Extract from VALENTINO’S PREGNANCY BOMBSHELL:
Paige held up the test, barely keeping upright as the foundations of her world crashed all round her. ‘It’s positive.’
Valentino stared at the pink plus sign. It was a full minute before the information sank in. He was going to be a father. He smiled. And then he grinned. ‘This is the best news I’ve ever heard.’
Paige wasn’t similarly overcome. In fact, a huge block of emotion built in her chest till she thought she was going to pass out from the pressure of it. It stung her eyes and prickled in her nose. She sucked in a breath. ‘No, Valentino, it’s not. This is the worst possible news. You have no idea.’
And she burst into tears.
This book is dedicated to all those bionic ear pioneers who strived to give deaf people everywhere options they’d never had before.
Such achievements are totally inspiring.
PAIGE DONALD could feel Valentino Lombardi’s gaze on her from across the altar. Not even the beauty of the ceremony or the happiness in her heart for her friend, Natalie, could distract her from the intensity of it.
It caressed every inch of her body, making her even more self-conscious about what she was wearing.
The bridesmaid’s dress clung to non-existent curves. The hem grazed her knee and she suppressed the urge to yank it lower. This wasn’t her. This frothy, clingy, femme fatale dress with shoestring straps and low back.
Very. Low. Back.
The crimson creation didn’t say busy single working mother with a high-needs child who hasn’t slept an entire night through in three years.
It said Sexy. Flirty. Time for pleasure. It said the playground is open, come on in. And Valentino Lombardi, possibly the sexiest man she’d ever laid eyes on, probably the sexiest man in existence, looked like he wanted to be first to ride.
But she didn’t have time. Not for flirting. Or riding. Or pleasure. Or any of those trivialities. And especially not for a man who looked like he held a PhD in trivia. There were never enough hours in the day as it was.
There was just never enough time.
She had a sudden hankering for her faded grey trackpants and her favourite oversized T-shirt back in her wardrobe at home in Brisbane. Or better still her baggy blue scrubs. She didn’t like being this…on display. She felt awkward.
The heat from Valentino’s gaze radiated towards her and she slid him a mutinous back-off-buddy glance. It was one she’d perfected since Arnie had walked out on her and it usually stopped a man dead in his tracks. But Valentino just grinned and gave her a saucy wink.
Great! Please, God, don’t let me have to dodge this Italian Neanderthal all night.
‘Can I have the rings, please?’
Paige could have kissed the priest as Alessandro’s best man was given a job to do other than look at her. Unfortunately, though, his actions commanded the attention of the entire female population of the church, including her, and Paige found herself drinking in the way his exquisite suit pulled across broad shoulders and how the fine wool of his trousers outlined powerful quads and one very fine backside.
Very, very fine.
He glanced at her as he stepped back into his place and his espresso eyes told her he knew exactly where hers had been. A smile touched his lips, beautiful lips that could have been carved by one of the masters. Except they were warm and vital.
Desirable. Kissable.
There was a frankness in his gaze that stopped the breath in her lungs. She searched for something more, beyond the promise of tonight. Something deeper. A connection. Something that told her he was interested in more than getting her between his sheets. But all she found was heat and sex and lust.
Totally superficial. Like the man.
Another flashy male. All sparkle, no substance.
Still, her heart skipped a beat and she sucked in a ragged breath.
Paige hit the ‘send’ button and placed her mobile on the table, drumming her fingers. Her gaze returned, yet again, to Valentino as he worked the room. She tried to ignore him and her steadily growing irritation as women almost swooned at his feet but the rich sound of his easy, frequent laughter made it impossible. It reached out from across the room as if he had physically caressed her, drawing her attention like a moth to flame.
Valentino Lombardi was not a man you could ignore. With his killer dimples, boyishly curly hair and Italian playboy charm, he was pure vice.
Paige’s phone vibrated and she reached for it, her pulse spiking.
Paige’s fingers flew over the keypad.
Alessandro laughed again and Paige drank the sight of him in as she pressed ‘send’. He threw his head back, giving the belly laugh its full freedom, and her gaze followed the bronzed length of his exposed neck peppered with dark stubble.
Another vibration dragged her eyes back to the table.
Paige smiled despite the gnawing, ever-present worry. She could almost hear her mother saying the words. But she’d never had a night away from her daughter. Frankly she didn’t know what to do with herself.
Paige checked her watch, doing a quick calculation in her head. Yep. She could definitely make it home by then.
‘Everything okay?’
Paige glanced up into the bride’s face. Nat had fresh bluebells threaded into her blonde locks, which brought out the colour of her eyes and matched the crystal beading decorating the neckline of her ivory gown. Alessandro’s hand rested possessively on her shoulder and Paige felt a sudden yearning she couldn’t explain.
Why? She’d been where they were. Had the divorce to prove it. She certainly had no desire to do it again.
She smiled at her friend. ‘Just telling Mum I might not stay the night.’
‘Paige? No.’ Nat grabbed her hand. ‘Your parents have booked and paid for it. Including breakfast. Your mother would skin me alive if I let you leave.’ Nat squeezed Paige’s hand. ‘It’s just one night. Don’t you think it’s time you enjoyed a well-deserved break?’
Paige shied away from the earnestness of her friend’s expression. Everyone said that to her—you need a break, Paige. But she was a mother first and foremost and McKenzie needed her. That’s just the way it was. Nat would understand one day too.
The phone vibrated and Paige grabbed it, relieved to break eye contact with the bride. She opened the message and read it three times, a ghost of a smile touching her lips. She held it up to Nat.
Nat grinned. ‘Have I mentioned how much I like your mother?’
Paige rolled her eyes. ‘Okay, okay. I’ll stay.’
‘Good.’ Nat squeezed her hand. ‘The speeches are about to start.’
A deep laugh floated towards them and Nat looked across to where Valentino was chatting with some nurses from their work. ‘You should take a page out of Val’s book. He’s certainly having a good time.’
Paige felt her gaze drawing to him again. ‘Isn’t he just,’ she said dryly.
Nat sighed. ‘I tell you, if I wasn’t utterly besotted with Alessandro and was up for a brief fling, I’d be over there too.’
‘Hmm,’ Paige murmured noncommittally.
‘Do you know he used to date Adrianna de Luca?’
Paige gave her friend a mystified look. ‘Who?’
Nat rolled her eyes. ‘One of Italy’s top catwalk models.’
Of course he did. ‘Fancy that.’
‘They were in all the magazines last year.’
Paige hadn’t read a magazine in for ever. Or a book. Sunday newspapers were about her limit. ‘Of course they were.’ Her voice dripped with derision.
Nat regarded her friend seriously. ‘Not all men are like Arnie, Paige.’ She looked up as Valentino laughed again and poked her elbow into Paige’s ribs. ‘Come on, you have to admit, he’s a bit of a spunk.’
‘I hope you’re talking about me,
‘But of course.’ Nat smiled, turning to Alessandro, her lips poised to meet his as he lowered his head.
Paige felt a tug at her dress and was grateful for a reason to avoid the blissful clinch she knew was happening beside her. She looked down to see, Juliano, Alessandro’s four year old son.
‘Where’s McKenzie?’
Paige smiled at the boy. ‘Juliano, you look magnificent!’ He was dressed in a mini-tux and was the spitting image of his father.
With the boyishness and dimples of his father’s cousin.
Juliano stood a little higher. ‘Nat says I’m handsome.’
‘Nat is one hundred per cent right.’
Juliano beamed. ‘Is McKenzie sick?’
Paige shook her head, saddened that it was such a natural conclusion for Juliano to jump to. ‘No. She’s at home with her grandparents.’
Juliano’s face fell. ‘I wanted to ask her to dance.’
Paige’s heart just about melted and she pulled Juliano in for a big hug. ‘You are so sweet. I see you have your father’s charm.’ She glanced at Alessandro, who winked at her. ‘Another time, huh?’
Nat had wanted McKenzie to be her flower girl but Paige had declined. The truth was, crowds made Paige very nervous for her daughter. As an ex-prem with chronic lung disease and poor immunity, every single person was a potential source of infection, a silver bullet to McKenzie’s weak defences. It just wasn’t worth the risk.
‘Okay.’ Juliano nodded, squirming out of her embrace. ‘See ya,’ he chirped, and ducked away, heading for the dance floor.
Paige watched him, smiling even though her heart ached. What would she give for her daughter to be so ablebodied, so carefree? She returned her attention to her phone and replied to her mother’s text.
It took five seconds for the reply.
Paige texted back.
She knew people thought she was too uptight about her daughter but what did they know? It was she who lived every day with the reality of McKenzie’s fragile health, not them. And one thing was for certain—being vigilant had kept McKenzie alive.
With the operation only a couple of months away now, Paige was determined to keep McKenzie healthy and avoid any more delays. It had been rescheduled three times already. No more.
The phone vibrated in her hand and Paige opened the message.
Paige smiled. She’d obviously stretched her mother’s patience enough for one night. Thank God for her parents. She would never have got through the past few years without them.
A tinkling of cutlery on glass cut through the low murmur and Paige turned to see Alessandro standing. She pushed all thoughts of the world outside the room aside, determined to follow her mother’s orders, and motioned for the drinks waiter.
‘So,’ Valentino said, topping up Paige’s half-full glass with some more champagne, ‘I believe it is a custom in your country for the best man and the bridesmaid to dance the bridal waltz together.’
His voice was low and close to her ear and her body reacted as if he had suggested something much more risqué than a customary dance in front of a room full of people. It took all her willpower not to melt into a puddle. Not to turn her head and flirt like crazy.
Except it seemed like a million years ago now that she’d last flirted and she was pretty sure she didn’t have a clue how to go about it. And why she would choose to do so with a man who was all glamour and sparkle, after her experience with Arnie, was beyond her.
The bitter burn of memories was never far from reach.
‘That’s right,’ she said, refusing to look at him, focusing instead on the bubbles meandering to the surface of her champagne.
‘
Well, that made one of them. The thought of them dancing, his arm around her practically bare back, their bodies close, was sending her heart into fibrillation. Sitting next to him at the table, aware of his every move, every breath, their arms occasionally brushing, his deep voice resonating through tense abdominal muscles, was bad enough. Being pressed along the magnificent tuxedoed length of him? Frankly it scared the hell out of her.
She felt gauche and unsophisticated and totally out of her depth next to his man-of-the-world, model-dating perfection.
What if she stuffed up the steps? Or trod on his foot?
What if she liked it too much?
‘You are worried your boyfriend will mind that we dance, yes?’
Valentino’s comment snapped her out of the vision of her clinging to him like some sort of groupie as he pressed kisses down her neck. She glanced at him, startled.
A big mistake.
Thus far she’d managed not to look at him this close up. And now she knew why. This near, he was simply dazzling. Gorgeous hair the colour of midnight waved in haphazard glory, thick and lustrous with not a hint of grey. It brushed his forehead and collar and Paige finally understood the itch some women talked about to run their fingers through a man’s hair.
Jet-black eyebrows quirked at her as her gaze widened to take in his square jaw line, heavy with five-o’clock shadow. His full lips curved upward and were bracketed by dimples that should be outlawed on anyone over five. His eyes, dark like a shot of the best Italian espresso, were fringed by long black lashes and promised fun and flirting.
A buzz coursed through her veins at the fifteen different kinds of sin she could see in them.
Valentino smiled at the little frown that knitted Paige’s caramel brows together and crinkled her forehead. She was a most intriguing woman. Her grey eyes were huge in her angular face dominated by prominent cheekbones and a wide mouth.
She wore no eye make-up to enhance them, she didn’t need to. They drew the gaze regardless. Her strawberry-blonde hair had been severely styled into a pixie cut that feathered over her forehead and would have looked boyish on anyone else but only seemed to enhance the hugeness of her eyes and the vulnerability he saw there.
She was no beauty. She certainly wasn’t his usual type. He liked them curvy. Everywhere. Not rail thin like Paige. And confident. Women who were secure in their sexuality, who smiled and flirted and enjoyed life. Women who knew the score.
And yet…
There was something about her that intrigued him. Not least of all the fact that she’d been the only female in the room who hadn’t clamoured to be closer to him.
‘I see you texting. All night,’ he prompted when she still didn’t say anything. ‘I figure a beautiful woman…’ He shrugged and shot her his best hey-baby grin, ‘it must be a boyfriend?’
Paige shook her head to clear it as Valentino’s smile muddled her senses. ‘I’m a little old for a boyfriend, don’t you think?’
‘Paige. We are never too old for love.’
The slight reprimand in his voice didn’t register. Nothing registered beyond the way he’d said her name. Paige. He had drawn it out a little at the end, giving it a very European flair, and it had stroked across every nerve ending in her pelvis.
She shut her eyes. This was madness. He was just a man. God knew, she hadn’t even thought about the opposite sex since her husband had walked out on her. And, besides, she just didn’t have time for a man. Especially not a model-dating, Italian playboy whose interest in her would no doubt wane the minute after he had his way with her.
Which wasn’t going to happen.
Even if, deep down, in a secret, hidden part of her, she wanted it very, very badly.
I am a single-mother of a high-needs child.
I am a single mother of a high-needs child.
She turned back to her champagne and took a long deep swallow, the bubbles pricking her throat as they slid down, matching the prick at the backs of her eyes. ‘I am.’
Tonight, as always, Paige felt absolutely ancient. ‘Excuse me,’ she murmured, rising and headed for the refuge of the bathroom.
Valentino watched his cousin dancing with his new wife, a gladness in his heart that Alessandro had finally found love after the train wreck of his first marriage.
It always humbled him when he saw two people ready to make a lifetime commitment. Sure, after an early escape he’d worked out it wasn’t for him, but that didn’t mean he didn’t believe in it for others. His parents were, after all, still blissfully married after fifty years.
He spotted Paige making her way back to the table and he was struck anew by how not his type she was. The crimson dress outlined a figure that had more angles then curves. Her breasts were small, her body one long, lean line, and she moved with purpose rather than grace.
And yet…
He rose as she approached the table and held out his hand. ‘I believe it’s our turn.’
Paige’s heart thundered. His gaze had tracked her from all the way across the room and her heart beat as if she’d just dashed one hundred metres in less than ten seconds. She looked up at him, caution wrangling with temptation. How easy would it just be to surrender? To forget her mangled heart and the type of man who had mangled it in the first place and succumb to the invitation in Valentino’s eyes?
But Paige had never been into masochism.
She ignored his hand and headed towards the dance floor.
Valentino grinned. If she thought for a moment that he couldn’t read every emotion, the battle in those large grey eyes, she was utterly deluded. He followed her to the floor, his gaze glued to the elegant length of her naked spine the dress afforded him, and wondered what it would take to convince her to let her guard down.
Paige reluctantly let him shepherd her into the circle of his arms. His big hand sat low, just above her butt and just this side of decent. It was firm and hot and she felt a lurch in areas that hadn’t felt anything in a very long time.
Valentino felt resistance as he tried to pull her a little closer. ‘Relax,’ he murmured to her temple.
She jerked her head back slightly to forcibly remove the brush of his lips from her skin. Relax? He may as well have asked her to fly to the moon. She glared at him. ‘Let’s just get through this, okay?’
Valentino chuckled. Paige wasn’t one for stroking egos. Another factor he was finding surprisingly appealing. He’d drifted through life never having to work for the attention of a woman—ever. From his mother to his sisters and cousins, to the girls at school and beyond, he’d always had them twisted around his finger.
He was starting to realise how boring, how predictable, his life had been.
They moved to the music and Paige automatically followed, her senses infused with Valentino’s clean male scent. She sought desperately for something to say to instil distance, to break the hypnotic pull of the music and his warm breath.
Anything.
‘So, Valentino, Alessandro tells me you are a cochlear implant surgeon.’
Valentino smiled at her robotic question. He looked down into grey eyes that were averted to a point beyond his shoulder. That she could see over his shoulder was a first for him too. Most women he’d dated, apart from Adrianna, had been shorter. At six feet two, he still had a few inches on her but the fact that it would just take one tantalising tilt of her chin to claim her mouth was an intriguing proposition.
‘Yes, Paige. Alessandro tells me you have a daughter who needs one?’
Paige stumbled at the mention of McKenzie, grateful for a moment that Valentino’s body was there to lean into, to steady herself. But then aware, too aware, of the muscles beneath his shirt, the strength in his arms, the heat of him, the power of him.
‘Yes,’ she said, pushing away from his chest and holding herself as erect, as far away as was possible, which was severely hampered as the dance floor filled with other couples and they were jostled closer together.
‘She’s scheduled for two months’ time.’
Curiously Paige found herself wanting to tell him about McKenzie, about her fragile health and the long road they’d both been on, but as much as she was desperate for conversation to maintain distance, the ups and downs of her life were not for public consumption.
‘Is she a patient of Harry Abbott’s?’
Paige’s face lightened. Now, Harry, her boss, she could talk about. She could talk about him and his genius all night long. Finally she felt on solid ground. ‘Oh, yes. Only the best for my little girl. Do you know him? He’s an absolute pioneer in the field.’
Valentino smiled, amazed at the difference in Paige as passion filled her eyes and she came alive, her face animated. Is this what she would look like beneath him in bed? His hand tightened against her spine, inching her unresisting body closer.
‘Of course.’ He shrugged. ‘Everyone knows Harry.’ In fact, it had been Valentino’s very great pleasure to finally meet the man a couple of months back during an interview.
Paige nodded. ‘He’s an absolutely magical surgeon, so clever and such a fair boss. And great with his patients. He insists everyone in the audiology department knows how to sign so the patients are at ease.’
She chatted away, finally comfortable in his arms. So comfortable, in fact, she didn’t notice that the song ended and another began. Or that they were now so close their bodies rubbed deliciously against each other as they swayed to the tempo.
Valentino, on the other hand, had noticed. In fact, he could barely register anything else. Her chatter faded into the background along with the music as his body responded to the subtle friction of her dress against the fabric of his trousers and the waft of frangipani and woman lit a fire in his groin.
She shifted against him as someone from behind bumped into her and he almost groaned out loud. ‘Paige.’
His voice, low and throaty, snapped her out of her prattle and she was instantly aware of the chemistry between them. The ache of her taut nipples as they chafed against the fabric of her dress and his shirt. The darts of heat radiating from the fingers of his hand on her spine, shooting waves of sensation over her bottom and the backs of her thighs. The heat in her pelvis stoked by the heat in his.
Her eyes locked with his, the lust, the intent in his espresso gaze frightening. She opened her mouth again to use conversation as a weapon to repel him, to push him away.
But Valentino got in before her. ‘Do you think if you talk enough you’ll be able to ignore what’s going on here?’
Paige’s eyes widened at his insight. ‘I…I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ she denied, feeling frantic, like a mouse on a treadmill set on maximum speed.
‘Paige.’ Valentino ground out her name as he flattened his palm against her spine, bringing them even more intimately into contact. ‘I think you do.’
For a few seconds Paige wanted nothing more than to grind herself against him. It was an urge she had to suppress with an iron fist.
The music stopped and people clapped. She used the distraction to gather every ounce of willpower and step out of his arms. ‘No. I don’t.’
And she spun on her heel and got as far away from Valentino Lombardi as she could.
An hour later Paige couldn’t take being sociable another second. She knew it was bad form to leave the wedding before the bride and groom but she just couldn’t stand being in the same room as Valentino, watching him dance and flirt, for a second longer.
She made her apologies, assuring Nat she was staying the night but pleading a headache. When the lift arrived promptly she almost pressed a kiss to its cold metallic doors. The impulse was short lived as they opened to reveal Valentino, his jacket slung over his shoulder, his bow-tie undone, leaning against the back wall.
They stared at each other for what seemed an eternity. ‘Going up?’ he murmured.
Damn, damn, damn. Paige entered the lift after a brief hesitation during which an errant brain cell urged her to run. But she was damned if she was going to show this man he had any power over her. She turned her back on him, keeping to the front of the spacious lift, and searched the buttons for floor twelve.
Of course, it was already lit. Great! Same floor. Next they’d have adjoining rooms! The doors shut and she clutched her bag, reaching for patience.
Valentino, afforded an unfettered view of her spine, looked his fill. He couldn’t deny he wanted to see more of her back. And her front. He wanted to see her become passionate and animated again. And not about a nearly seventy-year-old surgeon who was old enough to be her grandfather. But about him. And what he was doing to her.
But she’d made it perfectly clear that any attraction was not going to be acted on. Valentino Lombardi had never had to beg in his life—he wasn’t about to start.
The lift arrived at their floor and Val smiled as Paige practically sprinted from it. He followed at a more sedate pace, not really wanting to know where her room was. What if they happened to be neighbours? Would knowing she was in the next room be any good for his equilibrium? Wondering if she slept naked? Wondering if she was as sexually frustrated as he that she might help herself to ease the ache?
He shook his head.
Except it seemed they were to be neighbours and if her cursing and muttering was anything to go by as she rammed the keycard in her door, he was going to have to lend a neighbourly hand.
He hung his jacket over his doorknob and strolled towards her, resigned to his fate. ‘Can I help with that?’
Paige slotted the card in and out several more times, wanting to scream as she twisted uselessly at the handle. She turned to him, glaring like it was all his fault. ‘I hate these things.’
Val smiled. She was animated when she was angry too. Her cheeks flushed pink, her chest rising and falling enticingly, grey eyes sparkling like headlights in fog. He reached for it. ‘Allow me.’
Paige didn’t protest. She couldn’t as his scent infused her senses. She’d done it all back at the wedding. There was no more resistance left. His fingers were sure as they slowly inserted the card into the slot and slowly pulled it out again.
Would he be that slow with her? That thorough? The light turned green and she shut her eyes as he turned the doorknob and opened her door.
Paige looked into her room. Her big empty room. She flicked her gaze to Valentino’s big hands with his sure fingers.
Val was surprised by her hesitation and although he couldn’t see her eyes he sensed the battle from earlier had returned with gusto. ‘Maybe I could join you?’
Paige felt absurdly shaky inside. She wanted to cry, burst into tears. She hadn’t realised how lonely the last couple of years had been until an attractive man had propositioned her.
She looked at him instead. Saw the naked desire heat his gaze. This was crazy. ‘I don’t…’ What? Have sex? Make love to? What could she say without sounding gauche or desperate or like a sixteen-year-old who’d never been kissed? ‘Sleep with men I’ve just met.’
After all, it had taken her three weeks and a handful of dates to succumb to her attraction to Arnie.
‘I promise you, there will be no sleeping.’
Paige swallowed hard. Both at the gravel in his voice and the sincerity in his gaze. ‘I don’t understand,’ she said. Her throat was parched as she fought a little longer, hoping the sexual malaise invading her bones would lift. ‘Any woman in that room tonight would have accompanied you here in a flash—why the hell do you want me?’
Val gave her a lazy smile as anticipation built in his gut, his loins. ‘Because you’re the only woman who wouldn’t have.’
So she was a challenge? She supposed she should have been insulted but funnily enough they were precisely the right words for him to use. It told her she was something to be conquered and discarded, like all the others. Which, contrarily, right now, suited her just fine. She didn’t have time or room in her life for the distraction of a love affair. But she did have tonight.
Obviously the only thing he was interested in.
It was win-win.
Paige pushed off the wall and without saying a word brushed past him and entered her room. She hoped it looked confident and sexy and that he couldn’t hear the boom of her heart or the knocking of her knees.
She stopped in front of her bed, opened her bag, took her mobile out, checked it for messages then placed it on the bedside table before tossing the bag aside. She heard the click of the door behind her in the muted light and didn’t have to turn to know that he was walking towards her. And in seconds his heat was behind her, his breath at her neck.
He said nothing as his fingers stroked up her arms. Neither did she. Nor did she say anything when his hands peeled the dress off her shoulders, baring her to her waist.
But she did cry out when his thumbs swept across her bare nipples, already hard and eager for his touch.
And when he kissed her neck.
And when he whispered her name.
Paige woke disorientated to a warm hand laid possessively low on her abdomen and a strange buzzing as a pale dawn broke through the gaps in the heavy curtains. She glanced at the clock—five-thirty. They’d been asleep for thirty minutes—Valentino had been true to his word.
The buzzing came again and movement caught her eye as her mobile vibrated and moved slightly across the surface of the bedside table. It must be a text message.
It took another couple of seconds for the import to set in. A text message.
McKenzie.
Instantly frantic, she grabbed her phone and accessed the message, her hands shaking, her heart pounding.
Paige read the message three times, feeling progressively more ill. Oh, God. Her daughter was sick again and where was she? In the arms of some Italian Lothario thinking only about herself.
She leapt out of bed, ignoring the pull of internal muscles, grabbing for her clothes, furious at herself and Valentino for last night. She should have followed her instincts and gone home. Not stayed. Not let herself be seduced into a one-night stand, no matter how amazing it had been. Seduced into forgetting about the one person who meant more to her than anything else on the entire planet.
Her baby was ill. She had to get to her.
She didn’t even look at Valentino as she threw her things together in record time. Or as she fled the room.
As far as she was concerned, if she ever saw him again, it would be too soon.
PAIGE arrived for her last day of work before her holidays at St Auburn’s, with a spring in her step. She hadn’t had a spring in her step for a long time but it was there today. She couldn’t believe that McKenzie’s operation was just three days away now. Her daughter hadn’t been unwell or had a fever since the night she’d slept with…since Nat and Alessandro’s wedding two months ago, and she had even put on a little weight.
Things were finally looking up. Finally going their way. All she had to do was convince Harry to let her be in the theatre to observe McKenzie’s operation on Monday and life would be complete.
A butterfly flapped its wings in her stomach as she rehearsed the words again. Not that Paige really thought it would be an issue. Yes, it wasn’t usual but she knew Harry well enough to feel confident that he’d overlook the rules for his right-hand woman.
Paige was actually humming as she entered the operating theatre change rooms. Dr Gloria Reinhart, the anaesthetist Harry used for his lists, was changing into her scrubs and Paige bade her a hearty good morning.
‘Morning,’ Gloria said, staring at Paige, an odd look on her face.
Paige frowned. ‘What?’
Gloria shrugged. ‘Nothing. It’s just that I’ve never heard you hum before.’
Paige didn’t need a translation. She knew she was serious. That she wasn’t much fun. She came to work, ran Harry’s theatre and his clinics with ruthless efficiency, not particularly caring whether she made friends or not. She didn’t socialise or have time for gossip or idle chit-chat.
She was respected. Whether she was liked or not hadn’t been a priority.
Paige grinned. ‘Well, it’s about time that changed, don’t you think?’
Gloria responded with a grin of her own. ‘Past time, I’d say.’
They chatted while Paige changed into her scrubs and then went in different directions—Gloria to the staffroom for a cuppa with her colleagues, Paige to Theatre four to set up for the first case.
The theatre list was sticky-taped to the door of theatre four’s anaesthetic room and Paige removed it. Not that she needed it, she knew exactly which patients were being operated on today. In fact, if pushed, she could probably recite the list for the next month, even though it was next Monday’s she was the most fixated on.
There were two paediatric patients on the list this morning. Children were always done first. It caused less stress for the parents, who didn’t have to wait around all day worrying about their child going under general anaesthesia, and also for the children, who were often at an age where they were frightened of the clinical hospital environment and didn’t understand why they couldn’t eat and drink and run around.
A little thrill ran through Paige’s stomach at the thought that, come Monday, McKenzie Donald would be first on this list and her spirits lifted even further. Paige couldn’t remember a time when she had felt this positive. It had been a long hard three years with many a detour and roadblock. It was hard to believe the path was suddenly clear.
Theatre four was frigid when she entered via the swing doors and Paige rubbed at the goose-bumps on her arms. Soon she would be gowned up and under hot lights and wistfully remembering the cold, but for now it seeped quickly into bones that had very little covering insulating them.
The words Valentino had uttered that fateful night as he had lazily run his finger up her spine crept up on her unexpectedly, as they so often did, echoing loudly in her head and sounding very close in the silence of the empty theatre. So close, in fact, she looked behind her to check he hadn’t actually appeared.
Nope. Just her.
She shook her head and frowned. She’d thought about the man so much in the last two months it wouldn’t have surprised her to have conjured him up. She’d tried, usually quite successfully, to pigeonhole her thoughts of him to night-time only, to her dreams, but sometimes they crept up on her unawares.
She should have been insulted by his assessment of her body but one look at the heat and desire in his eyes and she’d known that he hadn’t been turned off. In fact, quite the opposite—he’d wanted her badly.
It was merely a statement of fact. She was thin.
She hadn’t had much of an appetite since the twins had been born prematurely. Daisy’s death, Arnie’s desertion and McKenzie’s fragile health had robbed what little had remained. She ate only to fuel her body, with no real enjoyment when she did.
All her energy was focused on getting McKenzie to eat. McKenzie’s appetite. McKenzie’s nutritional needs. McKenzie’s caloric requirements. Paige Donald came low down on Paige Donald’s list of priorities. And, besides, things just tasted so bland.
A hoot of laugher outside in the corridor pulled Paige out of her reverie and she pushed thoughts of Valentino aside. This was daytime. Tonight she could think about him again, dream about him again. Vivid dreams that woke her in a sweat with parts of her throbbing, his name on her lips, his taste in her mouth.
She busied herself getting the theatre set up, grabbing the trolleys and positioning them correctly around the operating table, wiping them down with a solution of surgical spirits. She exited the theatre via the back door into the sterilising room. Four sterilised trays wrapped in special blue disposable cloth were waiting for her and she grabbed the nearest, along with extra drapes and gowns and two pairs of size-eight gloves for Harry and his resident.
She dumped them on the trolleys inside the theatre, ready to be opened by the scout nurse while she herself was at the sinks scrubbing up. She went back out again, selecting other bits and pieces she knew Harry would need—suture material, dressings and, of course, the actual implant device itself.
Paige turned the boxed bionic ear around in her hands. It was hard to believe that something so innocuous could give such a precious gift. That come Monday one would be implanted into McKenzie’s head. She hugged it to her chest, sending up a quick prayer into the universe.
Please let everything be okay.
She went back into the theatre, dropping the extras on the trolley. A noise from the anaesthetic room alerted her to Harry’s arrival and she smiled. It was nice working for someone as dedicated as she was. Paige glanced at her watch. Now, while they were still alone, was as good a time as any to ask her boss the question.
She shoved open the swing doors with her shoulder, ready to launch into her spiel. Excited even. Except the man in the anaesthetic room wasn’t Harry. He wasn’t thin and a little stooped and grey-haired. He was big and broad with curls of dark hair escaping the confines of his theatre cap to brush the neckline of his scrubs. Even if she hadn’t dreamt about that back every night for the last two months, the lurch low down in her pelvis would have alerted her to his identity anyway.
Valentino Lombardi looked up from the theatre list he’d been studying and turned. Neither of them said anything for a few moments as a host of memories bubbled between them.
Valentino swallowed. He’d been prepared to see her again but totally unprepared for the sucker punch to his gut as her big grey eyes, round with shock, met his.
‘Paige. Bella. We meet again.’
Paige blinked. She even blushed a little as the things they’d done together made her awkward beneath his gaze. It didn’t help that he filled out a pair of surgical scrubs better than any man on the planet.
She’d seen him in a tux and in the buff and now in a set of scrubs. Was there nothing the man didn’t look magnificent in? ‘Valentino?’
What did he think he was he doing here? Was he here to observe? To assist? Didn’t he live in Rome? Or London? Where was Harry?
Valentino saw the confusion in her gaze and shot her a lazy grin. He’d relegated their one night two months ago to a pleasant interlude and done his hardest to forget about it. But standing before him now in baggy scrubs, no make-up, her hair covered in a sexless blue theatre hat, he finally admitted he hadn’t forgotten one second of their time together.
A strange unease descended on them and he couldn’t bear it.
Paige’s heart skipped a couple of beats and then accelerated as his low flirty voice oozed into all the places that still craved his touch. The pinkness in her cheeks deepened as she remembered where his mouth had been. Oh, God! This wouldn’t do at all.
‘Dr Lombardi.’ Paige’s voice was stern as she glared at him and regained her composure. ‘What are you doing here? Where’s Harry?’
Valentino laughed. So much for small talk. He regarded her for a second. What he had to tell her next would have an impact on her probably more than anyone. Harry had stressed the need to break it to Paige gently.
‘I’m afraid Dr Abbott had to rush to Hobart in the early hours of this morning. His grandson was kicked in the head by a horse and is in Intensive Care.’
Paige gasped, pressing a hand to her chest. Oh, no! How awful. ‘Was it Andy or Ben?’ Harry’s daughter and her family lived on a horse stud just outside Hobart. They were a close-knit family despite the distance, and Paige knew this would be devastating for them all.
‘Ben.’
Oh, dear, Ben was only four. One year older than McKenzie. Paige moved closer to him, needing to know more. ‘How is he? Is he…has he…?’
Valentino covered the distance between them, reaching out for her, clasping her shoulders gently. ‘He’s critical. That’s all I know.’
Paige looked at him, trying to process it. Trying to understand how fate could be so cruel to a little boy and a man who had only ever done good things. ‘That’s just so…awful. I can’t believe it.’ She shook her head to clear it, searching his espresso depths, waiting for him to tell her it was all a bad joke. ‘I just can’t…take it in.’
Valentino nodded. ‘Yes.’ What else could he say?
Paige wasn’t sure how long she stood there, staring at him, trying to clear the block of confusion in her mind. But she suddenly became aware of the slow, lazy circling of his fingers against her upper arms and the clean, male smell of him. When the temptation to lay her cheek against the V of his scrub top came upon her she knew she had to step back.
Valentino released her and watched as she retreated to the nearby bench and leaned against it. ‘I’ll be covering Harry’s patients until he’s ready to return.’
It was then that the full impact of this incident hit home. McKenzie. She glanced at him sharply as her heart thudded like a rock band in her chest.
No. No, no, no.
Why? What had she done, what had McKenzie done to deserve such upheaval? The surgery had been delayed too many times already. So many things had gone wrong in her short life. The one constant had been Harry and his absolute faith that he could give McKenzie the gift of hearing that prematurity had robbed her of.
And now that was in jeopardy too. ‘My daughter’s surgery is on Monday.’
Valentino nodded. ‘Yes. Harry mentioned that.’ In fact, Harry Abbott had gone to great pains to explain to him that Paige would be understandably concerned and probably not all that happy.
Paige felt awful. She wanted to scream and rant and cry. For Harry as well as herself. Disgust built inside her too. How could she even be thinking of herself, of McKenzie, when little Ben was critically ill?
‘It’s okay. I’ll do her surgery.’
Paige glanced at him sharply as a tense ‘No’ fell from her lips.
Val’s jaw tightened. ‘You don’t think I’m a good surgeon?’
Paige had the urge to laugh hysterically. This was a truly bizarre conversation. She was having trouble keeping up. ‘How do I know, Valentino? I don’t know the first thing about you.’
Valentino raised an eyebrow. ‘Really? I have one night that says differently.’
Paige slashed her hand through the air, rage bubbling inside that he would make an innuendo at such a time. ‘You know I meant—professionally,’ she snapped. ‘Don’t ever, ever, talk about that night again. Okay?’ she demanded. ‘Just don’t.’
Valentino had every intention of talking about it again. In fact, standing before her, his loins stirring at the memory of them, he had every intention of doing it again. But he could see she was close to the edge and that night, for now, was better off left in the past. He put his hands up in front to calm her.
‘I am a world-class cochlear surgeon. I’m head of the department in a large London hospital. I chair an international cochlear implant committee. I have performed this operation countless times on both children and adults. And…’ he placed his hands on his hips ‘…I am a damn good surgeon.’
Paige shook her head, his arrogant stance and impressive credentials falling on deaf ears. He didn’t get it. He just didn’t get it. This was McKenzie.
McKenzie.
Her child. Did he think she would allow a total stranger to cut into her? Drill a hole in her head? Did he think that was an easy thing for her to consent to? Never mind allowing someone she didn’t know to do it?
Still, she was torn. McKenzie needed the operation and if they delayed now, who knew how much longer it might be? Her heart broke, thinking about yet another delay for her beautiful baby girl locked into a world of silence. ‘I’ll wait. I’ll cancel and wait for Harry to return.’
Valentino flinched inwardly, surprised that her rejection of his skills would feel so personal. He gave a stiff bow. ‘Of course, that is your prerogative.’
Paige nodded. ‘Yes.’
‘It could be a long time,’ Valentino murmured. ‘Harry was talking about months, maybe a year if Ben needs extensive rehab.’
The thought of McKenzie waiting that much longer was like an ice pick to her heart. She wanted to weep and wail and beat her chest. She shrugged instead, struggling for nonchalance, the effort nearly killing her. They’d waited this long…
Valentino could see the abject disillusion written all over her face and shimmering in her big grey eyes. ‘Why don’t you hold off making a decision until after today? Watch me in action. Then tell me you don’t want me to operate on your daughter.’
Paige couldn’t believe he would think it was quite that simple. ‘It’s not just about that, Valentino,’ she snapped. How were they supposed to have any kind of doctor/mother-of-patient relationship with their one-night-stand between them?
God, why had she been so impulsive two months ago? She was never impulsive!
Valentino regarded Paige, her implication clear. ‘I will treat McKenzie like any other child who is a patient of mine.’
‘And me?’
Valentino shrugged. ‘Like any other mother.’ Liar. He stood still, waiting for the thunderbolt.
‘Oh? How many of the other mothers have you slept with?’
Valentino gave a grudging smile. ‘I thought we weren’t talking about that?’
Paige sighed, too weary and plain heartsick to respond properly. ‘No. We’re not.’ She glanced at him, the epitome of cool, calm and collected, while she felt all at sea. There was still so much she couldn’t wrap her head around. ‘I don’t understand how you’re even here, now…in the country.’
‘Harry interviewed me months ago. He’s thinking of retiring—’
‘Retiring!’ Paige spluttered. ‘He never mentioned retiring to me!’
‘He’s sixty-eight years old,’ Valentino calmly pointed out.
‘Yes, but…’ Harry talked to her about everything. And he still had so much to give, to contribute.
‘I’ve wanted to work in Australia for a while now,’ Valentino continued, his gaze on the little frown nestled between her caramel brows. ‘I think there are things I can learn here to take back home with me. I have my visa, all I need is the right job. I was attending a symposium in Melbourne—’
‘“Bionic Ear in the Twenty-First Century?”’ Paige enquired absently, not really caring. Harry had given a paper at it two days before.
Valentino nodded. ‘Harry contacted me in the early hours of the morning and asked me to fill in. I got the five a.m. flight out of Melbourne.’
‘Oh.’ So they’d be working together too. This wasn’t how it was supposed to pan out. None of it was. But, then, when had her life gone according to plan over the last three years? Bitterness rose like bile in her throat. Wasn’t it her turn to catch a break?
Valentino pushed off the bench opposite, which he’d propped himself against, and took three paces until he was standing in front of her. ‘Watch me today, Paige,’ he murmured. ‘Then we’ll talk.’
Paige felt his husky tones wash over her, soothing the burn and the knot of worry that sat like an iron fist deep in her gut.
And before she could refute him, rebuff him again, he turned away and she watched as he exited the anaesthetic room.
So much for feeling positive. How could her day have gone to hell so early?
It took about ten minutes into the first surgery to convince Paige of Valentino’s capabilities. He was, indeed, an extremely good surgeon. Efficient, steady, sure and capable. Methodical in his approach, supremely knowledgeable, unfailingly polite and, despite the mask and being covered head to toe in green, devilishly charismatic.
There wasn’t one nurse he didn’t flirt with, including Di Hamilton, who’d been married for thirty-five years and had twelve grandchildren. It was obvious he adored women and Paige watched as every female fell under his spell.
But he was a man’s man too. From the nervous surgical resident who was assisting to the orderly adjusting the theatre light, he won them all over, talking football and Australian beers and the price of petrol.
They all loved him. Paige wished she could say the same. Between concentrating on her job, the thoughts circling in her head at a thousand miles an hour and the cataclysmic brush of his arm or fingers as she passed him an instrument, she was totally over him by the end of the day.
Every breath, every move, every chuckle or low request for something stroked along her pelvic floor and took her right back to that night. Being under him. The way he’d felt inside her. Which only agitated her even more. She had bigger things to worry about. Like poor Harry and his grandson. And McKenzie.
It was like she was in a bubble with him, just the two of them, everyone else fading into insignificance. She knew that was the way it often was between surgeon and scrub nurse, requiring a special kind of synchronicity. But it was more than that and she knew it. She’d anticipated Harry’s every move in Theatre for the last two years but had never felt this more base reaction.
She just wanted out. To get as far away from St Auburn’s and Valentino Lombardi as possible. To hug McKenzie and remember what was real in her life and what was fantasy.
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. ‘
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
‘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,
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.
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.
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