Prognosis Baby Daddy: A hot medical romance

by Amy Andrews

  Ben found them there a few minutes later. He watched silently from the doorway for a moment. It was rare to see the softer side of Katya. She looked just like any mother sitting by her child’s bedside. Concerned, dedicated.

  His mind skipped back to yesterday afternoon. The memory was so vivid he could almost taste her lips, hear her moan, feel her hard, scrunched nipple against his palm.

  ‘Here you are,’ he said, deliberately interrupting his thought processes, not giving his body a chance to become any more aroused. He walked up behind Katya’s chair and casually placed his hand on her shoulder. Her muscles tensed and he massaged her there gently encouraging her to relax.

  For a moment Katya wanted nothing more than to lean back against him and purr at his touch. But she held herself erect, very conscious of his fingers trailing a path of fire from her shoulder to her neck.

  ‘How’s she doing?’ Ben asked.

  ‘Sleepy,’ Katya said, wincing at how blunt it sounded.

  Ben smiled at Mi-tung and removed his obviously unwanted hand. ‘I’ll check back later,’ he said, and withdrew.

  He went to his office and shut the door. He sat behind his desk, removed his theatre cap and rubbed his hands briskly though his hat hair. He’d forgotten how infuriatingly stubborn Katya could be. Yesterday, and on other occasions, he’d seen plainly that she’d wanted him. But right now she obviously couldn’t even bear him touching her.

  He drummed his fingers, frustrated beyond words. The very last thing he wanted to do was stand beside her this afternoon and operate. Her cinnamon scent was driving him crazy, taking him right back to yesterday. To their night together. And he knew they couldn’t go on like this.

  Something had to give.

  CHAPTER SIX

  AFTER another tense night Katya was pleased to get out of bed and away from Ben’s brooding presence. She made a beeline for Ten-ti’s room and was happy to find the little girl awake and sitting on the balcony with Mi-tung. For a moment the breathtaking view distracted her and she took a deep calming breath, expelling the pent-up tension caused by another platonic night.

  The Mediterranean stretched into the distance, the early morning sunshine warming the cliff faces of the craggy coastline. The gardens stepped down below in all their colourful splendour. From the nearby lemon grove, a faint tang of citrus waft towards her on the light breeze.

  Ten-ti lifted up her arms and Katya picked her up off Mi-tung’s lap and settled with her in the other chair on the balcony. The little girl chattered excitedly and pointed to her head.

  ‘I know, I know.’ Katya laughed.

  Ten-ti said something to Mi-tung and Mi-tung got up and went inside. She came back with a mirror and Ten-ti pointed at it and then at her head and stared at herself in the mirror in amazement. She angled her head from side to side and primped and preened like a teenager on a first date, and Katya laughed at her utter joy.

  The little girl put the mirror down and threw herself at Katya, her little arms clinging around Katya’s neck. Katya hugged her close, a lump rising in her throat. What would her child look like at four? Would he or she take after her or Ben? Would he or she have her blondeness or Ben’s dark Italian looks?

  Would he or she ever wonder about her?

  The desire to hold her own child was suddenly overwhelming and she quashed it as she squeezed Tent-ti closer. Just because she was feeling the baby move all the time now, it didn’t mean anything. Other than that the baby was growing normally. Which was good. It didn’t mean she was developing any motherly yearnings.

  Katya felt a pang of guilt and hugged Ten-ti harder. She didn’t protest and Katya was grateful, for this little girl gave her hope. Here in her arms was living proof that a child didn’t need to have a mother to grow up happy and loved. It just needed someone to love it and to grow up in a loving environment.

  Ten-ti justified Katya’s position and Katya held onto that dearly. The last few days had been a confusing time for her with the Ben incident and the baby’s first movements. There had been a lot of unexpected emotions and feelings which could threaten her plans if she allowed them free rein. Ten-ti was tangible evidence that her plan could work and Katya really needed that reassurance.

  Two weeks later Ben and Katya waited in a small anteroom for Dr Rocco Gambino, the Clinic’s radiologist, to finish an X-ray. It was their lunch-break and Rocco had arranged to do Katya’s first ultrasound. Ben had told Katya with great pride that Rocco was one of the most experienced obstetric sonographers in the country.

  Things were a little easier between them now there was some distance from the passionate kiss they’d shared. The nights were still hard but a new routine had developed. After their evening meal, Katya would go to bed and Ben would go to his office for a couple of hours and do paperwork. She would be asleep when he finally made his way back to the room and on a couple of occasions he’d even slept in his office.

  It wasn’t perfect but at it had taken the pressure off.

  A thought that had never occurred to Katya before, so preoccupied had she been with her plans for the baby and her attraction for Ben, popped into her head as they waited. ‘What if there’s something wrong with it?’ she asked.

  A wave of dread rose and fell in her gut. What if the baby was deformed or had major congenital problems? What if the fates had decided that as she didn’t want the baby, she didn’t deserve a healthy one? She clutched her stomach. It was still fairly flat but she could feel the bulge of her hard uterus beneath.

  ‘It’ll be fine,’ Ben said.

  His dismissive answer was irritating when her active imagination was already conjuring up a dozen different dire possibilities. ‘Are Medici babies immune to congenital problems?’ she asked.

  Ben looked down into her face and saw genuine fear in her eyes. He took her hand. ‘There is nothing wrong with our baby,’ he said, emphasising the words carefully.

  ‘Do you promise?’ she asked.

  Ben nodded. ‘I promise.’

  Dr Rocco Gambino came out, interrupting them, apologising for his tardiness. Ben translated as Rocco was one of the few people at the Medic clinic who wasn’t bilingual. He ushered them into a cubicle and helped Katya onto the high, narrow bed.

  Ben went around to the far side so he wasn’t in Rocco’s way. He could have easily performed the ultrasound himself but obstetric sonography was a specialised field and Rocco was the best.

  And, anyway, he wanted to be the father in the room, not the doctor.

  Katya knew the moment the screen flickered to life and her baby appeared in a grainy black and white image that the ultrasound was the worst thing she could have agreed to. She held Ben’s hand and barely heard Rocco or Ben’s translation at all.

  She was totally and completely mesmerised by the tiny little life she could see on the screen.

  It was no longer ‘the baby’ or ‘it’. It was a real, living, breathing, kicking, squirming baby. Her baby. All this baby needs is for you to love it. That’s what Ben had said. And she did. Right now, her love for this tiny human being filled her completely.

  Overwhelmed her.

  Katya felt connected, truly connected with her child for the first time. Feeling it kick had nothing on this. She was actually seeing inside her womb. Actually looking at her baby. It had been so easy to think of it, make decisions about it when all she’d had to confirm her pregnancy had been a pink line on a test kit and greeting the toilet bowel every morning.

  But this? Actually meeting her baby. Seeing its ten fingers and ten perfect toes. Watch it as it sucked its thumb. Follow the curve of its perfectly formed spinal column. See its tiny, fragile-looking heart beat sure and steady. This was real.

  Rocco pushed a button and the room filled with a magical pulsating. Whop. Whop. Whop. A symphony. A concerto. There really was a baby inside her. It wasn’t an abstract concept any more. An inconvenient hiccup in her life plan. It was real.

  She was a mother.

  ‘Rocco says the ba
by is a good size and that your dates are spot on. He says everything looks fine.’

  Ben almost winced at the grip Katya had on his hand. He looked down at her, her eyes glued to the little screen. She had a strange, intense expression on her face. ‘He wants to know if we want to know the sex?’

  Katya nodded distractedly but she hadn’t really heard him. She couldn’t take her eyes off her baby. She was mesmerised by the tiny central flicker in its chest.

  ‘Katya?’

  ‘Hmm?’ she asked, dragging her eyes away reluctantly from the screen. ‘What?’

  ‘Do you want to know if the baby is a boy or a girl?’

  Katya blinked. Did she? She hadn’t thought about it in any real sense until now. The baby’s sex was just another one of those things she’d blanked out of her mind. Hadn’t permitted herself to think about too much.

  And if Rocco had asked her yesterday she would have given him an emphatic no. She would have classified that as information not necessary to her goal. But now, her baby on the screen in front of her, she was overwhelmed with the urge to know.

  ‘Do you?’ she asked.

  Ben smiled at her sheepishly. ‘I wouldn’t mind,’ he admitted.

  He, too, had been surprised by the power of the tiny image on the screen. Feeling the baby kicking had been amazing but this was so much more incredible. He was going to be a father and his curiosity to know everything about this tiny precious human being was incredibly strong.

  Katya nodded at Rocco. He smiled at her. ‘Ragazzo,’ he said. ‘A boy.’

  Katya looked at the screen again. She was having a baby boy. A son. Ben’s hand gripped hers and his grin was crazy big in profile. He seemed as taken by the image as she. Would he look like his father? Would he have dark brown eyes, killer eyelashes and a quick lazy grin?

  Rocco said something to Ben and Ben nodded. ‘Rocco has to go,’ Ben announced.

  No! She wasn’t finished looking yet. The baby was still moving around, his tiny movements endlessly fascinating. She didn’t want Rocco to turn it all off. She wanted to watch her baby forever.

  ‘Katya?’ Ben prompted.

  Katya nodded reluctantly. She reached forward and touched her hand to the cold screen to prolong contact with her baby boy for just a little while longer. Rocco removed the transducer from her abdomen and the image went blank. She kept her hand flat against the screen, not ready to break contact.

  Her baby. Her son.

  ‘There, see,’ Ben teased as Katya slowly withdrew her hand, ‘I told you the baby was fine.’

  ‘He,’ Katya corrected.

  Ben nodded and grinned at the wonder in her voice. ‘Our son.’

  She looked absolutely smitten and for the first time Ben felt a little ray of hope. Had seeing their son’s image been the key to connecting Katya with her inner mother?

  It had certainly helped to put things into perspective for him. He had been worrying deep down about the kind of father he would be. Bianca and Mario’s betrayal had soured him to the whole meaning of love and family. And a decade of freezing them out, ignoring their pleas for reconciliation, had made him doubt whether he was capable of either.

  But seeing the ultrasound had been curiously empowering. The rush of feeling that had flooded through his gut and bubbled in his veins had been too powerful to ignore. This was the meaning of love - a grainy ultrasound image blinking on a screen.

  He may have been immunised against the love between a man and a woman but his heart soared knowing he was capable of a different love.

  The love of a father for his child.

  They travelled to Ben’s villa after work that night, both lost in their own thoughts. Ben watched Katya go to her room and shut the door. After the high of seeing his son today her actions were depressing.

  More than anything, tonight he wanted to hold her.

  And it wasn’t about sex. He just wanted to lie beside her, pull her into him and cradle them - her and his baby. He was falling in love with the life they’d created and he wanted to share this time with her. Be as much a part of the baby growing inside her as possible.

  He didn’t want to be kept on the outside. He wanted to be able to touch her belly freely, feel the baby move, lay his head against her bump when they were in bed together at night. And not have to worry about her stiffening or rejecting his moves or looking at him as if he’d violated some pact.

  He rustled up a fruit and cheese platter as his mind mulled over how he could achieve his goal and still keep things platonic, which was her goal. He imagined laying his head against her stomach and not wanting to make love to her and knew there was no easy middle ground.

  ‘Katya,’ he called, knocking gently on her door. ‘I’ve fixed us something to eat.’

  He heard her muffled reply and retreated to the terrace to wait for her. It was mid-November and the nights were much cooler. They wouldn’t be able to stay out for long. He took a sip of some local Chianti and felt it warm him through.

  ‘Mmm, this looks good,’ Katya said, approaching from behind and plucking a slice of apple from the selection as she picked up her glass of sparkling water.

  Katya asked him about the budget meeting he had attended with the foundation’s financial directors that afternoon after the ultrasound. He was still wearing the suit and he looked sexy and powerful and it was taking all her willpower not to flirt.

  Or touch.

  ‘The ultrasound was pretty amazing,’ Ben commented lightly after a few minutes of financial talk.

  Katya caught his smile and returned it. ‘Yes,’ she admitted.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘Thank you for letting me attend.’ He knew Katya hadn’t thought it necessary for him to be there.

  Katya shrugged. ‘It’s your baby, too.’

  There was a momentary silence as they both sipped at their drinks. ‘I think I fell in love today,’ Ben said into the quiet night air.

  Katya stopped mid-chew, startled momentarily. Her heart tripped crazily. But the look on his face put his comments into perspective. He was talking about the baby.

  ‘You sound surprised,’ she said lightly, sipping her water to cover the commotion inside.

  ‘I didn’t expect for it to be so powerful so soon.’ He shrugged. ‘After years of avoiding it I didn’t think I’d ever feel love again in any capacity. But this just seems so...easy.’

  She nodded. Her love for their baby was the one constant in her life. That and her desire to give him the best chance in life.

  ‘You avoided love?’ Katya asked as he stood and walked to the railing to stare out over the water. Had he been hiding the real Ben behind a playboy façade?

  He nodded. ‘Just like you.’

  He turned around piercing her with a searching look and Katya felt as if he’d seen inside her soul. She felt on shaky ground and needed to turn this conversation away from her.

  ‘Someone break your heart?’

  ‘Once.’ He gave her a sad smile. ‘A long time ago. I was young and stupid.’

  Katya shivered at the bitterness in his last words. Someone had hurt him very badly. She felt a brief pang of sorrow for the younger Ben. It must have been awful to still be screwed up about it now.

  ‘What about you, dear, sweet Katya? Have you ever been in love?’ he asked.

  ‘No.’ Katya’s answer was quick. Definite. There had been no-one in her life. She had been determined to be the exact opposite of her mother and hadn’t had a moment’s regret. Until one night in Ben’s arms.

  Ben could see the honesty in her frankness and envied her escaping the clutches of love. He’d been battered and bruised by the emotion and permanently scarred. ‘Wise girl,’ he muttered, and took another sip of wine.

  ‘Until now,’ she admitted, covering her tummy with her hand, the baby moving as if in agreement.

  ‘Guess that makes two of us,’ Ben said, reaching out his hand and placing it on top of hers.

  Katya adjusted their placement so Ben’s was snug
gled close to the baby’s activity. It was kicking a lot and they both stared down at her stomach and smiled at its antics.

  ‘How can you walk away from him, Katya?’ Ben asked after a minute had passed and the show seemed to be over.

  Katya closed her eyes and sighed. She stood and Ben’s hand dropped away. She walked over to the railing, watching the moon bathe the coast in a silvery shimmer, her back to him. She ran her hands briskly up and down her arms, the evening getting cooler as each minute passed. She was in jeans and a top but the night air had penetrated, goosing her skin and beading her nipples.

  Ben rose, removing his jacket from the back of the chair. He joined her, placing it around her shoulders. Katya felt the warmth instantly and was enveloped in a snug, Ben-smelling pheromone cloud. His jacket smelled so good and she knew if she buried her face in his neck he’d smell the same, only better.

  She turned to face him. It was time for honesty. He had opened up to her a little tonight and she wanted him to understand why she couldn’t stay.

  ‘When I was eleven, I was changing Leo’s nappy when my sister Sophia pulled the heater down on herself and her clothes caught light. She was very badly burned. She nearly died. To this day, she has these really horrible scars down her side and arm. Scars that I’m responsible for.’

  Katya was surprised to discover tears had built in her eyes as she recounted the story. ‘I’m not fit to be a mother, Ben.’

  ‘Katya,’ Ben said softly, aching for the frightened eleven-year-old he’d just caught a glimpse of. He could only begin to imagine how terrible she must have felt. ‘Cara, you were eleven years old. You were a child.’

  She shook her head as a tear squeezed out and tracked down her cheek. ‘I was in charge.’

  Ben saw the guilt in her eyes and it clawed at his gut. He wiped the tear away gently. ‘How old were your siblings when it happened?’ he asked softly.