us. It was meant to be.’

  Was it? She didn’t want to think so, but at the time, every look, every touch had been enough to make her forget her own name.

  ‘That still doesn’t mean we’ve got a future,’ she said, and his mouth twisted into a wry, humourless smile.

  ‘Maybe not. But it wasn’t only me. I knew it was crazy, but I couldn’t let you go without knowing how it would be between us.’

  ‘You didn’t have to come and find me, though. I told you I didn’t want a relationship. It was just one night.’

  ‘No. It was more than that, Isabella, and you know it.’

  Oh, God. Isabella.

  ‘No. We agreed. That was all it was meant to be. I didn’t want to see you again,’ she lied, ‘didn’t want a relationship, and I still don’t.

  ‘I told you at the time, I don’t do relationships.’

  ‘So how come you’re on the Pill?’

  She coloured softly. ‘To regulate my cycle,’ she told him frankly, holding his eyes even though she clearly wanted to look away. ‘Nothing more.’

  ‘Why not? You’re a beautiful woman, Isabella. You should be living your life, not just going through the motions.’

  ‘I am living. I don’t need a man in my life to do that. We don’t all have to indulge in indiscriminate sex to validate us as human beings!’

  ‘There was nothing indiscriminate about that night. It was incredible—every moment of it. It was wonderful.’ His voice sounded rough to his ears, and he swallowed. ‘You were wonderful—and you deserve to be with a man who can appreciate you.’

  ‘Not if I don’t want it.’

  He sighed softly. ‘But you did—and it moved you to tears. When was the last time you cried when you made love, Isabelle? When was the last time it made you weep?’

  Her eyes filled, and she looked away. ‘I was tired. It was just—’

  ‘That it reached something inside your heart that hasn’t been reached for years? If ever?’

  A tear slid down her cheek, and he reached across the table to her, cupping her chin in his hand and tilting her head back so he could see her tortured eyes. ‘Who was he, this man who hurt you, cara? What did he do to you that you’re so afraid to love
again?’

  He felt her flinch slightly, and she swallowed. She looked cornered, but she wasn’t telling him why. Not yet. Not now. But he would find out, in the end. She’d tell him when she was ready.

  His touch was so gentle, his thumb grazing slowly back and forth over her chin, his eyes concerned, and it made her want to cry. She didn’t do that. Couldn’t allow it.

  She stood up and went to the door and opened it. ‘I think it’s time you went home,’ she said unevenly, and waited while he put down his mug, got to his feet and brushed past her, turning on the step to stare down into her eyes.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said quietly. ‘I didn’t mean to upset you. Whoever he was, he’s hurt you badly, but don’t judge us the same. Give me a chance, Isabelle. Let me prove myself to you.’

  ‘Luca, I can’t. I wish you hadn’t found me.’

  ‘I know. I’m sorry it upset you, but I’m not sorry I found you again, and I’ll never be sorry that I met you, that we shared that time together, and I know you feel it too.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Don’t lie to me, cara,’ he murmured gently. ‘And especially don’t lie to yourself. You deserve better than that.’

  And because he couldn’t help it, because she was just inches from him, her chest rising and falling and her eyes wide with a nameless emotion that made his chest ache to comfort her, he leaned in and kissed her.

  For a moment she softened, but then she dragged her mouth away and pressed her hands against his chest, right over the ache.

  ‘Luca, please, just go!’ she pleaded, and with a sad smile, he stepped back and moved away from her.

  ‘Buonanotte, Isabelle. Sleep well. I’ll see you tomorrow.’

  And turning on his heel, he strode down her path, closed the gate gently behind him and got into his car.

  Her lips still tingling from his kiss, she shut the door, leant back against it and listened to the sound of him driving away into the cold, wet night, and then she closed her eyes, wrapped her arms around her waist and cried, because she still wanted him just as much as she ever had but she was too afraid to dare to love him, and no amount of reasoning was going to change that.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  SHE WAS DREADING seeing Luca the next day, but she needn’t have worried because by the time she arrived he was already in Theatre with an emergency C-section, and so after handover she went to meet the patient she was taking over.

  Jodie Kembroke was a woman who had been due to deliver at the other hospital and, like Isabelle, had been transferred. She’d met her two years before when she’d delivered her first baby, and the only reason she was in the consultant unit here now was because this baby was breech.

  ‘It only turned last week and they say I have to have a section. I’m so cross,’ she confessed. ‘I really wanted to try and deliver naturally, but they won’t let me. Hospital policy or something. It’s dangerous. And now I’ve gone into labour early, so Rob’s trying to find a babysitter, and I want him here.’

  And with a sinking heart she realised that she was going to have to involve Luca in this one, regardless of her urge to avoid him.

  ‘Well, it’s certainly safer for the baby to deliver it with a section,’ Isabelle told her honestly, ‘because coming this way the head doesn’t get a chance to mould to your pelvis, but you’ve only just had a few twinges and you’re not dilating fast, so we’ll watch you for a while and get Mr Valtieri to come and see you as soon as he’s out of Theatre. He shouldn’t be many minutes. You can discuss it with him. It’s his call really.’

  And with any luck, she thought, trying to ignore the little flutter in the region of her heart, he’d let her deliver the baby vaginally. She’d never seen a breech delivery, and everyone these days was so risk-averse they didn’t dare to let the mothers try.

  But Luca didn’t strike her as someone frightened of anything, and most particularly not authority. And hadn’t one of those papers she’d seen from him on the internet been about breech births?

  She wished now she’d paid it more attention, but she’d been so busy missing him she hadn’t really read it. There was a glimmer of a memory, though, and she had a feeling he was pro rather than con. Well, they’d soon find out, she told herself, and felt another little flutter around her heart.

  So stupid. So, so stupid, after their conversation last night. He’d come too close, seen too much, and there was no way she was going to let him any closer, but on the professional side, if he’d let Jodie deliver naturally, she’d be ecstatic.

  Assuming the hospital authorities would allow it, of course.

  She left a message for him at the central workstation to contact her as soon as he was out of Theatre and then collected a jug of ice chips for Jodie because she was on nil by mouth pending her C-section, but by the time she went back into the room things had moved on. A lot.

  ‘I can feel his bottom,’ Jodie said, and the fact that she said ‘his’ made Isabelle fairly sure she knew what she was talking about. A quick glance confirmed it. And that meant it would almost certainly be too late for a C-section by the time they’d moved her to Theatre, so she was going to have her baby there on the ward, with only Isabelle to look after her, because everyone else was running flat out.

  And Isabelle had never done this before.

  She hit the button, opened the door and was about to call for help when Luca turned the corner.

  ‘What’s up?’ he asked, following her back in and assessing the situation instantly. She filled him in fast as he turned off the call button, reached for the hand gel, then the gloves, his quiet calm filling her with confidence. ‘OK, I’m Luca, Jodie, I’m going to have a quick look at you—what’s the history, Isabelle?’

  ‘Second baby, scheduled for elective C-section—I delivered the first two years ago with no problems, but things have just speeded up in the last few minutes,’ Isabelle told him, wondering now about the old saying of not wishing for something lest you get it.

  Well, it looked like she was getting her breech delivery, right now, and she just hoped Luca wasn’t cross that she hadn’t called for him sooner, but he was showing no signs of it, just smoothly, quietly taking over.

  ‘OK, I don’t want to move you to Theatre, Jodie,’ he said calmly. ‘I don’t think it’s necessary and you’re doing this beautifully, so we’ll just carry on here. Now, I want the baby’s back facing the ceiling, so I’d like to get you onto all fours, if you can, so his back is upwards and his bottom will hang down and curl his spine nicely as he comes out, which means his head is in the best possible position for delivery. And we’ll just let nature take care of it for us—OK?’

  ‘OK,’ Jodie panted, and with their help she turned over onto her hands and knees. ‘Oh, my God, it’s coming!’ she screamed, and Luca placed a firm, gentle hand on her back and rubbed it slowly, his palm moving in rhythmic, soothing circles over her sacrum, relaxing her pelvis. Just as Isabelle would have done.

  ‘It’s all right, just let go and breathe with it. Let the baby’s weight do the work. You’re doing really well. Good girl. We don’t touch anything,’ he added softly to Isabelle, ‘we just watch and catch. He’s a good colour, so I’m not worried at all at the moment.’

  And just like that, under his own weight and with Jodie pushing valiantly on command, little baby Kembroke was born, yelling his head off, just as his father was ushered into the room.

  ‘Oh, Jodie,’ he said softly, and tears coursed down his cheeks. ‘You did it! Oh, you clever girl!’

  ‘Let me hold him,’ she said, rolling onto her back and reaching for her baby, safe in Luca’s big, gentle hands.

  ‘He’s beautiful. You did really well.’

  ‘And I didn’t need a stupid section,’ she murmured, lifting her son to her breast, and Isabelle met Luca’s eyes and surprised a wistful, yearning look that she’d never expected to see there.

  ‘Gets me every time,’ he said under his breath to her, his grin a little off kilter, and she gave a r
agged little laugh.

  ‘Me, too,’ she confessed. ‘That’s why I do it.’

  ‘Me too.’ He smiled at the couple and stripped off his gloves. ‘I can leave you to finish, can I?’ he said, watching her inject the Syntocinon, and she nodded, but in truth she would have liked him there a little longer.

  ‘Can we talk through it later? Over coffee?’

  ‘Sure, come and find me when you’re done here,’ he said, and left her to it.

  ‘I’ve never seen a breech delivery before—it was amazing,’ Isabelle told him, her eyes shining, and he was stunned.

  ‘I think that’s shocking. You should know how to, at least. It isn’t necessary all the time to do a section—it’s just being over-cautious, and then when you have to go with it because of an emergency or a precipitate labour or because the lift gets stuck, nobody knows what to do.’

  ‘I knew the theory, but—’

  ‘—it’s not the same as the hands-on,’ he said with a smile, getting into his stride because breech delivery was a bit of a hobby-horse for him. ‘We’re too quick to intervene, and sometimes we need to go back to basics. Look at the treatment for club foot. From the 1950s we’ve been using casting and stretching in combination to correct the deformity slowly, with good results, then they discovered surgery and the outcome isn’t nearly as good in the long run. And now—eureka!—we’re going back to casting and it’s all got much more sensible again.’

  ‘But breeches are different. If you get it wrong with club foot, nobody dies.’

  ‘Nobody dies with breech if you’re on the ball and don’t take stupid risks. Everybody wants to fiddle with it, and sometimes if it’s a bit slow you need to hook the legs and arms down gently, but usually it happens by itself, and it’s just wonderful to watch.’

  ‘Do you ever need forceps?’

  He shrugged. ‘Some people use them. I hate them, but there are times when there’s no choice. Late babies are more of a problem because of the size of the head, but Jodie’s baby was a little early, not too big and it went fine. And her recovery will be much faster.’