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

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       CHAPTER ELEVEN

      ‘SHE’S a tough little one.’

      Like her mother, Diego thought.

      Tilia, though small for dates and premature, was also incredibly active and strong. She had only required a short time on CPAP and was doing well on oxygen.

      It really was a case of better out than in—now she could gain weight and as was often the case with babies who had been deprived nutrition in utero, Tilia’s forehead often creased in concern as if she was constantly worried as to where her next meal was coming from.

      ‘She wants her mum.’ Brianna could not get Tilia to settle. ‘I might ring Maternity and see if Izzy’s still awake, she might get a nice cuddle. Then I’m going to have my coffee break. Could you watch mine for a moment while I call?’

      They often rang Maternity, especially when babies were active and if there was a nurse who could bring the mother over—well, the middle of the night was a nice time to sit in rocking chair and bond a little. But when Diego had left Izzy she had been drained and exhausted and she could really use a full night’s sleep—not that he was going to say that to Brianna. The gossip was already flying around the hospital since their appearance at the ball—had a certain little lady not put in such an early appearance, they might have been old news now, but given the turn of events and that Diego had been in the labour ward and was up twice day visiting on Maternity, he felt as if all eyes were on them. The scrutiny was just too fierce and strong at such a fragile time.

      He was actually more than glad to be on nights, away from Rita’s probing, and he had deliberately allocated Brianna to care for Tilia.

      Brianna was one of the most private people Diego had met. She said nothing about her private life. She was there to work and work she did, loving and caring for her charges—gossip the last thing she was interested in.

      ‘They’ve given Izzy a sleeping tablet,’ Brianna said when she came back. ‘Never mind, little lady, I’ll give you a cuddle.’

      ‘You go and have your break,’ Diego said. ‘I’ll sort her.’

      He didn’t want to be doing this.

      Or had he engineered it?

      Diego didn’t want to examine his feelings. Brianna was long overdue her coffee break, it was as simple as that. So he washed his hands in his usual thorough manner, put on a gown and then unclipped the sides of the incubator.

      Often, so very often he did this—soothed a restless baby, or took over care while one of his team took their break.

      And tonight it would be far safer to remember that.

      He would sit and get this baby settled and perhaps chat with another nurse as he did so, or watch the ward from a chair.

      He sat and expertly held Tilia, spoke as he always did to his charges—joking that he would teach her a little Spanish.

      Which he did.

      Then Chris, another of the nurses on duty that night, came over and asked him to run his eyes over a drug.

      Which he did.

      And then he felt something he hadn’t in more than a decade.

      Something he had tried never to feel since Fernando.

      He adored his babies, but they weren’t his to love.

      He had loved Fernando, had held him three times in his little life, and it had never come close since.

      But holding Tilia, it came close.

      Dangerously close.

      She wasn’t a patient and she wasn’t his new girlfriend’s baby.

      She was Tilia.

      Izzy’s baby.

      But more than that.

      He smelt that unmistakable baby smell that surrounded him each day but which he never noticed, he looked into huge eyes that were the same shape as her mother’s and she had the same shape mouth. Even her nostrils were the same.

      And there, sitting with all the hissing and bleeping and noise that was a busy neonatal unit, Diego, felt a stab of dread.

      That he might lose her too.

      He looked over to where Toby’s mother had come in, restless and unable to sleep, for just one more check on her son, and he knew how she felt—how many times in the night at eighteen he had woken with a sudden shock of fright and rushed to check on Fernando, asking the nurses to check and check again, petrified that they had missed something, but it wasn’t that fear that gripped him as he held Tilia.

      ‘You’re going to be fine,’ Diego said to Tilia in Spanish. ‘You’re going to be clever and grow healthy and strong...’

      Only would he be around to see it?

      ‘And your mother’s getting stronger each day too,’ Diego went on. ‘Just watch her grow too.’

      He wanted that for Izzy. He vowed as he sat there, holding her baby while she could not, that he would help Izzy grow, would do everything to encourage her, even if that meant that she grew away from him.

      How could he let himself fall in love with this little babe when who knew what her mother might want days, weeks or months from now? When who knew what he might want?

      Diego ran a finger down her little cheek.

      But how could he not?