Hot Single Docs: The Playboy's Redemption. Carol Marinelli

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      Yet she still felt more explanation was needed. ‘Henry would have had a fit if he’d—’

      ‘Izzy! I’m not Henry—I don’t care how many times I have to say it—I’m nothing like him.’

      And he wasn’t.

      She leant on his broad chest and heard the regular beat of his heart, felt the safe wall of his chest and the wrap of his arms, and if she didn’t love her so, it would be so easy to resent her baby—because nine weeks of just them would have been so very nice.

      ‘I’d better go.’ Reluctantly he stood up. ‘I’ll drop by in the morning and let you know what sort of night she had.’

      ‘Tilia,’ Izzy said.

      ‘Tilia,’ Diego repeated, and a smile spread over his face. ‘I like it. What does it mean?’

      ‘It’s actually a tree...’ Izzy’s eyes never left his face, because somehow his reaction was important. ‘I’m only telling you this—my mum would freak and I can’t have a proper conversation with Henry’s parents. It’s a lime tree. Henry proposed under this gorgeous old lime tree...’ Still he just looked. ‘We were happy then.’

      ‘I think it’s wonderful,’ Diego said. ‘And one day, Izzy, you’ll be able to talk about him to Tilia, and tell her about those good times.’ He gave her a kiss and headed for work, and Izzy lay back on the pillow and even though he’d said everything right, she still couldn’t settle.

      She looked at new photos of herself holding Tilia and she didn’t see the drips or tubes, she just saw her baby.

      And there in one photo was a side view of Diego.

      The three of them together, except he wasn’t kneeling down with his arms around her.

      She couldn’t imagine these past weeks without him.

      Yet she was too scared to indulge in a glimpse of a future with him.

      She kept waiting for the axe to fall—sure, quite sure that something this good could never last.

      A midwife took her drip down and turned off the lights but the room was still bright thanks to the full moon bathing St Piran’s, and while Izzy couldn’t get to sleep, Diego on the other hand would have loved to because between visiting Izzy and working he still hadn’t caught up from

      Tilia’s rapid arrival.

      It was a busy night that kept him at the nurses’ station rather than the shop floor, where Diego preferred to be.

      And, worse, from the computer he could hear her crying.

      He glanced up and Brianna was checking a drug with another nurse working at the next cot, and Diego could hear Tilia crying. Brianna must have asked the other nurse for an opinion on something, because they were reading through the obs sheet. It was normal for babies to cry—he barely even heard it, so why did he stand up and head over?

      ‘Brianna.’ He jerked his head to Tilia’s cot and he wished he hadn’t, knew he was doing something he never would have done previously. If a baby was crying it was breathing was the mantra when matters where pressing. But Brianna didn’t seem worried at his snap. Actually, she was more discreet than anyone he had ever met, but he could have sworn he saw her lips suppress a smile.

      And as for Josh, well, as tired as he might be, bed was the last thing he wanted.

      He’d visited Izzy when really he hadn’t had to. Ben had actually asked for him to drop in over the next couple of days, but Josh had convinced himself that it was his duty to go after his shift.

      Then, having visited her, he had hung around till someone had made some joke about him not having a home to go to, so eventually he’d headed there, but had stopped at the garage first.

      As he pulled up at the smart gated community and the gates opened, Josh checked his pager and knew in his heart of hearts he was hoping against hope for something urgent to call him in.

      God, had it really come to this, sitting in his driveway, steeling himself to go inside?

      Izzy’s words rang in his ears.

      ‘A baby wouldn’t have changed things... Babies don’t fix a damaged marriage... I can’t even begin to imagine us together as parents... A baby should come from love...’

      There had been love between him and Rebecca.

      A different sort of love, though, not the intense, dangerous love he had once briefly known. That had been a love so consuming that it had bulldozed everything in its path. He closed his eyes and leant back on the headrest and for the first time in years he fully let himself visit that time.

      Felt the grief and the agony, but it was too painful to recall so instead he dwelt on the consequences of raw love—a love that ruined lives and could destroy plans, a love that had threatened his rapid ascent in his career.

      His and Rebecca’s love had been different—safer certainly.

      She wanted a successful doctor—that he could provide.

      They had been good for each other, had wanted the same, at least for a while.

      Josh could see her shadow behind the blinds, see her earrings, her jewellery, the skimpy outlines of her nightdress that left nothing to the imagination, and knew what Rebecca wanted from him tonight.

      And he also knew that it wasn’t about him.

      ‘At least I’ll have something to show for four years of marriage...’ He recalled the harsh words of their latest row and then watched as she poured herself a drink from the decanter. He felt a stab of sympathy as he realised that Rebecca needed a bit of Dutch courage to go through with tonight.

      Maybe he should get a vasectomy without her knowing, but what sort of coward, or husband, did that? Josh reeled at his own thought.

      So he checked his pocket for his purchase from the garage, because he couldn’t face her tears from another rejection. They hadn’t slept together in weeks, not since...

      Josh slammed that door in his mind closed, simply refused to go there, and tried very hard not to cloud the issue. In truth his and Rebecca’s marriage had been well into injury time long before they had come to St Piran.

      He went to pocket the condoms, to have them conveniently to hand, because no doubt Rebecca would ensure they never made it up the stairs and he knew for a fact she’d stopped taking the Pill.

      ‘What the hell am I doing?’ he groaned.

      Yes, it would be so much easier to go in and make love.

      Easier in the short term perhaps to give her the baby Rebecca said she wanted.

      But since when had Josh chosen the easy path?

      He tossed the condoms back into the glove box, a guarantee of sorts that he wouldn’t give in and take the easy way out.

      There was a conversation that needed to take place and, no matter СКАЧАТЬ