Hot Single Docs: The Playboy's Redemption: St Piran's: Rescuing Pregnant Cinderella / St Piran's: Italian Surgeon, Forbidden Bride / St Piran's: Daredevil, Doctor...Dad!. Carol Marinelli

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       CHAPTER EIGHT

      SHE’D cancel.

      Izzy could hardly hear the hairdresser’s comments as she sat with a black cape around her shoulders, pretending to look as a mirror was flashed behind her head.

      ‘It looks fantastic!’

      Well, she would say that, Izzy thought to herself. The hairdresser was hardly going to say, ‘It looks awful and what on earth were you thinking, taking a pair of scissors to your locks, you stupid tart?’ But as the mirror hovered behind her Izzy actually did look, and for once she agreed with the woman who wielded the scissors.

      Okay, maybe fantastic was stretching things a touch, but it had been three months and three trips to this chair since that moment of self-loathing and finally, finally, she didn’t look like a five-year-old who had taken the kitchen scissors to the bathroom. The last of her home-made crop had been harvested, the once jagged spikes now softened, shades of blonde and caramel moving when her head did, which it did as Izzy craned her neck for a proper look.

      ‘I’ve hardly taken anything off at the front or sides, just softened it a touch, but I’ve taken a fair bit off the back...’

      Izzy could have kissed her but instead she left a massive tip, booked in for six weeks’ time, skipped out to her car and somehow made it home without incident, despite the constant peeks in the rear-view mirror at her very new ‘side fringe’.

      And then she remembered.

      She was cancelling.

      So why was she running a bath and getting undressed?

      A tepid bath so it didn’t fluff up her hair.

      She couldn’t do it, couldn’t go, just couldn’t face it.

      So instead of climbing in to the water she wrapped herself in a towel and padded out to the living room.

      She had every reason to cancel, Izzy told herself as she picked up the telephone, except there was a voice-mail message. It wasn’t Diego stuck at work, as she had rather hoped, but the real estate agent with

      a pathetic offer. ‘It’s a good offer, you should seriously consider it,’ played the message. Henry had been a real estate agent

      and had practically said those words in his sleep so she deleted it and got back to fretting about Diego. The fact that she was pregnant and had worked all morning, the fact that she wasn’t ready for the inevitable stares if she walked into the Penhally Ball with a dashing Spaniard on her arm when she should be home...

      Doing what? Izzy asked herself.

      Grieving, feeling wretched...

      Her introspection was halted by the doorbell. No doubt the postman had been while she was out and it was her neighbour with another box of self-help or baby books that she had ordered on the internet during one of her glum times—a book that at the time she had convinced herself would be the one to show her, tell her, inform her how the hell she was supposed to be feeling...

      ‘Diego?’

      It was only five p.m. and he shouldn’t be there, the ball didn’t start till seven.

      There was no reason for him to be there now and, worse, she was only wearing a towel.

      ‘I thought I’d come early.’ He leant in the doorway and smiled, and either the baby did a big flip or her stomach curled in on itself. He was in evening wear, except he hadn’t shaved, and he looked ravishing, so ravishing she wanted to do just that—ravish him, drop the towel she was clinging to, right here at the front door. ‘To save you that phone call.’

      ‘What phone call?’ Izzy lowered her head a touch as she let him in, wishing there had been a warning sign on the kitchen scissors to inform her that it would be a full twelve to eighteen months before she could again hide her facial expressions with her hair if she chose to lop it all off. A fringe simply wouldn’t suffice. Her whole body was on fire, every pulse leaping at the sight of him.

      ‘The one where you tell me your back is aching, or you’re tired or that it was lovely of me to ask, but...’

      ‘I was just about to make it,’ Izzy admitted.

      ‘Why?’

      ‘Because it’s too soon.’

      ‘For what?’

      ‘For me to be out, for me to be...’ She blanched at the unsaid word.

      ‘Happy?’ Diego offered. ‘Living?’

      Neither was quite right. Izzy didn’t correct him at first, she just clung to her towel, not to keep him from her but to keep her from him, and she stared at a man who had brought nothing but joy into her life. She wanted more of the same.

      ‘For me to be seeing someone,’ Izzy corrected. ‘Which I think I am.’

      ‘You are,’ he confirmed, and crossed the room. It was a relief to be kissed, to kiss him, to be kissed some more, to kiss back. He was less than subtle, he was devouring her, and any vision that their next kiss would be gentle and tender was far removed from delicious reality. Diego had waited long for another kiss and he was claiming it now, pressing her against the wall as she rejoiced in him, her towel falling. He kicked it away and all she wanted was more, more, more.

      He tasted as he had that morning but decisiveness made it better. He smelt as he always had, just more concentrated now, and this close to Diego, this into Diego, she forgot to be scared and hold back.

      Izzy СКАЧАТЬ