by Amy Ruttan
She glanced up at the projector screen where she’d posted the levels of triage as it pertained to assessing people in the field for care. Especially when there were mass casualties involved. And a natural disaster such as a volcanic eruption or a flood, among other things, could bring in a lot of casualties.
She’d seen a volcanic eruption when she’d been working in the southern part of Mexico. A volcano had erupted and the lahar not only killed hundreds of people, but injured hundreds more. They’d had everything from broken bones, to impalement, infections from the lahar’s mud getting into open wounds and dry drowning.
In cases where many were hurt, she’d learned a useful tip from the US Army about dividing casualties into Immediate, Delayed, Minimal and Expectant.
Each of the mannequins fell into those categories, and if the trainees had been listening, they should be able to figure out what dummy fit into what category.
“Shay?”
She turned around to see Dante, dressed in his scrubs and white lab coat, standing in the door of the room where she was running the triage simulation.
“Yes, how can I help you?”
“You left very early this morning,” he said as he shut the door behind him.
“Well, I was anxious to get this simulation set up.” She didn’t look at him; if she looked at him too long, she’d succumb to his charms again. She’d throw herself into his arms and beg to stay with him.
And that wasn’t what she wanted.
Her career path was with the United World Wide Health Association. When her time was up here, she’d travel on to somewhere new, once her baby was old enough to travel with her. Of course, she would be doing training and teaching jobs in cities as opposed to dangerous fieldwork. There wasn’t really any permanence to her job, a place to make roots, whereas Dante was settled here.
He had land here. He had roots.
He would never ever leave Italy. She knew that.
How could they ever even conceive of being together?
“Shay, about last night...”
“No, we don’t need to talk about last night. It was wonderful, but I get it. It was one time. Of course, every time we sleep together we remind ourselves it’s only one time and then fall back into bed together. We have to stop. We’ve breached the terms of our marriage contract. It has to stop.”
It was harsh, but she had to put an end to it to protect herself. She had to put an end to it before she got too carried away.
A strange look passed on his face briefly. “Yes. One time.”
“Is that all?” she asked, trying to ignore the fact that he’d moved up behind her. Last night when he’d come up behind her, he’d been buried inside her. And her blood heated as she thought of that intimate embrace. His hand cupping her breast, his kisses on her neck as he whispered sweet nothings in her ear.
“I guess,” he said. He sounded disappointed. “Do you need help with setting up the triage?”
“No, I’m good.” What she needed to do was get him out of this room before the trainees came in and saw her lip-locked with Dr. Affini.
“I can help. You’re supposed to take it easy.”
“I’m good,” she said. Then she smiled at him. She had such a hard time resisting him, but she had to. She couldn’t let this go any further. It was a marriage of convenience, not a real marriage.
It wasn’t permanent. Just like everything else in her life.
He liked control and she thrived on flux and change.
How could a marriage work with two individuals so different?
No, it was better this way.
“What time is your appointment with Dr. Tucci?” Dante asked and she could hear the frustration in his tone.
“Four o’clock. It’s the ultrasound. Do you still want to be there?”
He nodded. “Sì, I will be there. I will escort you up there myself if you don’t show up in time.”
Shay rolled her eyes. “Well, if you would let me get to this simulation, then the sooner it can be done and the faster I can get up to Dr. Tucci’s appointment.”
“Fine. I will see you here at three fifty-five.”
“Unless a trauma comes in?” she asked.
“Correct.”
Shay breathed a sigh of relief that he was gone and didn’t seem to be bothered by the fact that she was brushing him off. Which just firmed her belief that these feelings she had for him were one-sided.
And that nothing would come of this marriage, other than that her baby would have his surname and have his or her father in their life.
* * *
When he’d reached out for her this morning, she hadn’t been there. For the past few mornings she’d been in bed beside him, but this time she wasn’t, and he’d panicked.
Dante didn’t know what to think about that. Only that he’d expected she would be there.
Part of him was relieved that she wasn’t, but the other part of him was hurt that she’d left. What did you expect?
He didn’t know.
Yes. You know.
Only he didn’t want to admit to it, because he didn’t believe in it. Sure, there were people who could find happiness, but he wasn’t sure that he was one of them. He turned back to look in the room where she was teaching the nursing trainees about mass casualty triage.
A smile tugged on the corners of his lips.
They’d come from such different backgrounds. Shay was so strong. She never gave up and he admired her fortitude. It was what he was attracted to when they’d met at that conference. She didn’t give a damn about what others thought of her; he wished he had an ounce of that.
Only it bothered him seeing his name and his family’s name splashed over the front pages because of his father’s exploits. How the world knew everything about his family and how he couldn’t even go for a cup of coffee without the paparazzi lurking around the corner.
He hated it.
And that was why he tried to keep a low profile wherever he went. Why he didn’t want to make a fuss, but Shay was so strong. She just jumped into the fray.
She’d been thrust into poverty as a child and he hadn’t wanted for anything.
Except love.
He shook that thought away.
Love was not for him. Affini men were notoriously a bunch of womanizers.
You’re not. Your mother’s father wasn’t.
“Dr. Affini, there’s someone in a trauma pod who is insisting you attend to his stitches,” Dr. Carlo, one of the interns, said as he ran up to him.
“You know how to deal with unruly patients, Dr. Carlo. I don’t need to see him.”
Dr. Carlo frowned. “I tried all the tactics you’ve been teaching us to deal with difficult patients, but this man is insistent and he’s bleeding profusely.”
Dante groaned. “Take me to him.”
Dr. Carlo nodded and they walked to the emergency room. There was a small trauma bay that was used for lacerations that was far off from the larger trauma bays that were for patients who were in distress. Patients that needed a large team surrounding them to save a life.
Dr. Carlo handed him the electronic chart and the name that popped up caused Dante to take a pause. Marco Affini.
No.
He hadn’t seen his father in years, save for pictures splashed across the headlines.
Dante had had his solicitor tell his father that he was married and a baby was on the way, because Dante couldn’t stand the thought of talking to the man again.
Even when he turned in his marriage certificate to stop the process of his father having his inheritance, his father would have wanted to speak to him about the mistake he was making and Dante wouldn’t have anything to do with him.
Now he was here. In Dante’s emergency room. H
is father had his back to him, but Dante could see the arm laid out on a tray; a nurse was still cleaning the deep wound on his forearm. There were bloody towels in the trash bins. He’d had a significant blood loss.
“You can leave, Nurse. I can take care of this patient.” Dante clenched his fist.
His father turned then. “Ah, look who has finally decided to come pay his respects.”
The nurse peeled off her gloves and slipped out of the trauma bay, as did Dr. Carlo. Dante shut the door.
“You were giving my interns a hard time, I hear,” Dante said, setting the chart down and peeling off his white lab coat, before slipping on a trauma gown and gloves.
“Is all that gear necessary?” his father asked in a snarky tone.
“Yes, this is standard protocol.”
“I’m your father. The same blood runs through our veins.”
Dante snorted. “That’s debatable.”
His father glared at him. “What is your problem?”
“My problem is that you wouldn’t let my intern do his job. How else is he going to learn?” Dante snapped as he sat on the rolling stool in front of his father and began to finish cleaning the wound the nurse had started on.
“I don’t want some student stitching me up. I’d rather have you,” his father groused.
Dante rolled his eyes and continued to clean the laceration. He was trying to tune his father out.
“I didn’t get to congratulate you personally on your marriage.” His father’s voice was laced with sarcasm.
Dante snorted. “As if you actually wanted to congratulate me. You were just angry that you couldn’t get a hold of Nonno’s vineyard or the Lido villa. Or my money.”
“You still have to produce an heir,” his father said.
“Shay’s already pregnant. Congratulations, Nonno,” Dante said scathingly.
His father’s face paled, his mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water. “Pregnant?”
“Sì.”
“Are you sure it’s your child this time? Does she know about Olivia and that child that you believed was yours but wasn’t?” His father was clearly relishing digging at Dante’s old wounds.
Dante glared at him and then injected freezing into the cut, causing his father to curse. It took every ounce of strength not to jam the needle in hard, but he was a doctor and he would never jeopardize his career because his father was making him angry.
He got up and discarded the needle in the hazardous material receptacle. “So how did this happen? Did the current girlfriend discover you in bed with another woman?”
Marco sneered. “No, I was in a minor altercation.”
Dante shook his head. “You’re unbelievable. You know that? Why are you here? You didn’t need to have me stitch up your wound. Are you here to torment me because I took away your opportunity to sell Nonno’s vineyard off to the highest bidder?”
“What’re you talking about?”
Dante leaned over him. “I know. I know that you’ve had investors out there poking around. I know that big company wanted Nonno’s wine under their wing. I know that you’ve been waiting like a caged animal, waiting to sell it. And now you can’t.”
“You think you know me so well? You don’t.”
“So you’ve come here to make amends?” Dante asked sarcastically.
“No,” Marco said. “I came here to meet your bride.”
“To find out whether there was an heir on the way.”
His father turned and wouldn’t look at him.
Dante just shook his head and opened a stitch kit. He began to close his father’s wound. Angry that he’d had to deal with his father today. Angry that his father was so unchanged.
So ignorant, so greedy.
He would never be like him. He could never be like him.
“You’ll need to stay here until the effects of the painkillers wear off. Sit back and relax and I’ll send an intern to discharge you.” Dante peeled off his gloves.
“You shouldn’t have got married,” his father said. “You’re an Affini. We’re not faithful.”
Dante glared at him. “I may be an Affini, but I’m not like you at all.”
With that, he left the room.
His father would never change. He would never accept the blame for what he did to Dante and Enzo’s mother. For what he did to them.
And for that Dante would never forgive him.
And he would never forget.
* * *
Shay was lying on the bed waiting for the ultrasound.
More important, she was waiting for Dante to show up, but he was forty minutes late to her appointment. She’d had him paged, but he wasn’t answering.
Which was unlike him. Even if he were tied up with a trauma, surely he’d have found a way to get a message to her?
“Are we still waiting?” Dr. Tucci asked, coming into the room.
“No, he’s probably stuck with a trauma.”
Dr. Tucci nodded. “Yes, it’s always hard for an emergency room doctor to make appointments.”
“I’m sure it’s the same for an obstetrician,” she teased.
Dr. Tucci grinned and tapped the side of his nose as he rolled the ultrasound machine over. “I could’ve tried to wait another ten minutes, but I do have a consult in about twenty minutes that will now be pushed back.”
“I’m sorry about that,” Shay apologized. “Usually he would get some message to me about why he was late.”
Would he? Do you know him that well?
She shook that thought from her head.
“It’s okay, Principessa.” He grinned and lifted her shirt, tucking a paper towel just under her breasts, and Shay tucked a towel into the waist of her scrub pants, which she had pulled down. “This will be cold.”
The gel squeezed out of the bottle with a little spurt of air and he turned on the monitor. She turned her head toward the screen. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath as Dr. Tucci placed pressure against her abdomen.
“Ah, there is Baby.”
Shay looked at the monitor and she could see the outline of her baby, moving, the flicker of a heartbeat and the string of pearls that represented the spine.
Her heart stopped for a moment and her eyes filled with tears as she stared at her baby.
Little hands and a tiny nose and she couldn’t wait to see him or her in person and hold them.
I’ll take care of you.
“Do you want to know the sex?” Dr. Tucci asked as he moved the ultrasound wand over her belly.
“You know?”
“Well, I have a pretty good idea. It’s not one hundred percent factual, but this baby is in pretty good position to show me.” Dr. Tucci grinned. “Or shall we wait for Dr. Affini?”
“No, I’ll tell him later.” If he couldn’t be here, then she’d tell him herself. “I’ll only tell Dante if he wants to know.”
Dr. Tucci nodded. “It’s a girl.”
A tear slipped out of her eye and rolled down her cheek; she wiped it away with the back of her hand. “A girl?”
“Sì,” Dr. Tucci said happily as he continued to tap the keyboard, taking measurements.
Shay’s heart overflowed with love. It was the first time since the stick had turned blue that she’d felt a real motherly connection. Probably because she was so focused on her work. So focused on keeping everything in her life the same, but nothing was the same anymore.
Nothing could be the same.
This little girl was her whole world.
“There, all done.” Dr. Tucci wiped the ultrasound gel from her belly. “I’ll email you the pictures of the baby. All looks good for twenty-six weeks.”
“Thank you.”
Dr. Tucci nodded an
d left the exam room.
Shay cleaned herself up. It was sad that Dante hadn’t been here to see it, to share this moment, but his demeanor had changed when she’d reminded him that their marriage was a business arrangement.
I need to find him.
She left the exam room and headed down to the emergency department. She checked the updated chart and saw that Dr. Affini was in the far trauma bay. She headed down the hall and entered the room.
Only Dante wasn’t there. Just an older gentleman, clad in expensive designer clothes, who had obviously been treated for a laceration to his forearm, because it was bandaged and there were blood-soaked towels in the trash.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to walk in on you.”
He smiled and there was something familiar about the way he smiled, but his eyes were cold. He was a handsome older man, but there was no warmth about him, which gave her a bad feeling.
“You’re not interrupting at all.” His gaze raked her body up and down, eyeing the belly and frowning in disappointment. “Have you come to discharge me?”
“No, who is your doctor? I can check to see if they have the orders up.”
“Dr. Dante Affini,” the man said in a weird tone. “He’s my son and I know he’s anxious to get rid of me.”
So that was why she’d seen the Affini name on the chart.
“You’re Dante’s father?”
He narrowed his eyes. “Yes. I’m Marco and you must be the blushing bride.”
“Yes. I’m Shay.”
“And that’s my grandchild, is it?” He snorted. “Or is it someone else’s?”
“The child is Dante’s,” Shay said, instantly detesting him. “What’re you implying?”
“He didn’t tell you?” There was a pleased glint to the man’s eyes. “Olivia.”
“What about her?”
“He was engaged to her and she was pregnant, with what he thought was his child, but of course it wasn’t. What a huge blow to his ego.”
“I’m not Olivia,” Shay snapped. “I would never do such a thing.”
“Even for wealth?”
“Money is not important to me.”
“I find that hard to believe.” He leaned forward. “Money is power.”
