Dr. Romano's Christmas Baby

by Amy Andrews

  ‘Finished?’ Luca asked.

  Rilla’s gaze pulled away from his crotch guiltily, before she realised he was asking her if she was done with the toilet. Her heart slammed in her chest and she felt like her entire body was bounding to its beat. She nodded, not trusting herself to speak.

  ‘Come on, then,’ Luca said, helping her to her feet. ‘Go back to bed. I’ll bring you something to eat.’

  ‘Oh, no, Luca, I’m not sure I can eat anything,’ she protested as she leaned heavily against him.

  ‘Hey,’ Luca said looking down at her. ‘Tea and dry toast. Pregnant women swear by it.’

  Rilla saw the look of determination in his gaze and was mesmerised by the old Luca she saw there. The one she’d fallen in love with. Before he’d withdrawn. Before the distance. She nodded. It wouldn’t hurt to try, would it? And if it helped the morning sickness, she was willing to give anything a go.

  Rilla crawled into bed and shut her eyes, letting the glorious ecstasy of feeling normal swamp her. She was still a bit shaky but the nausea was gone.

  ‘Here you are,’ Luca announced ten minutes later.

  Rilla opened her eyes to find him bearing a tray. He’d put a shirt on, for which she was both pleased and perversely disappointed. He placed it on the bed and sat down beside it.

  She eyed the dry toast dubiously but took a nibble at Luca’s insistent nod. She took a sip of the sweet milky tea and was surprised to feel the fine trembling of her hands settle almost immediately.

  ‘You’re not going to work today,’ Luca said, eyeing her as he bit into a crumbly croissant.

  Rilla coveted the divine-smelling pastry but doubted whether her delicate system was up to it. ‘Of course I am,’ she said, taking another nibble of toast. ‘I feel better already.’

  ‘You don’t want to overdo it,’ Luca lectured.

  ‘Luca, I could very well be sick the entire pregnancy.’ Rilla paused, horrified at the prospect. ‘I can’t take every day off work because of it. Plenty of women have to manage morning sickness with their work responsibilities. And now the NUM position is mine, I have to lead by example.’

  Luca stopped chewing. ‘You got the job?’

  Rilla grinned at him and nodded. ‘Yesterday was a big-news day.’

  ‘Oh, that’s fantastic, Rilla,’ Luca enthused. He placed the croissant back on the plate and pulled her towards him for a quick congratulatory peck on each cheek. He knew how long she’d been after that job. After the miscarriage, after they’d drifted apart, it had become her sole focus. ‘Why didn’t you say something?’

  Rilla lost the thread of the conversation for a moment as her senses took leave, due to his European-style, completely asexual kiss. She blinked and picked up the thread again.

  ‘To be perfectly honest, I felt so rough and then with everything else that happened last night, it completely slipped my mind.’

  Luca grinned back. ‘Fair enough.’

  They munched at their breakfast for a few more moments. ‘Will being pregnant make a difference to getting the job?’ he asked.

  Rilla shrugged. She wouldn’t have thought so but, then, she hadn’t really had a chance to consider it. ‘They’ve offered it to me. They can’t un-offer it because I’m having a baby.’

  Luca nodded. He thought about how hard she’d been working the last month and felt a niggle of worry.

  ‘You will take it easy, wont you? The NUM job is going to be really stressful. I don’t want…I’d hate for…’ Luca struggled to find the right words without apportioning blame or placing guilt. They’d both done more than enough of that last time.

  He ran a hand through his hair. ‘I don’t think I could go through another miscarriage.’

  And she could? She looked into his worried gaze. ‘Working had nothing to do with last time, Luca,’ she said gently.

  Neither had her insistence that she was perfectly capable of filling the car with petrol or persuading a reluctant Luca to make love just hours before she’d started cramping. But in the aftermath they’d dissected every little thing they had done and not done, searching for a meaning to it all.

  And when they hadn’t been able to find one, their individual guilt had driven them apart and they’d sought solace in their work instead of each other. Maybe seven years down the track it would be possible to forgive themselves and start anew.

  Rilla placed her hand over his. ‘I think it’s time we both acknowledged it was something that happened that was beyond our control. That one in four pregnancies ends that way.’

  Luca looked down at her hand on his. Of course she was right. Medically, he couldn’t fault her. But a part of him, the Latin male part of him, would always feel he’d been tardy in his job to protect her. To protect his child.

  He’d sworn as a boy growing up with an absent father that he would always be there for his child. And yet, when it had mattered, he hadn’t been able to protect them. He had failed.

  ‘I know. I was wrong to pull away from you. It was hard…harder than I ever thought. I didn’t know what to do or say to you. Work was easier,’ he admitted.

  Rilla blinked, not expecting such frankness. Why hadn’t he been able to say this to her back then? When their love had still been salvageable. Seven years of silence had inflicted more damage on their relationship than frosty communication or outright war.

  ‘We both made mistakes, Luca,’ she sighed, releasing his hand. ‘We rushed into everything. Sex, living together, marriage. We didn’t spend time getting to know each other, building a foundation that could take such a big hit so early in the piece.’

  She picked up her toast and took a few nibbles. Luca watched her as she sipped at her tea. He picked his croissant up too and then put it down uneaten, wiping the flakes off his fingers.

  He cleared his throat nervously. He’d lain awake most of the night, going over and over the situation. He’d forged a plan. It was crazy and he had no idea if she’d go along with it, but if they worked at it, it could be better than it ever had been.

  ‘I was thinking last night…about the future…about the baby…about us.’

  Rilla glanced at him warily through her fringe. Her heart did a silly flutter at his mention of ‘us’ but she paid it no heed. ‘Oh, yes?’ she said carefully.

  Luca nodded and took a deep breath before he plunged on. ‘I think we should reconcile. Rip up the divorce papers.’

  ‘I…I beg your pardon?’ she spluttered. She must have misheard. Reconcile? This was completely out of left field.

  Luca nodded, fully prepared to take advantage of her obvious shocked state to press his case. ‘Think about it. It makes sense, Rilla. You’re pregnant and we’re still married.’

  ‘Officially, yes,’ she said. ‘But in every other way, no.’

  ‘I’m not talking about going back to the way it was before. I’m talking about a platonic arrangement. Where we get to both be parents to our child without all the other stuff that made us so crazy before.’

  Rilla gaped some more. Had he lost his mind? ‘Luca…this is madness.’

  ‘No.’ Luca rose and prowled around the room. ‘This is probably the most sensible thing we’ve ever done. Last time it was all about us. Rushing in and loving and wanting and needing and not having room for anyone or anything else. This way we start on the right foot. A focus on something else other than us. On the baby.’

  ‘But aren’t we just rushing into this?’ Rilla felt completely poleaxed.

  ‘No,’ he denied. ‘We’re just taking the first step toward the best future for our baby. It seems hasty because it’s a big step, but once we’ve made it we’ll have months to slow down and work out the details.’

  ‘We don’t need to reconcile to do that, Luca. We just need to commit ourselves to making the baby our priority.’

  ‘No!’ Luca said, immediately rejecting her suggestion. ‘I grew up with a father who was rarely around. I will not be a distant relation in my child’s life.’

  Rilla hea
rd the zeal in his voice and wanted to reach out and touch him as the shadows of his childhood haunted his gaze. She knew so little about his formative years.

  ‘I want to be part of my baby’s life right from the start. See it grow inside you, every day. See every change in your body, feel every kick, be there when you go into labour. And I want to live with him or her, not down the road or around the corner. Be in its life every day. I imagine you do as well.’

  ‘Of course,’ she agreed quickly.

  ‘Good, then this is the perfect situation for both of us. This way we get to give the baby a stable home. Two parents, living together under the same roof, that love him or her unconditionally.’

  ‘Even if they don’t love each other?’

  How could she do as he was suggesting? Live under the same roof as Luca? Playing happy families when the reality would be very different? How could she live a lie?

  Luca stopped pacing. ‘Love? After us, I swore to myself I’d never leave my heart open for that kind of hurt again, and I meant it. It’d be especially foolish to repeat past mistakes.’

  Rilla tried not to flinch but his words did make sense. What they’d had was over. Dead. She wouldn’t describe either of them as gluttons for punishment.

  ‘This is about our baby, Rilla. Just the baby.’

  ‘You could commit to a loveless union? A marriage that’s in name only? A farce?’

  She made it sound so cold. So calculated. Yet it had all sounded perfectly reasonable in his head last night. Sure, he’d expected her to resist, but not over the issue of love. He wasn’t sure what that meant.

  ‘Of course. For my child, of course. Why? Are you telling me you still have feelings for me?’

  Feelings for him? Not unless he counted the growing urge to slap his face. ‘I’d be especially foolish to do that again,’ she said mimicking him.

  Touché. ‘Look, Rilla,’ he said, sitting on the bed and picking up her hands. They felt cold and he rubbed them absently. ‘The whole love thing didn’t work so well for us first time around. Maybe this is a much better way to run a marriage.’

  Rilla looked into his earnest eyes. Maybe he was right. ‘I don’t know, Luca.’

  He could see she was wavering and he scrambled his thoughts together to close the deal. Something inside him told him they could make it work. Nagged at him to make it happen.

  ‘I do. I know we can make a success of this. We can redefine what a marriage is, Rilla. We’ve got months before the baby is born. Let’s take the time to get to know each other.’

  Rilla almost blushed, thinking about how well he knew her. She pulled her hands from his. ‘I think you know me, pretty well, Luca.’

  She was right. Last time there probably hadn’t been one thing he hadn’t known about her body. He’d known intimately the weight of her breasts in his palms, how vocal she was when an orgasm took hold of her body and exactly what to do to make her moan, to make her gasp and to make her beg.

  But that wasn’t what he’d meant. ‘No. Let’s not do what we did last time. Depend on a physical relationship to get us through. Let’s spend the next eight months talking. Just talking.’

  Rilla liked the sound of it. It would be good really getting to know the man she’d married in such a rush seven years ago. What made him tick. What made him the man he was today. What had happened in his childhood to make him so adamant that he wanted to be part of his child’s life that he’d float reconciliation in an all-but-dead marriage.

  ‘We might even become friends,’ Luca continued. ‘Like in the old days. When we first met. Do you remember that?’

  How could she not, especially with him sitting this close, his muscular thigh brushing her leg? The banter. The flirting. The tingle of anticipation. Surely he hadn’t forgotten they’d moved from friends to lovers pretty quickly? ‘You used to laugh, Luca,’ she said softly. ‘You used to laugh a lot.’

  Luca took in her beautiful face, the urge to kiss the beauty spot at the corner of her mouth almost overwhelming. He lifted his hand and brushed his thumb over it instead. ‘Hasn’t been a whole lot to laugh about the last seven years.’

  Rilla’s head spun. His proximity made it hard to think straight at all. She closed her eyes as the gentle brush of his finger tingled through her entire body. She could feel her nipples tighten.

  She opened her eyes slowly and stared at his perfect mouth and white teeth. ‘What about sex?’

  Luca’s thumb stopped its impulsive caress and he dropped his hand back into his lap. He could see the tight points of her nipples outlined in his T-shirt and was pleased he’d donned a shirt to cover the ruckus that was currently going on in his boxers.

  He swallowed. ‘What about it?’

  ‘Well, would there be…? Would you…? Would there be…conjugal privileges?’

  Luca grinned at the frown that appeared between her eyes as she’d sought the right phrase. ‘I think we need to keep this strictly platonic,’ he said, sobering. ‘Separate bedrooms. We’ve done the sex thing before and look where that got us. It’ll just ruin our focus.’

  Rilla couldn’t believe how matter-of-fact, how analytical he sounded. ‘Do you seriously think we can live under the same roof and not succumb to this crazy thing that’s always been between us? Our relationship may be over but I think we’ve proved more than adequately that we’re still sexually attracted to each other.’

  Luca beat back the images from their passionate reunion. ‘I think it would be a mistake,’ he said stiffly. ‘Do you remember what happened the last time we had sex when you were pregnant? I’m not repeating that mistake.’

  A nerve jumped at the angle of Luca’s jaw. Rilla could see it through the heavy overnight stubble. His voice brooked no argument. ‘It wasn’t that, Luca. I didn’t miscarry because of that.’

  Rationally, Luca knew that. He was a doctor. But he’d second-guessed everything ad nauseam from that terrible time and he wasn’t prepared to risk anything this time round. ‘I’m not taking any chances,’ he said firmly, looking her straight in the eye.

  How could he be so certain? Oh, sure, she knew all about his stubborn Latin male streak, but their still seething sexual attraction seemed to have a life of its own. Eight months of living under the same roof as Luca, married to all intents and purposes, and he really thought it could be platonic?

  ‘Well, what do you think?’ Luca probed after she’d been silent for a few moments.

  What did she think? This whole plan was stark, raving crazy. That’s what she thought. ‘I think going into marriage again, even for something as noble as our child when we still have so much baggage and without love, is doomed to failure.’

  Rilla wasn’t sure if it was the emotionless topic or the baby but she suddenly felt violently ill. She passed her mug to Luca and bolted from the bed. She made it to the toilet just in time, her measly amount of tea and toast ejected from her stomach.

  After there was nothing left to bring up Rilla sat on the bathroom floor, feeling emptier than her stomach. Luca hadn’t joined her and the chill of the tiles seeped into her body. Into her bones. She shivered, pulling her knees up, dragging Luca’s shirt down over them, hoping her body warmth would ward off the sudden bleakness.

  She was pregnant with a much longed-for baby. It should be the happiest time of her life. But she was sick and miserable. Utterly miserable. The urge to cry welled up inside her and Rilla roused herself, refusing to sink into the abyss of self-pity again.

  Feeling sorry for herself would not take the nausea away and would not help her with the Luca situation. He was no doubt pacing in her room, waiting for her decision.

  She washed her face with some water, her hand trembling slightly, and brushed her teeth. She looked at herself in the bathroom mirror and knew she wouldn’t be going to work today. Luca was right—she didn’t look well. All she wanted to do was crawl back into bed and pull the covers over her head until the baby was ready to be born. Not even the joy of her new position could rouse he
r interest.

  Luca was on the phone when she left the bathroom.

  ‘I’m ringing Julia to let them know you won’t be in today,’ he said briskly.

  She gave him a weary nod as she passed, too tired and sick, both physically and emotionally, to care. She stood in the doorway, looking back over her shoulder at him as he spoke into the phone. Julia must have said something funny because Luca laughed. The tanned column of his neck stretched as his head flopped back against the wall.

  She should have been cranky that he was taking over her life. But she wasn’t. She should have cared that Julia would be wondering why Luca was calling in sick for her. But she didn’t. His physique was totally distracting.

  The sun filtered through the wooden blinds in the lounge room and striped his body in golden light. The grey cotton shirt clung to his contours, as did the boxers, moulding his powerful thighs. He had one leg bent up, his foot flat on the wall, and Rilla admired the shape of his knee and the manly covering of dark hair.

  She dragged her gaze away and moved into the room, sinking down onto the bed. Luca had offered her a very reasonable solution to the baby situation. A reconciliation to give their baby the best option. A mother and a father living together under the same roof.

  Only she wasn’t so sure such things should be entered into with such a lack of emotion. It seemed fraught with potential disaster. Their relationship scars from seven years ago still needled beneath the surface. Were they just leaving themselves open for more?

  But it was no use. Deep down she knew she’d do it, despite all the reasons not to. Of course she could. Of course she would. Because this wasn’t about them. It was about their baby. And she’d do whatever it took to give it the best of everything.

  She just needed to look at it as Luca did. Take herself and Luca out of the equation. Make it about the baby. Could she re-enter a stone-cold relationship for this baby? Of course she could. Like millions of women before her, she would put this child’s needs first. And Luca was right—their baby deserved two parents.