Читать книгу One Night With The Italian Doc: Unwrapping Her Italian Doc / Tempted by the Bridesmaid / Italian Doctor, No Strings Attached - Carol Marinelli - Страница 16

AFTER ONE HOUR and about seven minutes of sleep they woke to Louise’s phone at six.

‘I thought you were off today,’ Anton groaned.

‘I am, but I’m going Christmas shopping.’

‘At six a.m.?’

‘I want to get a book signed for Mum so I have to line up,’ Louise said. ‘Stay,’ she said, kissing his mouth.’ Get up when you’re ready, or you can come shopping with me.’

‘I’ll give it a miss, thanks.’

‘Have you done your Christmas shopping?’

‘I’ll do it online. The shops will be crazy.’

‘That’s half the fun.’ She gave him a nudge. ‘Come on.’

She went into the shower and Anton lay there, looking up at the ceiling. He had a couple of things to get. Something for the nurses and his secretary and, yes, he might just as well get it over and done with.

‘We’ll stop by my place and I can get changed,’ Anton said, as she came out of the shower.

‘Sure.’ Naked, she smiled down at him and lifted her hair. ‘Check me for bruises,’ she said, while craning her neck and looking down at her buttocks where his fingers had dug in, but, no, they were peachy cream too.

‘No need to check,’ Anton said, for he had been careful, knowing that she had her photo shoot coming up.

Neither could wait till it was over!

Louise dressed while Anton showered. She pulled on jeans and boots and a massive cream jumper and then she tied up her hair and added a coat.

Anton put on the clothes he had worn last night, though they were stopping by his place so he could get changed.

‘Ready to do battle?’ she asked, thrilled that Anton had agreed to come along with her. She was determined to Christmas him up, especially when they arrived at his apartment.

‘You really are a misery,’ Louise said, stepping in. She didn’t care about the view or the gorgeous furnishings in his apartment—what she cared about was that there wasn’t a single decoration. There were a few Christmas cards stacked with his mail on the kitchen bench but, apart from that, it might just as well have been October, instead of just over a week before Christmas.

‘Aren’t you even going to get a tree?’ Louise asked.

‘No.’

‘Don’t you have Christmas trees in Italy?’

‘Some,’ Anton said, ‘but we go more for nativity scenes and lights.’

‘You have to do something.’

‘I’m hardly ever here, Louise,’ Anton said.

‘It’s not the point. When you come home—’

‘I don’t like Christmas,’ Anton said, but then amended, ‘Although I am starting to really enjoy this one.’

‘What do you have to get today?’

‘I need to get something for my secretary,’ Anton said. ‘Perfume?’

‘Maybe,’ Louise said. ‘What sort of things does she like?’

Anton spread out his hands—he really had no idea what Shirley liked.

‘What sort of things does she talk about?’

‘My diary.’

‘God, you’re so antisocial,’ Louise said.

‘Oh, she likes cooking,’ Anton recalled. ‘She’s always bringing in things that she’s made.’

‘Then I have the perfect present,’ Louise said, ‘because I’m getting it for my mum. That’s what we’re going to line up for.’

It wasn’t just a book. The first twenty people had the option to purchase a morning’s cooking lesson with a celebrity chef. It was fabulous and expensive and with it all going to charity it was well worth it.

Celebrating their success at getting the signed books and cookery lessons, at ten a.m., having coffee and cake in an already crowded department store, they chatted.

‘If your mother can’t cook, why would you spend all that money? Surely it will be wasted?’

‘Oh, no.’ Louise shook her head. ‘If she learns even one thing and gets it right, my dad will be grateful for ever—the poor thing,’ she added. ‘He has to eat it night after night after night. I usually wriggle out of it when I go and visit. I’ll go over tomorrow and say I’ve just eaten, but you can’t do that on Christmas Day.’

‘How bad is it?’

‘It’s terrible. I don’t know how she does it. It always looks okay and she thinks it tastes amazing but I swear it’s like she’s put it in a blender with water added, burnt it and then put it back together to look like a dinner again …’ She took out her list. ‘Come on, off we go.’

Louise was a brilliant shopper, not that Anton easily fathomed her methods.

‘I adore this colour,’ Louise said, trying lipstick on the back of her hand. ‘Oh, but this one is even better.’

‘I thought we were here for your sisters.’

‘Oh, they’re so easy to buy for,’ Louise said. ‘Anything I love they want to pinch, so anything I love I know they’ll like.’

Make-up, perfume, a pair of boots … ‘I’m the same size as Chloe,’ she explained, as she tried them on. ‘It’s so good you’re here, I’d have had to make two trips otherwise.’

Bag after bag was loaded with gifts. ‘I want to go here,’ Louise said, and they got off the escalator at the baby section. ‘I’m going to get something for Emily and Hugh’s baby,’ Louise said. ‘Hopefully it will be a waste of money and I can give it to NICU.’ She looked at Anton. ‘Do you think she’ll get to Christmas?’

‘I hope so,’ Anton said. ‘I’m aiming for thirty-three weeks.’

Louise heard the unvoiced but and for now chose to ignore it.

They went to the premature baby section and found some tiny outfits and there was one perk to being the obstetrician and midwife shopping for a pregnant friend, they knew what colour to get! Louise said yes to gift-wrapping and they waited as it was beautifully wrapped and then topped with a bow.

‘I’ll keep it in my locker at work,’ Louise said.

It was a lovely, lovely, lovely day of shopping, punctuated with kisses. Neither cared about the grumbles they caused as they blocked the pavement or the escalators when they simply had to kiss the other and by the end Louise was seriously, happily worn out.

‘You want to get dinner?’ Anton offered.

‘Take-out?’ Louise suggested. ‘But we’ll have it at my place. I’m not going to your miserable apartment.’

‘I have to go back,’ Anton said. ‘I have to do an hour’s work at least.’

‘Fine,’ Louise conceded, ‘but we’ll drop these back at my place first and I’ll get some clothes.’

‘You won’t need them,’ Anton said, but Louise was insistent.

All her presents she put in the bedroom. ‘I can’t wait to wrap them,’ Louise said. ‘I’ll just grab a change of clothes and things, you go and make a drink.’

Louise grabbed more than a change of clothes. In fact, she went into her wardrobe and pulled out some leftover Christmas decorations and stuffed them all into a not so small overnight bag. She also took the tiny silver tree that she’d been meaning to put up at the nurses’ station but kept forgetting to take.

‘How long are you staying for?’ Anton asked, when she came out and he saw the size of her overnight bag.

‘Till you kick me out.’ Louise gave him a kiss. ‘I like to be prepared.’

Anton really did have work to do.

A couple of blood tests were in and he went through them, and there was a patient at thirteen weeks’ gestation who was bleeding. Anton went into his study and rang her to check how things were.

Louise could hear him safely talking and quickly set to work.

The little tree she put on his coffee table and she draped some tinsel on the window ledges and put up some stars, a touch worried she might leave some marks on his walls but he’d just have to get over it, Louise decided.

She took out her can and sprayed snow on his gleaming windows, and oh, it looked lovely.

‘What the hell have you done?’ Anton said, as he came into the lounge, but he was smiling.

‘I need nice things around me,’ Louise said, ‘happy things.’

‘It would seem,’ Anton said, looking not at her handiwork now but the woman in his arms, ‘that so do I.’