The Valtieri Marriage Deal (4 page)

She stuck her head out of the door and looked around, just as Sarah came out of the sluice. ‘You couldn’t page the on-call register for me, could you? I’ve got a query with Mrs Marchant.’

‘Sure—oh, there he is. Luca, Izzie wants you.’

Oh, perfect. Luca—of course, looking more gorgeous than a man had any right to look in shapeless scrubs. And Sarah’s phrasing left a lot to be desired, as well! Oh, hell.

She straightened her shoulders and tried to find a professional face. She could do this. She could…

Luca walked towards her, wishing he hadn’t taken this locum job to help his old friend out, wishing he’d just found Isabelle and spoken to her, but when he’d walked out of Richard’s office this morning and seen her again, it had seemed like the answer to his prayers.

Now he wasn’t at all sure. Ever since he’d set eyes on her again he’d been hoping that being forced to work together might give them a chance to get to know each other, find out if they had anything worth pursuing, but her face was closed, her lips pressed tightly together, and he realised that working with her could be a nightmare. She’d got issues of some sort. God knows what, but, given time, he was sure he’d be able to break through them. He had before—and how. He only hoped that he’d be able to remain professional until then, because
all he wanted to do right now was wrap his arms around her and tell her it was all right—and if he tried it, she’d probably kill him. Thank God there was a patient in the way!

‘Problems?’ he mouthed as he reached her, and she nodded.

‘Maybe,’ she murmured quietly, and he realised with relief that she was going to behave as if nothing had happened—for now, at least. ‘Julie Marchant, third pregnancy, straightforward previous history, admitted late last night in early labour. She had an epidural at five a.m.—so that’s three hours ago, she’s had two top-ups, but progress has slowed right down even though she’s virtually fully dilated, and there’s a dipping foetal heart rate—nothing much, but I’m just…’

She ground to a halt with a little shrug and bit her lip, and he dragged his eyes off it and made himself concentrate.

‘Is the head high?’ he asked.

‘A little. It’s probably nothing, just the mother’s position…’

But she looked troubled, and he knew better than to ignore a troubled midwife. He gave a terse nod. ‘Give me ten seconds, I have to make a note of something and I’ll be with you.’

Isabelle went back to her patient, and moments later he joined her, squirting gel onto his hands and rubbing it in as he smiled at their patient and tried to focus on her.

‘Hi, Mrs Marchant, I’m Luca. May I call you Julie? Tell me, how are you feeling?’ he asked, but as she talked and he probed gently with his questions, he was checking the CTG, watching their patient carefully, his eyes flicking to Isabelle’s from time to time for confirmation of Julie’s words.

And then, as much to hear her voice as for the information she’d give him, he said, ‘Isabelle, could you run over the notes with me?’

Isabelle, she thought with a stupid tinge of regret, not
Isabella,
with that wonderful, slow roll of her name over his tongue, tasting every syllable. Damn. And she needed to concentrate.

So she filled him in again, showed him the charts and pointed out her concerns without alarming the patient, although there was nothing much to alarm her, anyway—nothing very untoward, nothing drastic, really, at all, and as she was telling him about it she thought, Oh, lord, he thinks I’m overreacting, because the baby’s heart rate was only dropping a tiny bit—but…

‘She’s contracting,’ she said, forgetting the charts for a moment, and he looked back at their patient with a smile that should have melted her bones, murmured, ‘May I?’ and laid his hands over her abdomen, the fingers of one splayed over the baby’s head to feel for its descent, watching the monitor as the contraction progressed. This time, she was both pleased and concerned to see that the dip in heart rate was more noticeable. So she hadn’t imagined it—and it
was
a worry.

He made a small, thoughtful sound and his eyes flicked to Isabelle’s. ‘She’s fully dilated?’

‘Yes, except for an anterior lip,’ she told him, hoping that he was going to believe her and not give Julie an unnecessary internal examination, ‘and she’s been in established labour for four hours.’ So the head should be lower, and coming down with every contraction, not staying stubbornly high as if something—the cord?—was preventing its descent.

‘Hmm,’ he said again, then looked back at Julie. ‘I think your baby might be a bit of an acrobat,’ he said with another of those smiles. ‘The cord could be a bit tangled, and if that’s the case, we need to untangle it for him. Unfortunately this means a C-section, but it’s nothing to worry about and you have an epidural already, so you’re all set. We’ll take you up now, there’s a theatre free. Is there anyone here with you?’

‘No, my husband’s taking the children to school and getting some food in. I was taking so long—oh, damn! Can we wait for him?’

He shook his head, busily disconnecting her from the machines and kicking the brakes off the bed. ‘No, your baby’s not comfy so I’m not happy to wait, but we’ll look after you, you don’t need to be afraid. Isabelle will stay with you. I’ll get someone to contact your husband—do we have a mobile number for him?’

‘Um—I think so.’

‘OK. Don’t worry, we’ll deal with it. Isabelle, could you come to Theatre with Mrs Marchant?’

‘Sure. I’ll just hand over my other patients to Sarah—’

‘She’ll understand. Come on, let’s go—we can’t miss the theatre slot!’ he said with a grin at their patient, but Isabelle picked up the hidden meaning and pulled the bed out from the wall, relieved not only for Julie but for herself that he’d taken her concern so seriously.

Sarah must have seen them go, because they were ready and waiting in Theatre, and Julie was on the table and draped in moments.

‘OK, time to meet your baby,’ he said the second he was scrubbed, and Isabelle ran in after him, her gown still trailing, and watched him do the fastest section she’d ever seen.

‘Good call,’ he murmured to Isabelle, clamping and cutting the cord which was wrapped several times round the baby’s neck, and with a smile for the mother, he eased the tiny girl out and handed her instantly to the waiting neonatal team while Isabelle wondered what it was about him that his praise could mean quite so much to her. But then she stopped thinking about that, because the baby was
silent, and in the normally noisy theatre they could have heard a pin drop.

‘You have a beautiful little girl, Mrs Marchant,’ Luca said in a calm voice, his eyes smiling. ‘Well done.’

Julie’s hand tightened on Isabelle’s. ‘Can I see her?’

‘Not just yet,’ Isabelle said, squeezing back reassuringly while her ears strained for a sound of life. ‘They need to clear her airway.’ Luca was still busy, but she could see that like all of them he was acutely aware of the deafening silence in the room, and his eyes kept flicking to the neonatal team.

‘What’s taking so long?’ Mrs Marchant said, her eyes filled with tears. ‘Why isn’t she crying?’

‘It only seems a long time,’ Luca lied, but one eye was on the clock and it was ticking. One minute—two…

They were all holding their breath, because if they couldn’t, then the baby couldn’t—and then, when they had all but given up, there was a small, mewling cry, then a shuddering breath and a full-blown bellow of rage, and they all laughed with relief and carried on, because at that moment the sound of a baby crying was the sweetest sound in the world.

‘Nice work, Mr Valtieri,’ Isabelle murmured while Julie met her baby daughter, fairness making her give him his due, and his eyes met hers over the mask and softened in a smile that turned her heart to pulp.

‘Ditto,’ he said quietly. ‘What made you get me when you did?’

She lifted a shoulder. ‘Gut instinct?’

‘I like your instincts,
cara,’
he said, and turned back to their patient, still smiling under his mask.

Maybe working with her would be OK after all—and given time…

‘What time do you finish?’

She looked up from the notes she was writing at the nursing station in the centre of the ward and contemplated telling him it was none of his business, but apart from the fact that it would have been petty, it would take him ten seconds to check the rota.

‘Nine-thirty,’ she told him, and he frowned.

‘So late?’

‘I work a thirty-seven-and-a-half-hour week. So if I do three fourteen-hour days with an hour-and-a-half break, I’ve done my hours. And I get four days off.’

‘But you haven’t had a break yet.’

She met his scowl with a dry laugh. ‘That’s right. I usually don’t.’

‘But that’s not good for you—and it’s not fair.’

She couldn’t disagree, so she just shrugged and carried on with her notes. Until a large hand arrived in the centre of the page, the fingers splayed across it so she couldn’t see. The fingers which had touched her with so much skill, making her body sing…

‘Come and have a coffee, at least. We need to talk.’

‘I don’t think so. I told you that earlier. We’re working together, by an unhappy coincidence, but that’s all. Our relationship is professional only, Mr Valtieri, and that’s the way it’s staying.’

‘Has anyone ever told you you’re stubborn?’

‘It’s one of my more endearing qualities—but it’s nothing to do with being stubborn. I just don’t like my wishes being ignored.’

‘I didn’t ignore them!’

‘So what are you doing here?’

He closed his eyes, growling in frustration. ‘It was coincidence, as you said.’

‘You were looking for me,’ she reminded him, and a flash of dark colour swept over his cheekbones.

‘I had been. I just wanted a chance to see you.’

‘Well, you should have checked if I wanted to see you before you wasted your time, Luca.’

‘Maybe I should. Maybe I would have, if you’d given me your number, but this is nothing to do with that. This is just chance, and I’m sorry if you don’t like it,
Isabella,
but since I’m here…’

Isabella.
With at least two more syllables, and a rolling purr that made her heart hitch. Well, it wouldn’t work. Her heart could hitch all it liked, but she wasn’t going to let herself get drawn into a relationship with him by that flagrant Italian charm.

Except professionally, and only then because she had no choice. And she couldn’t do that if she allowed him to creep under her guard.

He sighed. ‘Isabella, we do need to talk about this,’ he said quietly. ‘Maybe not now, but soon. At the very least, you owe me the chance to—’

‘I owe you nothing,’ she said bluntly.

He leant over the desk so his face was mere inches from hers. ‘Then at least do me the decency of hearing me out.’

Isabelle swallowed. He was so close that she could smell him, smell the combination of spice and citrus and man that had trashed her defences so thoroughly in Florence, so that even now the evocative scent brought it all back and left her weak and wanting.

She shut her eyes and stifled the whimper. ‘Luca, I don’t want to. You’ve come and found me, I didn’t want to see you, that’s the end of it.’

‘Not for me.’

‘Well, tough. It is for me, and it takes two. Go and talk to Richard if you want someone to talk to. I’m not opening myself up to hurt all over again just to give you closure.’

‘All over again? Is that what this is about, some man who hurt you? Who was it, Isabelle? Who hurt you so much you’re afraid to try again?’

She met his eyes in desperation. ‘Luca! Go away!’

He sighed softly under his breath. ‘OK—for now. But I’m not finished, and we need to do this somewhere a little more private.’

She contemplated saying no, but he wasn’t going to give up, so she agreed, grudgingly. ‘Oh, for God’s sake, all right. I’ll have coffee with you later, when I’ve finished this, but not now. Now, please move your hand,’ she said calmly, although her heart was pounding, but as he opened his mouth to say something his pager bleeped.

He gave a low growl of frustration, muttered, ‘Later—and don’t forget,’ and stalked off down the ward, muttering something in Italian.

‘Oh, that man is so-o-o sexy!’ one of the midwives murmured as she walked past, and Isabelle closed her eyes.

He might be sexy—she could testify to that—but she wasn’t going to be influenced by it. She’d been stupid enough already and she wasn’t letting him any further into her life. She completed the labour report she was writing up for Julie Marchant, slapped the file onto the heap and reached for the next one.

She’d hear him out, over coffee, as she’d agreed, but that was all. She wasn’t going to let him get to her. No way.

‘W
HAT ARE YOU
doing?’

‘Taking you home.’

She turned up her coat collar against the February chill and sighed shortly. ‘I thought we were going for coffee? I don’t need to be taken home.’

‘I disagree. It’s dark, it’s late and you’ve worked fifteen hours without a proper break. You can’t go home alone and unaccompanied, especially not by the time we’ve had coffee, it’s not safe.’

She glared at him in exasperation. ‘Luca, I’m twenty-eight! I’ve lived in London all my life, and I’ve been doing this journey for weeks now. It’s perfectly safe!’

‘But it’s a long way to Herne Hill—that is where you said you live, isn’t it? Unless you’ve moved house, as well, during the refurb?’

She contemplated lying, but it went against the grain, and, anyway, he only had to check the HR files. Probably had already. ‘No—no, I haven’t moved house,’ she told him, amazed that he’d remembered where she lived from her fleeting mention of it weeks ago, ‘but the journey’s perfectly straightforward.’

‘Straightforward?’

She rolled her eyes. ‘I walk to the Tube, get the train to Victoria, get the bus to the end of the road next to mine and walk home.’

‘In the dark? That’s
not
safe.’

‘It’s
perfectly
safe. There are lots of streetlights.’ Although it wasn’t great. There were too many trees shading the lights, and there were several dark spots where she often felt a little nervous, but there was no way on God’s green earth she was telling Luca that.

‘And how long does this whole
straightforward
journey take you?’

She shrugged. ‘Forty-five minutes?’

He swore—in English, so she could understand this time, his accent heavier as he became frustrated with her—and went on, ‘I’m taking you home. Get used to it.’

‘Only if I tell you the address—which I have no intention of doing. It’s bad enough that you know where I work.’

‘Oh, for God’s sake, Isabelle! If I wanted to know your address, I’d ask Human Resources,’ he pointed out. ‘I’m sure I could come up with some plausible reason for needing it.’

She was sure he could.

She gave up, frustrated to bits but too tired to argue any longer.

‘All right,’ she snapped, ‘you can take me home, if your crazy Latin sense of honour demands it, but that’s it. You’re not coming in. I don’t want this, Luca.’

His shoulders dropped, and he stabbed a hand through his hair and gave a tired sigh that pulled at her reluctant heartstrings. ‘This? What this? I just want to talk to you, Isabelle. I
need
to talk to you.’

‘Why? There’s nothing to say.’

‘Because I’ve been looking for you for weeks,’ he said quietly, ‘and now I’ve found you, by a miracle, I would appreciate a chance to talk to you—even if it’s only so you can tell me to go to hell. You still owe me that coffee, since you managed to avoid taking a break all day.’

She hesitated, but he was right, she had promised, and she didn’t go back on her word. ‘OK,’ she said flatly. ‘You can take me home, if you absolutely have to, and you can have a coffee and get all this off your chest so you have closure, and then you can leave.’

‘I don’t want closure.’

‘Well, it’s all you’re going to get, so take your pick.’

His smile was cynical. ‘You’re all heart, you know that?’

‘Or maybe I’ll just go home on the Tube on my own.’

She turned and walked off, and after a second she heard his firm, solid footfall behind her. And for some crazy, stupid reason, her heart did a happy little jiggle. She squashed the smile and kept walking, then she felt his hand on her arm.

‘Isabelle, stop. I intend to take you home whether I drive you in my car or follow you on foot, so why don’t you just choose the car and make it easier for both of us?’

‘Some choice,’ she grumbled, but in truth she was exhausted, and the very thought of walking to the Tube, sitting in the smelly, busy carriage with all the revellers out for the night, then waiting for a bus and walking for another ten minutes at the other end was too depressing to contemplate.

‘Of course, if you come in my car, we have the heater, we won’t get wet in the rain and I don’t have to make the same ridiculous journey back. But it’s up to you.’

Stupidly—because it was his idea to take her home and
nothing at all to do with what she wanted—she felt guilty at the thought of him having to make the return journey the hard way. After all, his day had been just as long as hers. And the car did sound
awfully
tempting. Then a dribble off the edge of the canopy ran down the back of her neck and made up her mind.

‘Have it your way, then,’ she said grudgingly, and immediately felt rude and ungrateful and mean. And she hated that, because she wasn’t naturally rude or mean, and if it hadn’t been for the strings attached to it, she’d be grateful. She
was
grateful. She just didn’t want to encourage him or make him feel that just because they’d spent one incredible night together they could have any more than that.

And she was still angry with him, still not entirely convinced that his turning up at her hospital was just coincidence, and still very, very vulnerable to his potent charm. Scarily so.

But she let him lead her to his car—not his Italian sports car, she noticed, but a sensible little Alfa Romeo—and she sank down into the soft leather seat and rested her head back, and in seconds she was asleep.

‘Wake up, sleepyhead,’ Luca said softly, reluctant to disturb her when she was clearly exhausted. ‘I need directions.’

‘Oh.’ She struggled up from the depths of her seat and looked around. ‘OK, you’re nearly there. Turn left just past that pub.’

‘Here?’

‘Yes—down here, and turn left there and pull up. This is it.’

He parked outside a pretty little terraced house in a treelined street tucked away off the main road, and cut the engine, relieved to see that it was in a very respectable neighbourhood.

‘So are you coming in for that coffee?’ she asked, but she
sounded grudging and he realised that he still had a very long way to go.

‘Am I welcome?’

She sighed. ‘You’ve brought me home. Even I’m not that churlish. Anyway, you said you wanted to talk,’ she said, reaching for the doorhandle.

He hesitated. ‘When do you work again?’

‘Tomorrow, seven-thirty,’ she said.

‘That’s crazy. I can’t come in now, it’s far too late, we’ll talk tomorrow. You need to get to bed.’

Oh, why had he said that word? Something dark and dangerous unravelled inside him, and he wished she’d just get out of the car and go into the house and shut her front door before he carried her through it and onto the nearest flat surface. He gripped the wheel tightly.

‘Come on, Isabelle, get out. I’ll see you in the morning,’ he said, wishing she would open the door, but she hesitated and then turned to him.

‘Oh, this is ridiculous, you’re here now, and, anyway, I won’t sleep for ages after that nap.’

She reached for the handle and got out, and after a fractional hesitation he followed her, going through her front door and into a narrow but well-kept entrance hall, his hands rammed firmly into his pockets. ‘I’ll make coffee,’ she said, heading for the kitchen.

‘Can you make that tea?’ he said, starting to follow her. ‘I’ve had so much coffee today to keep me awake that I won’t sleep. And is there any chance of some toast? I’m starving.’

‘Of course. Stay here.’

Stay here. An order, Isabelle setting the limits, taking control of a situation she was unhappy with, he thought, but
he stayed, giving himself a little breathing space and taking the opportunity to learn a little about her and her home.

It was small, neat and full of homely touches, but a little tired round the edges. A typical rented house, like so many others, but at least she’d made an effort to make it home. But it was a ludicrous distance from her work, and he was sure she could have found something closer if this new post was going to last any length of time.

But it wasn’t his business, of course, and Isabelle would be the first to tell him that, and however frustrating he found it, he was beginning to realise that he couldn’t just order her about and take over her life and look after her, because she just wasn’t going to let him.

However much he wanted to.

He grunted with frustration. Given the choice—which was never going to happen!—he’d take her home to his house, literally round the corner from the hospital, and install her there with him—in the spare room if she insisted—for the duration of the refurb in her own hospital. And maybe by then he would have enough time to convince her that he wasn’t a bad person, and that what had happened when they’d met, that tidal wave of emotion and reaction, had been bigger than both of them.

And maybe, just maybe, they’d find they had a future.

But not yet. It was too soon. She had issues to deal with, and until he could talk her into giving them a chance, they weren’t going to move this thing forward at all. So he ignored his frustration and looked around.

There was a photograph on the mantelpiece of a younger Isabelle with a woman who looked as if she could be her mother. They had their arms around each other and they were laughing, and it made him smile. It could have been a photo
from his own family, bossy and interfering, but loving and supportive, too.

There had been times when he’d needed that so much. He turned away from the photograph with a sigh, and lowered himself onto the sofa cautiously. He’d sat on plenty of rented sofas in the past, and they were almost without fail too hard, too soft or just plain wrong.

This one was all of them. Shifting to avoid a spring, he leaned back cautiously, rested his head against the cushion and closed his eyes.

It was a good job it was so uncomfortable, or he might just stay here forever…

‘Oh!’

She put the tray down and stared at him in frustration. He was asleep, for heaven’s sake! So much for a five-minute chat and booting him out of the door. She sat down opposite him in the chair and left him to it while she sipped her tea, telling herself it was out of kindness but secretly grateful for the chance to study him.

He looked tired. His eyes were shadowed, his lashes dark against his olive skin, and he was dead to the world. No wonder pagers were so horribly aggressive and hard to ignore. Nothing else would have got through to him, she was sure, and she wondered how she’d failed to notice just how tired he was.

Probably because she’d either been too busy avoiding him or so busy with a delivery that all her attention had been on her patient. Whatever, she hadn’t looked at him properly—had never had the chance to look at him really closely without him looking back, and she felt a little voyeuristic.

It didn’t stop her, though. Nothing short of him waking
would have stopped her, and she let her eyes linger on his jaw, with its shadow of stubble that gave him a morning-after look reminding her so strongly of Florence. His nose was strong and straight, but there was a little bump in it where it had been broken at some time. A sporting accident? Or fighting over a girl? She could imagine him doing that, in his teens. And he would have won, of course.

His lips were slightly parted, full and soft and beautifully sculpted, like one of Michelangelo’s exquisite pieces; his eyes sat deep in their sockets, his brows a clean, strong arch over them, crafted by a master’s hand. She wanted to reach out and touch his face, run her fingers over the warm, silken skin, feel again the rough scrape of his stubble, the flesh and bone beneath. Feel that glossy hair, so dark it was almost black, and with a texture like raw silk.

She could remember the feel of it between her fingers, the soft, thick strands teasing her body as he moved over it, driving her mad with his wicked, clever mouth.

She swallowed and shut her eyes, letting her breath out on a whimpering sigh, and after a moment, when she opened them, he was watching her.

‘Are you all right,
cara?’

‘I’m fine. You were asleep—I started without you,’ she said, indicating his mug and the pile of buttered toast on the table between them.

His smile was wry. ‘We didn’t all have the benefit of a catnap on the journey,’ he said easily, and sat forward to pick up his tea and a slice of toast.

She curled up, hitching her feet up under her bottom and wriggling back in the chair to give herself a little more personal space. Not that it helped. He was still far too close
for comfort, and her thoughts were still recovering from the memory of his mouth trailing over her. She could move away from him physically, she realised, but she couldn’t escape so easily from her own head.

‘OK—you wanted to talk, so you’d better do it, starting with why you were looking for me,’ she said, not allowing either of them to get sidetracked now he was awake, and he leaned back with his tea and regarded her steadily over the top of it.

‘I wanted to see you again,’ he said simply. ‘One night left me with more questions than answers. I felt…’ he shrugged, ‘unresolved.’

Oh, she knew all about that. She’d tried so hard to resolve it in her mind, to put him out of it, even, but her mind wasn’t having any. Unresolved? Oh, yes.

‘So you thought you’d come and find me?’

He inclined his head a fraction. ‘I had to come to London anyway, to finish off my research. I had a starting point in that I knew the name of your hospital, so I thought I’d try there.’

‘So you just—what? Contacted them and asked for me?’

‘Yes—and I drew a blank. I didn’t know your last name, and so I couldn’t give them enough information to be convincing. And I don’t know any of the clinic staff there, so I couldn’t pull strings. So I asked around a few friends without success, and then I gave up. I told myself you had my number, you could call me again if you wanted to, and you hadn’t, so I assumed—but if I’d needed to, believe me, I would have found you,’ he said in a voice that left her in no doubt it was true.