by Amy Andrews
Her whimper was soul-deep satisfying and he wanted to kiss her mouth so badly he was moving before he knew it, rising on his knees, looming over her, dropping his head closer and closer to her moist parted lips.
And when she raised her head to shorten the gap there was no holding back. Her mouth was sweeter than he remembered and the moan deep in her throat as she parted her lips widely, inviting him in, mingled with his.
He couldn’t get enough of her mouth. Or the curve of her neck or the sweet spot behind her ear. His hands pushed aside her bra cups and she arched her back, pushing herself harder into his palms.
He dropped his head to suck a taut bud into his mouth and her swift indrawn breath was harsh in the silent room. He released it and looked down into her flushed face, her lips moist and ravaged from his ministrations.
Paige’s breath sawed in and out of her lungs as she burnt up beneath his incendiary stare. She wanted him in her so badly she could almost feel him.
But.
‘We can’t…’ Actually, technically, they could. Erica hadn’t forbidden it at all. But Paige didn’t want to risk anything.
‘I know.’ He nuzzled her neck. ‘Move over,’ he whispered. ‘Lie on your side.’
Paige gave him kudos for having a plan. She was beyond such things. But her body knew what it wanted and eagerly followed his instructions. And then they were on their sides facing each other and Valentino’s mouth was plundering hers and his hands were roaming over her breasts and stomach and pushing the waistband of her skirt lower, lower, and repeating the process with her underwear.
Her hands had a mind of their own too as they plucked at Valentino’s shirt, pulled at it, lifted it over his head. Then reached for the clasp and zipper of his trousers, making them seem flimsy as she quickly undid them. His erection strained against his underwear and she pushed it aside too.
‘Dio!’ Valentino groaned into her neck, and shut his eyes as her hand enclosed him, squeezed him.
‘You feel so good,’ Paige murmured, milking the length of him.
‘So do you,’ Valentino gasped, his mouth closing over a dusky nipple as his hand found its way between her legs.
When his mobile rang it took several seconds for either of them to even hear it over the beat of their hearts and the heaving of their breath.
Valentino lifted his head and Paige pulled him back to her. ‘Ignore it,’ she whispered.
But Valentino had a separate ring for family members so he knew it was one of his sisters. He did a quick calculation in his head, surprised to find he was capable and also realising with a sinking feeling it was three in the morning back home. He knew they wouldn’t be ringing at that time for anything trivial.
He pressed a hard kiss to Paige’s mouth and then laid his forehead against her chest. ‘I’m sorry. I have to get it. It’s one of my sisters.’
Paige almost wept when he rolled away from her, adjusting his clothes and fishing in his back pocket for his mobile. She certainly wasn’t capable of movement. Definitely not capable of fixing her own clothes as her blood pounded like the ocean through her head and the room spun merrily around.
Valentino flipped his phone open and turned his back to her. She looked rumpled, dazed, her mouth glistening, her nipples engorged, her belly round with his child. He could smell her all around him and she looked thoroughly seduced. The temptation to end the call and turn his phone off was far too great.
‘Ciao.’ It was harsher then he’d meant it to come out but, really, his sisters had always had a sixth sense for interrupting at very inappropriate moments.
Paige listened absently to the conversation in Italian she didn’t understand. It was brief and something was obviously wrong as Valentino’s voice grew urgent and his words quickened.
He snapped the phone shut and turned back to her. Paige was still lying on the lounge, clothes skew, belly on proud display. She looked utterly sexy and he’d give anything to rewind time and delay the phone call.
‘I’m sorry. That was my sister Carmella.’ He raked a hand through his hair. ‘My mother has been in a car accident not far from where we live.’ He shut his eyes briefly as his sister’s hysteria clawed at his gut. ‘They’re flying her to Rome for exploratory surgery.’
In the face of Valentino’s wretchedness the sexual fogged evaporated and Paige pulled herself together. ‘Oh, Valentino!’ she gasped, climbing off the lounge, yanking her shirt down and adjusting her skirt. ‘Is she all right?’ she asked as he opened his arms and drew her close.
‘I don’t know. No one knows anything at the moment. I…have to go.’
Paige felt the blow to her heart immediately. She pushed away from his chest and plastered a resolute look on her face. ‘Of course you must. Go. Go now.’
Valentino was torn. He couldn’t believe in a few short months a woman had become just as important as his family. ‘Come with me.’
Paige blinked. What the…? Had the haze of lust fried his brain cells. ‘I…can’t. I can’t just up and leave. I have McKenzie and work and—’
‘It’ll just be a few days, maybe a week, until I know. Your parents—’
‘No,’ she interrupted, dismayed at his lack of understanding. ‘I’m not leaving McKenzie.’
Valentino tensed, taken aback by her rejection and struggling to appreciate her reasons. ‘Fine.’
‘Valentino,’ she said, stepping towards him, reaching for him. How had they gone from the heights of sexual dizziness to this? ‘You know this isn’t possible.’
A nerve jumped in his jaw and he flinched as she touched him. ‘Anything’s possible.’
Paige dropped her hands from his chest. ‘No. That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. You can drop things and just leave. Like right now.’ Like he no doubt would for the rest of their lives. Would he want to take their baby too? ‘I can’t.’
Valentino could feel irrational anger simmer in his blood. He grasped her by the upper arms. ‘Marry me.’
Paige could feel the bite of his fingers peripherally only. She knew this was coming from a deep well of concern for his mother but it didn’t make it any less difficult to deal with.
If only things were different…
But they weren’t.
Paige shifted against the restraining bands of his hands. ‘No. Go to your mother. Go home.’
It took a few seconds for her words to sink in and he released her, rubbing at her upper arms, smoothing where he had hurt her. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said.
Paige linked her arms around his neck and gave him a fierce hug. ‘It’s okay. Now go.’
Valentino pulled back slightly, slammed a hard kiss against her mouth and then turned away.
It wasn’t until she heard the front door shut that Paige realised the awful truth. She loved him. Loved a man who didn’t love her back. And there was nothing she could do about it but keep it to herself and never let him know.
Chapter Nine
TWO weeks later Valentino lay horizontal in his business-class seat, wide awake, somewhere over the Pacific Ocean. The lights in the cabin had been turned down low and most sensible travellers were using it to grab some shuteye. They’d be landing in Brisbane in just over four hours.
But he couldn’t sleep.
He was impatient for the plane to fly faster, to get there sooner. He needed to see Paige. To tell her that he loved her.
It was something he’d known the minute he’d walked out of her door that momentous afternoon and had kept to himself for two weeks. Well, not strictly to himself. He’d told his mother about the baby and she’d demanded to know about Paige. She’d asked him point blank if he loved her and he’d been able to say yes with utter conviction.
But he hadn’t been able to confirm Paige’s feelings for him to his mother. The truth was he just didn’t know how she felt at all. She’d been keeping him at a distance, protecting her damaged heart for the entire time he’d known her. Valentino just didn’t know if she’d ever allow herself to fall in
love again.
Sure, there was something between them. He knew that. There was a strong physical attraction. He sincerely doubted whether they’d ever be able to keep their hands off each other for any length of time. And there would always be their son.
But he wanted to be more in her life than just the father of their child. A part-time parent. Someone to scratch the itch when it got too much to bear for both of them. He wanted to love and cherish her. Introduce her to his family as his bride. He wanted to grow old with her.
He’d come a long way since his infatuation with Daniella. The young love he’d felt for her was lightweight compared to this heavy feeling in his chest. It had been impulsive and superficial. Skin deep.
What he felt for Paige reached right down to his soul. It was complex, multi-faceted. Messy and complicated. Especially in comparison to the easy, carefree time with Daniella. But maturity was a wonderful thing. He now knew sometimes good things didn’t come easily. Sometimes they had to be fought for.
And if that’s what it took then he’d do it, because he most certainly knew his life would be empty without her by his side.
Paige rubbed her back absently as she sat in her office chair and updated the charts from the day’s surgery. It was hard to concentrate when her mind kept drifting to Valentino and the fact that in two weeks she’d received three lousy texts.
One had been to say his mother had undergone an emergency splenectomy and was doing well. The next had come four days later to say she was being discharged and he was staying another week or so. And the last a couple of days ago, which had informed her he’d be back soon.
She’d been worried sick about him but he hadn’t answered any of her calls or returned any of her messages. He couldn’t have been any clearer about her lack of importance to him if he’d opened his mouth and told her.
And it hurt.
Worse than with Arnie. Way worse than with Arnie. Because she’d been an infatuated, blind fool with him but she’d walked into this one with her eyes wide open and the door to her heart firmly shut, but she’d opened the damn thing anyway. Flung it wide open despite her misgivings. And not just her heart but McKenzie’s heart too. She was the worst kind of fool.
Another tightening sensation gripped her belly and she had to stop what she was doing and rub at it. She’d been having irregular Braxton-Hicks’ contractions on and off all day, no doubt aggravated by standing in a cold theatre in hard clogs.
She’d panicked earlier in the day when the first one had hit in the break between theatre cases and she’d rung her obstetrician in a state of absolute dread, fearing the start of another premature labour.
Not that it felt like it had with the twins at all, just an occasional tightening, but at only twenty-four weeks and with her history, any little niggle was cause for fright.
After asking succinct questions, Erica had assured her they were Braxton-Hicks’ contractions, which were perfectly normal. Not having had any before her first pregnancy had come to a rather early finish, Paige was ignorant to what they felt like, although she’d heard pregnant women and mothers talking about them frequently.
Erica had talked her through the things to watch out for and by the time Paige had hung up the panic had receded and she’d got a grip. Braxton-Hicks were a perfectly normal sign of a perfectly normal pregnancy. They were a good thing. She was going to have a normal pregnancy and deliver at a normal time.
She picked up the pen and starting writing again.
‘Paige?’
Her hand stilled in mid-word and her heart contracted as her gaze flew to the doorway. Valentino stood there, taking up all the space, looking as sexy as ever in a haggard twenty-four-hour-flight kind of way. Rumpled clothes, jaw heavy with stubble, bleary eyes and unruly hair.
Actually, he looked like hell.
Good.
She stifled the urge to get up and run to him. No matter how her arms ached to hold him and her heart bled, she would not debase herself with him any more. He’d made it perfectly clear where she stood.
‘Valentino,’ she murmured, her fingers strangling the pen. Another Braxton-Hicks came and she frowned as it gripped her belly hard, much closer and stronger than any of the others. How long had it been since the last? ‘How is your mother?’
Valentino saw the wariness in her eyes. The frigid coolness of them. It hadn’t been the welcome he’d expected. Not that he’d known what to expect but the way they’d left things he’d hoped for a little more warmth. Maybe even pleasure lighting those expressive grey pools.
Her shuttered look certainly wasn’t conducive to confessing his undying love. ‘Fighting fit again. Not much keeps her down for long.’
Paige nodded, her jaw cramped with the effort of keeping her voice evenly modulated. ‘Good to know. I’m pleased she came through it well. It must have been worrying for all of you.’
Valentino frowned at her formality. He didn’t want this. He wanted to sweep her up and lay her down, see how much her belly had grown in the interminable two weeks he’d been away. Kiss it. Kiss her. Tell her how much he loved her. ‘Is everything okay?’
Her shoulders tensed. ‘Fine.’
Valentino walked into her office and stood in front of her desk, hands on his hips. He was so tired. All he wanted to do was lie down with her, fall asleep with his hand on her belly. ‘You seem…upset.’
A bubble of rage combined with another sharp pain spurred her into standing. She was so angry with him the Braxton-Hicks was secondary. Was he seriously that obtuse? ‘Upset? Why on earth would I be upset?’ she snapped. ‘You don’t answer your phone or return my calls. You could have plunged into the ocean days ago for all I knew.’
Paige hated how she sounded. Like a spurned lover, or, in his case, a discarded girlfriend. But she couldn’t stop as the pain gripping her belly increased in length and intensity.
She glared at him. ‘I was worried sick about you.’
Valentino was unsure whether it was a good thing or a bad thing that she was mad. She’d been worried about him? Did it mean she cared? ‘I texted you.’
Paige slammed her hand against the desk. ‘Three times! Three lousy times in two weeks? You profess to want to marry me, for us to be a family together, yet you can’t even ring me when you get there to tell me everything’s okay? You text me?’
Valentino blinked, taken aback by her fervour. It was true he hadn’t rung. But that had been deliberate. He’d known that the minute he heard her voice he would have told her he loved her and he hadn’t wanted that for her. Not over the phone.
He’d wanted to say the words face to face. So, no, he hadn’t rung. But he’d dialled her number a hundred times and listened to her messages over and over again, wishing she was by his side.
And then there was the other side of it. If he’d told her he’d loved her and she’d rejected him or, worse, panicked and run, he would have been a half a world away, unable to do anything about it. At least face to face she couldn’t run or hide.
‘Nothing to say?’ she snapped. ‘Damn it, Valentino, I—’ Paige broke off as another pain assailed her down low, doubling her over. She gripped the desk with both hands.
Valentino rushed to her. ‘Paige!’
Something was wrong. ‘Help,’ she cried, clutching Valentino’s sleeve. That hadn’t felt like a normal, natural Braxton-Hicks. That had felt exactly like it had with the twins when her membranes had ruptured at twenty-eight weeks and she’d been eight centimetres dilated. Exactly.
‘I think I’m in labour.’ And she burst into tears.
Valentino stared at the top of her downcast head, his arm going around her back, supporting her against him.
No.
No, this could not possibly be happening. He’d told her it wouldn’t. He’d told her he’d look after her.
Paige turned a tear-streaked face to him. ‘I’m only twenty-four weeks. We have to stop it.’ She grabbed the front of his shirt. ‘We have to.’
Valentino fou
ght a tidal wave of emotions. The woman he loved was in distress, fighting pain and a bunch of demons. And his baby, his son, possibly also in distress, was too young to survive.
But he couldn’t afford to let the wave sweep him up and carry him out to sea. She needed him. So did his son.
‘We will,’ he said, grim determination in his eyes as he swept her up into his arms.
‘What are you doing?’ she cried.
‘Taking you to A and E. I’ll call Erica to meet us there.’
Valentino’s long strides took them quickly through the lounge and he deposited her gently into the wheelchair they always kept in the department. Paige’s anguish tore at his gut but he blanked it out as he pushed her to the lifts, using his mobile to call Erica.
‘Have your membranes ruptured?’ Valentino asked.
‘No,’ Paige wailed.
He relayed it to Erica, listened for another moment and then snapped his phone shut. Another contraction hit as they entered the lift and Paige cried harder, reaching back for his hand. ‘Its okay, Paige, just breathe. Erica’s ten minutes away.’
The ride in the lift was the longest of his life and by the time he wheeled Paige into St Auburn’s chaotic accident department he was running on sheer adrenaline.
Nat was the first person they saw. Her initial look of welcome quickly turned to alarm as she took in the situation. She knelt beside the wheelchair. ‘Paige! Whatever is wrong?’
Valentino answered for her. ‘She’s twenty-four weeks pregnant and having contractions.’
Nat blinked. ‘Pregnant?’
‘Yes,’ Valentino snapped. ‘Pregnant. Erica de Jongh is on her way.’
Natalie didn’t need any more information. She didn’t reprimand her friend for lying to her on the phone all those months ago when she had rung to check on her. In thirty seconds a blubbering Paige was in a cubicle and being transferred onto a gurney.
‘I’ll just get the CTG,’ Nat said, ducking out of the curtains.
Paige, who was lying on her side, her back to Valentino, had curled herself into a ball and was sobbing quietly. Valentino couldn’t bear to see it. ‘Paige,’ he murmured, placing his hand on her shoulder and applying gentle pressure to get her to face him.