‘So do you ever do a C-section for breech?’
‘Oh, yes, of course I do. There are some breech presentations you just can’t deliver, and I’d rather do that than end up using forceps, but I don’t have a blanket ban on vaginal breech deliveries, because I think it’s ridiculous.’
‘It’s hospital policy here.’
He grinned. ‘I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that,’ he murmured, and she felt her heart flip over.
He bent his head forwards, fiddling with his coffee, chasing a bubble round on the surface. Then he looked up and his eyes met hers. ‘Have dinner with me tonight after work.’
She shook her head, so tempted it was ludicrous but too vulnerable to dare to allow it. ‘No, Luca. Please. Don’t start this again.’
‘Lunch in the canteen?’
She gave a rueful laugh. ‘I won’t get a lunch break. It’s a miracle I’ve got a coffee-break.’
‘You work too hard.’
‘No. I work three days a week—and it suits me. And now I have to go back. Thanks for talking it through. It was really interesting. I’m glad you didn’t rush her to Theatre.’
‘Why? No point. And it’s a pleasure. Think about lunch.’
‘I can’t.’
‘Rubbish. I’ll come and find you.’
She was right, of course. There was no time for a lunch break, so she was glad Luca had fed her a pastry with her coffee. She stole time for a cup of tea and a bar of chocolate in the ward kitchen at five, but apart from that she’d had nothing all day.
That didn’t mean she hadn’t seen Luca. Far from it. He’d been haunting the ward, and now Sarah had a patient who had been in established labour for ages and was getting nowhere fast, and she was assisting her.
‘I’m going to have to call Luca,’ she said eventually, and Isabelle nodded.
‘I agree. Want me to page him?’
‘Could you?’
‘Sure.’
She went out to the workstation and dialled his number, and he walked out of Richard’s office and cocked an eyebrow at her. ‘Are you calling me?’
‘Yes—Sarah’s got a problem that needs you. She’s in three. I’ll be back in a second, I’ve got to get something. I won’t be long.’
He nodded and went into the delivery room and found the other midwife there with a woman and her husband. ‘Right—we have a problem?’ he murmured, and Sarah nodded.
‘Yes—she’s just exhausted. I’m sorry to call you but we’ve tried everything and the baby’s beginning to struggle.’
He nodded. ‘OK. Let’s see if we can’t give her a hand.’
Isabelle walked in just in time to see the slickest Ventouse delivery she’d ever seen, and in seven years she’d seen a few. And Sarah, of course, was all over him. Well, she was welcome, she told herself, and tried not to feel jealous when he smiled at her friend.
It was nothing personal. He smiled like that at everyone, but it had the same effect on them all. Us all, she thought, wishing she was unmoved by it, but she wasn’t, not even slightly.
Then he lifted his head and smiled at her, and her heart skidded into hyperdrive. He was checking the baby, chatting to the mother and father, and he excused himself, stripped off his gloves and came over to her.
‘I love the Ventouse. It’s my party trick,’ he said with a grin. ‘Like pulling a rabbit from a hat.’
‘The Great Valtieri? Maybe you should get your own magic show—not that you’re blowing your own trumpet or anything…’
‘Of course not,’ he said, managing to look mischievous and affronted all at once, and so sexy that her tongue dried instantly and stuck to the roof of her mouth. She swallowed hard to free it and wiped her hands down the sides of her scrubs.
‘Right, I need to get on,’ she said to break the silence, and then Sarah came over to them.
‘Um—we usually leave the proud parents alone and have a cup of tea at this point,’ she said. ‘Want to join us?’
‘Thank you,’ he murmured, and his grin turned to a smile that brought colour to Sarah’s cheeks and made Isabelle’s heart flutter. ‘I could murder a cup of tea—and any chance of some toast?’
‘I’m sure there will be, we can’t have our resident magician fading away,’ Isabelle said briskly. ‘I’ll just finish off in here and make sure everything’s OK. You two go ahead, I’ll join you in a minute,’ she said, and, turning on her heel, she went to check on the mother and baby, and all the time that smile of Luca’s was still echoing through the far reaches of Isabelle’s body and making her heart pitter-patter.
So stupid. So many if onlys. She wished for the millionth time that she could dare to trust him, but his charm came so easily to him she wasn’t sure she could. And there was still the problem of her own reluctance to commit…
‘That man is incredible!’
Tell me about it, she thought, and rolled her eyes. ‘If you say so. Where is he?’
‘Oh, he had something to do, he’ll be here in a minute. But he is just—that was so slick. You know, that baby’s head was just tipped back the tiniest bit, and she was so tired she just couldn’t get it to shift—and as you know, we’d tried everything, Izzie. Then he just strolled in, grinned at her, attached the cup and pop! Out it came. He hardly even lifted it. He made it look so damned easy!’
She picked up a slice of toast that Sarah had just buttered and bit into it. ‘It’s all in the wrist action,’ she mumbled round the toast. ‘I expect it’s from twirling all that spaghetti,’
Sarah chuckled. ‘And he’s so gentle with them. I’ve never seen a doctor treat a woman more carefully, with so much—I don’t know, respect, I suppose. Almost reverence.’
And then she looked at Isabelle, and her eyes widened in distress. ‘Oh, God, I can’t believe I’m being so tactless. I’d completely forgotten—’
‘Sarah, it’s fine,’ Isabelle lied, trying not to think about those reverent hands and how they’d touched her with tenderness and respect as well as passion. ‘I met him, we spent the day together—it was nothing.’ Except it hadn’t just been the day, it had been the night, too, and that was so much harder to forget. ‘Really,’ she repeated, forcing her voice to sound casual, ‘it was nothing—nothing out of the ordinary at all.’
And then she looked up and saw Luca standing there in the doorway. His face was like stone, and without a word he turned on his heel and walked away, and for some inexplicable reason she wanted to cry.
Nothing out of the ordinary.
Dio! He wanted to put his fist through the wall, slam doors, hurl something good and heavy through the nearest sheet of glass.
Instead he went into the office, shut the door with exaggerated care and threw himself down in the chair.
Nothing out of the ordinary.
He closed his eyes and made himself breathe slowly and deeply. She didn’t mean it, of course. She was just being defensive, because of whatever it was in her past that she wouldn’t give him access to. And she was angry with him for finding her. But she wasn’t indifferent. He knew that, knew it in his bones, and slowly the anger dissipated.
She was just saying those things to Sarah. She didn’t mean it, didn’t believe it. It had been out of the ordinary—so out of the ordinary that it had made him throw away all his plans for the future and fly back to London on a wild goose chase to find her.
Nothing out of the ordinary?
No. Isabelle was trying to ignore her reaction to him, but she was very, very far from indifferent—and that gave him hope. Oh, it wouldn’t be easy, he was under no illusions about that. But he’d get there. Especially if he could ever get her to tell him her story.
And now he had that out of the way, he was suddenly starving. Maybe there was some toast left in the kitchen…
‘Right, time to go home.’
She sighed and glared at him. ‘Are we going to have this fiasco every single night?’ she asked crossly, but he just gave her that lazy smile and shrugged.
‘
I don’t know. Are we? I hope not. You’ve had a long, busy day and you’re late, which I suspect is not unusual. And I know you haven’t eaten anything remotely like a vegetable all day, so I’ve made you supper, and then afterwards I’ll run you home.’
‘You’ve—I said no!’ she protested, but he wasn’t listening, just tucked his hand into her elbow and steered her to the lift.
‘No arguments. You’re no use to anyone hungry and exhausted, and besides, I’ve gone to a lot of effort.’
‘Well, I could have saved you all of that. All you had to do was listen to me a little harder.’
He grinned. ‘I have problems with my hearing sometimes.’
‘Evidently. You need to learn to lip-read. I—said—no!’ she mouthed, but he just laughed and shut his eyes, and she found herself smiling.
Not that it mattered, because his eyes were shut—or so she thought. But then she caught the gleam of an eye through his lashes, and realised he was laughing at her.
‘Crazy woman,’ he murmured, his hand tightening on her arm in an affectionate squeeze. ‘Come on, it’ll be overcooked.’
‘What is it?’
‘Pasta with chicken and roasted Mediterranean vegetables in tomato sauce.’
‘Bottled?’
He looked shocked. ‘Shh! Not so loud. My mother would be appalled. And you need to know I’m frightened of my mother.’
That made her laugh. The very idea of Luca being frightened of anyone, not least his mother, was ludicrous. And she was absolutely starving.
‘Where’s your car?’ she asked, looking round as they emerged through the door.
‘At my house. It’s just round the corner. It’s quicker to walk.’
‘Oh! You live really close,’ she said as he stopped just two streets away and opened a garden gate in front of a tall modern townhouse.
‘Yes—it’s handy. I hate commuting, so I bought it.’
She stared at him blankly. ‘For a few weeks?’
He gave a short laugh and explained. ‘No. I bought it four years ago, when I worked here, and I’ve used it as a base ever since. Come on in.’
And, opening the door, he ushered her inside.
Isabelle looked around, taking in the soft earth tones and the sense of light and space, conscious of a sense of order and quietness that pervaded the house. ‘It’s very tranquil.’
‘It is. I love it. It’s my favourite place. Well, except my family home in Tuscany. That’ll always be top of the list, but this is mine, and that makes it special. Can I get you a drink? Coffee? Tea? Wine?’
‘Have you got any juice?’
‘Sure. Apple and mango?’
‘Lovely.’
She followed him through to the kitchen and sniffed appreciatively. ‘Oh, it smells really good.’
‘Of course. Did you really think I’d be allowed out into the world without knowing how to fend for myself? Even if it is out of a bottle,’ he added in a stage whisper.
She tried not to smile, but not well enough because he winked at her, took a bowl of salad from the fridge and pulled a dish from the oven, bubbling with cheese and tomato sauce and smelling utterly fabulous.
Her stomach rumbled, and he pointed to the breakfast bar, a thick, sleek glass shelf on shiny chrome supports with tall chrome and leather stools tucked in underneath. ‘I thought we could be uncouth and eat in here,’ he said, and she looked around at the kitchen, with its sleek granite worktops and high-gloss cupboards, thought of her house and how utterly uncouth it was in comparison to this undoubtedly extremely expensive kitchen, and her heart sank.
She’d not given a moment’s thought to his financial status, but one serious look at this kitchen brought it all home to her with a vengeance.
He was so completely out of her league, so overwhelmingly different, and there was no way he would ever be interested in her except as a passing fancy. The only reason he was interested in her at all was because she was playing hard to get. Treat ’em mean, keep ’em keen—wasn’t that the saying? Except she wasn’t trying to be mean, and she didn’t want him to be keen, she wanted him to leave her alone, because he was going to break her heart all over again and this time, she knew, it would be so very much worse.
‘What’s wrong?’
‘Nothing. I’m just really hungry,’ she said, and turned her attention to the food. It wasn’t that hard. She was ravenous, she discovered after the first mouthful, and his cooking, bottled sauce or not, was sheer genius. So she ate, and he talked about breech presentations and cases he’d seen and the research he was doing, and gradually she forgot about his money and remembered only that he was a brilliant doctor, kind and gentle and yet persuasive when he needed to be, and brave enough to take a risk if he felt it was justified.
There were all too few like him, she mused. Far too few. But that didn’t mean she was going to let him lure her into a relationship, and she realised she was getting dangerously close to that. Sitting in his kitchen eating food he’d cooked for her while she finished her shift was all too cosy, and she had to be mad to do it.
She pushed her plate away, nothing left on it but a touch of the rich tomato sauce, and smiled at him. ‘That was really lovely. Thank you. And now I hate to be rude but I ought to be getting home.’
‘No dessert?’
‘Did you make one?’
He chuckled. ‘No. But I have gelato—proper Italian ice cream, made by my cousin’s family, that will make your toes curl.’
‘What flavour?’ she asked, hating herself for weakening, and as if he knew that, he leant closer and murmured in her ear.
‘Ripe, juicy strawberry with fresh cream, or deep, dark chocolate—irresistible…’
Oh, lord. It was only ice cream!
‘Chocolate,’ she said, but then hesitated.
‘You can have both,’ he said, luring her with a double whammy, and she weakened.
‘A little of each—not too much. And then I really must go.’
It was, as he’d promised, enough to make her toes curl. And she had a sudden picture of him feeding it to her in bed, a sensual image that made her want to whimper. She pushed the bowl away before she actually licked it, and braced her hands on the edge of the glass shelf.
‘Luca, I have to go now.’
‘Of course. Leave this lot, I’ll sort it later. Come on.’
And he ushered her out of the door to his car and drove her home through the hubbub of London at night, until at last they turned into her quiet little street and he pulled up outside her house and cut the engine.
‘I think you owe me coffee,’ he said, a teasing smile playing round his mouth, and she thought, Damn him, he’s going to be charming and he’s hard enough to resist under normal circumstances!
‘I gave you coffee last night.’
‘So you did. It must be a tradition, then, and you can’t mess with tradition.’
He was irrepressible, but she wasn’t falling for it.
‘I need my sleep. I didn’t get enough last night.’
She saw the brow twitch, and tried to glare at him but he wasn’t impressed. Instead he just grinned, and she ignored him and opened the car door.
He was there almost before she’d got out of the car, shutting the door behind her and escorting her down her little path. ‘Just seeing you safely home,’ he murmured as she turned to protest, and she caught the scent of his cologne overlying the raw, male essence that was so much more intoxicating.
‘I’m safe. You can go now. Thank you for my supper.’
‘You’re welcome. When will I see you again?’
Her heart hiccuped, and she reminded herself that he wasn’t asking her for a date and she wasn’t going even if he was asking. ‘I’m back in on Friday,’ she told him, but his nearness was getting to her and she swallowed, and his eyes flicked to her mouth.
‘I want to kiss you,’ he murmured, and she shook her head.
‘No.’
‘You didn’t say no in Florence.’
‘Perhaps I should have done, then we wouldn’t be in this crazy position now.’
‘You think? I don’t agree. We were destined to happen, cara.’
She shook her head. ‘No. It was just sex, Luca,’ she said, her heart pounding because of his nearness, because of the scent of his body drifting over her in the cold night air. ‘That was all.’
Nothing out of the ordinary.
Her earlier words came back to taunt him, echoing in his head as they had been all day, and his mouth twisted in a fleeting smile. ‘I don’t think so,’ he murmured. ‘I don’t think there was anything just about it. I think it was exceptional.’
‘No.’
‘Yes,’ he said softly, and because he couldn’t resist it, because she looked delectable and there was a trace of chocolate ice cream in the corner of her mouth, he leant in towards her and let his lips brush over hers.
His hands were rammed in his trouser pockets, hers hung by her sides. There was nothing holding them together but the touch of their lips, and as he stroked his tongue against her mouth, her lips parted for him and he was lost.
He freed his hands, tunnelled them through her hair and cradled her head to steady her, and with a tiny whimper she fisted her hands in his shirt and hung on while his mouth plundered hers, the silky glide of her tongue against his driving him wild.
For a second—for one crazy, heat-filled second—he contemplated pushing her inside, kicking the door shut and carrying her upstairs to her bedroom. He could do it. She wouldn’t protest. But she would hate him tomorrow, and that wasn’t part of his plan, so instead he just kissed her until his control was stretched so thin he couldn’t trust himself another moment, and then he lifted his head and stared down into her feverish eyes, his chest heaving.
For a moment she said nothing, but then she stepped back, her hand coming up to cover her glistening, parted mouth, and he could see it was trembling.
‘Why did you do that?’ she whispered.
‘What? That goodnight kiss?’ He smiled a little tightly, his anger coming back now, fuelled by frustration. ‘It was just a kiss—nothing out of the ordinary. Isn’t that what you said to Sarah?’
The Valtieri Marriage Deal Page 7
