ONE NIGHT WITH MORELLI

by Kim Lawrence

  ‘Sorry?’ she suggested in an icy voice.

  ‘I am sorry,’ he said, including Mark in his response.

  ‘Is that meant to make things better?’ she shrilled, not to be placated. ‘I never want to see you again ever!’ she yelled wildly, then, grabbing her brother’s arm, she stalked off towards the entrance to her building, not pausing until they were in the communal foyer. ‘Is he coming?’ she asked her brother through clenched teeth, adding urgently, ‘Don’t look!’

  Mark, who was already looking, turned back. ‘Don’t worry, he isn’t coming. He’s gone.’

  Eve expelled a long shuddering sigh. ‘Gone?’ she parroted blankly.

  ‘Yes.’

  Mark’s smile died as his sister burst into tears.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  SITTING AT HER desk as Draco walked into the office, his PA beckoned him wildly. ‘It’s him!’

  ‘I’ll take it in my office.’ He didn’t ask who the him was; there was only one person he had seen make his unflappable middle-aged secretary blush and that was Kamel, the Prince of Surana. He’d be lucky if he got any work out of her for the rest of the day, he thought sourly.

  ‘Hello, Kamel. What can I do for you?’

  ‘Grow a pair.’

  It was an answer that only a good friend could have uttered, but even so the harsh suggestion made Draco’s eyebrows rise dramatically. ‘Have I done something to upset you?’

  ‘You’ve done something to upset my wife, which amounts to the same thing. No, actually, it’s worse.’

  Draco, who could only recall having exchanged half a dozen words with the princess at her father’s wedding or at the charity evening, waited for an explanation.

  ‘Eve is Hannah’s best friend, Draco. They’re sisters now! Your name is a dirty word in our home. What the hell is wrong with you, man? Eve is a… Actually, this is none of my business.’

  ‘You’re ringing to tell me it’s none of your business or that I’m a loser?’ Kamel wouldn’t be the only one. Josie had stopped asking him about Eve but he could see the disappointment and disapproval in her eyes every time she looked at him.

  His best friend, his daughter… Was there a message in there he ought to be hearing…? No, Eve had made her feelings very clear, and, even if he did jump through hoops to get her back, who was to say it wouldn’t happen again? There was a limit to how often a man could reinvent himself. He was who he was and if she didn’t like him warts and all what was the point?

  The point is you’re lo… No, he wouldn’t even allow himself to think the word. His life was full, busy, and loneliness was a state of mind reserved for people who indulged in self-pity.

  ‘Both, but, no, I’m ringing you regardless, and God knows I hope I’m doing the right thing here… You know Hannah is pregnant?’

  ‘Congratulations.’

  He heard the hissing sound of exasperation echo down the line at the interruption. ‘The thing is the doctors won’t allow her to travel right now and I’m not leaving her.’

  An icy fist suddenly reached into his chest. ‘Has something happened to Eve?’ On his feet, he dragged a hand through his hair and thought, I should be with her.

  ‘Not Eve, no, not in that way.’

  ‘Eve is all right, isn’t she? She’s not hurt or ill or…’

  ‘Eve is well. It’s her mother, Sarah, who’s been rushed to hospital. We’ve had Charlie on the phone and the man is totally distraught, falling to pieces, as I would be in his place. Sarah has been admitted with severe pre-eclampsia.’

  The medical term rang a warning bell in Draco’s mind. ‘That’s bad?’

  ‘Very bad,’ the other man confirmed. ‘Apparently they’re going to deliver the baby early to give her a fighting chance.’

  ‘Charlie told you this?’

  ‘No, Eve did. She took the phone off him and it was just as well as he was sobbing and not making much sense. Hannah is worried sick about Eve, her father, and Sarah, and she feels guilty as hell she can’t get there and she’s mad at me because I won’t leave her and come over to take control of the situation. There’s no question that my place is here with her, but if I could tell her someone is there with Eve, and that she isn’t alone coping with it all…?’

  Draco’s jaw tightened. ‘I’m the last person Eve would want there.’

  ‘This isn’t about you.’

  The comment hit Draco with the force of a below-the-belt kick delivered with perfect accuracy.

  It was something he had needed to hear. He’d been going through the motions for weeks, telling himself that he was better off alone, but what about Eve, what was best for her? Eve might not want him in her life and the choice was hers, but, Dio, he would be a fool not to try to convince her to change her mind. But that was for the future. The priority now was to be there for her, take some of the burden off her slender shoulders.

  Halfway out of the door, his keys in his hand, Draco said to Kamel, ‘I’m on my way.’ He was about to toss the phone to his secretary when he realised he didn’t know where he was going. ‘What hospital?’

  Every second of the record-breaking fifty-mile journey Draco sat with his jaw clenched and his hands white knuckled on the wheel. He tortured himself with imagined images of Eve alone in pain and distress, having to cope with a disaster that was a whisper away from being a tragedy and having a man far too heavy use her as an emotional prop.

  Her mother being in a critical condition was not his fault but everything else could legitimately be placed at his door. His friend thought he was a fool and he was right. If Draco had not been a total fool he’d have been there with Eve right now and she wouldn’t be facing this alone. Alone… The word kept reverberating through his head.

  Well, she wouldn’t face anything alone again.

  He was going to be there for her whether she wanted him or not. He was not going to let her out of his sight and, short of a restraining order, she couldn’t stop him.

  That’s right, Draco, just bulldoze your way in because that has worked so well so far! How about showing a bit of humility, saying sorry and letting Eve decide if she wants you there? he told himself.

  She’d sent him away but it had been pride and fear of rejection that had stopped him asking her for a second chance. His mouth twisted into a grimace of self-disgust as he caught a glimpse of himself in the rear-view mirror.

  ‘You gutless wonder, Draco.’

  She was the best thing that had ever happened to him.

  The hospital was a maze of corridors but he finally found someone who could, if not answer his questions, at least show him a visitor’s room. The nurse’s grave face did not send out a positive message.

  If anything had happened to her mother Eve would need a lot of support. It hurt to admit he might not be the person she wanted at such a time, but had anyone contacted her brother?

  ‘Mr Morelli?’

  Draco stopped pacing and turned his critical glance on the white-coated doctor who had entered the room. He stifled the impulse to demand to be taken to Eve immediately and tipped his head in acknowledgement.

  ‘Is there any news?’

  ‘You’re family?’

  It took a supreme effort but despite his frustration at the delay Draco showed no offence at the question. ‘I am Draco Morelli. Eve Curtis is my fiancée.’

  The younger man’s face cleared as he offered a hand. ‘Sorry about that but we had an incident earlier. Some enterprising reporter got wind of this and got as far as outside Recovery dressed as a porter.’

  ‘Blood-sucking vampires.’

  The medic responded to this heartfelt observation with a nod of his head. ‘Unfortunately Mr Latimer’s own security overreacted to the situation and we have also had to exclude them. I’m George Robinson, part of Mr Stirling’s
team. I’ll get a nurse to show you to the SCBU. Miss Curtis is with her brother.’

  ‘A boy?’

  The doctor nodded. ‘Very small, as you’d expect, but his condition is stable. It is the mother we are more concerned about at this juncture.’

  In the special care baby unit and feeling very much out of his comfort zone, Draco nodded his thanks when given a gown to put on, and, after washing his hands, he was shown the way to a glass-panelled side room.

  The nurse who escorted him was speaking, something comforting, he thought, but Draco, who nodded absently at intervals, was only catching one word in three. His heart nearly stopped when he saw Eve through the glass sitting side on to the door. She was enveloped in the same sort of gown he was wearing, but on her it reached the floor. As he stared she reached forward, her eyes trained on the tiny scrap of humanity in the incubator, attached to tubes and wires that bleeped. The baby appeared smaller than Eve’s hand, and the loving expression on her face as she gently touched her finger to the baby’s thin cheek brought a film of moisture to his eyes.

  Eve heard the nurse enter but didn’t take her eyes off the tiny figure in the incubator. Babies should be plump and pink but her baby brother was tiny and wizened, his skin shiny. It looked so fragile that she was afraid to touch him even though they had said that the contact was good for the baby.

  ‘Sorry I let the tea go cold.’ Logically she knew the baby couldn’t hear her, that his sleep was controlled by the drugs being fed into him and the machines that breathed for him, but she struggled to raise her voice above a whisper. ‘He’s not in pain, is he?’ It didn’t seem possible that the tubes protruding from his fragile little body could not cause him pain.

  Slowly Eve withdrew her hand and turned her head, her eyes widening when she saw him.

  Draco had anticipated many reactions from her and he had as many responses ready. He knew the one he should have used six weeks ago—he was staying. But it was the reaction he had not anticipated and that he was not prepared for that was the one he actually got.

  Something else he was not prepared for was the strength of the feelings that broke loose inside him at the sight of her. She looked so vulnerable and so beautiful that in that second he knew he would have died to save her a moment’s pain.

  Far better, though, to live for her.

  She looked like someone in a trance as she got to her feet, not shouting at him, not rejecting him, but with a tremulous smile on her face and a glow in her green eyes made even more dramatic by the dark shadows beneath them that sent a surge of relief through him.

  ‘You’re really here?’ It was like a dream but the past few hours…Eve had no idea how many…had been a complete nightmare.

  Unconscious he had said her name, Draco took a stride towards her and with a cry she flung herself at him, her arms going around his middle as her face burrowed into his chest. Draco did the only thing possible: he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her in close to his body as she sobbed and clung to him.

  ‘Just came to say I’m off duty if you—’ The midwife, nodding with benevolent approval, took the emotional scene in her stride, having seen many, and left them to it.

  ‘Sorry,’ Eve mumbled into his chest. The sobs that had shaken her had stopped but she stayed where she was, leaning heavily into him and unable to summon the strength or the will power to pull free. ‘I missed you.’

  It was only because the hand stroking her hair stilled that she registered belatedly what she had said. She lifted her head, too tired to be appalled by what she had admitted and, with her hands flat against his chest, pushed away until she was standing a few feet clear. Head tilted to one side like a curious bird, she angled a cautious look at his face.

  Draco stood there holding the red ribbon she had hastily tied her hair back with when she had got the call in the middle of the night; it looked incongruous in his fingers. Unable to shake the idea that if she looked away he’d vanish, her eyes clung to his face, which was crazy. He wasn’t a mirage, he was real, and her body reacted to the reality by coming alive… Her nerve endings tingled and her heart began to thud hard.

  Draco’s presence filled any room he entered, but in this antiseptically white box it was overwhelming but also intensely comforting. She had been feeling desperately alone, unable to stop the negative thoughts filling her head, and weighed down by a terrible sense of impending doom.

  And now she wasn’t alone… She pressed her hand to her stomach, thinking she was never alone and never would be again. Not the time, not the place, though, so very not the place to mention the new life growing inside her when another new life so close by was clinging on so tenaciously to his.

  If she hadn’t known before, the past few hours had brought home dramatically to her how precious the life she carried was, and how terrifyingly vulnerable. She had never had more admiration than she did now for her own mother, who had carried that responsibility of motherhood alone, had brought her up all by herself.

  She would tell her—if she got the chance.

  Her lips trembled as she felt tears press at the backs of her eyes. ‘My mum might die, Draco.’

  The fear shining in her eyes pierced him deeper than a blade. The muscles in his throat worked and the rush of tenderness he felt was so strong it took his breath away. He would have given anything to be able to tell her that nothing bad would happen to her ever again.

  He touched the side of her face gently, his fingers brushing over the peachy softness of her smooth cheek before he captured both her hands in his. Drawing them up, he placed them against his chest.

  ‘Why assume the worst when the best could still happen? Your mother is in the best place and you torturing yourself like this is not helping her, is it?’

  Eve swallowed. ‘You’re right, I know, but—’

  ‘It isn’t my mother.’

  ‘No, it’s just this place is…’ She looked around the room filled with the hum and mechanical bleep of the machines that were monitoring her brother.

  ‘What you need is a break,’ he said firmly.

  ‘You can’t help yourself, can you?’ she said.

  He was taking charge again, she thought with a small inward smile. But this time, rather than displaying his usual unstoppable energy, the lines bracketing his mouth were deeper, and those fanning from his incredible eyes were more sharply defined, and his cheekbones pushed tighter than she remembered against his bronzed skin.

  ‘You look tired,’ she exclaimed, then winced. ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to say that out loud.’

  You look beautiful, he thought. ‘Hannah sends her love.’

  Eve gave a tiny smile and tipped her head in acknowledgement. Hannah’s love was good, but it was Draco’s love she needed, Draco’s love she craved, Draco’s love she woke up in the middle of the night feeling the lack of like a big black hole in her chest.

  * * *

  Draco couldn’t take his eyes off Eve. There had been moments when he had pictured her pining for him, regretting sending him away. But if she had been missing him it didn’t show. Of course the day had left lines of strain around her lovely eyes and soft purple bruises under her eyes but her skin was glowing with health and her magnificent hair was gleaming and glossy.

  The feelings Eve had been holding inside for weeks threatened to burst out. She wanted to tell him about the baby, but she tightened her control. This was not the time or place and he was only here because somehow Hannah, from her palace, had asked him to come.

  ‘Have you seen Charlie?’ It was odd to be worrying about someone who for so long had been the focus of her loathing, but she was. She had never really believed that Charles Latimer truly cared for her mother, but the first words he had said to the doctors had been, My wife…whatever it takes, please save my wife.

  He’d said the same thing over and over and he was
still with her right now rather than standing over his heir.

  Draco shook his head. ‘No, I haven’t.’

  ‘This is very hard for him.’ Fear, she learnt, made her stepfather loud and aggressive, and it was a miracle he had not alienated the people who were trying to help Sarah with his accusations of negligence and dire threats of litigation if she didn’t survive.

  Eve had had to control her own fear in order to calm him down, and when she’d succeeded his tears and remorse had been in many ways more difficult to cope with than what had preceded them.

  ‘I missed you too.’

  The husky words made her eyes fly to his face. If you miss me so much, she wanted to say, why the hell did you go away and not come back? Instead she bit her lip and asked, ‘Is Hannah all right?’

  ‘I didn’t speak to her.’

  Eve suppressed a genuine sigh of relief. When Hannah had rung last, Eve had been feeling particularly emotional and Hannah, who could be quietly persistent, had pushed until the whole story had come tumbling out. It was very possible, she realised guiltily, that her friend had gained quite a one-sided version of the situation.

  ‘Kamel rang and he gave me quite a talking-to. He says she is frantic about you all and very frustrated that she can’t be here with you.’

  ‘I don’t know why they rang you. You didn’t have to come.’

  The expression in his dark eyes was tender as he brushed a strand of hair from her face. ‘We both know that’s not true.’

  She stared at him for a long moment and then without a word looked away and retook her seat by the cot, her expression dismissive, her body language distracted.

  Typical mixed messages he thought, his scrutiny moving from her remote profile to her fluttery hands. His jaw clenched in frustration. He didn’t know what response he had expected but anything would have been better than this silence.

  Had he not been clear enough?

  Did she want him to crawl?

  What did she expect?

  Maybe a bit of humility?

  As quickly as it had erupted his frustrated anger faded. The fact was he would do whatever it took to get Eve back…and, admittedly, his timing was bloody awful.