“Must have done.”
He turned his attention back to Elodie and something clutched in his chest. He hated hospitals with a passion. He’d spent too much time in them. Too much time seeing people he cared for being crushed by life.
“So she didn’t ask for me now?”
“She wasn’t in a state to ask for anyone, love.”
Love? Christo. When had anyone called him such a thing?
His eyes flashed with his searing sense of frustration. This nurse was moving so slowly, acting as though nothing was the matter. His nostrils flared as he exhaled a harsh, disapproving breath.
“I want that neurologist immediately.”
“She’s on her way.”
Dr Hassan entered the room a moment later, a clipboard in her hands. She walked quickly, efficiently, urgently, and Fiero appreciated that. This was an urgent situation.
She spoke in clipped tones. “Swelling in the brain is going down nicely, though it’s going to be days before we can do a proper assessment.”
Nausea ran through Fiero. Elodie had been sharp as a whip that night, and so funny. Any kind of brain injury was terrible and traumatic but somehow the idea of it affecting Elodie was so much worse.
“In your experience, though? How does it look?” His voice was surprisingly gravelled.
“I can’t comment.”
“I’m not going to hold you to it, Doctor. I’m simply asking for an insight into what you’ve seen before and your best guess.”
Doctor Hassan shifted her gaze to Fiero’s. “I don’t deal in guesswork, Mr Montebello. I will tell you it’s not the worst brain injury I’ve seen, and that I’d be optimistic for a full and meaningful recovery. But naturally there can be unforeseen complications. It’s a long road ahead, with no guarantees.”
“But you think, at this stage, Elodie’s condition is likely to improve?”
“We’ll see.” She put a slide into a backlit screen and ran her eyes over it. Fiero did the same, though very little of the shapes made any kind of sense to him.
The doctor flicked the light off and turned to Fiero. “She’s had two MRIs since she came in –,”
“What?” Fiero whirled around to face the nurse. “When did she arrive?”
“Early this morning,” Doctor Hassan answered his question, and moved past it. “We will do another scan tonight, and continue to monitor her. In terms of her other physical injuries, these appear mostly superficial. Bones that will heal easily enough. Cracked ribs, which will cause immense pain for a time but they too shall heal.”
It was cruel to see such a beautiful and vibrant woman so completely shut down, so broken. His gut twisted.
“What can I do?”
“Not a lot, I’m sorry.” Doctor Hassan’s smile was sympathetic. “You must wait. The next twenty four hours are crucial.”
“Did she say anything at all?” He directed the question to both the doctor and nurse.
The nurse shrugged. “I wasn’t here.” She flipped the page and frowned. “Ah.”
“Ah?” Fiero lifted one single brow.
“There’s a note here from the crèche.”
“The crèche?” His mother was English, he’d attended Oxford and then Yale. His command of the language was as good as a native speaker and yet he wondered briefly if he misunderstood.
“A two year old boy – Jack Gardiner – was admitted at the same time as Miss Gardiner.”
Everything exploded through his mind all at once.
A little boy – Elodie’s boy. A two year old boy belonging to Elodie. Realisation grew inside of him slowly, but there was doubt too. Surely this couldn’t be his child? There was no way he’d been a father for over two years and not known it. Right?
The strength of his memories, the hurt they carried, caused him to groan audibly. Memories of the precious baby he’d loved and lost, the son his wife had delivered, the son who’d been born without breath. The baby they’d lost.
His throat felt raw, as though it had been scraped with razor blades.
But he was getting ahead of himself. Elodie had a son, a two year old boy, but it didn’t necessarily follow that the child was Fiero’s.
At his lack of reaction, the nurse’s eyes beetled together. “The crèche is open until eight.”
Fiero shot a glance at his wristwatch. It was six. “Where is it?”
“Second floor, ward F.”
He nodded, and pierced the nurse with an intense stare. “Stay here with her while I’m gone. Do not leave this room.” Used to giving commands and having them be obeyed without question, he didn’t see the look of surprise on the nurse’s face, because he swept from the room without a backwards glance.
His walk was determined, his need for answers, his sense of disbelief making his stride longer, his bearing somehow more intimidating, more intense than usual. There was a fierceness to him, an energy that would have struck fear into his rivals’ hearts – into anyone’s heart.
He scanned a map as he passed it, purely to assure himself he was moving in the right direction, jabbed the lift and the doors sprung open almost immediately.
A fluorescent light flickered in the corridor when he emerged a moment later.
He walked quickly, but at the doors to the crèche, he paused for a moment, gathering his breath. He knew he was on the edge of a precipice, that there was potentially someone within this small room in this publically funded hospital who could change his entire life.
Without another moment’s delay, he pushed the door inwards.
A young man with a face covered by acne and a head topped with pale straw-coloured hair lifted his eyes to Fiero.
“Here to pick up or drop off?”
Fiero looked beyond him, to the few children in the brightly-coloured room. There were two girls playing with Lego in the corner, building a tower high into the room. They were young, perhaps five or six. There was a boy, dressed as a cowboy, making a gun with his fingers and skipping around the room as though he rode a horse.
And then…there was another little boy sitting in the corner building a car track, sliding the pieces together with an obstinate determination that was instantly familiar to Fiero.
Fiero stood, transfixed, his body radiating the same tension it had upstairs, but for a wholly different reason now.
As a boy, he’d been winded, once. At Villa Fortune, his grandparents’ home in the Tuscan hillside, he’d been running too fast through the olive grove and hadn’t noticed the rock in front of him. His toe had connected with it and he’d been sent flying – the impact had whooshed all the air from his lungs. He’d laid on the ground, staring up at the azure blue sky, olive leaves whispering overhead, and he’d been incapable of movement, not even of drawing breath. He had simply laid there, stars in his eyes, pain in his chest.
He felt that now, right down to the tightness beneath his ribs. He stared at the little boy and a thousand and one emotions slammed into him, but anger was chief amongst them, anger and disbelief.
There was too much to feel, too much to remember. Alison’s pregnancy, their stillborn child who had looked so much like this child. His pulse fired and a sweat broke out on his brow. Panic flooded his veins. Fiero – renowned for his control and lack of emotionalism – felt overwhelmed by feelings in that moment. The pain and grief he and Alison had endured had ended years ago – but it never really went away, did it? The sense that he had somehow failed her, failed their unborn children, that there’d been something wrong with him.
And now he was looking at a little boy who – surely – must be his son.
He swept his eyes shut and did the calculations. Three years ago when he’d been in London finalising the purchase of a chain of boutique European hotels he’d spent one night with Elodie, this boy’s mother.
If this was indeed his son, it would make this boy around two years and three months. He swept his eyes over him, and anger and grief, the rich sense of bodily disbelief, shifted a little, making space for
pride.
Fiero couldn’t explain the certainty that gripped him to another soul. While the little boy looked like him, that wasn’t conclusive proof. No, there was so much more – he felt a connection to the boy. On some deep level, he knew Jack Gardiner was his child, his flesh and blood.
“Sir? You’re here to pick up?”
“That is my son.” The words were deep and rumbling. He fired a look at the hospital staffer and then pushed past him, into the nursery.
“Ah, sir, there’s some paperwork I’ll need you to –,”
“Later.” He didn’t stop until he reached the child, and then he crouched down in front of him, his breath still burning in his lungs, breathing as difficult now as it had been when he was a boy sprawled amongst the olive trees.
The child lifted his head, fixing a steady gaze on Fiero, and it was like looking in a mirror. A whoosh of air escaped him as he catalogued all the features of his son’s face, features that were so familiar to him. Their eyes were identical, their noses too. His lips were shaped like Elodie’s, but otherwise, the boy was pure Montebello.
And he hadn’t even known about him. Memory cut through him – he was in another hospital, in a different country, many years ago, but the strength of the memory made him feel as though it were all happening again.
“One last push, Alison.”
Fiero watched as his wife screamed, her body rent with pain. He stood by her side, his hand in hers, her nails drawing blood from his flesh. He didn’t care. He stared at her, the woman who had been one of his best friends for many years, who was about to give him the greatest gift he could imagine. He looked at the doctors expectantly. The obstetrician pulled a baby from her and Fiero laughed, tilting his head back, disbelief filling him. How could he be this blessed? How could life be so kind to him?
“Well?” His voice was thick with emotion. “Is it a boy or a girl?”
The doctor didn’t answer. A nurse at his side moved closer and then there was a sound – discernible because apart from Alison’s breathing, the room was completely silent – the sound of wheels being rolled quickly across the room. He looked around to see a metallic trolley being pushed towards Alison’s legs.
The doctor hit the baby on the back; Fiero saw that it was a boy and fierce pride resounded through him – the same pride he undoubtedly would have felt had his child been a girl. All he cared about, really, was that their baby was healthy.
“What is it?” Alison pushed up onto her elbows. Fiero squeezed her hand.
“Our baby.”
“Doctor?” He voice was like a scream, wild and primal. “What’s wrong with him?”
The doctor didn’t answer. Fear curdled inside Fiero. “Nothing. Everything’s fine.”
But it wasn’t fine. The doctor lay their son, so perfect, so beautiful, on the cold stainless steel trolley and Fiero stayed where he was, gripping Alison’s hand as she gripped his right back, and they watched a team of doctors and nurses work on him. CPR on a child was a distressing sight, but nothing more terrifying than the lack of screaming, the lack of breathing.
“Christo,” he muttered under his breath, but the little boy heard, and winced at the harshness of Fiero’s tone. The look was enough to drag him back to the present, to this boy who was very much alive.
What had the nurse said his name was? “Jack?”
The little boy’s eyes narrowed and Fiero’s stomach twisted with another burst of pride. He appeared to be both cautious and thoughtful – qualities Fiero greatly approved of.
“Who’re you?”
And despite the situation, Fiero found himself biting back a smile. “You can call me Fiero, if you’d like.” He instinctively shied away from pushing too much information on the child too soon, even when he wanted to beat his chest and proclaim his fatherhood to all and sundry. Elodie’s current condition meant there was already enough tumult in Jack’s life, and more to come.
“Where’s mama?”
Fiero’s eyes swept shut for a moment, disgust overtaking every other emotion. He pictured Elodie upstairs in the hospital bed, and wished he could express his rage to her, wished he could make her know exactly what he thought of her choices.
“Asleep.” He was surprised by how calm his voice sounded.
“She hurt.”
The little boy’s lower lip trembled, but he didn’t cry. Instead, he dipped his head forward, and whispered, “S’my fault.”
Curiosity plucked Fiero’s brow. “Oh?”
And the little boy nodded and began to speak very quickly, too quickly for Fiero to comprehend the entirety of what he was saying. He heard ‘ball’ and ‘truck’ and ‘shout’ and ‘ball’ again, enough to gather the gist – that a ball had rolled onto the street and somehow in the retrieval of the ball, Elodie had been struck by a vehicle.
The rest he knew from the nurse.
“That’s not your fault,” he soothed, the shocking imagery of Elodie’s delicate body being clipped by a truck and thrown across the pavement one he didn’t relish contemplating. How must it be for the boy, who had witnessed the accident? Sympathy swelled in Fiero’s chest.
“S’my fault,” the boy repeated, more emphatically.
Fiero had little experience with small children. He was sure there was something he should say, something that would wipe the glum look off the little boy’s face. He wanted to offer reassurance even as it ran against his natural grain to give false hope – and having seen Elodie’s condition, he couldn’t say with any certainty how full her recovery would be.
“The doctors will help your mother,” he said instead, hoping the child wouldn’t detect the nuance of the statement.
“Doctors hurt,” Jack pronounced, so Fiero’s eyebrows drew together. Jack lifted a chubby little hand to his shoulder, rubbing it with a remembered wince. “Sharp needles. Ouch.”
“Ah.” Fiero’s voice cracked a little. A swell of emotion made it hard to concentrate. “Shots do hurt, yes.”
How many of the boy’s immunisations had he missed? How many tears? Tears at the doctor’s surgery or tears such as would have fallen today? He’d missed so much – and he wouldn’t miss another damned thing. With the rapier-like precision he was famed for, he stood, tousling the boy’s thick dark hair as he did. “I’ll be right back, Jack.”
“Mama?”
He didn’t betray a hint of his feelings to the little boy. “Your mother will need to stay here a while, to get better. Until she does, you’re going to come home with me. Okay?”
Jack didn’t respond immediately, but he tilted his head, considering this. “You’re a stranger.”
He was only two, but Fiero had to give the little boy credit for clear thinking even as the word was like a blade through his heart. “Not really,” he promised with a smile designed to reassure. “I know your mama, and she’s asked me to take care of your while she’s sick. Okay?”
The little boy nodded, but looked far from convinced.
Fiero decided to pull out the big guns. He crouched down once more, so he was at the boy’s eye level. “Of course, I live faraway, over the sea, so we’ll need to go on an aeroplane to reach my home. Have you ever been on an aeroplane, Jack?”
The little boy’s eyes grew wide, in a sign the bet had paid off. “No.”
“Tonight you will,” he promised.
All sign of concern fled from Jack’s face. “When?”
“Soon. I just have to take care of a few things first.”
Chapter 2
EVERYTHING HURT.
Elodie tried to sit up, but it was like taking a hammer to her ribs, so she stayed where she was, blinking her eyes open. Nothing made sense. She looked around the room as best she could while flat on her back. It was a hospital – the equipment gave that away. The bed though was unlike any hospital bed she’d seen, wide and soft. The décor was lovely too – butter yellow walls with modern art work, and the room was spacious, with a sofa and a little kitchen.
Where was she?
One of her hands was sore. She used the other to feel around until she connected with something like a small remote control. She pressed the button on it and closed her eyes.
It was too bright.
Her throat hurt.
She felt like she’d been hit by a…flashes of memory speared through her. The truck. The ball. Jack.
“Oh my God.” Ignoring the pain now, she pushed up to a sitting position, crying out in agony, pausing to take stock and then shoving the light-weight blanket from her lap. Her leg was in a cast.
It didn’t matter. She had just pushed herself off the bed and was trying to catch her balance when the door burst open and two nurses ran in.
They spoke in a foreign language. Italian? Or was she not hearing properly? Her head hurt like the devil and felt half-full of wool or water, it was highly likely she’d done some kind of damage to her brain and could no longer process language properly. She stared at them helplessly, fear tightening around her. Where was Jack?
“My son.” The words barely came out. Her throat was so dry. Tears filled her eyes. She lifted one hand and mimed the action for rocking a baby. “Baby. My baby. Where is he?”
Then, to herself, “Oh, Jack, where are you?”
They stared at her and she could have screamed. What time was it? What day? Where was she? This didn’t look like the Royal, but she could be in a different ward. Presumably she was. The only other time she’d been here was when she’d had Jack.
“Please help me,” she groaned. Panic was making her heart rate soar and her pulse was like an out of control anvil. “Please.”
One of the nurses, a woman in her fifties or sixties with blonde hair and a kind smile, nodded reassuringly, gesturing to the bed. “Sit. We help you.”
“My son,” she rushed, ignoring the suggestion she sit. “Where is he?”
“Jack?”
Relief was dizzying. If this woman knew his name then he must be here, too. “Yes, Jack,” she nodded but the action made her head feel like it was being split down the middle with a samurai sword. “Where is Jack?”
This Christmas and Forever: A heartwarming anthology of billionaire holiday romances... Page 44
