The Doctor's Runaway Bride

by Sarah Morgan

  ‘Emotional?’ Her jaw dropped and she gaped at him. ‘Of course I’m emotional. We had three blissful weeks together in Venice, but when we moved back to your home in Milan you changed, Luca. I barely saw you. You spent every available minute at the hospital. When I finally found time to tell you that I was pregnant, you reacted as though it was the worst news I could have given you and vanished to the hospital again. Then you came home and proposed. But obviously for all the wrong reasons. I think I have every right to be emotional.’

  Especially in view of what she’d found out since.

  He muttered something under his breath in Italian and raked long fingers thought his glossy dark hair. ‘Tia, I have already admitted that my reaction was less than perfect—’

  ‘Understatement,’ Tia muttered. ‘Major understatement.’

  A muscle worked in his jaw. ‘I think we both need to calm down and then start this conversation again.’

  ‘No.’ She shook her head vigorously, desperate to get rid of him. Being so close to him eroded her will-power. ‘There’s nothing more to be said. This isn’t about the baby, Luca, it’s about us. You and I. And the fact that our hormones got tangled with our common sense.’

  Nausea washed over her and she lifted a hand to her mouth. Oh, help! She was going to be sick again. She was sure of it.

  Luca frowned sharply and his long, strong fingers curled into her shoulders. ‘What’s the matter? Are you ill?’

  ‘No,’ she lied, steadying her stomach with a few deep breaths. ‘I’m just not enjoying this conversation. I want you to acknowledge that we both made a mistake so that we can move on.’

  His hands dropped from her shoulders and his face might have been carved from stone. ‘We’re having a baby, Tia. It’s too late to talk about making mistakes. We need to plan for the future.’

  ‘Luca, we don’t have a future,’ she said firmly, genuinely amazed that he’d even suggest such a thing. But it was because of the baby, of course. Whatever his initial reaction had been, he’d clearly decided that responsibility should come before personal happiness. ‘If a relationship isn’t right without a baby then it certainly won’t be right with a baby. We’re totally wrong for each other. Discovering that I’m pregnant doesn’t change that. I understand that you’re upset because I left you at the altar, but—’

  ‘I don’t care about that,’ Luca said dismissively. ‘That is in the past, but the baby is in the future and our future is together.’

  Tia stared at him. Sharon was obviously right. Luca Zattoni was a traditional Italian male to the core.

  He might have been shocked originally, but the concept of family and children was so important to Italians that she should have guessed that, once he’d had time to think about it, there was no way that Luca would just dismiss the fact that she was pregnant.

  ‘I am not going back to Italy with you, Luca.’

  ‘You still haven’t told me why you left Italy in the first place,’ he said through gritted teeth. ‘I can’t believe that you changed your mind at the last minute. If you had doubts, why didn’t you discuss them with me? Dio, I went up to your room and found everything gone. How did you think I felt?’

  Remembering just what had made her leave in such a hurry, she looked at him without sympathy. ‘I expect it damaged your ego.’

  He muttered under his breath and gave her an impatient glance. ‘Tia, I left the need to protect my ego behind in childhood, but I would be less than human if the unexplained disappearance of my bride-to-be—my pregnant bride to be—didn’t disconcert me somewhat.’

  ‘I thought you’d be pleased that I’d gone,’ she mumbled, rubbing her toe on the kitchen floor and refusing to look at him. Having him so close was unsettling to say the least. She couldn’t look at the man without remembering how they’d been together…

  ‘I wasn’t pleased,’ he said softly, his Italian accent suddenly very pronounced as he accentuated every syllable.

  She lifted her chin, her expression defiant. ‘If you missed me so badly, if you were really that worried, why didn’t you follow me straight away?’

  He tensed and hesitated for only the briefest moment. ‘There were complications,’ he muttered finally. ‘Things I needed to sort out.’

  Luisa.

  Tia turned away, hiding her hurt, but knowing that she’d done the right thing not to marry him. She didn’t want to be anyone’s second choice.

  ‘You haven’t told me why you changed your mind.’

  ‘I—I had second thoughts,’ she said honestly, flicking her hair back and looking him straight in the eye. ‘I suddenly realised that there were so many things I didn’t know about you.’

  Luca frowned. ‘Like what?’

  Flustered, Tia avoided his question. ‘I don’t know, but it was all so fast and I don’t think you should get married without knowing everything there is to know about the person you’re marrying—’

  ‘Tia there are always things about another person that stays hidden,’ he said, and she shook her head.

  ‘Not when you’ve known each other for a long time. When people have known each other for a long time they’re as familiar as old socks.’

  He lifted an eyebrow and looked at her incredulously. ‘Dio. That is your idea of a stimulating relationship? To live with someone who is like a sock?’

  ‘I’m just trying to say—’

  ‘It’s all right—I think know what you’re trying to say.’ He let out a long breath and shook his head slowly. ‘Tia, the length of a relationship is not always an indication of its depth.’

  His voice was suddenly quiet and her heart suddenly missed a beat.

  Was he going to tell her about Luisa?

  Luca’s jaw clenched. ‘It’s true that our relationship moved quickly and was very intense—’

  Intense?

  That had to be the understatement of the year.

  She’d been so totally overwhelmed by what had been happening between them that she hadn’t bothered to think about the future.

  ‘But we weren’t suited, Luca.’

  ‘No? If my memory serves me correctly, we were never able to look at each other without needing to rip each other’s clothes off,’ he drawled softly. ‘I wouldn’t exactly describe that as “not suited”, would you? You were in my bed the same night we met.’

  His blunt reminder of just how quickly they’d become intimate brought a flood of colour to her cheeks and Tia closed her eyes. He was right, of course. The physical chemistry between them had been frighteningly powerful. It had completely swamped her common sense, what little she’d had, and it had clearly taken his mind off his troubles with Luisa.

  ‘There’s more to a relationship than good sex, Luca,’ she said quietly, dragging her eyes away from his penetrating gaze and trying to regain some semblance of control.

  The mere brush of those long, strong fingers against her flesh made her tremble and she struggled to hide it from him.

  Dear God, why couldn’t she just tell him the truth? That she knew he’d met her when his other relationship had been in trouble. That she knew he was in love with another woman.

  He was watching her closely. ‘You think our relationship was just about sex?’

  For her, no, but for him?

  ‘We’re different, Luca,’ she said finally. ‘I—I didn’t realise how different until we lived together in Milan. Perhaps if I’d had a job…’

  The temperature in the room dropped below zero.

  ‘There was no reason for you to work.’ His jaw tightened and his expression was grim. ‘I gave you credit cards—you weren’t short of money.’

  That was true enough. The Zattoni family were obviously extremely wealthy. She’d never had access to so much money in her life. But she didn’t really care about money.

  ‘It isn’t about money, Luca,’ Tia declared emphatically, trying to make him understand something of what she’d felt when they were in Italy. ‘When we met in Venice it was beautiful—roman
tic. But Milan…’

  ‘Milan is not Venice,’ he agreed quietly, his eyes fixed on her pale face. ‘Milan is more of a business city than a tourist one. It’s foggy in winter and muggy in the summer and the pollution is grim.’

  ‘I felt suffocated there,’ Tia admitted, ‘but it wasn’t really the place. It was us. You spent all your time at the hospital and I was lonely.’

  ‘Lonely?’ He frowned sharply. ‘You had the support of my family. How could you have been lonely?’

  Tia’s eyes slid away from his. ‘They hate me, Luca,’ she told him. ‘They think I’m the wrong sort of woman for you, and do you know what?’ She forced herself to meet that unsettling dark gaze head on. ‘They’re right. I am the wrong sort of woman. You should have married someone sleek and elegant, someone who’d know how to spend your money…’

  It was the nearest she’d got to telling him that she knew about Luisa but not by the flicker of an eyelid did he betray himself.

  ‘My family do not hate you.’ His expression was suddenly ominous. ‘What possible grounds do you have for making such a statement?’

  She caught the look of disbelief in his eyes and decided to tell the truth.

  ‘Luca, I never saw them,’ she told him quietly, ‘apart from the weekends when you and I visited them together.’

  He muttered something under his breath in Italian. ‘You spent most weekdays with them. Shopping, lunching.’

  Tia gave a wry smile. ‘No, Luca. Check your credit-card bill. I never once shopped or lunched. They never invited me and, anyway, I wouldn’t have wanted to. I don’t like spending money that way. That isn’t the sort of life I’m used to and they knew that, which is presumably why they never invited me.’

  Anger flashed in his black eyes and Tia winced. ‘They’re very traditional,’ she said quickly, wishing she’d never said anything. She certainly didn’t want to turn him against his family. ‘They knew I wouldn’t have been comfortable spending days with them.’

  Luca’s jaw was tight. ‘So how did you spend your days?’

  Tia gave a sad smile. They’d been together for three months and only now was he asking that question.

  ‘I stayed in the flat and read books,’ she told him, ‘or I went for walks.’

  He was suddenly tense. ‘Milan is not a great city for walking. Where did you walk?’

  She shrugged. ‘Wherever took my fancy.’

  ‘And you wouldn’t have had the first clue where was safe and where wasn’t.’ He closed his eyes briefly. ‘That evening we met in Venice, you were pacing the streets at night on your own. Do you have a death wish?’

  ‘No, but I like to live my own life, and—’

  ‘Tia, you are a stunningly beautiful woman,’ he ground out angrily, ‘and your blonde head shines like a beacon. It is very unusual to see a woman of your colouring in Italy and you attract no little amount of attention. You were putting yourself at risk.’

  Without any warning her heart turned over. He thought she was beautiful?

  No, that just didn’t make sense. She was as unlike Luisa as it was possible to be.

  Before she had a chance to digest this piece of information, his hands closed over her shoulders like a vice. ‘I will talk to my family about their behaviour and you will promise me that you won’t walk around on your own at night again.’

  ‘I can’t promise and I don’t want you to talk to your family. There’s no reason to. It’s in the past now.’ Suddenly Tia felt exhausted. Too exhausted to talk any further. ‘It was all my fault, anyway. I am so far removed from a perfect Italian wife it’s laughable. Your family did what they thought was best and they were right. I’m the sort of person who needs space and independence. I’m not the sort of person who enjoys shopping, lunching and beauty salons.’

  She swayed slightly and Luca’s grip on her shoulders tightened.

  ‘We shouldn’t be talking about this now.’ He scooped her up as if she weighed nothing, holding her firmly against his chest. ‘You’re not well. You look pale and worn out. You need to go to bed.’

  Bed.

  Just thinking about bed when she was held this close to him made her body start to tremble. She could feel the hard muscle of his chest through the fabric of his shirt and her fingers itched to touch him.

  No.

  ‘Put me down, Luca.’ She wriggled in his arms and then groaned and buried her head in his shoulder as everything swam.

  He ignored her efforts to escape, his expression grim as he negotiated the narrow staircase that led upstairs.

  ‘Where’s your bedroom?’

  ‘It’s none of your business,’ she protested weakly, wishing that being in his arms didn’t feel quite so good. But she fancied him so much that her whole body melted if he so much as looked at her. It wasn’t just that he was stunningly good-looking. There was something about him, an air of confidence and power, that was incredibly sexy.

  Dear God, did she have no sense of self-preservation?

  How could she still feel this way about someone who didn’t want her? How could her body still respond to him?

  Luca shouldered open the few doors upstairs until he found what was obviously her bedroom and laid her gently on the bed.

  ‘Our problem is that we are both too alike, you and I,’ he told her, stroking the hair out of her eyes with gentle fingers and then checking her pulse. ‘We are hot-tempered and stubborn. Why didn’t you tell me that you felt ill? How long have you been in this state?’

  Tia closed her eyes and fought back the waves of nausea. ‘I’m not in a state. I’m just pregnant,’ she mumbled, feeling drowsiness wash over her. She’d never felt so tired in her life. It was as if her body had turned off a switch and everything had shut down. She just had to sleep.

  ‘Go away, Luca,’ she murmured, fighting to stop her eyelids drooping. ‘I want you to go home to Italy and leave me alone.’

  She saw his eyes darken, knew she ought to finish the conversation but her body betrayed her, slowly drifting into sleep mode before she could resolve the situation. Her eyelids closed and she was dimly aware of Luca standing up and of having blankets tucked around her. Then darkness claimed her.

  CHAPTER TWO

  TIA awoke to the sound of rain thundering on the windows.

  Remembering the evening before, she closed her eyes and gave a groan of mortification.

  Luca.

  She’d virtually passed out cold on the man. He’d carried her to her bed and…

  Her eyes drifted to the clothes piled neatly on the chair in the corner of the room.

  Her clothes.

  Pushing back the duvet, she glanced down and saw that she was wearing one of Luca’s old T-shirts. She ran her fingers over the soft fabric, her sensitive nose picking up his elusive male scent, the same scent that had wrapped itself around her on all those hot, steamy nights together.

  The mere thought of his lean, brown hands touching her made her heart flip against her chest and a devastating weakness spread through her body.

  Luca…

  She’d never felt about anybody the way she felt about him.

  And he must have undressed her last night.

  Where had he stayed? Here? In the cottage? Was he still here now?

  Tia sat up suddenly and swung her legs over the edge of the bed, anger bringing her to life.

  How dared he?

  How could Luca expect to stroll back into her life as if nothing had happened when he was in love with another woman? How dared he put her to bed and undress her? He was in no position to play happy families.

  Her feet hit the floor and the sudden movement made her stomach churn.

  She made it to the toilet just in time and retched miserably, wondering dully why any woman chose to get pregnant.

  ‘You got up too quickly.’ Luca’s deep voice came from behind her and his long fingers lifted her hair away from her face.

  ‘Go away, Luca.’ She closed her eyes tightly, utterly humiliated that he
should see her like this. Being ill was bad enough without having him witness it. ‘I want some privacy.’

  ‘I’m a doctor, cara mia,’ he pointed out, his voice surprisingly gentle as he handed her a cool flannel. ‘I see sick people every day.’

  ‘I’m not people,’ she said, wishing her stomach would settle. ‘Leave me alone so I can die in peace.’

  He murmured something in Italian and lifted her easily to her feet. ‘You’re not going to die. You have morning sickness. It should go by the fourteenth week.’

  Tia slumped against the wall and looked at him with dull eyes. She was already twelve weeks pregnant. ‘Another two weeks of this?’

  He gave a faint smile, his dark eyes surprisingly sympathetic. ‘Have you been sick much?’

  ‘All the time,’ Tia mumbled, and his smile faded as he switched into doctor mode.

  ‘Do you have any pain when you are sick?’

  ‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘Relax, Luca. I’m fine. Just pregnant.’

  ‘You’ve lost weight.’ His dark gaze raked over her slender frame and she looked at him, exhausted.

  ‘Of course I’ve lost weight. The last few weeks haven’t exactly been a picnic for me either, you know.’

  ‘What has the doctor said about you?’

  ‘What doctor?’

  He frowned sharply. ‘You haven’t seen a doctor yet?’

  She sighed. ‘It’s hardly been on the top of my list of priorities, Luca.’

  ‘You should have had blood tests and a scan.’ His eyes narrowed. ‘When did you start your last period?’

  ‘For goodness’ sake!’ She coloured, embarrassed by his question, and he muttered something under his breath and cupped her face in his hands.

  ‘Tia, you are having my baby and I am a doctor,’ he reminded her gently. ‘You have no need to feel awkward. I need to ask you these things because I need to know that you are OK. Indulge me and answer the question. Please?’

  ‘Twenty-fourth of July,’ she muttered, feeling her cheeks heat again. They might have made the baby together but there was something about him that made her feel impossibly shy. ‘Or, at least, that’s what I think. I had some spotting a month later but not a real period. I worked out that I must be due on the 30th April.’