by Amy Andrews
When the last op was finished, Paige couldn’t get out of her gown quickly enough. Thankfully Valentino had left the theatre to go and do post-op checks in the wards and she was able to breathe again. To function without a pulse that kept racing and a stomach that wasn’t looping the loop. To clean up. To do her job.
She was back in the audiology department thirty minutes later, making notes in patient charts, very aware that she had the next six weeks off and conscientious enough to ensure everything was up to date on today’s operative cases.
‘Here you are. Gloria said you’d be here.’
Paige’s heart gave a jolt and she braced herself as she looked up from her chart. He was lounging in the doorway in trousers and business shirt, open at the neck and turned up at the cuffs, looking dark and tousled and incredibly sexy.
‘You have hat hair,’ she commented, before casting her eyes downwards again.
Valentino chuckled, ruffling his locks. ‘Yes.’ He guessed that was one of the advantages to her pixie cut. Not a lot of hair there to get bent out of shape.
‘I thought you might like to know that Ben’s condition has stabilised a little.’
‘Oh!’ She glanced up quickly. ‘What a relief!’ She’d tried to ring Harry during the break between lists but had got his message bank. ‘Thank you.’
If anyone knew what it was like to watch your child critically ill in an intensive care unit on life support, it was Paige. Her heart went out to Harry and his family. She didn’t envy them the days ahead.
Valentino nodded. ‘We’re all going for a drink after work. Why don’t you come? I can give you a lift if you like.’
Paige ignored the traitorous pull she felt at his invitation. Was he insane? ‘Sorry. I can’t.’
Valentino gave her a wry smile. ‘Can’t or won’t?’
Paige shook her head. ‘Can’t.’
‘Who takes care of McKenzie when you work?’
‘My mother.’
‘I bet she wouldn’t mind staying on for an extra hour.’
Paige knew for a fact she wouldn’t. But that wasn’t the point. She wanted to see her daughter. She missed McKenzie desperately when she was at the hospital and resented the hell out of Arnie for putting her in a position where she had to work to support them both.
Paige took in the lazy grace with which he lounged in the doorway, the charming smile on his face and those dimples, which thankfully the mask had hidden all day. What did an Italian playboy know of her mundane, hand-to-mouth, practically housebound existence?
‘Sorry. I can’t.’
Valentino pushed out of the doorway and sauntered towards her. He placed two hands on the desk where Paige was sitting. From his height advantage he could see the ridges of her prominent collarbones. And the unlined curve of breast which told him she wasn’t wearing a bra under her modest T-shirt. ‘You know you want to.’
This close he looked better still. And smelled absolutely divine. She put her pen down and plastered a bored look on her face. ‘I don’t expect you to understand, with your carefree, different-girl-every-night lifestyle, but I’m a mother.’ She said it slowly so he understood. ‘At the end of the work day I go home to my child. I even look forward to it. That’s what a parent does.’
Valentino gripped the desk hard. She was wrong. He did understand. There’d been a girl once, a long time ago. And, briefly, a baby.
He frowned. He hadn’t thought about Daniella, about the baby that never was, in years. He pushed off the desk lest the urge to speak about it, to tell her he did know, overcame him.
He folded his arms. ‘Suit yourself.’
Paige nodded. She intended to. His dimples and his lazy lounging had gone and he was all dark brooding intensity. It was equal parts sinister and sexy. ‘Hadn’t you better be going?’ she asked pointedly as the silence between them grew.
‘I was wondering if you’d had a chance to think over McKenzie’s operation?’
Had a chance? She’d thought about little else all day. And she knew she didn’t have it in her to postpone again over something so petty in comparison to her daughter’s deafness. Not when she had the services of a world-class surgeon and a place on his Monday-morning list.
Still, her pride, all she had left these days, made the words difficult and she hoped she wouldn’t choke on them. ‘Yes, I have.’ She nodded, dropping her gaze to the top button of his shirt. ‘I’ll not be cancelling.’
Valentino regarded her for a moment. He could see how hard it had been for her to say the words. He hadn’t wanted that. He’d sensed from the beginning that Paige was like a tightly coiled spring, just holding it all together. It wasn’t his object to break her. Not like this anyway. ‘Good. I guess I’ll see you Monday morning.’
And he turned away, heading for the door.
‘Wait.’
He turned back. She’d risen from her seat and was looking at him with desperation in her eyes.
‘I need to ask you something. A…favour.’
Valentino clenched his fists at his sides. He could tell she was uncomfortable asking something that was obviously quite personal to someone who, apart from one frenzied night two months ago, was a relative stranger. ‘Okay.’
‘I want to be in there. With McKenzie.’
Valentino took a moment searching for a way to soften the instant denial that had sprung to his lips at her completely unethical suggestion. No wonder she’d looked so hesitant. ‘Paige.’
‘Not scrubbing in or anything. Just…there. Nearby.’
He searched her big grey eyes. Saw the worry. The anguish. ‘Bella, you know I can’t allow that.’
Paige shut her eyes. This was so unfair. Harry would have. She felt like she was about to burst into tears and his endearment didn’t help. She would not break down in front of him. ‘Don’t. Don’t call me bella.’
‘You need to be a mother on Monday,’ he murmured. ‘McKenzie needs you to be a mother.’
‘Harry would have allowed it,’ she said, defiance in her gaze.
‘No, Paige, I doubt very much he would have.’
Paige swallowed hard. ‘Please.’
Valentino wanted to go to her. He could see her struggle, knew this was difficult. But he could also see she wouldn’t want his sympathy. He ground his feet into the carpet. ‘Don’t you trust me?’
Paige bit down hard on the lump in her throat. ‘Of course I do.’ And she did. She knew McKenzie was safe in Valentino’s skilled hands. But she’d never been apart from her, had been by her daughter’s side through all her ups and downs. She couldn’t let her go through this momentous surgery all alone.
‘Then let me do my job. And when it’s over, you can do yours.’
Paige swallowed another block of emotion welling in her throat, desperate to persuade Valentino. ‘Is this about the drinks?’
Valentino stilled, her implication smarting. His eyes narrowed as he tempered his words. ‘Be very careful, bella. I don’t like your insinuation.’
To her horror a tear squeezed out before she could blink it away and she was as vulnerable and as exposed to a man as she’d ever been. Not since Arnie had walked out on her after Daisy’s death had she felt so completely at the mercy of a man.
What did he want? Did he want her to beg?
That she wouldn’t do.
Valentino stepped towards her as the tear trekked unhindered down her cheek. ‘Paige.’
She dashed it away and held out her hands to ward him off. ‘Go. Just go, damn it!’
Her words pulled him up short and as much as the doctor in him urged him closer, the man knew she was only just holding it together and the last thing she’d want was to break down in front of him.
He nodded. ‘See you Monday.’ Paige waited for him to leave before flopping back in the chair and bursting into tears.
Chapter Three
PAIGE was finger painting with McKenzie when the doorbell chimed on Sunday afternoon.
Who on earth could that be?
>
She just didn’t get visitors, other than her parents and they’d left a few hours ago. And if she did, she liked to have prior knowledge, screen them first. The days of people just popping in were long gone. Even Nat knew to call first before she brought Juliano around for a play.
Paige tried to control, as much as she could without making her daughter a virtual prisoner, the numbers of people she exposed McKenzie to. The more outside contacts, the greater the risk to McKenzie’s less than robust immune system. Paige knew only too well that a mild illness a normal toddler could shake off in a few days usually landed McKenzie in hospital on a drip.
She knew people thought she was a control freak but she could live with that.
‘Coming,’ she called as she quickly washed her hands under the tap in the kitchen. It was probably somebody trying to sell her something and with the operation tomorrow weighing heavily on her mind she really didn’t have the patience for it.
She yanked open the door, mentally drawing herself up to give the person on the other side the thanks-but-no-thanks-now-go-away spiel and shut the door on them as quickly as possible.
Except Valentino Lombardi smiled down at her, dimples a-dazzling, and Paige felt her chest deflate. He was wearing faded blue jeans, a white T-shirt and wicked aftershave. His hair was damp, curls clinging to the back of his neck, as if he’d not long been out of the shower.
It made her excruciatingly aware of her own rumpled state. Baggy trackpants and a tatty oversized T-shirt falling off her shoulders and streaked with paint. ‘Oh.’
Valentino quirked an eyebrow. She had a smudge of dried red paint on her cheek. He liked it. ‘You were expecting somebody else, yes?’
Yes. Anybody but you. She frowned. ‘How do you know where I live?’ Had he been following her?
Valentino grinned. ‘Alessandro.’
Of course…Paige made a mental note to call Nat and ask her not to give out her address to Italian Lotharios.
Valentino noticed the tightening of her lips. ‘Don’t be cross with them. I told them I wanted to meet McKenzie before the surgery tomorrow.’
McKenzie chose that moment to appear, grabbing hold of Paige’s leg with her paint-smeared fingers and shyly looking up, all the way up, at Valentino. Paige shifted slightly to accommodate her daughter, her hand automatically going to cup the back of McKenzie’s head.
‘Ah.’ Valentino smiled. He crouched down so he was at eye level with the diminutive little girl. As her chart had indicated, she was thin but her eyes were bright and intelligent. ‘Here she is.’ He signed as he spoke. ‘Hello.’
McKenzie’s eyes, so like her mother’s but framed by blonde ringlets, widened for a moment before she shyly signed her greeting back.
‘I’m Valentino.’
Watching McKenzie’s tiny fingers form all the letters that made up her name always clawed at Paige’s heart and today was no different. Had she known her daughter would be deaf, she would have chosen a much shorter name.
‘Hello, McKenzie,’ Valentino signed back, speaking the words also. ‘I’m very pleased to meet you. You have paint on your nose.’
Paige watched as McKenzie, shy by nature, actually grinned at Valentino as he gently swiped at it with his finger. She could see the same sort of recognition in her daughter’s gaze that she’d seen in other females whenever he was near. An awareness of him as a man, a purely feminine response to his charisma.
For goodness’ sake, she was three years old! Did the man have to charm every female he came into contact with?
Paige drew her daughter closer, her hand firm on McKenzie’s shoulder. ‘Do you usually make house calls?’
Valentino grinned one last time at McKenzie and rose to his full height. Paige was annoyed. But, then, when wasn’t she?
‘No.’
‘Then why are you here? You could meet my daughter tomorrow morning on the ward.’
Because Harry had asked him to speak with her. And he had agreed, even though he knew Paige was big trouble. Her appeal to him the last time they had been together, her pride, as tears had shone in her eyes, had captivated him. He should run a mile. He didn’t do this. He didn’t get involved. Yet he’d thought of little else except her all weekend. And then there was Harry.
But not yet.
‘I wanted to see you were okay. After Friday.’ He held up a bottle of wine and a brown paper bag. ‘I brought a peace offering.’
Paige stiffened. Did he really think she could relax over a glass of wine with him? ‘There was no need. I’m fine.’
Fine she may be but all Valentino could see was a woman who was starving, both physically and emotionally. Shutting herself off, denying her body the things it needed. The things every body needed. Denial was not good for anyone.
He crouched down to McKenzie again. ‘What do you say, McKenzie?’ he said as he signed. ‘Can I come in?’
McKenzie smiled at him and nodded, holding out her multicoloured hand. He took the little girl’s offering and rose, quirking an eyebrow at Paige.
Paige glared at him. ‘That was low.’
He smiled and took a step forward as Paige fell back passively, like she feared his nearness. He took full advantage as McKenzie led him into the apartment. ‘You need to eat,’ he said, moving past her. ‘Lucky for you I’ve found the most amazing delicatessen near where I’m staying.’ He looked down at McKenzie and moved his hands as he said, ‘Kitchen?’
Paige stared at him as McKenzie pointed and then happily led Valentino to where he wanted to go. How had that happened? It was a few moments before she registered the drift of Valentino’s chatter coming from the other room and the fact she was still standing like a powered-down robot in the hallway, staring after them.
She sighed and shook her head as she followed. How long would it take to get him out? By the time she’d reached the kitchen Valentino had seated McKenzie on the bench beside him, poured two glasses of wine and was supervising as her daughter distributed a variety of olives into little bowls.
She leaned against the jamb. ‘Making yourself at home, I see.’
Valentino looked up at an unsmiling Paige. Her shirt had fallen off a shoulder and he could see the distinctive hollow above the bony ridge of her collarbone. He also noticed the lack of bra strap. Not that he could make out anything interesting beneath the shapeless shirt.
‘McKenzie is very helpful.’
It was strangely sexy to see him in her kitchen, laughing with her daughter. His broad shoulders stretched the confines of his white T-shirt as his hip rested casually against her counter. Even more sexy was the way he signed and talked without conscious thought, as if it was completely natural.
McKenzie, noticing Valentino’s interest had wandered elsewhere, turned and grinned at her mother, and Paige’s heart rose in her throat. Her daughter never took to anyone this quickly. Trust her to take to a guy who, like her father, was never going to stick around.
Absently she noticed that Valentino had had the good sense to wash the paint off McKenzie’s hands first.
Valentino removed the still warm baguette from the bakery bag. ‘Ah.’ He held it to his nose and inhaled the yeasty fragrance. ‘Quello sente l’odore di buon.’
He offered it to McKenzie to smell as well, which she did mimicking him perfectly. ‘You like?’ he signed, and McKenzie nodded. He located a knife in a drawer near his hip and sliced the bread into thick discs before arranging them on the plate next to the olives.
‘Is there somewhere we can eat this?’
Hell!
Paige, also used to signing and speaking while her daughter was around, followed his lead. ‘Will the deck be good enough for your lordship?’
He looked at McKenzie and winked. ‘Perfect.’
Valentino scooped McKenzie off the bench and she skipped after her mother the second her feet touched the floor. He loaded the food and wine onto a nearby tray and followed the women through the house.
They passed through an airy lounge room clu
ttered with children’s toys and framed photographs. Valentino’s gaze fell on a largish one standing on top of the television. It was Paige with an older couple. Her parents? She was younger, her figure fuller, rounder, no angles. Her hair in a caramel bob. And she was laughing, her grey eyes lit with an easy humour.
Interesting.
His gaze returned to her as she stepped out onto the deck, her back ramrod straight, very different from the relaxed woman in the picture. Although it was lost in the fold of a voluminous shirt, he still remembered how her back had looked, long and elegant, bare to the hollow, on the night of Alessandro’s wedding.
Still remembered running his fingers down the naked length of it as they had danced, and the way her breath had caught, the ragged edge to her breathing.
Heat in his loins had Valentino gripping the tray a little harder and searching for something to take his mind off how well he knew every inch of her body.
Not just her back.
‘Does she know about tomorrow?’ he asked as Paige indicated for him to take the seat opposite her at a sturdy wooden table.
Paige glared at him as she made room for McKenzie on her chair. ‘Of course.’
Valentino ignored the steel in her voice and the seating suggestion as he sat himself at the head of the table closest to her. If he had to force-feed her, she was going to have to be within arm’s reach.
‘Okay,’ he said, plonking the tray between them and handing her a glass. ‘Do you want to tell her who I am?’
Paige took the glass automatically. It was a perfectly sensible idea. She’d put off telling McKenzie that Dr Harry wouldn’t be doing her surgery until bedtime. Now, particularly as McKenzie seemed quite enamoured with Valentino, seemed as good a time as any.
‘McKenzie?’ Paige touched her daughter’s arm. ‘This is Dr Lombardi.’ She spelt out each letter of his name even though she knew that at three McKenzie had no concept of spelling.
McKenzie looked at him. ‘Valentino,’ he reiterated, signing his first name.
Paige bristled. ‘Dr Valentino,’ she corrected, her voice firm, her signing slashing at the air. ‘Dr Harry had to go and visit his grandson who is very sick so he can’t do the operation to make you hear again. Dr Valentino is going to do it instead.’